9-ll, One year on
Editorial
Stabroek News
September 11, 2002
The Greek historian Thucydides remarked in the course of writing his History (one of the greatest of historical works) that the good historian was the participant. He had himself been a participant in the wars of which he wrote. On the eleventh of September, 200l, television gave new meaning to his observation. Guyanese and millions around the world participated in the tragic events enacted before their eyes, and in their own homes. We were there. What was being seen was unbelievable - the burning of Manhattan skyscrapers and tiny figures on the TV screens, human beings like ourselves, throwing themselves to certain death and persons fleeing through the stately streets of New York with terror on their faces. It was only later that the full impact of this terrorist atrocity came home, that thousands of innocent persons had died, a huge number being from foreign countries including many Guyanese (perhaps 25) who following their dream had sought jobs and the fulfilment of hopes and aspirations in New York City.
Today as one mourns and there are renewed condemnations of bin Laden's and al-Qaeda's horrifying atrocities, one must also consider the way in which the 9-ll events have transformed the world into a harder and more cruel place in which, among other things, there is rapidly narrowing survival space for small states like Guyana and sister Caricom states.
But first the effects of 9-ll on the USA itself, for that is the crucial question. The effects were psychological, military and economic. First and suddenly there was a deep sense of vulnerability which had not existed since Vietnam. It was the first attack on the US homeland since the War of l8l2. Second, a nonsense had been made of the Pentagon's high level planning and armaments. The World Today (August/Sept) points out that "The resources used by the terrorist network, estimated at less than US$l00,000 amounted to only a tiny proportion of the costs of more than $400 billion faced by the victim" (i.e. the USA). Third, economically 9-ll accelerated and deepened the recession which was already beginning to take hold - so much so that a faltering recovery now seems set to collapse into further recession. Since President Bush assumed office it is estimated that up to one month ago 2.6 million persons had lost their jobs.
The response of President George Bush was immediate and far reaching. Suddenly he who had up to then cut a bumbling figure who had scraped through an election and achieved power through the favour of like-minded members of the Supreme Court, emerged as a War Leader mobilizing the nation with Churchillian rhetoric. He called for a holy war against terrorism in which those who were not with him were against him. This became the sole principle determining US foreign policy.
At the same time Bush exploited this seemingly heaven given political opportunity to promulgate the Bush doctrine of the overarching primacy of US national interests. Condoleezza Rice, his National Security Adviser and reportedly the person closest to him, has put it as follows: "the administration would proceed from the firm ground of the national interest and not from the interest of an illusory international community."
The so-called war against terrorism is being fought with mixed results, the most visible being the disbandment of the Taliban - even though last week's events put a question mark over that.
But it is the doctrine and its implementation which will have profound destabilising consequences for international order for decades to come. According to the doctrine, America has little time for norms and rules and global commitments and will pursue its interests, as interpreted by the Bush White House, unilaterally and, if judged necessary, by preemptive strikes.
The list of casualties of US action is already long and frightening. High up on the list it includes Human Rights and Democracy. In the wake of 9-ll the Bush administration secured the enactment of an anti-terrorism law which, according to Le Monde Diplomatique, gives the government, inter alia, powers to arrest suspects, detain them almost indefinitely, deport them, hold them in solitary confinement, open their mail, tap their phones and search their homes without warrant. Military tribunals which will meet secretly and from which there will be no appeal will try foreigners. And there has been open advocacy of torture. FBI officials and "friendly" commentators have suggested that defendants could be transferred to friendly states (Israel is an obvious candidate) where torture could be used in interrogation. The CIA has been reauthorised to have a free hand even to the extent of assassination (which had been forbidden in l974). And Donald Rumsfeld has gone on record as favouring the killing of Arab prisoners.
Other countries including the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France following the US have introduced somewhat similar repressive legislation.
On the international level the US has sought in their strategic interest to rehabilitate dictatorial regimes such as Pakistan's Musharraf (who staged a coup against an elected Prime Minister) and the murderous dictator of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov. Musharraf in the name of democracy is now establishing with seeming US acquiescence an authoritarian system. Now also in the name of fighting terrorism, legitimate independence movements or voices of dissent are being violently put down in the north-west province of Chinese Xinjiang, in Chechnya, Malaysia, Egypt and elsewhere.
Far more serious in their far-reaching effects are the current attempts to demolish carefully built structures and treaties in the international system including the UN itself and its agencies. Well known are the US attempts to undermine the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change and to "torpedo" the establishment of the International Court of Justice. It has emasculated to the point of uselessness the small arms treaty (most people who suffer violent death are killed by small arms). It has repudiated the Biological Weapons Convention and virtually destroyed the UN Convention against torture. The US administration has likewise resorted to unacceptable pressure to remove chief executives of UN agencies who are unwilling to do the US bidding including the Head of the UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change and the Chemical Weapons Convention.
George Monbiot writing in the Guardian Weekly of August 15, asserted that, "Since Bush came to office, the United States government has torn up more international treaties and disregarded more United Nations conventions than the rest of the world has in 20 years."
Organised atrocities, irrespective of who perpetrates them, must always be condemned. They are not the proclivity of any one race or culture or religion. Such acts are expressions of the dark side of the human condition. President Clinton in his BBC Dimbleby lecture had reminded his audience that in the Middle Ages the Christian Crusaders burnt to death 300 Jews in a synagogue and then proceeded to murder every Muslim woman and child on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. More recently, two home grown all American terrorists killed in Oklahoma l60 innocent people.
On the other hand, international law, treaties and conventions and the promulgation of international norms and rules are expressions of the human spirit as it seeks over centuries to rise through the formulation of ideas to higher levels and to build international community. The destruction of such values cannot be condoned.
Caricom states have suffered severely and directly from the effects of September ll. Especially hard hit have been the tourism dependent states. Moreover the deepening US recession has had contracting effects on all regional economies. In the longer term, however, the destruction of international norms and rules may have even more devastating effects on the region. If one is small and weak one needs the protection of a framework of rules.
The charge against bin Laden lies not only in the killing of thousands of innocent people including 500 Muslims but in that he provided the occasion for massive incursions into global society and the international order. That too should be remembered today with sadness.