[Peace-discuss] Tariq Ali/Anthony Arnove comments

[Morton K. Brussel]

Aside a few errors (such as billion instead or trillion), insightful  
comments. Tariq Ali will be in Evanston in November for a talk at  
Northwestern, Oct. 24, 5pm, Dept of French and Italian.  --mkb


Tariq Ali and Anthony Arnove on...
The challenge to the empire
October 20, 2006 | Page 8

TARIQ ALI is a veteran opponent of war and imperialism who rose to  
prominence as a leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement in Britain in  
the 1960s. Since then, he has written numerous books, including the  
just published Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope.

ANTHONY ARNOVE is the author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal,  
forthcoming this January in an updated paperback edition from  
Metropolitan Books’ American Empire Project Series. He is a member of  
the International Socialist Organization and is on the editorial  
board of Haymarket Books and the International Socialist Review.

Tariq and Anthony answered Socialist Worker’s questions about the  
development of a challenge to the U.S. empire--most directly with  
Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, but evident in the opposition in every  
corner of the globe to American imperialism.

What else to read
Tariq Ali’s new book Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope studies  
the rise of Hugo Chavez’s challenge to the neoliberal consensus and  
U.S. foreign policy, in the context of a continent-wide shift to the  
left. His many other books include The Clash of Fundamentalisms:  
Crusades, Jihads and Modernity and his memoirs Street-Fighting Years:  
An Autobiography of the Sixties.

Tariq will be speaking this month in New York City; Cortland, N.Y.;  
Washington, D.C.; Chicago and San Francisco. Click for the details of  
where and when.

Anthony Arnove’s Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal makes an impassioned,  
categorical case for why the U.S. should get out of Iraq now. He also  
coedited, with Howard Zinn, Voices of a People’s History of the  
United States, a companion volume to Zinn’s classic book.

A recent issue of the International Socialist Review contained  
remarks by both Tariq and Anthony on the issue of U.S. withdrawal  
from Iraq, in the context of a debate about the Iraqi resistance.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AFTER HUGO Chávez’s United Nations (UN) speech in September, the U.S.  
media either denounced him or treated him with derision. Does Chávez  
deserve to be dismissed as a madman?
Tariq Ali
In a world deep in neoliberal sleep, any person who tries to disturb  
this sleep and to wake people up is denounced and traduced.

Hugo Chávez, who I have met and talked with on several occasions, is  
an extremely intelligent and enlightened political leader. In the  
public arena, he uses a language that is no longer considered  
acceptable by the proponents of the Washington consensus. The U.S.  
media has, in the main, been so slavish toward the Bush regime that  
Chávez appears extreme.

What he says, in fact, is the common sense of large swathes of world  
public opinion. He represents it in the global arena. That’s why they  
carry his portraits on demonstrations in Beirut. In a crazy world of  
imperial wars and occupations, and the economic fundamentalism of the  
IMF and the WTO, anyone who speaks up against this is denounced as  
insane.

In the last decades of the Soviet Union, the decaying bureaucrat  
Leonid Brezhnev used to have dissidents locked up in mental asylums.  
The apologists of the American empire seem to be gripped by the same  
logic--and let’s hope with the same results.

Chávez has been denounced non-stop as an “authoritarian,” “a crazy  
dictator,” etc. If only there was a U.S. media as opposed to its  
president as its Venezuelan equivalent is to Chávez, U.S. democracy  
would be greatly enhanced.

Anthony Arnove
For officials in the Bush administration to call other political  
leaders “mad” is sheer hypocrisy. But this is nothing new. The U.S.  
government has always demonized its political enemies, whether Chávez  
in Venezuela, Mossadegh in Iran, Castro in Cuba, or Aristide in Haiti.

The converse of this fact is that the crimes of the friends of  
Washington do not exist. Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin  
American dictators who are allied with the United States are  
“moderates,” “reformers” and “friends.”

For many years, Saddam Hussein, “The Butcher of Baghdad,” was a  
friend of Washington, even as he carried out his worst human rights  
abuses--which years later would be trotted out as part of the reason  
why the United States had to overthrow his regime. Manuel Noriega in  
Panama was an ally on the CIA payroll before he was declared a “madman.”



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHY DO you think the U.S. political establishment views Chávez as a  
threat?
Tariq Ali
Primarily because Venezuela is the richest oil-producer in South  
America, and is using this oil to improve the conditions of the poor  
in Venezuela; to help Bolivia and Cuba; and even to offer cut-price  
gas and heating oil to the poor in the United States.

It’s this combination that Washington and its global acolytes hate.  
You can see exactly the same type of attacks on Chávez in the New  
York Times, the Financial Times, The Economist, Le Monde, El Pais,  
the London Sunday Times, Folha in Sao Paulo, etc. The global elite  
doesn’t like the Venezuela program of structural reforms.

Add to this Chávez’s campaign against imperialism, and you have a  
complete picture. This is an alternative they do not want to  
encourage, which is why they tried to topple him on three separate  
occasions.

If you compare how Chávez has used the oil wealth of Venezuela with  
the venal U.S. protectorates in the Arab world, the contrast is  
startling. The Arab elites have enough money to educate and provide  
free health facilities for the entire Muslim world. They can’t even  
do it in their own part of the world.

And the West is surprised by the support for radical Islam. Not that  
this current has spent its money well--the class polarization in Iran  
produced Ahmadinejad, but until now, the clerics have not let him  
implement his program.

Anthony Arnove
Tariq is absolutely right to stress the importance of Venezuela’s oil  
reserves. Keep in mind that the United States imports most of its oil  
not from the Middle East but from Canada and Venezuela. So Washington  
sees a real threat of Venezuela using oil as a weapon.

But the main concern, I think, is the “threat of a good example”--the  
danger that other governments will follow Venezuela’s lead in  
confronting neoliberalism and U.S. imperialism.

Venezuela alone can’t counter U.S. imperial designs in Latin America  
or globally. But aligned with other countries, it could be part of a  
challenge to U.S. hegemony. And, most worrying of all for those in  
Washington, it could inspire a revival of movements for more radical  
change.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CHÁVEZ CRITICIZED the U.S. for waging war in the name of democracy,  
but imposing the opposite. Can you talk about that?
Anthony Arnove
The U.S. rationale for invading Iraq has gone through so many  
permutations, it’s sometimes hard to keep track: weapons of mass  
destruction, the alleged connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, Saddam  
Hussein’s human rights abuses. But the one justification you still  
hear repeated the most--and which the establishment media has never  
questioned -- is that Washington is “bringing democracy” to Iraq.

If Bush and Co. are bringing democracy to Iraq, then let’s ask the  
Iraqi people what they think about the occupation. That’s democracy-- 
the Iraqi people should decide. And the answer is absolutely clear.  
Even polling by the U.S. State Department has found that a strong  
majority of Iraqis want the occupation to end immediately.

But that outcome isn’t acceptable to the U.S. So much for democracy,  
then.

The bottom line is that the United States is occupying Iraq to deny  
democracy and self-determination to the people of Iraq, just as it  
has long undermined democratic movements elsewhere in the region and  
the world. The United States doesn’t want democracy. It wants  
military bases, control of energy resources and a client government  
in Baghdad. And the lives of millions of Iraqis mean nothing compared  
to those goals.

Tariq Ali
Nobody in their right mind can say that Iraq and Afghanistan are  
democratic states. It’s a sick joke when you see what’s happening in  
both countries.

Iraq is on the verge of disintegration. Its structures have  
collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of children are no longer receiving  
an education. Water and electricity are cut off for several hours  
each day. Everyday life has become a torture for most Iraqis. And  
real torture carries on inside the prisons of the occupation. The  
fact that the U.S. media does not report this on a regular basis is a  
disgrace.

In Afghanistan, the NATO gangs have resorted to indiscriminate  
killings usually reported as “200 Taliban killed,” etc. There is a de  
facto Balkanization of the country, and Karzai is a joke figure, seen  
as such even by his own side. Meanwhile, poppy fields flourish, and  
the output has increased dramatically since the NATO occupation.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

DO YOU think the difficulties U.S. imperialism faces in its different  
wars--Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon--relate to the fundamental injustice  
of the imperialist project?
Tariq Ali
This is the case. Apart from the Kurds, who are happy to be the  
Gurkhas of the American empire, nobody has benefited.

In Lebanon, the imperialist project suffered a heavy blow with the  
inability of the supposedly invulnerable Israel Defense Force to  
destroy Hezbollah. The IDF has, in fact, given an enormous political  
boost to Hezbollah, which is, at the moment, the most popular  
political organization in that country. Hezbollah leader Hassan  
Nasrallah’s demand for a new general election to replace the current  
government echoes majority public opinion.

