The 9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus
Dodging the Issue of Palestine-Israel; Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism
By BILL and KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
Former CIA analysts
Chapter 12 of the 9/11 Commission's report, titled "What to Do? A Global
Strategy," is the philosophical heart of the entire report. It is certainly
the most important chapter for those who believe that nothing the U.S. can
do in expanding and reorganizing its military and intelligence apparatus
will contribute anything of value to the future peace and stability of the
world. If implemented, the recommendations in this chapter will instead take
U.S. foreign policies down precisely the wrong roads -- roads that will lead
to less peace and greater instability for both the United States and the
entire globe.
Everyone had undoubtedly seen, if not read, the 567-page volume -- perhaps
half the length of the bible -- issued on July 23, and the commission seems
to hope that the book will achieve at least half the importance that is
accorded the bible by good Christians. The executive summary, a separate
document not included in the ten-dollar reprint of the report available in
bookstores nationwide, begins with two ponderous statements that, in
substantive and functional ways, set a tone of self-importance for the
commission. On September 11, the commission declares, "the United States
became a nation transformed." In almost the same breath, the commission
congratulates itself for achieving unity in these difficult times: "Ten
Commissioners -- five Republicans and five Democrats chosen by elected
leaders from our nation's capital at a time of great partisan division --
have come together to present this report without dissent."
Chapter 12, with which we are concerned here, covers nearly 40 pages. Early
in this chapter, in what may be the key passage of the report, the
commissioners emphasize that, "The enemy is not just 'terrorism,' some
generic evil. . . . It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism. . . .
[Extremist Islam] is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and
widely felt throughout the Muslim world -- against the U.S. military
presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean
exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the 'head of
the snake,' and it must be converted or destroyed."
So far so good, but exactly at this point in the report, all ten
commissioners approved the following assertion of their utter myopia. The
Islamist position described above, they say, "is not a position with which
Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground -- not
even respect for life -- on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be
destroyed or utterly isolated." The statement does pay some lip service to
the notion that "cures" to this situation must come "from within Muslim
societies themselves," but emphasizes that "this process is likely to be
measured in decades, not years." Then comes a little more lip service,
saying that, of course, "Islam is not the enemy. It is not synonymous with
terror."
But overall, the commission's categorical statements paint a bleak picture,
describing a situation that allegedly cannot improve for decades. Many of us
would argue the contrary case, that if the U.S. actually changed its foreign
policies, seriously addressed legitimate grievances of Arabs and Muslims on
the Palestine-Israel issue, and ceased its drive for political and economic
domination over their areas of the world -- the very grievances the
commission acknowledges are widespread in the Muslim world -- we could
reduce the threat of terrorism against us in far less time. In addition,
many of us believe that, unless the U.S. does change its foreign policies,
the threat, and the actuality, of a heightened level of terrorism, and
probably of nuclear warfare as well, against us and our allies will persist
far longer than just decades. Given that fewer than 300 million people now
reside in the U.S., whereas the rest of the world's population, at 6
billion, is 20 times as large, American leaders today are playing an
unwinnable hand and their drive for global domination is doomed beyond the
very short term.
Quite grandiosely, the report states in more than one place, "The present
transnational danger is Islamist terrorism." Danger to whom? If you were a
Muslim, might you instead figure that the "present transnational danger" to
you was Christian fundamentalist extremism, given some of the statements
certain fundamentalist leaders in the U.S. have recently made about Islam?
Or might you see transnational danger arising from the alliance of Christian
and Jewish fundamentalism arrayed against your world? It is not helpful to
the future of global peace and stability that a combination of Republican
and Democratic leaders in the U.S. would put out such a self-centered
report, and then praise their own achievement of unity in doing so.
U.S. self-centeredness is also on display in the recommendations of the
report. One recommendation in Chapter 12 is that the U.S. "must identify and
prioritize actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries. For each, it should
have a realistic strategy to keep possible terrorists insecure and on the
run, using all elements of national power. . . . We offer three
illustrations that are particularly applicable today, in 2004: Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia." Why was Israel not mentioned here? Is not
Israel a potential or actual sanctuary for terrorists targeting
Palestinians? Do not Israeli settlers ever commit terrorism? Do not Israeli
soldiers ever commit state terrorism?
There is yet more in Chapter 12 that demonstrates the one-sidedness of this
report. In discussing Saudi Arabia, the report says, with no qualifications,
"The Western notion of separation of civic and religious duty does not exist
in Islamic cultures." This at least needs further discussion. The statement
may be applicable to Saudi Arabia, but it is not entirely accurate with
respect to Arab states that were or are largely secular, such as Iraq and
Syria. It was and is not fully applicable either to the Palestinian
Authority, although the secular aspects of that body have certainly weakened
in recent years under the pressures of occupation.
