(Editor's Note: Below we excerpt a part of a criticism of FPIF's New Agenda to Counter Terrorism made by Ed Herman and David Peterson in an October 18, 2001 commentary entitled "Who Terrorizes Whom" circulated by Znet. Their entire critique is posted at: http://www.zmag.org/whoterrorizes.htm. At FPIF we strongly believe that more public discussion is needed about an appropriate U.S. counterterrorism and foreign policy. In the interests of furthering such discussion, the FPIF/IRC's John Gershman responds to the "left accomodationism" critique.)
A good illustration of this Left accommodationism is displayed in the "New Agenda to Combat Terrorism," recently issued by the Institute for Policy Studies and Interhemispheric Resource Center in their Foreign Policy in Focus series. Nowhere in this document is it suggested that the United States is itself a terrorist state, sponsor of terrorism, or safe harbor of terrorists, although it is acknowledged that this country has supported "repressive regimes." "Repressive" is softer and less invidious than "terrorist." The report refers to the "destructive and counterproductive economic sanctions on Iraq," but doesn't suggest that this constitutes terrorism. In fact, "destructive" sounds like buildings knocked down and fails to capture the fact of a million or more human casualties. The recent publicity given the U.S.'s deliberate destruction of the Iraqi water supply also suggests something more than "destructive and counterproductive" is needed to properly describe U.S. policy toward that country. Nowhere does the IPS/IRC document mention Colombia, Turkey, or Indonesia, where the United States is currently supporting "repressive regimes."
This practice of leaning over backwards to downplay the U.S. terrorist role merges into serious misreadings of ongoing events: for example, the New Agenda claims that one effect of September 11 was that "defense policy was redefined as defending America and Americans rather than as force projection." This takes as gospel official propaganda claims, when in fact September 11 has given the proponents of force projection just the excuse they need to project force, which they are doing under the guise of antiterrorism.
Calling for "reorienting U.S. policy along the lines of respecting human rights," the New Agenda report states that "the unnecessary projection of U.S. military abroad, represented by the archipelago of overseas military bases, often serves as a physical reminder of U.S. political and military support for repressive regimes." This claim that such bases are "unnecessary" completely ignores their ongoing important role in facilitating the global expansion of U.S. business, and, amazingly, ignores the fact that the United States is right now in the process of building new ones in "repressive" states like Uzbekistan, with 7,000 political prisoners and in the midst of a low-intensity war against Islamic insurgents. Such bases are only "unnecessary" to analysts who are unable or unwilling to confront the reality of a powerful imperialism in fine working order and in a new phase of expansion. These analysts seem to believe that the United States can easily, perhaps with Left advice, be dissuaded from being an imperialist power!
- Ed Herman and David Peterson
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*** FPIF/GERSHMAN RESPONDS ***
Edward Herman and David Peterson provide an interesting analysis of the state of the antiterrorism debate. One target of their criticism is a policy agenda published by Foreign Policy in Focus, which is a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). As was noted in the statement, I was the principal author, and am responding on behalf of the FPIF.
Herman and Peterson make it clear that this is not a statement that they would write or endorse. Fair enough. The policy agenda covers a wide range of issues that Herman and Peterson did not discuss in their critique, and we welcome additional feedback, criticism, and suggestions. Readers who would like to read it themselves can do so at http://www.fpif.org/justice/tobedone.html.
Let me begin by stating where FPIF stands in agreement with Herman and Peterson. We agree that the September 11 attacks were terrorist atrocities. We agree that the U.S. has engaged in and currently engages in terrorist acts, has supported and currently supports terrorist acts by other states and movements, has harbored and currently harbors terrorists. We disagree, however, on the best approach post-September 11 to build a movement aimed at ending terrorism in all its forms.
