Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: terrorism

  • Fearing the Aftermath

    America and Americans on September 11th experienced the full horror of the greatest display of grotesque cunning in human history. Its essence consisted in transforming the benign everyday technology of commercial jet aircraft into malignant weapons of mass destruction. There has been much talk about Americans discovering the vulnerability of their heartland in a manner that far exceeds the collective trauma associated with the attack on Pearl Harbor. But the new vulnerability is radically different and far more threatening. It involves the comprehensive vulnerability of technology so closely tied to our global dominance, pervading every aspect of our existence. To protect ourselves against such the range of threats that could be mounted by those of fanatical persuasion is a mission impossible. The very attempt would turn America quickly into a prison state.

    And yet who could blame the government for doing what it can in the coming months to reassure a frightened citizenry. Likely steps seem designed to make it more difficult to repeat the operations that produced the WTC/Pentagon tragedy, but it seems highly unlikely that a terrorist machine intelligent enough to pull off this gruesome operation would suddenly become so stupid as to attempt the same thing soon again.

    The atrocity of September 11th must be understood as the work of dark genius, a penetrating tactical insight that endangers our future in fundamental respects that we are only beginning to apprehend. This breakthrough in terrorist tactics occurred in three mutually reinforcing dimensions: (1) the shift from extremely violent acts designed to shock more than to kill to onslaughts designed to make the enemy’s society into a bloody battlefield, in this instance, symbolically (capitalism and militarism) and substantively (massive human carnage and economic dislocation); (2) the use of primitive capabilities by the perpetrators to appropriate technology that can be transformed into weaponry of mass destruction through the mere act of seizure and destruction; (3) the availability of competent militants willing to both carry out such crimes against humanity at the certain cost of their own lives. Such a lethal, and essentially novel, combination of elements poses an unprecedented challenge to civic order and democratic liberties. It is truly a declaration of war from the lower depths.

    It is important to appreciate this transformative shift in the nature of the terrorist challenge both conceptually and tactically. Without comprehending these shifts, it will not be possible to fashion a response that is either effective or legitimate, and we need both. It remains obscure on the terrorist side whether an accompanying strategic goal accompanies this tactical escalation. At present it appears that the tactical brilliance of the operation will soon be widely regarded as a strategic blunder of colossal proportions. It would seem that the main beneficiaries of the attack in the near future are also the principal enemies of the perpetrators. Both the United States globally and Israel regionally emerge from this disaster with greatly strengthened geopolitical hands. Did the sense of hatred and fanaticism of the tactical masterminds induce this seeming strategic blindness? There is no indication that the forces behind the attack on the 11th were acting on any basis beyond their extraordinary destructive intent.

    And so we are led to the pivotal questions: what kind of war? What kind of response? It is, above all, a war without military solutions. Indeed it is a war in which the pursuit of the traditional military goal of “victory” is almost certain to intensify the challenge and spread the violence. Such an assessment does not question the propriety of the effort to identify and punish the perpetrators, and to cut their links to governmental power. In our criticism of the current war fever being nurtured by an unholy alliance of government and media we should not forget that the attacks on the 11th were massive crimes against humanity in a technical legal sense, and those guilty of their commission should be punished to the extent possible. Having acknowledged this legitimate right of response is by no means equivalent to an endorsement of unlimited force. Indeed, an overreaction may be what the terrorists were seeking to provoke so as to mobilize popular resentment against the United States on a global scale. We need to act effectively, but within a framework of moral and legal restraints.

    First of all, there should be the elementary due process of identifying convincingly the perpetrators, and their backers. Secondly, there should be a maximal effort to obtain authorization for any use of force in a specific form through the procedures of the United Nations Security Council. Unlike the Gulf War model, the collective character of the undertaking should be integral at the operational level, and not serve merely as window-dressing for unilateralism. Thirdly, any use of force should be consistent with international law and with the just war tradition governing the use of force- that is, discriminating between military and civilian targets, proportionate to the challenge, and necessary to achieve a military objective, avoiding superfluous suffering. If retaliatory action fails to abide by these guidelines, with due allowance for flexibility depending on the circumstances, then it will be seen by most others as replicating the fundamental evil of terrorism. It will be seen as violence directed against those who are innocent and against civilian society. And fourthly, the political and moral justifications for the use of force should be accompanied by the concerted and energetic protection of those who share an ethnic and religious identity with the targets of retaliatory violence.

    Counseling such guidelines does not overcome a dilemma that is likely to grow more obvious as the days go by: something must be done but there is nothing to do. What should be done if no targets can be found that are consistent with the guidelines of law and morality? We must assume that the terrorist network has anticipated retaliation even before the attack, and has taken whatever steps it can to “disappear” from the planet, to render itself invisible. The test then is whether our leaders have the forbearance to refrain from uses of forces that are directed toward those who are innocent in these circumstances, and whether our citizenry has the patience to indulge and accept such forbearance. It cannot be too much stressed that the only way to win this “war” (if war it is) against terrorism is by manifesting a respect for the innocence of civilian life, and to reinforce that respect by a credible commitment to the global promotion of social justice.

    The Bush Administration came to Washington with a resolve to conduct a more unilateralist foreign policy that abandoned the sorts of humanitarian pretenses that led to significant American-led involvements in sub-Saharan Africa and the Balkans during the 1990s. The main idea seemed to be to move away from a kind of liberal geopolitics and downsize the American international role by limiting overseas military action to the domain of strategic interests and to uphold such interests by a primary reliance on its own independent capabilities. Behind such thinking was the view that the United States did not need the sort of help that it required during the cold war, and at the same time it should not shoulder the humanitarian burdens of concern for matters that were remote from its direct interests. Combined with its enthusiasm for missile defense and weapons in space, such a repositioning of US foreign policy was supposed to be an adjustment to the new realities of the post-cold war world. Contrary to many commentaries, such a repositioning was not an embrace of isolationism, but represented a revised version of internationalism based on a blend of unilateralism and militarism.

