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THE NEW CRUSADE
By Jack A. Smith
Why, aside from providing the American people with an eye-for-an-eye moment of cathartic revenge and to launch a series of unjust wars, did the Bush administration bomb and invade Afghanistan into submission?
We ask this question eight months after Sept. 11 because (1) Kabul has still not been proven to have played a role in the terror attacks, (2) no Afghani was among the attackers, and (3), the Taliban regime repeatedly offered to negotiate turning Osama bin Laden over for prosecution -- as Washington demanded as its price for not launching a war -- if the Bush administration would simply furnish proof of his involvement.
A recently-published Monthly Review Press book by Rahul Mahajan, “The New Crusade -- America’s War on Terrorism,” posits the thesis that “The most important reason for the war [in Afghanistan] is imperial credibility.” And by inference, the author suggests the most important reason for the subsequent spread of the war to other countries is to extend Washington’s imperial reach.
“One must start with the fact that the United States is an empire,” writes Mahajan. “It is not like the Roman Empire, based on direct military occupation and exaction of tribute, nor like the colonial empires of the 19th century, with their elaborate administrative apparatuses. It is, nevertheless, an empire, maintaining its economy through the control and exploitation of the resources and labor of many countries. In order to maintain and extend that control, purely economic mechanisms are insufficient; coups have been fomented and wars fought by the United States to create the current world economic system.
“But empires never rule stably. There is always the danger of revolt in the provinces. That danger is vastly multiplied if one area is seen to revolt and get away with it. In order to maintain itself, an empire must make an object lesson of any would-be breakaway state. In the case of the United States, even though economic domination is the primary reason for the empire, the need to maintain long-term stability sometimes necessitates military action that is not clearly related to economic concerns.... In order to maintain its status as the one, unilateralist, interventionist superpower, the modern empire, the U.S. government had to attack something” tangible in the aftermath of Sept. 11 for the sake of retaining credibility.
Afghanistan, though not linked to the incident, was a more convenient target than any other country because it is where bin Laden enjoyed hospitality. It was also defenseless against U.S. bombers and in the control of a fundamentalist regime considered an international pariah. Before launching a war, Bush demanded that the Taliban turn the Al Qaeda leader over, or else -- evidently not suspecting that the government would agree to do so. When it did, the U.S. rejected the request to provide some proof of bin Laden’s involvement in the attack. (Such proof is often required in extradition cases.) After this rejection, the Taliban dropped its demand for proof, offering to turn the suspect over to a neutral country for trial or even to the U.S. if Bush agreed to try the suspect under Islamic law. Bush spurned the offer and began bombing. Now that Afghanistan has been smashed at the cost of thousands of civilian lives and multi-billions in tax money, the never-apprehended Bin Laden has been downgraded from the “Evil One” to a virtual footnote.
According to Mahajan, the U.S. government “made sure that bin Laden could not be turned over through diplomatic channels, through negotiation, because that would deprive them of their primary casus belli [i.e., an event that allegedly justifies a war]. The Bush administration deliberately sought war, not peaceful resolution.” Uncle Sam has benefited mightily from the Afghan war: It has obtained a major stake in the affairs of Central Asia, permanent forward military bases throughout the region, control over the disposition of oil resources, enhanced political popularity for Bush and his right-wing agenda, an unparalleled increase in the war budget, and, above all, enhanced credibility as master of a world empire. “This war,” wrote Mahajan, “was and is about the extension and maintenance of U.S. government power, at home and abroad. Other motives are strictly secondary.”
What’s the next objective in the war on terrorism? Probably Baghdad, once the Bush administration pushes the decimated Palestinian Authority and the right-wing colonial regime of Ariel Sharon into another peace conference. This will permit Washington to concentrate on coercing some key allies to extend the “anti-terrorism” wars to the destruction of a country not even remotely connected to Sept. 11 -- Iraq -- in order to destroy the government of Saddam Hussain for thumbing its nose at the rulers of empire. And after Iraq? Take your pick. --- [“The New Crusade,” at 160 pages, is a good iinitial account of the first several months of the war on terrorism, written from an anti-imperialist point of view. For information, contact the publisher at www.monthlyreview.org.]