The New War Against Terror

by Noam Chomksy

Transcribed from audio (recorded at The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT)

Everyone knows it's the TV people who run the world [crowd laugher]. I justgot orders that I'm supposed to be here, not there. Well the last talk Igave at this forum was on a light pleasant topic. It was about how humansare an endangered species and given the nature of their institutions theyare likely to destroy themselves in a fairly short time. So this time thereis a little relief and we have a pleasant topic instead, the new war onterror. Unfortunately, the world keeps coming up with things that make itmore and more horrible as we proceed.

Assume 2 Conditions for this Talk

I'm going to assume 2 conditions for this talk.

The first one is just what I assume to be recognition of fact. That is thatthe events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity probably the mostdevastating instant human toll of any crime in history, outside of war.The second assumption has to do with the goals. I'm assuming that our goalis that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of such crimes whetherthey are against us or against someone else.If you don't accept those two assumptions, then what I say will not beaddressed to you. If we do accept them, then a number of questions arise,closely related ones, which merit a good deal of thought.

The 5 Questions

One question, and by far the most important one is what is happening rightnow? Implicit in that is what can we do about it? The 2nd has to do with thevery common assumption that what happened on September 11 is a historicevent, one which will change history. I tend to agree with that. I thinkit's true. It was a historic event and the question we should be asking isexactly why? The 3rd question has to do with the title, The War AgainstTerrorism. Exactly what is it? And there is a related question, namely whatis terrorism? The 4th question which is narrower but important has to dowith the origins of the crimes of September 11th. And the 5th question thatI want to talk a little about is what policy options there are in fightingthis war against terrorism and dealing with the situations that led to it.

I'll say a few things about each. Glad to go beyond in discussion and don'thesitate to bring up other questions. These are ones that come to my mind asprominent but you may easily and plausibly have other choices.

1. What's Happening Right Now?

Starvation of 3 to 4 Million People

Well let's start with right now. I'll talk about the situation inAfghanistan. I'll just keep to uncontroversial sources like the New YorkTimes [crowd laughter]. According to the New York Times there are 7 to 8million people in Afghanistan on the verge of starvation. That was trueactually before September 11th. They were surviving on international aid. OnSeptember 16th, the Times reported, I'm quoting it, that the United Statesdemanded from Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that provide much ofthe food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population. As far asI could determine there was no reaction in the United States or for thatmatter in Europe. I was on national radio all over Europe the next day.There was no reaction in the United States or in Europe to my knowledge tothe demand to impose massive starvation on millions of people. The threat ofmilitary strikes right after September…..around that time forced the removalof international aid workers that crippled the assistance programs.Actually, I am quoting again from the New York Times. Refugees reachingPakistan after arduous journeys from AF are describing scenes of desperationand fear at home as the threat of American led military attacks turns theirlong running misery into a potential catastrophe. The country was on alifeline and we just cut the line. Quoting an evacuated aid worker, in theNew York Times Magazine.

The World Food Program, the UN program, which is the main one by far, wereable to resume after 3 weeks in early October, they began to resume at alower level, resume food shipments. They don't have international aidworkers within, so the distribution system is hampered. That was suspendedas soon as the bombing began. They then resumed but at a lower pace whileaid agencies leveled scathing condemnations of US airdrops, condemning themas propaganda tools which are probably doing more harm than good. Thathappens to be quoting the London Financial Times but it is easy to continue.After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a back pageinside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic of the UnitedNations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even a loafof bread and there are only a few weeks left before the harsh winter willmake deliveries to many areas totally impossible, continuing to quote, butwith bombs falling the delivery rate is down to ½ of what is needed. Casualcomment. Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating theslaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something likethat. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization dismissed withcontempt, once again, offers of negotiation for delivery of the allegedtarget, Osama bin Laden, and a request for some evidence to substantiate thedemand for total capitulation. It was dismissed. On the same day the SpecialRapporteur of the UN in charge of food pleaded with the United States tostop the bombing to try to save millions of victims. As far as I'm awarethat was unreported. That was Monday. Yesterday the major aid agencies OXFAMand Christian Aid and others joined in that plea. You can't find a report inthe New York Times. There was a line in the Boston Globe, hidden in a storyabout another topic, Kashmir.

Silent Genocide

Well we could easily go on….but all of that….first of all indicates to uswhat's happening. Looks like what's happening is some sort of silentgenocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, theculture that we are part of. It indicates that whatever, what will happen wedon't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on theassumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in thenext couple of weeks….very casually with no comment, no particular thoughtabout it, that's just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Notin the rest of the world. In fact not even in much of Europe. So if you readthe Irish press or the press in Scotland…that close, reactions are verydifferent. Well that's what's happening now. What's happening now is verymuch under our control. We can do a lot to affect what's happening. Andthat's roughly it.