    In the early months of the Bush presidency this altered foreign policy was mainly expressed by repudiating a series of important, widely supported multilateral treaty frameworks, including the Kyoto Protocol dealing with global warming, the ABM Treaty dealing with the militarization of space, and Biological Weapons Convention Protocol dealing with implementing the prohibition on developing biological weaponry. Allies of the United States were stunned by such actions, which seemed to reject the need for international cooperation to address global problems of a deeply threatening nature.

    And then came the 11th, and an immediate realization in Washington that the overwhelming priority of its foreign policy now rested upon soliciting precisely the sort of cooperative international framework it had worked so hard to throw into the nearest garbage bin. Whether such a realization goes deeper than a mobilization of support for global war only time will tell. Unlike the Gulf War or Kosovo War, which were rapidly carried to their completion by military means, a struggle against global terrorism even in its narrowest sense would require the most intense forms of inter-governmental cooperation ever experienced in the history of international relations. Hopefully, the diplomacy needed to receive this cooperation might set some useful restraining limits on the current American impulse to use force excessively and irresponsibly.

    A root question underlying the American response is the manner with which it deals with the United Nations. There is reportedly a debate within the Bush Administration between those hardliners who believe that the United States should claim control over the response by invoking the international law doctrine of “the inherent right of self-defense” and those more diplomatically inclined, who favor seeking a mandate from the Security Council to act in collective self-defense. Among the initiatives being discussed in the search for meaningful responses is the establishment through UN authority of a special tribunal entrusted with the prosecution of those indicted for the crime of international terrorism, possibly commencing with the apprehension and trial of Osama bin Laden. Such reliance on the rule of law would be a major step in seeking to make the struggle against terrorism enjoys the genuine support of the entire organized international community.

    It needs to be understood that the huge challenge posed by the attacks can only be met effectively by establishing the greatest possible distance between the perpetrators and those who are acting on behalf of their victims. And what is the content of this distance? An unconditional respect for the sacredness of life, and the dignity of the human person. One of the undoubted difficulties in the weeks and months ahead will be to satisfy the bloodthirst that has accompanied the mobilization of America for war while satisfying the rest of the world that it is acting in a manner that displays respect for civilian innocence and human solidarity. A slightly related problem, but with deeper implications, is to avoid seeming to exempt state violence from moral and legal limitations, while insisting that such limitations apply to the civic violence of the terrorists. Such double standards will damage the indispensable effort to draw a credible distinction between the criminality of the attack and the legitimacy of the retaliation.

    There are contradictory ways to address the atrocities of the 11th: the prevailing mood is to invoke the metaphor of cancer, and to preach military surgery of a complex and globe-girdling character that needs to be elevated to the status of a world war, and bears comparison with World War I and II; the alternative, which I believe is far more accurate as diagnosis and cure, is to rely on the metaphor of an iceberg. The attack on America was the tip of an iceberg, the submerged portions being the mass of humanity that is not sharing in the fruits of modernity, but finds itself under the heel of American economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic power. To eliminate the visible tip of the iceberg of discontent and resentment may bring us a momentary catharsis, but it will at best create an illusion of “victory.” What needs to be done is to extend a commitment to the sacredness of life to the entire human family, in effect, joining in a collective effort to achieve what might be called “humane globalization.”

    The Israel/Palestine conflict, its concreteness and persistence, is part of this new global reality. All sides acknowledge relevance, but the contradictory narratives deform our understanding in serious respects. Israel itself has seized the occasion to drop any pretense of sensitivity to international criticism and calls for restraint in its occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Israeli spokespersons have been active in spreading the word that now America and the world should appreciate what sorts of adversaries Israel has faced for decades, and should learn from Israel’s efforts to control and destroy its terrorist enemies. Those supporting Palestinian rights in contrast argue that the sorts of violence generated by Israeli oppression and refusal to uphold international law and human rights gives rise to a politics of desperation that includes savage attacks on Israeli civilian society. They argue that giving a suppressed people the choice between terrorism and surrender is abusive, as well as dangerous.

    On the deepest levels, the high tech dominance achieved by American power, so vividly expressed in the pride associated with “zero casualties” in the 1999 NATO War over Kosovo, is giving to the peoples of the world a similar kind of choice between poverty and subjugation and vindictive violence.

    Is our civil society robust enough to deliver such a message in some effective form? We cannot know, but we must try, especially if we value the benefits of discussion and debate as integral to the health of democracy. Such an imperative seems particularly urgent because of the vacuum at the top. There has been in these terrible days of grieving for what has been lost, no indication of the sort of political, moral, and spiritual imagination that might begin to help us all better cope with this catastrophe. We should not fool ourselves by blaming George W. Bush or Republicans. The Democratic Party and its leaders have shown no willingness or capacity to think any differently about what has occurred and what to do about it. Mainstream TV has apparently seen its role as a war-mobilizing and patrioteering mechanism with neither interest nor capacity to include alternative voices and interpretations. The same tired icons of the establishment have been awakened once more to do the journeyman work of constructing a national consensus in favor of all-out war, a recipe for spreading chaos around the world and bringing discredit to ourselves.

    We are poised on the brink of a global inter-civilizational war without battlefields and borders, a war seemingly declared against the enigmatic and elusive solitary figure of Osama bin Laden stalking remote mountainous Afghanistan while masterminding a holy war against a mighty superpower. To the extent that this portrayal is accurate it underscores the collapse of world order based on the relations among sovereign, territorial states. But it also suggests that the idea of national security in a world of states is obsolete, and that the only viable security is what is being called these days “human security.” Yet, the news has not reached Washington, or for that matter, the other capitals of the world. There is still present the conviction that missile defense shields, space weaponry, and anti-terrorist grand coalitions can keep the barbarians at bay. In fact, this conviction has turned into a frenzy in the aftermath of the 11th, giving us reason to fear the response almost as much as the initial, traumatizing provocations. As the sun sets on a world of states, the sun of its militarism appears ready to burn more brightly than ever!