The UN force (Plan B) is designed to curb Hezbollah and stop the flow  
of weapons. But this organization has a will and capacity far  
superior to anything in Iraq or Palestine. Its disarmament is  
virtually impossible.

The Israeli failure also represented a defeat for Egypt, Saudi Arabia  
and Jordan, which had eagerly supported the assault.

Anthony Arnove
In some ways, the U.S. government has confronted the limits of empire  
in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan. In all three countries, the U.S.  
faces serious defeat, especially in light of the exaggerated claims  
of what its interventions would achieve.

We have been reminded of the fact that--as we saw in Vietnam--no  
imperial army is all-powerful, especially when confronting popular  
indigenous forces opposed to occupation and foreign intervention.

Unfortunately, the Vietnam analogy shows us something else: When  
faced with the prospect of defeat in Vietnam, the United States did  
not withdraw, but intensified its destruction of Vietnam and expanded  
the war to Laos and Cambodia, killing millions of people in the process.

The fundamental injustice of the imperial project is on full display  
in each of these countries. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has  
restricted the discussion to questions of “poor planning,” “mistakes”  
and “good efforts gone awry.”



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE DEMOCRATS have restricted their criticism of the Bush  
administration’s wars mainly to tactics--for example, Rep. John  
Murtha’s plan for “redeployment” in Iraq representing a different  
strategy, rather than the end of the occupation. Is that enough?
Anthony Arnove
The Democrats offer no alternative. They are just proposing to manage  
the empire more effectively than Bush has. The real alternative will  
have to come from below, from a patient rebuilding of the anti- 
imperialist current in the left in the United States and  
internationally.

The antiwar movement in the United States has to declare its  
independence from the Democratic Party. We have to challenge both the  
Republicans and the Democrats, who have a bipartisan consensus on the  
fundamental aims of U.S. empire.

This isn’t an abstract question. We saw the complete collapse of the  
antiwar movement in the last presidential election, as groups like  
United for Peace and Justice mobilized support for pro-war candidates  
like John Kerry. Millions of dollars and hours have been wasted  
supporting a party that has nothing but contempt for the politics and  
aims of the antiwar movement.

Tariq Ali
The Democrats must be one of the more pathetic political parties on  
the planet. The Clinton makeover neutered this party completely, and  
its failure to oppose Bush on the war and related civil liberty  
issues has turned out to be a disaster. Some of the Democratic worms  
have begun to turn, but late in the day, and the leadership remains  
ineffective.

As even elements within the Pentagon are arguing for a quick  
withdrawal (probably alarmed by Henry Kissinger nipping in and out of  
the White House), the fact that this demand finds no echo in official  
politics reflects a crisis for U.S. democracy. We already noticed  
this in the case of the invasion of Lebanon, where, unlike Europe,  
the U.S. TV networks showed no images of women and children being  
killed. This censorship is designed to further depoliticize the  
population.

Meanwhile, Iraq burns, its people die, U.S. soldiers are still  
getting killed every day, and the U.S. antiwar movement is virtually  
nonexistent.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHY DO you think the antiwar movement--most obviously here, but  
internationally--hasn’t advanced further?
Tariq Ali
I think the reason for this is that the war is being fought by a  
volunteer army. So the country as a whole, especially the white  
middle-class sectors, remains unaffected.

Secondly, the media censorship (in sharp contrast here to the  
coverage of the Vietnam War) means that the U.S. population is not  
getting a real picture of what is happening on the ground. Third, the  
dominant neoliberal culture is one of consumerism and individualism,  
and this bubble seals people off from reality.

Fourth, there is no section of official politics that is seriously  
antiwar. Fifth, the way of organizing utilized by the principal  
coalition against the war fails to understand the period in which we  
live.

This could change quickly if something unexpected happened on the  
battlefields or in U.S. politics. Because the tragedy is that public  
opinion against the war seems to be reflected nowhere.

Incidentally, with the partial exception of Britain, this applies to  
the antiwar movement elsewhere as well. Neoliberalism is the grammar  
of politics in most parts of the globe and induces an  
institutionalized apathy. Imaginative, nonviolent guerrilla antiwar  
actions seem to be the only solution.

Anthony Arnove
I think we will also need to connect the war abroad to the war at  
home--a war on poor people, a war on working people, a war on civil  
liberties.

The indirect economic costs of the Iraq occupation are now more than  
$1.6 trillion, according to a study by Columbia University economist  
Joseph Stiglitz. Communities across the country are seeing cuts in  
education, health care, veterans programs, libraries, job training  
programs.

And we are seeing, in effect, a backdoor draft of reservists who are  
being sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan--many of them held past  
their service obligations through the “stop-loss” program, others  
being sent for three or four tours of duty.

And now Congress is removing habeas corpus protections, taking us  
back to 1214, the year before the Magna Carta.

One only has to watch a few minutes of Spike Lee’s phenomenal  
documentary When the Levees Broke to see the reality of race and  
class in the United States today. It should be required viewing.  
Lee’s film shows vividly how what happened on the Gulf Coast in the  
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is intimately related to what’s  
happening in the Persian Gulf today.

In addition, I think it’s really important that we support those  
soldiers who are speaking out against the war. Groups like Iraq  
Veterans Against the War are playing a crucial role and need wider  
support.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CHÁVEZ SAID in his UN speech that the world was “waking up” and  
“rising up against the empire.” What do you think is needed for this  
resistance to truly deal a blow to imperialism?
Tariq Ali
It’s true, the world is waking up, but very slowly.

If you look at China, you see the new workshop of the world, whose  
economy has led to structural alterations in the world market  
reminiscent of Victorian England much more than the Gilded Age. This  
country is locked in a tight embrace with the United States, its  
economy even more dependent on the U.S. market than Japan’s. To  
expect anything vaguely progressive from the Chinese elite is to  
daydream.

Latin America is waking up, but the rest of the world is still in  
deep, neoliberal sleep, with Russia ruled by a neo-authoritarian  
regime, doing well thanks to the world commodities boom and finding  
it more and more irritating to simulate democratic niceties (not  
completely unlike Bush and Blair).

In Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan there is an armed resistance, but  
which lacks the social vision needed to have an impact inside the  
United States. In Palestine, the picture looks bleak as the PLO has  
become a 100 percent collaborationist outfit.

The left must not exaggerate what is going on. At the same time, it  
shouldn’t lose its nerve.

Anthony Arnove
Around the globe, we see signs of people rejecting the values of the  
so-called Washington consensus. In Ecuador, in Bolivia, in Brazil, in  
Spain, in Italy and many other countries, we have seen people  
expressing a strong desire for an alternative.

Here at home, a majority now believes it was wrong to invade Iraq.  
More than 70 percent of active-duty U.S. troops in Iraq say they want  
to come home. Bush’s approval rating is abysmal. His popularity with  
African American voters is 2 percent. That’s unprecedented.

But around the world, we also see an enormous gap between popular  
aspirations and the political leadership and organization that can  
help build movements to challenge those in power and build a real  
alternative.

In the absence of that organization, the most likely outcome is the  
spread of feelings of atomization, alienation and cynicism. The sense  
that we can’t have an impact on those in power--or that we’ll just  
end up, like in Brazil or South Africa, with more of the same.

I think one of the reasons so many people responded positively to  
Hugo Chávez’s speech at the United Nations was the feeling that,  
finally, someone was speaking up. Someone was challenging Bush and  
telling the truth.

Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival became the number-one book  
on Amazon.com and shot up to number five on the New York Times  
bestseller after Chávez recommended it in his UN General Assembly  
speech. I think that’s a sign of the fact that people want an  
alternative and are open to radical ideas.

But we still need to overcome the poisonous legacy of Stalinism,  
which has led so many people to associate radicalism--and  
specifically socialism--with dictatorship and repression. That will  
take time. Movements for change always take time.

On the other hand, I think more and more people are becoming aware of  
the fact that our time may be limited. The direction capitalism is  
taking the planet is unsustainable. The evidence is mounting every  
day that we are destroying the environment in ways that are  
potentially catastrophic. The invasion of Iraq has also pushed us  
closer the brink of nuclear war, which could also wipe out humanity.

So there’s an urgency now that’s hard to exaggerate. We can’t look to  
saviors from on high to get us out of this mess, though. We have to  
do it ourselves.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20061020/5db009f0/attachment-0001.htm