2. Why was it a Historic Event?

National Territory Attacked

Alright let's turn to the slightly more abstract question, forgetting forthe moment that we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder 3 or 4million people, not Taliban of course, their victims. Let's go back…turn tothe question of the historic event that took place on September 11th. As Isaid, I think that's correct. It was a historic event. Not unfortunatelybecause of its scale, unpleasant to think about, but in terms of the scaleit's not that unusual. I did say it's the worst…probably the worst instanthuman toll of any crime. And that may be true. But there are terroristcrimes with effects a bit more drawn out that are more extreme,unfortunately. Nevertheless, it's a historic event because there was achange. The change was the direction in which the guns were pointed. That'snew. Radically new. So, take US history.

The last time that the national territory of the United States was underattack, or for that matter, even threatened was when the British burned downWashington in 1814. There have been many…it was common to bring up PearlHarbor but that's not a good analogy. The Japanese, what ever you thinkabout it, the Japanese bombed military bases in 2 US colonies not thenational territory; colonies which had been taken from their inhabitants innot a very pretty way. This is the national territory that's been attackedon a large scale, you can find a few fringe examples but this is unique.During these close to 200 years, we, the United States expelled or mostlyexterminated the indigenous population, that's many millions of people,conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all over the region,Caribbean and Central America, sometimes beyond, conquered Hawaii and thePhilippines, killing several hundred thousand Filipinos in the process.Since theSecond World War, it has extended its reach around the world in ways I don'thave to describe. But it was always killing someone else, the fighting wassomewhere else, it was others who were getting slaughtered. Not here. Notthe national territory.

Europe

In the case of Europe, the change is even more dramatic because its historyis even more horrendous than ours. We are an offshoot of Europe, basically.For hundreds of years, Europe has been casually slaughtering people all overthe world. That's how they conquered the world, not by handing out candy tobabies. During this period, Europe did suffer murderous wars, but that wasEuropean killers murdering one another. The main sport of Europe forhundreds of years was slaughtering one another. The only reason that it cameto an end in 1945, was….it had nothing to do with Democracy or not makingwar with each other and other fashionable notions. It had to do with thefact that everyone understood that the next time they play the game it wasgoing to be the end for the world. Because the Europeans, including us, haddeveloped such massive weapons of destruction that that game just had to beover. And it goes back hundreds of years. In the 17th century, aboutprobably 40% of the entire population of Germany was wiped out in one war.But during this whole bloody murderous period, it was Europeans slaughteringeach other, and Europeans slaughtering people elsewhere. The Congo didn'tattack Belgium, India didn't attack England, Algeria didn't attack France.It's uniform. There are again small exceptions, but pretty small in scale,certainly invisible in the scale of what Europe and us were doing to therest of the world. This is the first change. The first time that the gunshave been pointed the other way. And in my opinion that's probably why yousee such different reactions on the two sides of the Irish Sea which I havenoticed, incidentally, in many interviews on both sides, national radio onboth sides. The world looks very different depending on whether you areholding the leash or whether you are being whipped by it for hundreds ofyears, very different. So I think the shock and surprise in Europe and itsoffshoots, like here, is very understandable. It is a historic event butregrettably not in scale, in something else and a reason why the rest of theworld…most of the rest of the world looks at it quite differently. Notlacking sympathy for the victims of the atrocity or being horrified by them,that's almost uniform, but viewing it from a different perspective.Something we might want to understand.

3. What is the War Against Terrorism?

Well, let's go to the third question, ‘What is the war against terrorism?'and a side question, ‘What's terrorism?'. The war against terrorism has beendescribed in high places as a struggle against a plague, a cancer which isspread by barbarians, by “depraved opponents of civilization itself.” That'sa feeling that I share. The words I'm quoting, however, happen to be from 20years ago. Those are…that's President Reagan and his Secretary of State. TheReagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that the waragainst international terrorism would be the core of our foreignpolicy….describing it in terms of the kind I just mentioned and others. Andit was the core of our foreign policy. The Reagan administration respondedto this plague spread by depraved opponents of civilization itself bycreating an extraordinary international terrorist network, totallyunprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities all over theworld, primarily….well, partly nearby, but not only there. I won't runthrough the record, you're all educated people, so I'm sure you learnedabout it in High School. [crowd laughter]

Reagan-US War Against Nicaragua

But I'll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial, so we mightas well not argue about it, by no means the most extreme butuncontroversial. It's uncontroversial because of the judgments of thehighest international authorities the International Court of Justice, theWorld Court, and the UN Security Council. So this one is uncontroversial, atleast among people who have some minimal concern for international law,human rights, justice and other things like that. And now I'll leave you anexercise. You can estimate the size of that category by simply asking howoften this uncontroversial case has been mentioned in the commentary of thelast month. And it's a particularly relevant one, not only because it isuncontroversial, but because it does offer a precedent as to how a lawabiding state would respond to…did respond in fact to internationalterrorism, which is uncontroversial. And was even more extreme than theevents of September 11th. I'm talking about the Reagan-US war againstNicaragua which left tens of thousands of people dead, the country ruined,perhaps beyond recovery.