  • Seven Steps to Improving US and Global Security

    An effective US response to the September 11th terrorist attacks – one that improves US and global security – must be moral, legal, and thoughtful. It must place higher value on protection of Americans on US soil than on vengeance abroad, not taking more innocent lives. It must uphold the rule of law sanctioned by the United Nations, and seek to understand what grievances against us are legitimate.

    To meet these criteria, the US can and should implement seven policy steps in order to increase both domestic and global security.

    1. Improve intelligence, and take far stronger preventative security measures. We must understand why our intelligence services failed to prevent the September 11th attacks. Why were known associates of Osama bin Laden not effectively tracked by US intelligence services? Why did the arrest of a known associate of bin Laden for suspicious behavior at a flight school weeks before the attacks not alert the FBI?

    2. Act multilaterally to bring the attackers to justice, under UN auspices and existing international treaties on terrorism and sabotage. Since the September 11th attack was an international crime against citizens of some 80 countries, perpetrators should be brought before an International Tribunal established for this purpose and tried for crimes against humanity.

    3. Prevent weapons of mass destruction from being used by terrorists. The US must give top priority and full funding to efforts to prevent chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons attacks against population centers, whether via ground vehicles, crop dusting planes, or other suspected means of delivery.

    4. Bring all nuclear weapons and fissile material in the world under control and move quickly toward banning these weapons under international law, as the US has already agreed to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the short term we must reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world to controllable numbers, on the order of 100 weapons per nuclear weapon state, to keep them out of terrorist hands. We must institute an international inventory of all nuclear weapons, weapons-grade materials and nuclear scientists, and increase financial and technological support for Cooperative Threat Reduction programs that strengthen non-proliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union. Planning should begin now for controlling Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the event of a government takeover by extremists.

    5. Immediately deploy military protection for all nuclear power plants in the US and rapidly phase out these plants. Nuclear power reactors are dormant radiological weapons located in the proximity of major US cities. Currently the NRC has them on “heightened alert,” but has no meaningful way to repel terrorist attacks on them. Flying an airplane into a nuclear reactor or waste storage site, or introducing explosives through intakes, could result in a Chernobyl-type release of radioactive materials with unimaginable consequences. Until shut down, operating nuclear power plants should be patrolled by National Guard troops and protected by anti-aircraft weapons. Radioactive waste sites and spent fuel stored at nuclear power plants, should also be guarded, as should shipments of all radioactive materials that could be used for nuclear or radiological weapons.

    6. Learn to listen. We must ask why the United States is so hated that terrorists are willing to die themselves to murder us. Is it, as President Bush said, that they hate freedom and democracy itself, or that they hate US policies – US military presence in the Middle East, our conduct of the Gulf War and economic sanctions against Iraq, our support of a despotic Saudi regime, and our ongoing economic and military support for Israel? As recently as the 1960s America was admired throughout the Islamic world precisely because it was seen as a beacon of freedom and democracy, and an opponent of autocratic colonialism. A few decades of US policy changed all that. Although our policy cannot be dictated by terrorism, short-sighted policies that fuel deep-seated and widespread hatred can and should be amended. Without considering our policies that engender such hatred, no security measures will be able to protect us from future attack.

    7. Use our power to uphold security, justice and dignity not just for ourselves and industrialized countries allied with us, but for the world, recognizing that true security is cooperative, and in the long run life in America will be only as secure as life on the planet as a whole. Some 35,000 children worldwide die quietly each day from malnutrition and preventable diseases, while America has systematically reduced foreign aid and UN funding commitments. The UN has the tools to promote justice, human rights and sustainable development, but it can’t do so without American commitment and leadership.

    Since September 11th, the world has arrived at a crossroads. America will play a major role in determining its future path. Will we resort to old instincts of applying crushing military force, intensifying hatred toward the US without substantially reducing the threat of terrorism against us? Or will we take the above steps towards making the US and the world more secure in all respects?

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Vote for Peace

    “The first time the first woman had a chance to say no against war she should say it.” – Jeanette Rankin

    Behold the anti-war sentiments of this Congresswoman from Montana whose pacifist ideals are nowhere to be seen nor heard in recent days. This often forgotten former Congresswoman from Montana voted against entry into both World War I and World War II, a risky gamble for peace in this war-hawk nation. Yet, believing war was not the answer and willing to take a stand in the face of weighty opposition to remain true to her beliefs, Ms. Rankin cast her vote for peace. Last week, our modern-day Jeannette Rankin, Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), cast the only dissenting vote against legislation giving President Bush the authorization to wage military war against terrorism. The other politicians in our country would do well to pause in silence for a moment and listen to the sounds of conscience which resonate among the peaceloving people in the United States.

    What I find remarkable in the aftermath of the Tuesday’s devastating events is that our outspoken government leaders, especially our President, have maintained a hate-filled unilateral front using language of retaliation and revenge for the perpetrators and the country harboring them and abetting their activities. The mainstream media has reported precious little from peace groups who represent the wishes of many Americans who think that military action is not the only valid response to this tragic situation. We are continually told that more bloodshed will make us feel better. If we can beat up on some other nation’s innocents, it will ease our pain here. Misery loves company.

    The paradigm has already been set up: if you call for peace, for reconciliation and for forgiveness, you are anti-American. You are unaligned with the multitudes of grieving families across our nation and empathize too much with the enemy, who deserves no mercy. Can we be pro-peace and still be true to our country? Can we call for compassion and nonviolent responses to a tragedy this terrible? Revenge and retaliation have been perverted to mean justice, and the American public ought to be offered other options than the militaristic, one-sided vengeance which our leaders have set before us. How can our leaders call for tolerance toward Arab-Americans in our own country and in the same breath blast Arab countries with unrelenting rhetoric of retaliatory attacks?

    After all, we are all human beings, right? Nationalities are man-made creations, as are national borders. In essence, we are plotting the destruction of our own species. Is our national policy toward foreigners nothing than a mirror held up to the face of our own self-hatred? I would like to believe that the good people of America can grieve together during this time of intense loss and still not wish to create more tragedy anywhere else on our planet.