Our reading of their criticisms are as follows, in increasing degrees of significance:
1. Poor word choice: According to Herman and Peterson, the statement uses euphemisms and other phrasing that obscure the true nature of things, such as writing "repressive regimes" instead of terrorist states, and the word "destructive" when describing the sanctions on Iraq. They also criticize the agenda's use of the word "unnecessary" in the sentence "the unnecessary projection of U.S. military abroad, represented by the archipelago of overseas military bases, often serves as a physical reminder of U.S. political and military support for repressive regimes," noting that the projection of U.S. force abroad is necessary to sustaining U.S. imperial power. We didn't realize calling a regime repressive was letting them off so lightly. Our intent was to cast our net widely, suggesting that the U.S. supports regimes that are repressive, which includes both states that are engaged in and not engaged in acts of terrorism, harboring and not harboring terrorists, etc. We find Herman and Peterson's critique with respect to the sanctions on Iraq a little puzzling, as they themselves describe the sanctions as "sanctions of mass destruction" and so destructive would seem an appropriate choice of words.
We have no disagreement with Herman and Peterson's comment that the archipelago of overseas bases and projection of force both are necessary for the extension and maintenance of U.S. imperial power. But the context in which our argument was constructed concerned the degree to which U.S. military policy enhances the security of everyday U.S. citizens. In that context, the projection of such force has been unnecessary and counterproductive.
2. Sins of omission: Herman and Peterson complain that the statement does not specifically mention Colombia, Turkey, or Indonesia as terrorist states. It is true that the policy agenda does not explicitly identify Colombia, Turkey, or Indonesia as terrorist states. It also fails to mention Guatemala, Sudan, Peru, El Salvador, Syria, Libya, Russia, North Korea, and any other number of countries that might qualify at present or in the past as terrorist states, sponsors of terrorism, or harbors of terrorists. Constructing such a list would be a useful undertaking, but sketching a history of modern terrorism and the involvement of states fell outside the task at hand, namely articulating as briefly as possible the principles on which an alternative agenda for countering terrorism might be based, as well as recommending some first steps citizens should support. (In other formats, Foreign Policy In Focus has directly addressed the relationship between U.S. policy and the terrorist and repressive acts engaged in by the governments of Colombia, Turkey, Indonesia, and in many other countries, and readers are invited to examine that work.)
3. Sins of commission: Herman and Peterson argue that the policy agenda demonstrates clear evidence of having bought into the official definition of the U.S. as an antiterrorist state and that it is only a victim of terrorism. Herman and Peterson claim that the policy agenda's statement that "defense policy was redefined as defending America and Americans rather than as force projection" takes as gospel official propaganda claims while failing to identify the U.S. as a terrorist state itself.
With respect to the issue of accepting propaganda as gospel, we believe it is a fairly uncontestable proposition that statements of defense policy, as expressed in the recent Quadrennial Defense Review and other documents have redefined defense policy in the way we described in the wake of September 11. This does not mean that we believe that current administration actions, from the bombings and war in Afghanistan, carving out new military bases in Uzbekistan, strengthening U.S. force projection capabilities and increasing the Pentagon's budget, to lifting restrictions on the CIA and attacking civil liberties at home, are actually effective at achieving greater security. Rather, the justification for such actions will now be draped in the rhetoric of homeland defense and the war on terrorism, strengthening force projection abroad and the security state at home.
It is true that the FPIF policy agenda does not state explicitly that the U.S. is a terrorist state, nor does it claim that the U.S. is an antiterrorist state. It does say that the U.S. government should act to prevent and mitigate the impact of terrorist attacks on the U.S. public. We recommend policies that would reduce the likelihood of such attacks--from improved arms control and strengthening the international human rights and legal system to addressing the root causes of terrorism and the role the U.S. has played in causing or perpetuating such conditions. Herman and Peterson apparently feel that the best way to frame a policy agenda on ending terrorism is to present evidence to support the case that "the U.S. is the world's biggest terrorist state." We remain to be convinced of the efficacy of such an effort if one wants to move beyond preaching to the choir.
