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The destruction of the twin towers of
the World Trade Centre in New York in September 2001 was an atrocity,
which nothing can justify. It was a shock that reverberates to this day.
But did it really come as such a surprise to intelligent observers of
contemporary history? The United States has been throwing its weight
around internationally since the cynical Spanish-American War of 1898.
Yet the American elite show no sign of heeding the terrorists’ wake up
call. They still do not want to recognise that no-one likes anyone else’s
empire. They seem resolved to fight on as a bastion of privilege. Like
the Bourbons they learn nothing.
The fall of the
Taliban is regretted by no-one. Under their theocratic rule, Afghanistan,
brought to its knees by a generation of civil war and great power
interference, allowed its tattered sovereignty to be used as a refuge by
fundamentalist zealots to whom it was beholden. But it is disturbing that
the U.S. acted unilaterally when it could have had the authority of the
U.N., that it relied once again on impersonal savagery of aerial
bombardment, and denied as per usual as long as possible the reality of
‘collateral damage”. Doubtless the geopolitical situation of Afghanistan
in terms of the future of the oil industry in the region was also a factor
in American thinking. The world may have changed in September 2001, but
in all too many ways, it has remained the same.
Now the
administration is talking up a war with Iraq, in the absence of any
connection with the events of September 11. We are invited to consider
the regime in Bagdad reprehensible, and indeed we believe it is. But it
is no more so than Saudi Arabia, and many another U.S. ally, past and
present, Saddam Hussein included. We are enjoined to lose sleep over his
possession, actual or proximate, of “weapons of mass destruction.” But
are we really supposed to forget that the U.S. has stockpiles of
biological and chemical weapons and has refused to sign the relevant
international conventions? Should we lose no sleep over these things,
remembering that the U.S. is the only state ever to have used nuclear
weapons – twice!? Likewise we rest easy knowing that a bellicose war
criminal like Sharon has the bomb.
September 11 2001
was a wake up call to the U.S. and the world that the days of
neocolonialism are numbered. Let us shoot the messenger by all means.
Terrorism and fundamentalism are anathema. But the message will remain in
all its awful eloquence, and we ignore it to our peril. Bin Laden may be
hunted down, Saddam Hussein toppled, but others will make martyrs of them
and follow their example. Military measures alone cannot provide
solutions to political problems. This is why the failure of the U.S. to
define an adequate policy post September 11 robs its military responses of
any legitimacy. Force cannot make right a wrong-headed policy.
The U.S. must
bend its proud neck to the rule of international law and seek an
accommodation with the world. It has no future as the traditional global
guarantor of capitalism, conservatism and reaction, for as such it will
ever be the target of diffuse resentment. And it must establish its
credentials with the Muslim world by using its financial and military
leverage to force Israel to the peace table, bringing to an end the
zionisation of Palestine.
Until the U.S.
comes to its senses, we must refuse to fall in with its misguided plans
for blind revenge. Because any blood spilt in a bad cause will be
wasted. We cannot hold our breath while Washington sees reason. It is
time to dust off the peacenik slogans. Such as “Hell no, we won’t go!”
And that old Italian socialist rallying cry “Not a man, not a shilling”.
The world was
changed by September 11. The issue of war and peace now matters more than
ever. The injustices which unleashed the atrocity in New York can no
longer be evaded. It is our duty to each other and our posterity to do
everything we can to make the world’s only surviving superpower face
reality honestly. Germany and France are playing their part. So must we
in Australia. Marching on the ruins of Bagdad would only make the task
before us all the harder. It would do no earthly good at all.
We are looking
down the barrel of another Hundred Year’s War, with terrorist outrages
alternating in futile succession to chauvinistic revenge. It is ironic
that the forces in conflict are so alike, with traditionalist
fundamentalism assaulting the homeland of anti-evolutionary thought and
capitalist dogma. Once the example of unilateralism takes hold, no
regional equilibrium will be secure. There is no telling where these
reverberations will end. The laying waste of medieval France and early
modern Germany, the crimes of fascism, the devastation of Korea and
Vietnam: the memories of all these are liable to pale by comparison with
what awaits us.
We must stand up
for a pragmatic peace. The U.S. must be brought to make an historic
compromise with the socialist prospect which has always haunted its
triumphalism. Secular humanism represents the last best hope of humanity
against the threat of fundamentalism eastern and western. It is not
likely that the U.S. will come willingly to the party. But in an insane
world, sanity is always a long shot. Nonetheless it is a wager we cannot
refuse.
David Faber
2002/9/11
David Faber is
an Adelaide Historian.
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