    Within the boundaries of the United States, we house many ideologies, many faith traditions, many races, and many ethnicities. Should we be so myopic to believe that there is only one acceptable response to the terrorist attacks on which all varieties of Americans concur? Does everyone want an all-out war? Many high school students in recent days have been envisioning alternative structures of government more compatible with the principles of nonviolence. Many high school students believe that meeting hate with hate multiplies hate, as first written by Martin Luther King, Jr., and that, quoting Gandhi, an eye for an eye and the world goes blind. Are these students too young and idealistic to dream of a world where their future is not jeopardized? Is their peace studies class teaching them blind optimism? They don’t think so.

    Our President says he would like to eradicate the evil in the world. Let’s take him up on this idea. Let’s stop funding the war on Palestine. Let’s stop bombing Iraq every week. Let’s stop fueling the fires of conflict in Colombia. Let’s provide healthcare to the 25% of children in America who live in poverty. Let’s teach our children to get along rather than to harbor hatred toward their enemies. Let’s take our role as the world’s superpower seriously and respond to these senseless events with dignity and restraint.

    Can we challenge our government to find a creative and meaningful way to respond to this violence while caring for our wounded nation?

    *Leah Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Perspective of a Nobel Peace Laureate and Co-founder of Peace People

    Belfast, Northern Ireland:

    “It is with the greatest sadness that the people of the World watched the tragedy of the horrific events of Tuesday 11th September, 2001, in America.

    The day of this atrocity will remain in all our memories; it has moved many millions of people to tears of shock and sadness.

    We share in the American peoples’ grief during this time of need, and send our condolences to all.

    We understand the depth of feelings of loss and pain but we would appeal that there be no retaliation.

    Violence serves no purpose. Violence solves no problems. Retaliation would mean the further deaths of many more people. This would, in turn, add to an increasing sense of fear, anxiety, and hopelessness, being felt around the world.

    As the human family we need HOPE, and this can come from the people of the World, when they rise above their immediate feelings of pain and anger at such inhumanity, and in a calmer atmosphere allow reason to guide their decisions. In this way ‘wisdom’ can find a response to this terrible atrocity which does not add to the terrible death and destruction already perpetrated on our fellow brothers and sister in the United States.

    In this the new millennium, the human family has an opportunity to move away from the old responses of ‘an eye for an eye’ and deal with their problems in a collective and civilised manner, befitted the great goodness that lives in every human heart.

  • To our American Friends, Written in the days Following 11 September 2001

    We are enormously saddened by the terrible news from New York and Washington, moved beyond words by the thousands of blameless lives lost and innocent hearts broken, and inspired by the magnificent response of the firefighters and rescuers. We share deeply the shock and sorrow and anger of the American people, and are outraged by the senseless barbarity of those who, as Newsday put it, “decided it would be a good idea to fly planes full of innocent Americans into buildings full of innocent Americans.”

    Our hearts are with all those, Americans and others, who are grieving and fearful. This was an atrocity aimed primarily but not not only at the United States, or even at the West whose way of life, successful economies, political and cultural affinities and predominant religions are so resented by some others—but, it almost seems, at all nations that allow their citizens to enjoy their lives and celebrate their differences. It does not represent the faithful of any religion or contribute to the solution of injustice anywhere, but expressly betrays the injunctions of the faith and the standards of justice that its perpetrators invoke.

    In one infamous stroke, this monstrous act has united the world in revulsion against the victimization of innocent people and terrorism in all its forms. Let us hope that governments will be so shaken by the scale and implications of this offense to humanity that they will declare their unequivocal rejection of such acts wherever they occur—and that in the war that has been declared against terrorism they will not in anger callously or carelessly sacrifice the lives of others who are innocent.

    As hard as it may be for the rest of us to fathom the motives of those who plan these dreadful acts and to understand the fanaticism or the desperation of those who are prepared to die for what most of us see as misguided and hopeless causes, we must suppose that they truly believe they are right and will not be persuaded otherwise. They have grievances they have decided cannot be addressed in any other way. Even now, in spite of the appalling way they are represented, we have to examine these grievances with the humanity that we would wish of others, responding magnanimously where we should and fiercely where we must, wary of falling into the trap of intolerance and of the long term consequences of our actions. The alternative is to risk an ever more ferocious and widening escalation of the horror of which we have been given such a bitter taste.

  • Evolving Thoughts on 11 September Events From a Young US Peace Activist Perspective

    When I first awoke on Tuesday, 11 September 2001 and began watching from the West Coast the events unfolding in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, I had a variety of reactions. While the tragedy which occurred in the US against innocent people is unjustifiable by any means, US citizens and citizens around the world must seize this opportunity to examine the root causes of violence and respond with redoubled efforts to create a truly just and peaceful world for all human beings.

    My first reaction was “What a way to celebrate the International Day of Peace!” But not once during the course of the day did I hear media make mention that it was in fact the International Day of Peace until a tiny scroll message announced it at 9:30 p.m. pacific time, nearly thirteen hours after the first crash.

     

    I knew from the first sight that I saw on the television that as a peace activist and a US citizen, the events would greatly alter my life. All of the US media reports from the first moment and continuing voiced a sense of resurgent nationalism ever apparent in the minds of Americans. Americans on television and in the papers cried out for revenge and retaliation mirroring the calls from the US government and military. I thought to myself, “How will people in the US respond to the message of peace? How will people listen to the voice of non-violence?” Headline after headline, news story after news story reiterated the need for justice, not true justice, but a perverted justice based on military retaliation.

     

    My heart went out to the victims of the acts of violence committed that day. But even more so, my heart went out to victims of violence everywhere around the world. I realized how self-centered and naive we are in the US. Every day, violence is a daily occurrence in many countries around the world. Very few acknowledge their suffering. Some 40,000 children die every day from malnutrition, where is the peace and justice in that? Immediately, heads of state around the world responded to the events in the US, allying with the government and military’s plans to seek out and take revenge upon those responsible for the acts. Organizations and individuals also sent messages of solidarity and condolences to the people of the US. While I appreciated these messages, at the same time I was saddened to think of all victims of violence around the world who do not receive condolences and solidarity, let alone acknowledgement of their struggle for survival. What makes the loss of American lives more valuable than the loss of lives in other parts of the world? Violence has become a means by which we place value on human life and the environment. We consider certain losses justifiable so that 20 percent of the world’s population can exploit 80 percent of its wealth.