This last point also arises in Herman and Peterson's conclusions, where they attack the unreflective pursuit of pragmatic efforts to engage in policy debates. Herman and Peterson's discussion does highlight strategic choices facing progressives everywhere. Unlike Herman and Peterson, however, we do not believe that imputing and impugning personal intentions behind such choices is a constructive way of debating the issues. Herman and Peterson provide two reasons to explain what they identify as the "left accommodationism" of the FPIF policy agenda and others similar to it. One is that hegemonic ideas are so strong that "even leftists are swept along with the general understanding that the United States is fighting terrorism and is only a victim of terrorism." The other is a form of pragmatism derived in part as a response to the situation that "U.S. citizens by and large are caught within the epistemic bind of not knowing that they do not know."
In essence, they argue that false consciousness--directly or indirectly--is the culprit. Reformism and pragmatism within the left occurs because many of us cannot see clearly; either because of hegemonic blinders or our lack of courage in throwing them off. Herman and Peterson conflate the issue of false consciousness with the question of how people on the left should proceed in the current context--that is, how are we to answer the question of "What is to be Done?"
We would argue that in the wake of the terrorist attacks, people in the U.S. have come to feel two things: that, for the first time, the U.S. itself is under attack and second, that we need to work with other countries to combat this type of terrorism. In the U.S. today many people feel like potential victims. Most can easily distinguish between their government and themselves; they feel the September 11 attacks were attacks on the society at large and believe that the government has the responsibility to protect them from such attacks. Starting any discussion about an appropriate policy response by labeling the U.S. as the world's main terrorist state would go nowhere--except to further isolate the left. It would not speak to the current crisis or to the public's demand for a responsible governmental response to the anthrax threat and to prevent other terrorist attacks from occurring in the short-term.
We do believe that the current situation provides an opportunity to reframe the debate over how the U.S. government best provides domestic security and whether U.S. policies have undermined our individual and national security. Is this reformism? Undoubtedly, just as many other important efforts in the past have been reformist, in the proud tradition of the anti-intervention and solidarity movements that have opposed and stopped military intervention, cut military aid, and so on. Limiting ourselves to either/or options is in keeping with the worst of traditional left politics. The challenge is to propose reformist efforts that can also assist broader transformational efforts. That is one of the goals of the policy agenda.
In a related vein, this redefined policy debate opens the question of the role that the United States plays in the world, its relationship to international institutions and international law. While we believe that U.S. citizens will be ultimately responsible for re-orienting U.S. policy, strengthening international law and legal institutions can be one component of a strategy to "rein in" the United States government's own terrorist adventures.
Herman and Peterson acknowledge in passing that reformist efforts are aimed at reducing "the likelihood of extremist responses" on the part of the Bush administration. This, it appears to me, is an entirely desirable and feasible objective, as are advancing policies that can prevent terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens and defending civil liberties and civil rights from the latest onslaught.
Herman and Peterson want to call attention to the fact that there is a cost to pragmatism, and those who pursue pragmatic strategies should fully appreciate the costs of such a strategy. We at FPIF couldn't agree more. But there should be parity in any full accounting of costs and benefits. Herman and Peterson appear to argue that there are only costs in pursuing the pragmatic approach, and not in the more pure path they embrace that they say will "provid[e] the long-run basis for systemic change." There are costs in any strategy--there is no free lunch--but accounting for the costs in Herman and Peterson's preferred strategy is difficult to determine, as it is unclear what their specific agenda is. Although Herman and Peterson acknowledge that "some" of the specific reformist proposals are meritorious (which ones exactly are left up to our intuition, apparently), they do not provide a framework that would identify which ones they think qualify, and why.
We appreciate Herman and Peterson's critique as a contribution to the broader challenges of building a movement that seeks to end terrorism in all its forms. The recurring challenge remains forging the organic links between struggles to defend previous achievements and achieve concrete policy objectives in ways that reinforce struggles for broader social transformation. We don't claim to have the answer at FPIF. If Herman and Peterson do, it would be comradely for them to share it with the rest of us.
- John Gershman
(Gershman is codirector of the Global Affairs Program at the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) and an FPIF editor. He can be contacted at <john at irc-online.org>.)