Nicaragua's Response

Nicaragua did respond. They didn't respond by setting off bombs inWashington. They responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting acase, they had no problem putting together evidence. The World Courtaccepted their case, ruled in their favor, condemned what theycalled the “unlawful use of force,” which is another word for internationalterrorism, by the United States, ordered the United States to terminate thecrime and to pay massive reparations. The United States, of course,dismissed the court judgment with total contempt and announced that it wouldnot accept the jurisdiction of the court henceforth. Then Nicaraguawent to the UN Security Council which considered a resolution calling on allstates to observe international law. No one was mentioned but everyoneunderstood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now stands as theonly state on record which has both been condemned by the World Court forinternational terrorism and has vetoed a Security Council resolution callingon states to observe international law. Nicaragua then went to the GeneralAssembly where there is technically no veto but a negative US vote amountsto a veto. It passed a similar resolution with only the United States,Israel, and El Salvador opposed. The following year again, this time theUnited States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2 votes opposed toobserving international law. At that point, Nicaragua couldn't do anythinglawful. It tried all the measures. They don't work in a world that is ruledby force.

This case is uncontroversial but it's by no means the most extreme. We gaina lot of insight into our own culture and society and what's happening nowby asking ‘how much we know about all this? How much we talk about it? Howmuch you learn about it in school? How much it's all over the front pages?'And this is only the beginning. The United States responded to the WorldCourt and the Security Council by immediately escalating the war veryquickly, that was a bipartisan decision incidentally. The terms of the warwere also changed. For the first time there were official ordersgiven…official orders to the terrorist army to attack what are called “softtargets,” meaning undefended civilian targets, and to keep away from theNicaraguan army. They were able to do that because the United States hadtotal control of the air over Nicaragua and the mercenary army was suppliedwith advanced communication equipment, it wasn't a guerilla army in thenormal sense and could get instructions about the disposition of theNicaraguan army forces so they could attack agricultural collectives, healthclinics, and so on…soft targets with impunity. Those were the officialorders.

What was the Reaction Here?

What was the reaction? It was known. There was a reaction to it. The policywas regarded as sensible by left liberal opinion. So Michael Kinsley whorepresents the left in mainstream discussion, wrote an article in which hesaid that we shouldn't be too quick to criticize this policy as Human RightsWatch had just done. He said a “sensible policy” must “meet the test of costbenefit analysis” -- that is, I'm quoting now, that is the analysis of “theamount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood thatdemocracy will emerge at the other end.” Democracy as the US understands theterm, which is graphically illustrated in the surrounding countries. Noticethat it is axiomatic that the United States, US elites, have the right toconduct the analysis and to pursue the project if it passes their tests. Andit did pass their tests. It worked. When Nicaragua finally succumbed tosuperpower assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded the success ofthe methods that were adopted and described them accurately. So I'll quoteTime Magazine just to pick one. They lauded the success of the methodsadopted: “to wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy waruntil the exhausted natives overthrow the unwanted government themselves,”with a cost to us that is “minimal,” and leaving the victims “with wreckedbridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined farms,” and thus providing theUS candidate with a “winning issue”: “ending the impoverishment of thepeople of Nicaragua.” The New York Times had a headline saying “AmericansUnited in Joy” at this outcome.

Terrorism Works – Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak

That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts. One isthe fact that terrorism works. It doesn't fail. It works. Violence usuallyworks. That's world history. Secondly, it's a very serious analytic error tosay, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Likeother means of violence, it's primarily a weapon of the strong,overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because thestrong also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn't count asterror. Now that's close to universal. I can't think of a historicalexception, even the worst mass murderers view the world that way. So pickthe Nazis. They weren't carrying out terror in occupied Europe. They wereprotecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans. Andlike other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The Nazis werecarrying out counter terror. Furthermore, the United States essentiallyagreed with that. After the war, the US army did extensive studies of Nazicounter terror operations in Europe. First I should say that the US pickedthem up and began carrying them out itself, often against the same targets,the former resistance. But the military also studied the Nazi methodspublished interesting studies, sometimes critical of them because they wereinefficiently carried out, so a critical analysis, you didn't do this right,you did that right, but those methods with the advice of Wermacht officerswho were brought over here became the manuals of counter insurgency, ofcounter terror, of low intensity conflict, as it is called, and are themanuals, and are the procedures that are being used. So it's not just thatthe Nazis did it. It's that it was regarded as the right thing to do by theleaders of western civilization, that is us, who then proceeded to do itthemselves. Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is the weapon ofthose who are against ‘us' whoever ‘us' happens to be. And if you can find ahistorical exception to that, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Nature of our Culture – How We Regard Terrorism

Well, an interesting indication of the nature of our culture, our highculture, is the way in which all of this is regarded. One way it's regardedis just suppressing it. So almost nobody has ever heard of it. And the powerof American propaganda and doctrine is so strong that even among the victimsit's barely known. I mean, when you talk about this to people in Argentina,you have to remind them. Oh, yeah, that happened, we forgot about it. It'sdeeply suppressed. The sheer consequences of the monopoly of violence can bevery powerful in ideological and other terms.