     

    The government and military also immediately accused a scapegoat and the media reported this person and his affiliates to the American people, feeding into the frenzy and anger of a nation too blinded by the devastating images before our eyes to see reality. If in fact, the acts of violence were committed by terrorists, weren’t we the party responsible for creating them? How could we not know that the seeds we sowed during the Cold War, the seeds we continued to sow after the dissolution of the USSR would not come back to haunt us? How can we be so selfish as a society to believe that our consumption and way of life is a right only we should enjoy? Why is that we are the only ones in the world that should enjoy it?

     

    Many have called the events a “collective loss of innocence” in this country as have been other historical moments, such as the two World Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Korean Crisis and the Cold War. I hope that instead we would stop and re-evaluate the 11 September events as a collective loss of ignorance. After the dissolution of the USSR, the US was under the impression that it had “triumphed” over the “evils” of communism. But we did not stop think about the policies we instituted around the world in the name of democratic ideology, an ideology funded and backed by capitalism and militarism. At the end of the Cold War, the US was presented with a great opportunity to be a true leader, to take the lead in negotiations for the abolition of nuclear weapons, to reduce our reliance on military might, to decrease the vast amount of money spent on defense, to redefine global security in terms of human and environmental needs rather than in terms of military superiority. But we chose not to take this role. Instead, we continue to plunder the environment, to consume vast amount of the precious Earth’s resources, to ignore human suffering beyond our “national” borders.

     

    Younger generations in the US do not understand why this event occurred. We do not recall the perceived threat of communism of the Cold War or the duck and cover drills practiced in the event of a nuclear strike. We do not recall protesting the Vietnam War. We do not recall the Korean War or the Cuban Missile Crisis. We do not remember JFK’s assassination. We have only read of these events in textbooks. This US administration and military quickly called the 11 September acts, “acts of war.” The military-corporate-education complex needs US citizens, particularly younger generations, to live in fear of a perceived threat, a threat that has been to some extent been missing since the end of the Cold War. Without a perceived threat, how can they justify increased military spending? How else can they justify “controlling and dominating” the Earth and Outer Space because of the widening gap between the “haves and the have-nots” which “threaten” US economic interests here and abroad? How else can they justify missile defense systems, systems which would have rendered useless in the events of 11 September? How else can they justify developing and deploying the B61-11, a new nuclear weapon that makes the use of nuclear weapons more likely in the future of conflict despite international obligations to abolish nuclear weapons?

     

    The existence of war, nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction evidence our insecurity and our inability to understand how our actions affect others. As human beings, we desire to be secure, yet we have some how deemed it in our nature to live in fear of each other and therefore we try to justify our urge to resolve conflicts through violent means. We must remember our commonality and our humanity and be mindful not to demonize any peoples based on ethnicity, religion, nationality and gender. We must put a stop to nationalism and hatred. We must not allow prejudice into our hearts and minds.

     

    Many analysts and editorialists have called the 11 September events a “defining moment” in this country’s history. I hope that indeed it will be a defining moment in American history in that we as a nation will stop to think about why such an event occurred here. We as citizens are responsible for the actions of our government and military. As a democracy, we elect our leaders. Governments only have the right to govern based on the will of the people they govern. It must be our will as individuals to achieve peace and we must hold our governments responsible to ensure the maintenance of peace for all peoples. We should call upon our leaders to examine the policies we have created and institute new policies that will preclude the use of violence and loss of life in the future. Rather than withdrawing from international establishments and obligations as the current administration is doing, the US should engage in the international community to promote cooperation and not rely on military might as the principal means of solving conflict. The US should work collaboratively with the global community to address the underlying causes of violence and promote non-violent cooperative measures to resolve conflict.

     

    Our only hope is to educate ourselves and future generations that all humans deserve to live with dignity, compassion and respect for one another and the environment, and that humans must use the Earth’s precious resources constructively and sustainably. Martin Luther King, Jr. Stated, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly”. We must be cognizant of the inter-relatedness of all communities and peoples. Though cultures and traditions may vary, and though we are all individually unique, we are united by our humanity. We are all brothers and sisters of one human family and we must learn to live with each other and respect our differences. We must keep our impoverished brothers and sisters who live in the developing world in our conscience. With these ideals and principles, the human family can coexist harmoniously with each other and the Earth, making a peaceful world possible.

  • Terrorism and Nonviolence

    Understandably, after the tragedy in New York and Washington DC on September 11 many have written or called the office to find out what would be an appropriate nonviolent response to such an unbelievably inhuman act of violence.

    First, we must understand that nonviolence is not a strategy that we can use in a moment of crisis and discard in times of peace. Nonviolence is about personal attitudes, about becoming the change we wish to see in the world. Because, a nation’s collective attitude is based on the attitude of the individual. Nonviolence is about building positive relationships with all human beings – relationships that are based on love, compassion, respect, understanding and appreciation.

    Nonviolence is also about not judging people as we perceive them to be – that is, a murderer is not born a murderer; a terrorist is not born a terrorist. People become murderers, robbers and terrorists because of circumstances and experiences in life. Killing or confining murders, robbers, terrorists, or the like is not going to rid this world of them. For every one we kill or confine we create another hundred to take their place. What we need to do is to analyze dispassionately what are those circumstances that create such monsters and how can we help eliminate those circumstances, not the monsters. Justice should mean reformation and not revenge.

    We saw some people in Iraq and Palestine and I dare say many other countries rejoice in the blowing up of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It horrified us, as it should. But, let us not forget that we do the same thing. When Israel bombs the Palestinians we either rejoice or show no compassion. Our attitude is they deserve what they get. When the Palestinians bomb the Israelis we are indignant and condemn them as vermin who need to be eliminated.