Here is another recommendation of this one-sided commission. "The problems
in the U.S.-Saudi relationship must be confronted, openly. . . . [An effort
should be made to work toward] a shared interest in greater tolerance and
cultural respect, translating into a commitment to fight the violent
extremists who foment hatred." Should not problems in the U.S.-Israeli
relationship be confronted just as openly? If you were a Muslim, would you
not regard it as equally important to global peace and stability that the
U.S. work for tolerance and cultural respect in both America and Israel as
well, and work toward translating that into a commitment to fight extremists
who foment hatred of Islam in both nations?
One short paragraph of Chapter 12 reads this way. "In short, the United
States has to help defeat an ideology, not just a group of people, and we
must do so under difficult circumstances. How can the United States and its
friends help moderate Muslims combat the extremist ideas?" The report wastes
several hundred words trying to answer this question, but does not mention
or discuss even the possibility that the U.S. might -- just might -- pursue
policies toward Palestine fairer than those we have pursued in the past. If
it is true that the U.S. "has to help defeat" an Islamic ideology espoused
by a minority of Muslims, might not the best way be to help defeat another
ideology -- the ideology of a minority of Jews that "Judea and Samaria"
should belong entirely and exclusively to Israel? Suggesting this may be a
third rail of American politics, but that is not an argument that will
persuade many moderate Muslims whom the U.S. is allegedly seeking to
influence.
Anyone can find numerous other examples in Chapter 12, all leading to
similar conclusions. Only one more point is worth making here. The executive
summary of the commission report, which your ten dollars will not provide to
you but is all that many government leaders around the world are likely to
read, does not contain a single use of the words "Israel" or "Israeli" --
or, one will not be surprised to learn, of words like "Palestinian" or
"oppression" or "injustice." This certainly gives high-level readers
precisely the kind of picture of what's going on in the world that U.S.
leaders of both major political parties, and the leaders of the present
government of Israel, want the world to believe. It is clearly not a fair
and exact picture.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Report from a Boston Demo
Arresting the Curious
By MITCHEL COHEN
Boston, July 25, 4 pm
Half-an-hour ago, around 3:30 pm, plainclothes Secret Service pulled a
Mid-Eastern looking fellow out from the permitted demonstration as around
1,000 antiwar protesters marched past a check-point, and arrested him.
A crowd of around 25 people followed the police through an alleyway that
opened onto a large mall, where the "detained" person sat on a stairway
hands cuffed behind his back, surrounded by police.
While the crowd chanted, "This is racial profiling" and "let him go", a
lawyer for the demonstration, John Pavos, arrived, but was not afforded much
time and no privacy to talk with the arrestee. The police maintained at
first that he was not under arrest, but that if he'd allow them to take his
picture they'd run in through their computers and let him go. He allowed
them to take his picture. A few minutes later the police decided not to let
him go.
What was the crime? Police spokespeople say he was arrested for walking past
a checkpoint and looking around "a little too curiously." The fact that we
were ALL looking around curiously at the enormous fencings surrounding the
Fleet Center where the Democratic National Convention begins tomorrow did
not seem to matter to the police, who were clearly under orders from federal
officials. The person -- who to me appeared like any Graduate Student at the
New School in NY -- was detained solely because of his Middle-Eastern
appearance, male and bearded.
He was taken to a nearby police center to be questioned by the Secret
Service. A reporter for Binghamton IndyMedia recorded the whole thing on
camcorder, and will shortly be up on the web.
The demonstration itself was very vibrant and full of energy, challenging
both parties' support for the war against Iraq and decimation of the Bill of
Rights. I carried a sign -- one of many -- that said "Expose the Truth about
9-11", and was interviewed on NY 1, for any New Yorkers interested in
checking it out. I was also interviewed on Japanese television, in which I
began by saying "The Democratic Party is the Roach Motel of Politics; the
progressive people go in, and they never come out."
The press were mostly focused in their questions about the potential for
violence by the demonstrators. I told them that as a participant in Chicago
in 1968 and Seattle in 1999, and many antiwar protests in between, that it
has generally been the police and the government that initiated violence,
clubbing people, teargassing them, shooting them with electric stun guns,
and so forth. It is the government and military that are bombing the hell
out of Iraq and other countries, not the protesters, and the same people
that are committing the violence abroad are perpetrating it here at home,
while orchestrating fear and mass hysteria to put into place fascist
mechanisms.
Just also got word that they just evacuated the building at Staples due to
suspicions of some package that they found. (Nothing, of course.) All done
to perpetrate panic.
While the demonstrators stood around the police chanting "Let Him Go," a
group of Bostonians stood on top of the steps and counter-chanted: "Let's go
Red Sox."
"Go Reds, Smash State," I muttered (secretly rooting for the NY Yankees, who
are here at Fenway Park this afternoon).
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen07262004.html
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