The Idea that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself

Well, one illuminating aspect of our own attitude toward terrorism is thereaction to the idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself.Actually I went through this in some detail with database searches and thatsort of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itselfwas considered outrageous. There is virtually nothing in mainstreamcommentary indicating that Nicaragua might have that right. And that factwas exploited by the Reagan administration and its propaganda in aninteresting way. Those of you who were around in that time will rememberthat they periodically floated rumors that the Nicaraguans were getting MIGjets, jets from Russia. At that point the hawks and the doves split. Thehawks said, ‘ok, let's bomb ‘em.' The doves said, `wait a minute, let's seeif the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then let's bomb them.Because they are a threat to the United States.' Why, incidentally were theygetting MIGs? Well they tried to get jet planes from European countries butthe United States put pressure on its allies so that it wouldn't send themmeans of defense because they wanted them to turn to the Russians. That'sgood for propaganda purposes. Then they become a threat to us. Remember,they were just 2 days march from Harlingen, Texas. We actually declared anational emergency in 1985 to protect the country from the threat ofNicaragua. And it stayed in force. So it was much better for them to getarms from the Russians. Why would they want jet planes? Well, for thereasons I already mentioned. The United States had total control over theirairspace, and was using that to provide instructions to theterrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without running intothe army that might defend them. Everyone knew that that was the reason.They are not going to use their jet planes for anything else. But the ideathat Nicaragua should be permitted to defend its airspace against asuperpower attack that is directing terrorist forces to attack undefendedcivilian targets, that was considered in the United States as outrageous anduniformly so. Exceptions are so slight, you know I can practically listthem. I don't suggest that you take my word for this. Have a look. Thatincludes our own senators, incidentally.

Honduras – The Appointment of John Negroponte as Ambassador to the UnitedNations

Another illustration of how we regard terrorism is happening right now. TheUS has just appointed an ambassador to the United Nations to lead the waragainst terrorism a couple weeks ago. Who is he? Well, his name is JohnNegroponte. He was the US ambassador in the fiefdom, which is what it is, ofHonduras in the early 1980's. There was a little fuss made about the factthat he must have been aware, as he certainly was, of the large-scalemurders and other atrocities that were being carried out by the securityforces in Honduras that we were supporting. But that's a small part of it.As proconsul of Honduras, as he was called there, he was the localsupervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for which his governmentwas condemned by the world court and then the Security Council in a vetoedresolution. And he was just appointed as the UN Ambassador to lead the waragainst terror. Another small experiment you can do is check and see whatthe reaction was to this. Well, I will tell you what you are going to find,but find it for yourself. Now that tells us a lot about the war againstterrorism and a lot about ourselves.

After the United States took over the country again under the conditionsthat were so graphically described by the press, the country was pretty muchdestroyed in the 1980's, but it has totally collapsed since in every respectjust about. Economically it has declined sharply since the US take over,democratically and in every other respect. It's now the second poorestcountry in the Hemisphere. I should say….I'm not going to talk about it, butI mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua because it is an uncontroversialcase. If you look at the other states in the region, the state terror wasfar more extreme and it again traces back to Washington and that's by nomeans all.

US & UK Backed South African Attacks

It was happening elsewhere in the world too, take say Africa. During theReagan years alone, South African attacks, backed by the United States andBritain, US/UK-backed South African attacks against the neighboringcountries killed about a million and a half people and left 60 billiondollars in damage and countries destroyed. And if we go around the world,we can add more examples.

Now that was the first war against terror of which I've given a smallsample. Are we supposed to pay attention to that? Or kind of think that thatmight be relevant? After all it's not exactly ancient history. Well,evidently not as you can tell by looking at the current discussion of thewar on terror which has been the leading topic for the last month.

Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua

I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become the 2nd poorest country in thehemisphere. What's the poorest country? Well that's of course Haiti whichalso happens to be the victim of most US intervention in the 20th century bya long shot. We left it totally devastated. It's the poorest country.Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US intervention in the 20th century.It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with Guatemala. Theyinterchange every year or two as to who's the second poorest. And they alsovie as to who is the leading target of US military intervention. We'resupposed to think that all of this is some sort of accident. That is hasnothing to do with anything that happened in history. Maybe.

Colombia and Turkey

The worst human rights violator in the 1990's is Colombia, by a long shot.It's also, by far, the leading recipient of US military aid in the1990's maintaining the terror and human rights violations. In 1999, Colombiareplaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms worldwide, that isexcluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate category. And that tells usa lot more about the war on terror right now, in fact.

Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow of US arms? Well if you take a lookat the flow of US arms to Turkey, Turkey always got a lot of US arms. It'sstrategically placed, a member of NATO, and so on. But the arms flow toTurkey went up very sharply in 1984. It didn't have anything to do with thecold war. I mean Russian was collapsing. And it stayed high from 1984 to1999 when it reduced and it was replaced in the lead by Colombia. Whathappened from 1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984, [Turkey] launched a majorterrorist war against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. And that's when US aidwent up, military aid. And this was not pistols. This was jet planes, tanks,military training, and so on. And it stayed high as the atrocities escalatedthrough the 1990's. Aid followed it. The peak year was 1997. In 1997, USmilitary aid to Turkey was more than in the entire period 1950 to 1983, thatis the cold war period, which is an indication of how much the cold war hasaffected policy. And the results were awesome. This led to 2-3 millionrefugees. Some of the worst ethnic cleansing of the late 1990's. Tens ofthousands of people killed, 3500 towns and villages destroyed, way more thanKosovo, even under NATO bombs. And the United States was providing 80% ofthe arms, increasing as the atrocities increased, peaking in 1997. Itdeclined in 1999 because, once again, terror worked as it usually does whencarried out by its major agents, mainly the powerful. So by 1999, Turkishterror, called of course counter-terror, but as I said, that's universal, itworked. Therefore Turkey was replaced by Colombia which had not yetsucceeded in its terrorist war. And therefore had to move into first placeas recipient of US arms.

Self Congratulation on the Part of Western Intellectuals

Well, what makes this all particularly striking is that all of this wastaking place right in the midst of a huge flood of self-congratulation onthe part of Western intellectuals which probably has no counterpart inhistory. I mean you all remember it. It was just a couple years ago. Massiveself-adulation about how for the first time in history we are somagnificent; that we are standing up for principles and values; dedicated toending inhumanity everywhere in the new era of this-and-that, andso-on-and-so-forth. And we certainly can't tolerate atrocities right nearthe borders of NATO. That was repeated over and over. Only within theborders of NATO where we can not only can tolerate much worse atrocities butcontribute to them. Another insight into Western civilization and our own,is how often was this brought up? Try to look. I won't repeat it. But it'sinstructive. It's a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system to carrythis off in a free society. It's pretty amazing. I don't think you could dothis in a totalitarian state.

Turkey is Very Grateful

And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Ecevitannounced that Turkey would join the coalition against terror, veryenthusiastically, even more so than others. In fact, he said they wouldcontribute troops which others have not willing to do. And he explained why.He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because the UnitedStates was the only country that was willing to contribute so massively toour own, in his words “counter-terrorist” war, that is to our own massiveethnic cleansing and atrocities and terror. Other countries helped a little,but they stayed back. The United States, on the other hand, contributedenthusiastically and decisively and was able to do so because of thesilence, servility might be the right word, of the educated classes whocould easily find out about it. It's a free country after all. You can readhuman rights reports. You can read all sorts of stuff. But we chose tocontribute to the atrocities and Turkey is very happy, they owe us a debt ofgratitude for that and therefore will contribute troops just as during thewar in Serbia. Turkey was very much praised for using its F-16's which wesupplied it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had been doing with the same planesagainst its own population up until the time when it finally succeeded incrushing internal terror as they called it. And as usual, as always,resistance does include terror. Its true of the American Revolution. That'strue of every case I know. Just as its true that those who have a monopolyof violence talk about themselves as carrying out counter terror.

The Coalition – Including Algeria, Russia, China, Indonesia

Now that's pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition that isnow being organized to fight the war against terror. And it's veryinteresting to see how that coalition is being described. So have a look atthis morning's Christian Science Monitor. That's a good newspaper. One ofthe best international newspapers, with real coverage of the world. The leadstory, the front-page story, is about how the United States, you know peopleused to dislike the United States but now they are beginning to respect it,and they are very happy about the way that the US is leading the war againstterror. And the prime example, well in fact the only serious example, theothers are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out that Algeria is very enthusiasticabout the US war against terror. The person who wrote the article is anexpert on Africa. He must know that Algeria is one of the most viciousterrorist states in the world and has been carrying out horrendous terroragainst its own population in the past couple of years, in fact. For awhile, this was under wraps. But it was finally exposed in France bydefectors from the Algerian army. It's all over the place there and inEngland and so on. But here, we're very proud because one of the worstterrorist states in the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US waron terror and in fact is cheering on the United States to lead the war. Thatshows how popular we are getting.

And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror ittells you a lot more. A leading member of the coalition is Russia which isdelighted to have the United States support its murderous terrorist war inChechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it in the background. China isjoining enthusiastically. It's delighted to have support for the atrocitiesit's carrying out in western China against, what it called, Muslimsecessionists. Turkey, as I mentioned, is very happy with the war againstterror. They are experts. Algeria, Indonesia delighted to have even more USsupport for atrocities it is carrying out in Ache and elsewhere. Now we canrun through the list, the list of the states that have joined the coalitionagainst terror is quite impressive. They have a characteristic in common.They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world. And theyhappen to be led by the world champion.

What is Terrorism?

Well that brings us back to the question, what is terrorism? I have beenassuming we understand it. Well, what is it? Well, there happen to be someeasy answers to this. There is an official definition. You can find it inthe US code or in US army manuals. A brief statement of it taken from a USarmy manual, is fair enough, is that terror is the calculated use ofviolence or the threat of violence to attain political or religiousideological goals through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. That'sterrorism. That's a fair enough definition. I think it is reasonable toaccept that. The problem is that it can't be accepted because if you acceptthat, all the wrong consequences follow. For example, all the consequences Ihave just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort right now at the UN totry to develop a comprehensive treaty on terrorism. When Kofi Annan got theNobel prize the other day, you will notice he was reported as saying that weshould stop wasting time on this and really get down to it.

But there's a problem. If you use the official definition of terrorism inthe comprehensive treaty you are going to get completely the wrong results.So that can't be done. In fact, it is even worse than that. If you take alook at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is official US policyyou find that it is a very close paraphrase of what I just read. In fact,Low Intensity Conflict is just another name for terrorism. That's why allcountries, as far as I know, call whatever horrendous acts they are carryingout, counter terrorism. We happen to call it Counter Insurgency or LowIntensity Conflict. So that's a serious problem. You can't use the actualdefinitions. You've got to carefully find a definition that doesn't have allthe wrong consequences.

Why did the United States and Israel Vote Against a Major ResolutionCondemning Terrorism?

There are some other problems. Some of them came up in December 1987, at thepeak of the first war on terrorism, that's when the furor over the plaguewas peaking. The United Nations General Assembly passed a very strongresolution against terrorism, condemning the plague in the strongest terms,calling on every state to fight against it in every possible way. It passedunanimously. One country, Honduras abstained. Two votes against; the usualtwo, United States and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel voteagainst a major resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, infact pretty much the terms that the Reagan administration was using? Well,there is a reason. There is one paragraph in that long resolution which saysthat nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights of people strugglingagainst racist and colonialist regimes or foreign military occupation tocontinue with their resistance with the assistance of others, other states,states outside in their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel can'taccept that. The main reason that they couldn't at the time was because ofSouth Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially called an ally. There wasa terrorist force in South Africa. It was called the African NationalCongress. They were a terrorist force officially. South Africa in contrastwas an ally and we certainly couldn't support actions by a terrorist groupstruggling against a racist regime. That would be impossible.

And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied territories,now going into its 35th year. Supported primarily by the United States inblocking a diplomatic settlement for 30 years now, still is. And you can'thave that. There is another one at the time. Israel was occupying SouthernLebanon and was being combated by what the US calls a terrorist force,Hizbullah, which in fact succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon. And wecan't allow anyone to struggle against a military occupation when it is onethat we support so therefore the US and Israel had to vote against the majorUN resolution on terrorism. And I mentioned before that a US vote against…isessentially a veto. Which is only half the story. It also vetoes it fromhistory. So none of this was ever reported and none of it appeared in theannals of terrorism. If you look at the scholarly work on terrorism and soon, nothing that I just mentioned appears. The reason is that it has got thewrong people holding the guns. You have to carefully hone the definitionsand the scholarship and so on so that you come out with the rightconclusions; otherwise it is not respectable scholarship and honorablejournalism. Well, these are some of problems that are hampering the effortto develop a comprehensive treaty against terrorism. Maybe we should have anacademic conference or something to try to see if we can figure out a way ofdefining terrorism so that it comes out with just the right answers, not thewrong answers. That won't be easy.

4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?

Well, let's drop that and turn to the 4th question, What are the origins ofthe September 11 crimes? Here we have to make a distinction between 2categories which shouldn't be run together. One is the actual agents of thecrime, the other is kind of a reservoir of at least sympathy, sometimessupport that they appeal to even among people who very much oppose thecriminals and the actions. And those are 2 different things.

Category 1: The Likely Perpetrators

Well, with regard to the perpetrators, in a certain sense we are not reallyclear. The United States either is unable or unwilling to provide anyevidence, any meaningful evidence. There was a sort of a play a week or twoago when Tony Blair was set up to try to present it. I don't exactly knowwhat the purpose of this was. Maybe so that the US could look as though it'sholding back on some secret evidence that it can't reveal or that Tony Blaircould strike proper Churchillian poses or something or other. Whatever thePR [public relations] reasons were, he gave a presentation which was inserious circles considered so absurd that it was barely even mentioned. Sothe Wall Street Journal, for example, one of the more serious papers had asmall story on page 12, I think, in which they pointed out that there wasnot much evidence and then they quoted some high US official as saying thatit didn't matter whether there was any evidence because they were going todo it anyway. So why bother with the evidence? The more ideological press,like the New York Times and others, they had big front-page headlines. Butthe Wall Street Journal reaction was reasonable and if you look at theso-called evidence you can see why. But let's assume that it's true. It isastonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of thought you could dobetter than that without any intelligence service [audience laughter]. Infact, remember this was after weeks of the most intensive investigation inhistory of all the intelligence services of the western world workingovertime trying to put something together. And it was a prima facie, it wasa very strong case even before you had anything. And it ended up about whereit started, with a prima facie case. So let's assume that it is true. Solet's assume that, it looked obvious the first day, still does, that theactual perpetrators come from the radical Islamic, here called,fundamentalist networks of which the bin Laden network is undoubtedly asignificant part. Whether they were involved or not nobody knows. It doesn'treally matter much.

Where did they come from?

That's the background, those networks. Well, where do they come from? Weknow all about that. Nobody knows about that better than the CIA because ithelped organize them and it nurtured them for a long time. They were broughttogether in the 1980's actually by the CIA and its associates elsewhere:Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China was involved, they mayhave been involved a little bit earlier, maybe by 1978. The idea was to tryto harass the Russians, the common enemy. According to President Carter'sNational Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid1979. Do you remember, just to put the dates right, that Russia invadedAfghanistan in December 1979. Ok. According to Brzezinski, the US supportfor the mujahedin fighting against the government began 6 months earlier. Heis very proud of that. He says we drew the Russians into, in his words, anAfghan trap, by supporting the mujahedin, getting them to invade, gettingthem into the trap. Now then we could develop this terrific mercenary army.Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the best killersthey could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics from around NorthAfrica, Saudi Arabia….anywhere they could find them. They were often calledthe Afghanis but many of them, like bin Laden, were not Afghans. They werebrought by the CIA and its friends from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski istelling the truth or not, I don't know. He may have been bragging, he isapparently very proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally. Butmaybe it's true. We'll know someday if the documents are ever released.Anyway, that's his perception. By January 1980 it is not even in doubt thatthe US was organizing the Afghanis and this massive military force to try tocause the Russians maximal trouble. It was a legitimate thing for theAfghans to fight the Russian invasion. But the US intervention was nothelping the Afghans. In fact, it helped destroy the country and much more.The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the Russians towithdrew, finally. Although many analysts believe that it probably delayedtheir withdrawal because they were trying to get out of it. Anyway,whatever, they did withdraw.

Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that the CIA was organizing, arming, andtraining were pursuing their own agenda, right away. It was no secret. Oneof the first acts was in 1981 when they assassinated the President of Egypt,who was one of the most enthusiastic of their creators. In 1983, one suicidebomber, who may or may not have been connected, it's pretty shadowy, nobodyknows. But one suicide bomber drove the US army-military out of Lebanon.And it continued. They have their own agenda. The US was happy to mobilizethem to fight its cause but meanwhile they are doing their own thing. Theywere clear very about it. After 1989, when the Russians had withdrawn, theysimply turned elsewhere. Since then they have been fighting in Chechnya,Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir, South East Asia, North Africa, all over theplace.

The Are Telling Us What They Think

They are telling us just what they think. The United States wants to silencethe one free television channel in the Arab world because it's broadcastinga whole range of things from Powell over to Osama bin Laden. So the US isnow joining the repressive regimes of the Arab world that try to shut it up.But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin Laden says, it's worthit. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of interviews byleading Western reporters, if you don't want to listen to his own voice,Robert Fisk and others. And what he has been saying is pretty consistent fora long time. He's not the only one but maybe he is the most eloquent. It'snot only consistent over a long time, it is consistent with their actions.So there is every reason to take it seriously. Their prime enemy is whatthey call the corrupt and oppressive authoritarian brutal regimes of theArab world and when the say that they get quite a resonance in the region.They also want to defend and they want to replace them by properly Islamistgovernments. That's where they lose the people of the region. But up tillthen, they are with them. From their point of view, even Saudi Arabia, themost extreme fundamentalist state in the world, I suppose, short of theTaliban, which is an offshoot, even that's not Islamist enough for them. Ok,at that point, they get very little support, but up until that point theyget plenty of support. Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere. They hatethe Russians like poison, but as soon as the Russians pulled out ofAfghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist acts in Russia as they hadbeen doing with CIA backing before that within Russia, not just inAfghanistan. They did move over to Chechnya. But there they are defendingMuslims against a Russian invasion. Same with all the other places Imentioned. From their point of view, they are defending the Muslims againstthe infidels. And they are very clear about it and that is what they havebeen doing.

Why did they turn against the United States?

Now why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to do withwhat they call the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, the US establishedpermanent military bases in Saudi Arabia which from their point of view iscomparable to a Russian invasion of Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia isway more important. That's the home of the holiest sites of Islam. And thatis when their activities turned against the Unites States. If you recall, in1993 they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way, butnot the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were to blow upthe UN building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the FBI building. I thinkthere were others on the list. Well, they sort of got part way, but not allthe way. One person who is jailed for that, finally, among the people whowere jailed, was a Egyptian cleric who had been brought into the UnitedStates over the objections of the Immigration Service, thanks to theintervention of the CIA which wanted to help out their friend. A coupleyears later he was blowing up the World Trade Center. And this has beengoing on all over. I'm not going to run through the list but it's, if youwant to understand it, it's consistent. It's a consistent picture. It'sdescribed in words. It's revealed in practice for 20 years. There is noreason not to take it seriously. That's the first category, the likelyperpetrators.