    We reacted without compassion when we bombed the cities of Iraq. I was among the millions in the United States who sat glued to the television and watched the drama as though it was a made for television film. The television had desensitized us. Thousands of innocent men, women and children were being blown to bits and instead of feeling sorry for them we marveled at the efficiency of our military. For more than ten years we have continued to wreak havoc in Iraq – an estimated 50,000 children die every year because of sanctions that we have imposed – and it hasn’t moved us to compassion. All this is done, we are told, because we want to get rid of the Satan called Sadam Hussein.

    Now we are getting ready to do this all over again to get rid of another Satan called Osama Bin Laden. We will bomb the cities of Afghanistan because they harbor the Satan and in the process we will help create a thousand other bin Ladens.

    Some might say “we don’t care what the world thinks of us as long as they respect our strength. ” After all we have the means to blow this world to pieces since we are the only surviving super-power. Do we want the world to respect us the way school children respect a bully? Is that our role in the world?

    If a bully is what we want to be then we must be prepared to face the same consequences a school-yard bully faces. On the other hand we cannot tell the world “leave us alone.” Isolationism is not what this world is built for.

    All of this brings us back to the question: How do we respond nonviolently to terrorism?

    The consequences of a military response are not very rosy. Many thousands of innocent people will die both here and in the country or countries we attack. Militancy will increase exponentially and, ultimately, we will be faced with another, more pertinent, moral question: what will we gain by destroying half the world? Will we be able to live with a clear conscience?

    We must acknowledge our role in helping create monsters in the world and then find ways to contain these monsters without hurting more innocent people and then redefine our role in the world. I think we must move from seeking to be respected for our military strength to being respected for our moral strength.

    We need to appreciate that we are in a position to play a powerful role in helping the “other half” of the world attain a better standard of life not by throwing a few crumbs but by significantly involving ourselves in constructive economic programs.

    For too long our foreign policy has been based on “what is good for the United States.” It smacks of selfishness. Our foreign policy should now be based on what is good for the world and how can we do the right thing to help the world become more peaceful.

    To those who have lost loved ones in this and other terrorist acts I say I share your grief. I am sorry that you have become victims of senseless violence. But let this sad episode not make you vengeful because no amount of violence and killing is going to bring you inner peace. Anger and hate never do. The memory of those victims who have died in this and other violent incidents around the world will be better preserved and meaningfully commemorated if we all learn to forgive and dedicate our lives to helping create a peaceful, respectful and understanding world.

    Arun Gandhi Founder Director M.K.Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence 650 East Parkway South Memphis TN 3810

  • Will Tears Ever Stop?

    I can’t help crying. As soon as I see a person on TV telling the heart-rendering story of the tragic fate of their loved-one in the World Trade Center disaster, I can’t control my tears. But then I wonder why didn’t I cry when our troops wiped out some 5,000 poor people in Panama’s El Chorillo neighborhood on the excuse of looking for Noriega. Our leaders knew he was hiding elsewhere but we destroyed El Chorillo because the folks living there were nationalists who wanted the U.S. out of Panama completely.

    Worse still, why didn’t I cry when we killed two million Vietnamese, mostly innocent peasants, in a war which its main architect, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, knew we could not win? When I went to give blood the other day, I spotted a Cambodian doing the same, three up in the line, and that reminded me: Why didn’t I cry when we helped Pol Pot butcher another million by giving him arms and money, because he was opposed to “our enemy” (who eventually stopped the killing fields)?

    To stay up but not cry that evening, I decided to go to a movie. I chose Lumumba, at the Film Forum, and again I realized that I hadn’t cried when our government arranged for the murder of the Congo’s only decent leader, to be replaced by General Mobutu, a greedy, vicious, murdering dictator. Nor did I cry when the CIA arranged for the overthrow of Indonesia’s Sukarno, who had fought the Japanese World War II invaders and established a free independent country, and then replaced him by another General, Suharto, who had collaborated with the Japanese and who proceeded to execute at least half a million “Marxists” (in a country where, if folks had ever heard of Marx, it was at best Groucho)?

    I watched TV again last night and cried again at the picture of that wonderful now-missing father playing with his two-month old child. Yet when I remembered the slaughter of thousands of Salvadorans, so graphically described in the Times by Ray Bonner, or the rape and murder of those American nuns and lay sisters there, all perpetrated by CIA trained and paid agents, I never shed a tear. I even cried when I heard how brave had been Barbara Olson, wife of the Solicitor General, whose political views I detested. But I didn’t cry when the US invaded that wonderful tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada and killed innocent citizens who hoped to get a better life by building a tourist airfield, which my government called proof of a Russian base, but then finished building once the island was secure in the US camp again.

    Why didn’t I cry when Ariel Sharon, today Israel’s prime minister, planned, then ordered, the massacre of two thousand poor Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, the same Sharon who, with such other Irgun and Stern Gang terrorists become prime ministers as Begin and Shamir, killed the wives and children of British officers by blowing up the King David hotel where they were billeted?

    I guess one only cries only for one’s own. But is that a reason to demand vengeance on anyone who might disagree with us? That’s what Americans seem to want. Certainly our government oes, and so too most of our media. Do we really believe that we have a right to exploit the poor folk of the world for our benefit, because we claim we are free and they are not?

    So now we’re going to go to war. We are certainly entitled to go after those who killed so many of our innocent brothers and sisters. And we’ll win, of course. Against Bin Laden. Against Taliban. Against Iraq. Against whoever and whatever. In the process we’ll kill a few innocent children again. Children who have no clothes for the coming winter. No houses to shelter them. And no schools to learn why they are guilty, at two or four or six years old. Maybe Evangelists Falwell and Robertson will claim their death is good because they weren’t Christians, and maybe some State Department spokesperson will tell the world that they were so poor that they’re now better off.

    And then what? Will we now be able to run the world the way we want to? With all the new legislation establishing massive surveillance of you and me, our CEOs will certainly be pleased that the folks demonstrating against globalization will now be cowed for ever. No more riots in Seattle, Quebec or Genoa. Peace at last.

