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>From Rick Rozoff - Stop NATO. http://www.dawn.com/2002/09/06/op.htm#3 Dawn (Pakistan) September 6, 2002 Year of the preemptive predicament By Mahir Ali "I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return."- W.H. Auden Reflections on the first anniversary of the toppling of the Twin Towers will have reached saturation point by next week, so it makes sense to get in on the act early. Advance publicity suggests that the commemorations scheduled in New York and Washington next Wednesday will be sombre and sober. But there is room for doubt: a tendency towards kitsch is ingrained in the American psyche, and one way or another tackiness creeps into all mainstream events. The idea of George W. Bush spouting his customary inanities to an audience of world leaders - who will, most conveniently, be gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly's annual session - is a less than pleasant prospect. Had there been the remotest possibility that Bush would offer anything approximating a balanced perspective on the preceding year, one may have been more inclined to lend him an ear. Unfortunately, it may prove impossible to shut him out. Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, meanwhile, is expected to start reciting a list of September 11 casualties. The name of each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the catastrophe will be read out load. That is an unobjectionable way of remembering the victims of a profound tragedy. But will anyone ever give comparable prominence to the more that 5,000 Afghan civilians believed to have been killed in retaliatory military strikes? Does anyone even know their names? Does anyone care? September 11 is often cited as the day the outside world decided to pay America a visit. The murderous manner of the intrusion was certainly uncalled for and remains worthy of unequivocal condemnation. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the US has been visiting the world for more than a century, often with deadly, albeit usually less spectacular, results. Shock, horror, fear, mourning - these were perfectly natural responses to the enormity of passenger-laden jets ploughing into the most potent symbols of American economic and military power. The frenzied flag-waving that followed was also understandable, although somewhat less excusable. But ought not these gut reactions have given way in due course to greater introspection? It is at least conceivable that a better America - less insular, less arrogant, less ignorant - could have arisen from the ashes of the Twin Towers. What we get instead is a debate about whether the structure proposed to replace the hole in Manhattan's heart will have an equivalent amount of commercial space; in other words, will it be equally lucrative? Even more alarmingly, what we get instead is a degree of unilateralism rarely encountered since the Second World War. The concept of pre-emptive military strikes against suspected enemies would have been marginally less offensive had its primary implication been: Let's kill them before they kill us. But it isn't. It's more like: Let's neutralize anyone who might hold a grudge that could one day possibly lead to violence against US properties or personnel. There goes half the world. At least. At the domestic level, the aftermath of September 11 has involved a progressive whittling away of civil liberties. Racial profiling has become commonplace. Tolerance of dissent has decreased markedly. And academic freedom has taken at least a few body blows. To cite but one example, the Washington Post reported last month that the University of North Carolina "finds itself besieged in federal court and across the airwaves by Christian evangelists and other conservatives" because it requires all first-year students to read a text titled Approaching the Quran: Early Revelations. The book was chosen in an attempt to promote a better understanding of Islam, which clearly makes sense in the circumstances. But one TV commentator, describing Islam as "our enemy's religion", said it was a bit like teaching Mein Kampf in 1941. Come to think of it, studying Mein Kampf in 1941 wouldn't have been such a bad idea; why should it be presumed that attempting to understand the nature of the beast would in any way have undermined the struggle against Hitler? Islam, of course, falls in a somewhat different category. It is hardly synonymous with Osama the way Nazism was with the Teutonic tyrant. And it would certainly be interesting to query those Americans who are determined to reinforce their ignorance on this score about how they perceive American Muslims, including a substantial section of the African-American community. are they to be designated as "the enemy within"? Should they be confined in internment camps? This is precisely the sort of narrow-mindedness that creates the impression of an America determined to teach the world a lesson, but unwilling to learn any lessons itself. It's an infectious disorder, and its particularly rampant among the upper echelons of the Bush administration. There are few, if any, grounds for hoping that the likes of John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz will ever make a recovery - and tens of thousands of people could die as a consequence. But not all Americans have succumbed to the disease. And therein shines a ray of hope, for if the US is ever to change, the momentum for that transformation will have to be generated from within. Take Walter Mosley, the writer and activist once cited by Bill Clinton as his favourite novelist. "Most black people in America were not surprised by 11 September," he noted in a recent interview. "Like everyone else, they were shocked by the magnitude of it, and appalled by the deaths, but they weren't surprised by the hate and anger that produced it. Black Americans are very aware of the attitude of America towards people who are different, people whose beliefs are different, people of a different colour. We live with that attitude every single day. We know how hated America is." He went on: "Because of our history and our experience right here in America, as well as in Africa, we have an understanding of the rage and anger of America's so-called enemies. Black people know that most Arabs and Muslims are good people, that their beliefs are just as valid as Christian beliefs, that they have been at the receiving end of American so-called foreign policy for years. As a people of colour, we know how America treats other people of colour - with suspicion or disdain... "What I believe is that the only way to make sure that sort of atrocity does not happen again is to make sure we don't do it to anyone else... "When people say, 'Surely you don't want this to happen to America again?', my answer is, 'I don't want it to happen to anyone again'. You cannot ignore rage. It just does not go away. It only goes away when the causes of that rage are addressed. You do not have to look outside America to see how that is the case." Mosley is not alone, but the prevailing political atmosphere is designed to make them uncomfortable. As another writer, Michael Steinberg, puts it: "For critics of the war [against terror], a day at the office is rather like being a homosexual in a homophobic world - you search others for signs that it's safe to come out to them. "How did this happen? Most Americans have little knowledge of the rest of the world, an ignorance the media do little to dispel; and most would like to believe that the war on terror is the best way to ensure safety in the future. Many adhere to an almost Manichean division of the world into good guys and evildoers, a worldview which makes the most outrageous of Bushisms seem plausible." There will be no dearth of Bushisms next week. Don't expect too many mentions of Osama bin Laden, though. In fact, it'll be surprising if his name comes up at all in pronouncements by the high and mighty, never mind that his capture or decease was the primary excuse for the bombardment of Afghanistan. His whereabouts unknown, the reputed leader of Al Qaeda (actually it's not even certain whether that is the title of an organization or a generic code name; and one of the more bizarre theories about the origins of the nomenclature suggests it may be a nod to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's The Foundation) has become an embarrassment to his enemies. He may, of course, be dead, as General Musharraf keeps suggesting. But Mullah Omar, another potential prize catch, was last week reported to have been sighted in the vicinity of Kandahar. The source for this riveting piece of information was none other than our old friend Reliable Diplomatic Source, who has rarely been heard from since the fall of Najibullah. Guantanamo Bay, too, is unlikely to figure in any speeches. The US naval base in Cuba is a prison for hundreds of captives, most of them probably Taliban foot soldiers, who have been deprived of their rights under the Geneva Convention. There will certainly be no mention of the fact that if the CIA and the FBI had been more cooperative and less incompetent, it may well have been possible to unravel the 9/11 conspiracy and detain Mohammed Atta and his cohorts before they caught their flights on that fateful day. But, then, where would the Bush presidency be today without 9/11? Still struggling to overcome the stigma of its dubious legitimacy, and mired in corporate sleaze. The Bush coterie's reputation for scandalous business practices may be of greater immediate concern to Iraqis than to Americans, because the next batch of damaging revelations may be pre-empted by an assault against Baghdad. In this context, the concept of pre-emptive strikes almost begins to make sense, notwithstanding its immorality. mahirali@journalist.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk