Empire weighs in

[Doug Henwood]

[Hitch wouldn't approve of all this root cause stuff.]

New York Times - September 1, 2002

Confronting Anti-American Grievances
By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

WASHINGTON - Nearly a year after the start of America's war on 
terrorism, that war faces the real risk of being hijacked by foreign 
governments with repressive agendas. Instead of leading a democratic 
coalition, the United States faces the risk of dangerous isolation. 
The Bush administration's definition of the challenge that America 
confronts has been cast largely in semireligious terms. The public 
has been told repeatedly that terrorism is "evil," which it 
undoubtedly is, and that "evildoers" are responsible for it, which 
doubtless they are. But beyond these justifiable condemnations, there 
is a historical void. It is as if terrorism is suspended in outer 
space as an abstract phenomenon, with ruthless terrorists acting 
under some Satanic inspiration unrelated to any specific motivation.

President Bush has wisely eschewed identifying terrorism with Islam 
as a whole and been careful to stress that Islam as such is not at 
fault. But some supporters of the administration have been less 
careful about such distinctions, arguing that Islamic culture in 
general is so hostile to the West, and especially to democracy, that 
it has created a fertile soil for terrorist hatred of America.

Missing from much of the public debate is discussion of the simple 
fact that lurking behind every terroristic act is a specific 
political antecedent. That does not justify either the perpetrator or 
his political cause. Nonetheless, the fact is that almost all 
terrorist activity originates from some political conflict and is 
sustained by it as well. That is true of the Irish Republican Army in 
Northern Ireland, the Basques in Spain, the Palestinians in the West 
Bank and Gaza, the Muslims in Kashmir and so forth.

In the case of Sept. 11, it does not require deep analysis to note - 
given the identity of the perpetrators - that the Middle East's 
political history has something to do with the hatred of Middle 
Eastern terrorists for America. The specifics of the region's 
political history need not be dissected too closely because 
terrorists presumably do not delve deeply into archival research 
before embarking on a terrorist career. Rather, it is the emotional 
context of felt, observed or historically recounted political 
grievances that shapes the fanatical pathology of terrorists and 
eventually triggers their murderous actions.

American involvement in the Middle East is clearly the main impulse 
of the hatred that has been directed at America. There is no escaping 
the fact that Arab political emotions have been shaped by the 
region's encounter with French and British colonialism, by the defeat 
of the Arab effort to prevent the existence of Israel and by the 
subsequent American support for Israel and its treatment of the 
Palestinians, as well as by the direct injection of American power 
into the region.

This last has been perceived by the more fanatical elements in the 
region as offensive to the sacred religious purity of Saudi Arabian 
custodianship of Islam's holy places and as hurtful to the welfare of 
the Iraqi people. The religious aspect adds fervor to their zeal, but 
it is worth noting that some of the Sept. 11 terrorists had 
non-religious lifestyles. Their attack on the World Trade Center had 
a definite political cast to it.

Yet there has been a remarkable reluctance in America to confront the 
more complex historical dimensions of this hatred. The inclination 
instead has been to rely on abstract assertions like terrorists "hate 
freedom" or that their religious background makes them despise 
Western culture.

To win the war on terrorism, one must therefore set two goals: first 
to destroy the terrorists and, second, to begin a political effort 
that focuses on the conditions that brought about their emergence. 
That is what the British are doing in Ulster, the Spaniards are doing 
in Basque country and the Russians are being urged to do in Chechnya. 
To do so does not imply propitiation of the terrorists, but is a 
necessary component of a strategy designed to isolate and eliminate 
the terrorist underworld.

Analogies are not the same as identity, but with that in mind one 
might consider the parallels between what the United States faces 
today in regard to Middle Eastern terrorism and the crises that 
America confronted domestically in the 1960's and 70's. At that time, 
American society was shaken by violence undertaken by groups like the 
Ku Klux Klan (often in semi-autonomous klaverns), White Citizens' 
Councils, the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army. 
Without civil-rights legislation and the concomitant changes in 
America's social views on race relations, the challenge that those 
organizations posed might have lasted much longer and become more 
menacing.

The rather narrow, almost one-dimensional definition of the terrorist 
threat favored by the Bush administration poses the special risk that 
foreign powers will also seize upon the word "terrorism" to promote 
their own agendas, as President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Prime 
Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee 
of India and President Jiang Zemin of China are doing. For each of 
them the disembodied American definition of the terrorist challenge 
has been both expedient and convenient.

When speaking to Americans, neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Sharon can 
hardly utter a sentence without the "T" word in it in order to 
transform America's struggle against terrorism into a joint struggle 
against their particular Muslim neighbors. Mr. Putin clearly sees an 
opportunity to deflect Islamic hostility away from Russia despite 
Russian crimes in Chechnya and earlier in Afghanistan. Mr. Sharon 
would welcome a deterioration in United States relations with Saudi 
Arabia and perhaps American military action against Iraq while 
gaining a free hand to suppress the Palestinians. Hindu fanatics in 
India are also quite eager to conflate Islam in general with 
terrorism in Kashmir in particular. Not to be outdone, the Chinese 
recently succeeded in persuading the Bush administration to list an 
obscure Uighur Muslim separatist group fighting in Xinjiang province 
as a terrorist organization with ties to Al Qaeda.

 For America, the potential risk is that its nonpolitically defined 
war on terrorism may thus be hijacked and diverted to other ends. The 
consequences would be dangerous. If America comes to be viewed by its 
key democratic allies in Europe and Asia as morally obtuse and 
politically naïve in failing to address terrorism in its broader and 
deeper dimensions - and if it is also seen by them as uncritically 
embracing intolerant suppression of ethnic or national aspirations - 
global support for America's policies will surely decline. America's 
ability to maintain a broadly democratic antiterrorist coalition will 
suffer gravely. The prospects of international support for an 
eventual military confrontation with Iraq will also be drastically 
diminished.

Such an isolated America is likely to face even more threats from 
vengeful terrorists who have decided to blame America for any 
outrages committed by its self-appointed allies. A victory in the war 
against terrorism can never be registered in a formal act of 
surrender. Instead, it will only be divined from the gradual waning 
of terrorist acts. Any further strikes against Americans will thus be 
a painful reminder that the war has not been won. Sadly, a main 
reason will be America's reluctance to focus on the political roots 
of the terrorist atrocity of Sept. 11.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser in the Carter administration.