    Until next time. Who will it be then? A child grown-up who survived our massacre of his innocent parents in El Chorillo? A Nicaraguan girl who learned that her doctor mother and father were murdered by a bunch of gangsters we called democratic contras who read in the CIA handbook that the best way to destroy the only government which was trying to give the country’s poor a better lot was to kill its teachers, health personnel, and government farm workers? Or maybe it will be a bitter Chilean who is convinced that his whole family was wiped out on order of Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who could never tell the difference between a communist and a democratic socialist or even a nationalist.

    When will we Americans learn that as long as we keep trying to run the world for the sake of the bottom line, we will suffer someone’s revenge? No war will ever stop terrorism as long as we use terror to have our way. So I stopped crying because I stopped watching TV. I went for a walk. Just four houses from mine. There, a crowd had congregated to lay flowers and lit candles in front of our local firehouse. It was closed. It had been closed since Tuesday because the firemen, a wonderful bunch of friendly guys who always greeted neighborhood folks with smiles and good cheer, had rushed so fast to save the victims of the first tower that they perished with them when it collapsed. And I cried again.

    So I said to myself when I wrote this, don’t send it; some of your students, colleagues, neighbors will hate you, maybe even harm you. But then I put on the TV again, and there was Secretary of State Powell telling me that it will be okay to go to war against these children, these poor folks, these US-haters, because we are civilized and they are not. So I decided to risk it. Maybe, reading this, one more person will ask: Why are so many people in the world ready to die to give us a taste of what we give them?

  • Have We Already Been Defeated?

    I am terror stricken. I am awakening from a nightmare in which America has been defeated, her people enslaved, her freedoms confiscated, and her citizens imprisoned within their own borders. I awaken to discover that the dream could be true.

    Beyond the pain of the already dead and dying, the unspeakable horror is that the enemy may have beaten us already. And the enemy laughs. And the enemy is insane. That we may have been conquered is an unutterable secret. Our leaders will not tell us because they do not know. They, too, are part of this giant that has suffered such ungodly pain, such unremitting horror and sorrow. As we watch, the giant rises up preparing to crush its enemies it cannot see nor fully understand. As we watch we learn that the giant, too, does not know that it may have already been beaten. No one has told us that our enemy can never be defeated, not even by the most powerful nation in the history of the world.

    The enemy, of course, is Hatred. And Power, even absolute power, cannot destroy Hatred. Power can only create Hatred. Power can wipe out thousands, millions, nations, the world, but it cannot destroy Hatred. We can kill those who have killed us but each of their dead and ours will be replaced many fold by a new, more potent strain of hatred. Hatred killed thousands in New York, and instantly created two hundred-sixty million people filled with rage and a new hatred of their own. The giant can kill their leaders and those who succor them. The giant can wipe out their villages, but Hatred will find ways to obliterate our freedoms, our institutions, to extinguish our moral beacons and at last it may even destroy our cities and our civilization. The enemy, Hatred, is instantly contagious. It destroys reason. It turns good men into killers. It infects all that it touches. It cannot be defeated except by love. But how can we love that which we hate so?

    When I say that already we may have been defeated I do not mean the body count will be in their favor. We will always win the body count. If they wipe out great buildings, we can destroy whole cities. If they wipe out a city, we can destroy a whole nation. The giant has the power. We are Power. Power can win the body count but it cannot win this war. Because the enemy is not human. This is a war against a malicious spirit.

    Only fools attempt to defeat a spirit with guns and rockets and bombs. It is like blowing up the air. It is like bombing graveyards. Destroying all that lives cannot destroy Hatred. It grows like a perpetual cancer. It breeds Hatred and infects all that it touches until nothing remains except the offspring of Hatred which is terror and pain and death. Some have said this is a war of good against evil. But Power that only begets Hatred is not good. In the end, Hatred becomes the most indomitable power of all.

    In response to our demand for just and immediate reprisals we already may be committed to a broad kind of indiscriminate killing. Already we have committed our children to kill and to be killed. And the enemy, Hatred, laughs, because it knows that killing on either side will bring on more hatred until, after decades, perhaps generations, the giant will have depleted itself, its coffers drained, its natural resources exhausted, its population drowned in fear and sorrow and hatred over the endless fields of dead. At last the giant, drained and gasping in its own poisoned air, may surely fall. There will be no victors in this war except Hatred. It can defeat all sides, all comers, all challengers, all weapons. All Power. It can defeat All.

    I have spoken here of a simple proposition, one that men of Power find difficult to understand because men of power understand only power. Many politicians have spoken to a people who have suffered, who have lost their children and loved ones and who are afraid. But they play to an enflamed and suffering people often without careful questions and with expressions of hatred instead. Reason is out. Dissent is seen as unpatriotic. To ask simple a question, like, “Why are we hated so?” cannot be asked. Justice has become confused with killing so that the more we kill in retribution, and the sooner, the more justice we are said to receive, and the safer we shall become. But such justice delivers only Hatred–theirs and ours–and leaves us more vulnerable to those who will hate us still more.

    Let us now go forward to that time when the body count is over. We can see their dead and ours lined in long rows, the parts of the bodies in terrible heaps, the mangled and limbless children, the weeping, the wounded and the wretched. The world is drowning in tears. But in this horrid conflagration we have not won, because freedom, which was once our life blood, has been drained from us as part of the price of the war.

    No longer can we trust our neighbors. No longer can we wander safely from our own borders, nor move within them without fear. Our Constitution is only a memory on faded parchment. We can not speak freely for fear we will be hated. Our civil liberties, once guaranteed under that blessed document, have given way to the exigencies of this struggle. The police have demanded that they be given more power, that they be permitted to tap our phones and search our homes without warrants. We have become prisoners with electronic tattoos. Reacting to our fear we have embraced the police who have promised to keep us safe. But we are no longer safe from them. We have been stripped of our rights and stand naked and helpless before them. Our lawyers, once warriors for the people, can no longer speak out for us. Their tools of justice, our constitutional rights, have been confiscated so that they stand impotent and whining. And the courts turn their heads. We have become locked within our self-constructed prisons on the promise that we will be safe there. But we are no longer safe from the police in this new police state–a nation still called America.

