NOAM CHOMSKY ON SEPTEMBER 11

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness
that they had better pay much closer attention to what
the United States Government does in the world and how
it is perceived.

Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That is all to the good. It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of future atrocities. It may be comforting for Americans to pretend that their enemies "hate our freedoms", as President Bush stated, but it is hardly wise to ignore the real world, which conveys different lessons. The President is not the first to ask: "Why do they hate us?"

In a staff discussion 44 years ago, president Dwight
Eisenhower described "the campaign of hatred against us
(in the Arab world), not by the governments but by the
people". His National Security Council outlined the
basic argument: the US supports corrupt and oppressive
governments and is "opposing political or economic
progress" because of its interest in controlling the
oil resources of the region.

Post-September 11 surveys in the Arab world reveal that
the same reasons hold today, compounded with resentment
over specific policies. Strikingly, that is even true
of privileged, Western-oriented sectors in the region.
To cite just one recent example, in the August 1 issue
of Far Eastern Economic Review, internationally
recognised regional specialist Ahmed Rashid writes
that, in Pakistan, "there is growing anger that US
support is allowing (Musharraf's) military regime to
delay the promise of democracy".

Today, Americans do themselves few favours by choosing
to believe that "they hate us" and "hate our freedoms".
On the contrary, these are people who like Americans
and admire much about the US, including its freedoms.
What they hate is official policies that deny them the
freedoms to which they, too, aspire.

For such reasons, the post-September 11 rantings of
Osama bin Laden - for example, about US support for
corrupt and brutal regimes, or about the US "invasion"
of Saudi Arabia - have a certain resonance, even among
those who despise and fear him. From resentment, anger
and frustration, terrorist bands hope to draw support
and recruits.

We should also be aware that much of the world regards
Washington as a terrorist regime. In recent years, the
US has taken or backed actions in Colombia, Nicaragua,
Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few, that meet
official US definitions of "terrorism" - that is, when
Americans apply the term to enemies.

In the most sober establishment journal, Foreign
Affairs, Samuel Huntington wrote in 1999: "While the US
regularly denounces various countries as 'rogue
states', in the eyes of many countries it is becoming
the rogue superpower . . . the single greatest external
threat to their societies."

Such perceptions are not changed by the fact that on
September 11, for the first time, a Western country was
subjected on home soil to a horrendous terrorist attack
of a kind all too familiar to victims of Western power.
The attack goes far beyond what is sometimes called the
"retail terror" of the IRA or Red Brigade.

The September 11 terrorism elicited harsh condemnation
throughout the world and an outpouring of sympathy for
the innocent victims. But with qualifications.
An international Gallup Poll in late September found
little support for "a military attack" by the US in
Afghanistan. In Latin America, the region with the most
experience of US intervention, support ranged from 2
per cent in Mexico to 16 per cent in Panama.
The present "campaign of hatred" in the Arab world is,
of course, also fuelled by US policies towards
Israel-Palestine and Iraq. The US has provided the
crucial support for Israel's harsh military occupation,
now in its 35th year.

One way for the US to lessen Israeli-Palestinian
tension would be to stop refusing to join the
long-standing international consensus that calls for
recognition of the right of all states in the region to
live in peace and security, including a Palestinian
state in the currently occupied territories (perhaps
with minor and mutual border adjustments).
In Iraq, a decade of harsh sanctions under US pressure
has strengthened Saddam while leading to the death of
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis - perhaps more people
"than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass
destruction throughout history", military analysts John
and Karl Mueller wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1999.
Washington's present justifications to attack Iraq have
far less credibility than when President Bush No. 1 was
welcoming Saddam as an ally and a trading partner after
the Iraqi leader had committed his worst brutalities -
as in Halabja, where Iraq attacked Kurds with poison
gas in 1988. At the time, the murderer Saddam was more
dangerous than he is today.

As for a US attack against Iraq, no one, including
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, can realistically
guess the possible costs and consequences.
Radical Islamist extremists surely hope that an attack
on Iraq will kill many people and destroy much of the
country, providing recruits for terrorist actions.
They presumably also welcome the "Bush doctrine" that
proclaims the right of attack against potential
threats, which are virtually limitless. The President
has announced that: "There's no telling how many wars
it will take to secure freedom in the homeland". That's
true.

Threats are everywhere, even at home. The prescription
for endless war poses a far greater danger to Americans
than perceived enemies do, for reasons the terrorist
organisations understand very well.

Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military
intelligence, Yehoshaphat Harkabi, also a leading
Arabist, made a point that still holds true. "To offer
an honourable solution to the Palestinians, respecting
their right to self-determination - that is the
solution of the problem of terrorism," he said. "When
the swamp disappears, there will be no more
mosquitoes."

At the time, Israel enjoyed the virtual immunity from
retaliation within the occupied territories that lasted
until very recently. But Harkabi's warning was apt, and
the lesson applies more generally.

Well before September 11, it was understood that, with
modern technology, the rich and powerful would lose
their near-monopoly of the means of violence and could
expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.

If America insists on creating more swamps, there will
be more mosquitoes, with awesome capacity for
destruction.

If America devotes its resources to draining the
swamps, addressing the roots of the "campaigns of
hatred", it can not only reduce the threats it faces
but also live up to ideals that it professes and that
are not beyond reach if Americans choose to take them
seriously.

American academic Noam Chomsky is the author, most
recently, of the bestseller September 11.