[Peace-discuss] Objections to Richard Clarke

[C. G. Estabrook]

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005, jencart wrote:

> ...Other than that he's a Republican and, last I heard, was still
> planning to vote for Bush, what are the objections to Richard Clarke?


[By way of answer, here's an exchange on a prescient comment by the late
Eqbal Ahmad, discussed by David Barsamian and Noam Chomsky.  Clarke was an
avid planter of those poisonous seeds (like Clinton's bombing of the
pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in 1998).  He congratulates himself for
being a strong advocate for those "acts of violence" that have been "a
very welcome gift to bin Laden..."  --CGE]


BARSAMIAN: I interviewed Eqbal Ahmad in August, 1998, a couple of weeks
after the Clinton cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan, which
were, according to the U.S., in response to the bombings of the U.S.
embassies in Tanzania and in Kenya. And he said, "Osama bin Laden is a
sign of things to come." I asked him to explain. And he responded," The
U.S. has sowed in the Middle East and in South Asia very poisonous seeds.
These seeds are growing now. Some have ripened and others are ripening. An
examination of why they were sown, what has grown, and how they should be
reaped is needed. Missiles won't solve the problem."

CHOMSKY: That's a very perceptive statement, expanding what he had pointed
out much earlier. By now there is quite good analytic literature on how
they developed. The best book on that is by a British investigator, Jason
Burke, called Al-Qaeda. He confirms in detail what Eqbal predicted. He
reviews a whole series of acts in the development of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is
not an organization; it's a loose network of very loosely affiliated,
mostly independent organizations that have a kind of a similar ideology.
He calls it a network of networks. And as Eqbal predicted, it became a
major symbol and bin Laden himself became a major symbol as a result of
these bombings. Before, it hadn't been.

Take a look at Richard Clarke's book. He says the same thing about U.S.
intelligence. Until 1998, there was no special attention to al-Qaeda or
bin Laden. They were kind of marginal factors. In fact, they didn't even
use the word al-Qaeda. But, yes, Eqbal is correct. What Burke points out
is that every single U.S. act of violence has been a very welcome gift to
bin Laden. He says, every use of violence is a small victory for bin
Laden. It helps him mobilize the constituency that will, he hopes, join
him in seeing the West as crusaders who are trying to destroy the Muslim
world, saying, they must defend themselves.

Like the 1998 attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan, the invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001 again led to a big increase in recruitment and
financing for networks of the al-Qaeda style. The war in Iraq had the same
effect. Just this morning the State Department conceded that, as they
politely put it, they were mistaken, in other words, lying outright, in
their report a couple of months ago claiming that terror had been reduced
thanks to Bush. In fact, it had sharply increased, they now concede
quietly, which had been known before. And one of the reasons for the
increase was the war in Iraq. Furthermore, it was predicted in advance
that that was going to happen. It wasn't any surprise. Intelligence
agencies and analysts were predicting, if you invade Iraq, you're going to
increase terrorism, for pretty obvious reasons.

There is a kind of an odd charade going on now in the intellectual world
and in Washington based on the revelations of Clarke and O'Neill and
others that the neocons in the administration ranked invading Iraq higher
than the war on terror. The only thing surprising about these revelations
is that anybody is surprised. How can you be surprised? They invaded Iraq,
after all, knowing that it was very likely to increase the threat of
terror. End of story. That demonstrates what their priorities are.
Furthermore, they're perfectly reasonable priorities. They don't care that
much about terror. What they care a lot about -- I'll go back to Chalmers
Johnson -- is having military bases in a dependent client state right at
the heart of the oil-producing region. That's important. Not because the
U.S. wants the oil -- it's going to get it one way or the another on the
market -- but it wants to control the oil. A totally different matter.
Those things are constantly obscured. Control of the oil, it has been
known since the 1940s, is a major lever of world control against your
enemies. And U.S. enemies are Europe and Asia. Those are the regions of
the world that could move towards independence. One of the ways to prevent
that is to keep your hand on the spigot. It was understood long ago...

	<http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200408--.htm>