    That blessed ideal fundamental to any free nation–the rule of law–can no longer be heard through the racket of our rage. America, once founded on the rule of law, has already committed to sacrifice the rule of law for its security. The terrible need of Power to grasp more power is never satiated. Hatred also hates freedom and despises the rule of law. And once the rule of law has been forfeited, like an arm severed, like a leg amputated, like a soul stripped of its sense of humanity, it can never again be called upon to protect a free people.

    The goal of a free nation is to reveal by example the enlightened possibilities of the human race, not to wield its power of destruction and death over the helpless, the poor, the starving and the war torn masses. The goal of a free nation must be no different outside its borders than within them. In America we do not massacre whole towns because they may be the chosen domicile of a criminal or a conspiracy of criminals. Instead we carefully root out the felons and bring them to justice. In the same way, the goal of a free nation must be to first view all people as members of the human race, and, as such, to insist that they possess fundamental human rights. They are, as we, citizens of the world.

    The rule of law shows us the way. Those who have committed these atrocities and those who aided and abetted them must be positively identified and brought to justice. Despite their crimes of horror they must be surrounded with all of the rights to which any citizen of the world is entitled. If we ask the rest of the world to join us in this war, our request must not be that they join us in the madness of killing, in the eternal seeding of hatred, but that they join us in our quest for justice under the rule of law. The venue for such trials must be a special international tribunal, for the crimes were not against us alone but against the entire world, against the human race.

    If we are, indeed, to remain a free nation, the people, at last, must wield their final power over Power. We, the people, must ensure that unleashed Power, this enraged giant, does not, itself, become the most proficient, the most hideous, the most gargantuan terrorist in the history of mankind and thereby plant a crop that bears an eternal fruit of Hatred.

    We cannot be asked to love those who have wrought such pain and death on so many innocent people. Such love is beyond the capacity of the human organism. But we are able to love our system based on the rational, just, rule of law. And, we are able, through the love of it, not to further nourish Hatred, but instead to accept the greatest of challenges, and, indeed, the greatest of opportunities that have ever been tendered a free nation–to teach the world by our example, to hold Power tightly to the rein, and at last to lead the world toward a day when we shall be free from fear and terrorism by embracing, yes, cherishing the rule of law. It is the majesty of the rule of law that underlies the Constitution of the United States. With it we can lead the world to freedom. Without it we are doomed to the endless pain and destruction that an unleashed Hatred will forever wage upon us. In a sane world, we can never surrender to Hatred.

  • Who is Osama Bin Laden?

    A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that “Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects”. CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan “multiple attacks with little or no warning.” Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks “an act of war” and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would “make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”. Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at “state sponsorship,” implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, “I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution.”

    Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of “punitive actions” directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: “When we reasonably determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize them — minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage” — and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts”.

    The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic “Jihad” to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.

    Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an “international terrorist” for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war “ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders”. 1

    In 1979 “the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA” was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2

    With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.3

    The Islamic “jihad” was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:

    In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,…[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies — a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, … as well as a “ceaseless stream” of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan’s ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.4 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan’s military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

    Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.5

    Pakistan’s Intelligence Apparatus

    Pakistan’s ISI was used as a “go-between”. The CIA covert support to the “jihad” operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, –i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be “successful”, Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the “jihad”, which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.

    In the words of CIA’s Milton Beardman “We didn’t train Arabs”. Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the “Afghan Arabs” had been imparted “with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA” 6

    CIA’s Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): “neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help”. 7

    Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.

    With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a “parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government”. 8 The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. 9

    Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:

    ‘Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan’s military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia’s ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,’… During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984…. `the CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis.’ Both Pakistan and the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.10

    The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle

    The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. 11 In this regard, Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, “the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979… to 1.2 million by 1985 — a much steeper rise than in any other nation”:12

    CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests … U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.’ In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn’t really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,’… `I don’t think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout…. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.’13

    In the Wake of the Cold War

    In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the World’s opium representing multibillion dollar revenues to business syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.14

    With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99 — coinciding with the build up of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet republics– reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.15 Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes.

    The ISI’s extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic “jihad” out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.” 16

    Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving Washington’s strategic interests in the former Soviet Union.

    Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued unabated. The Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul, the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also “handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI factions…” 17

    And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

    Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that “half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI” 18

    In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through Pakistan’s ISI. 19

    In other words, backed by Pakistan’s military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.

    No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban including the blatant derogation of women’s rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of women employees from government offices and the enforcement of “the Sharia laws of punishment”.20

    The War in Chechnya

    With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress’s Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21 The summit, was attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in Chechnya “goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war”. 22

    Russia’s main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington’s perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.

    The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by Pakistan’s ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army:

    [In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.23

    Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) “Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo… through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia” 24

    Basayev’s organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia’s oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania’s collapsed pyramids, 25 Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.

    During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander “Al Khattab” who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev’s return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab’s posting to Chechnya had been “arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya”.26

    Concluding Remarks

    Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI’s “most wanted list” as the World’s foremost terrorist.

    While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America’s war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the FBI –operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has –since the Soviet-Afghan war– supported international terrorism through its covert operations.

    In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad –featured by the Bush Adminstration as “a threat to America”– is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

    In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

    Endnotes

    1. Hugh Davies, International: `Informers’ point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998. 2.See Fred Halliday, “The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996): 3. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999. 4. Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992. 5. Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995. 6. Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998. 7. Ibid. 8. Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994. 9. Ibid 10. See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford university Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in International Press Services, 22 August 1995. 11. Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997. 12. Ibid 13. Ibid. 14. Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000. 15. Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit. 16. International Press Services, 22 August 1995. 17. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22. 18.Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998) 19. Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996. 20. See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995. 21. Levon Sevunts, Who’s calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 23 The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999. 22. Ibid 23. Ibid. 24. See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000. 25. The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000. 26. BBC, 29 September 1999).

    *Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

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