Category 2: What about the reservoir of support?

What about the reservoir of support? Well, it's not hard to find out whatthat is. One of the good things that has happened since September 11 is thatsome of the press and some of the discussion has begun to open up to some ofthese things. The best one to my knowledge is the Wall Street Journal whichright away began to run, within a couple of days, serious reports, searchingserious reports, on the reasons why the people of the region, even thoughthey hate bin Laden and despise everything he is doing, nevertheless supporthim in many ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam, as onesaid. Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not surveying publicopinion. They are surveying the opinion of their friends: bankers,professionals, international lawyers, businessmen tied to the United States,people who they interview in McDonalds restaurant, which is an elegantrestaurant there, wearing fancy American clothes. That's the people they areinterviewing because they want to find out what their attitudes are. Andtheir attitudes are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonantwith the message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the UnitedStates because of its support of authoritarian and brutal regimes; itsintervention to block any move towards democracy; its intervention to stopeconomic development; its policies of devastating the civilian societies ofIraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein; and they remember, even if weprefer not to, that the United States and Britain supported Saddam Husseinright through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, binLaden brings that up constantly, and they know it even if we don't want to.And of course their support for the Israeli military occupation which isharsh and brutal. It is now in its 35th year. The US has been providing theoverwhelming economic, military, and diplomatic support for it, and stilldoes. And they know that and they don't like it. Especially when that ispaired with US policy towards Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian society whichis getting destroyed. Ok, those are the reasons roughly. And when bin Ladengives those reasons, people recognize it and support it.

Now that's not the way people here like to think about it, at least educatedliberal opinion. They like the following line which has been all over thepress, mostly from left liberals, incidentally. I have not done a real studybut I think right wing opinion has generally been more honest. But if youlook at say at the New York Times at the first op-ed they ran by RonaldSteel, serious left liberal intellectual. He asks Why do they hate us? Thisis the same day, I think, that the Wall Street Journal was running thesurvey on why they hate us. So he says “They hate us because we champion anew world order of capitalism, individualism, secularism, and democracy thatshould be the norm everywhere.” That's why they hate us. The same day theWall Street Journal is surveying the opinions of bankers, professionals,international lawyers and saying `look, we hate you because you are blockingdemocracy, you are preventing economic development, you are supportingbrutal regimes, terrorist regimes and you are doing these horrible things inthe region.' A couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left,explained that the terrorist seek only “apocalyptic nihilism,” nothing moreand nothing we do matters. The only consequence of our actions, he says,that could be harmful is that it makes it harder for Arabs to join in thecoalition's anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that, everything we do isirrelevant.

Well, you know, that's got the advantage of being sort of comforting. Itmakes you feel good about yourself, and how wonderful you are. It enables usto evade the consequences of our actions. It has a couple of defects. One isit is at total variance with everything we know. And another defect is thatit is a perfect way to ensure that you escalate the cycle of violence. Ifyou want to live with your head buried in the sand and pretend they hate usbecause they're opposed to globalization, that's why they killed Sadat 20years ago, and fought the Russians, tried to blow up the World Trade Centerin 1993. And these are all people who are in the midst of … corporateglobalization but if you want to believe that, yeh…comforting. And it is agreat way to make sure that violence escalates. That's tribal violence. Youdid something to me, I'll do something worse to you. I don't care what thereasons are. We just keep going that way. And that's a way to do it. Prettymuch straight, left-liberal opinion.

5. What are the Policy Options?

What are the policy options? Well, there are a number. A narrow policyoption from the beginning was to follow the advice of really far outradicals like the Pope [audience laughter]. The Vatican immediately saidlook it's a horrible terrorist crime. In the case of crime, you try to findthe perpetrators, you bring them to justice, you try them. You don't killinnocent civilians. Like if somebody robs my house and I think the guy whodid it is probably in the neighborhood across the street, I don't go outwith an assault rifle and kill everyone in that neighborhood. That's not theway you deal with crime, whether it's a small crime like this one or reallymassive one like the US terrorist war against Nicaragua, even worse ones andothers in between. And there are plenty of precedents for that. In fact, Imentioned a precedent, Nicaragua, a lawful, a law abiding state, that's whypresumably we had to destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now ofcourse, it didn't get anywhere because it was running up against a powerthat wouldn't allow lawful procedures to be followed. But if the UnitedStates tried to pursue them, nobody would stop them. In fact, everyone wouldapplaud. And there are plenty of other precedents.IRA Bombs in LondonWhen the IRA set off bombs in London, which is pretty serious business,Britain could have, apart from the fact that it was unfeasible, let's putthat aside, one possible response would have been to destroy Boston which isthe source of most of the financing. And of course to wipe out West Belfast.Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would have beencriminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much what they did. Youknow, find the perpetrators; bring them to trial; and look for the reasons.Because these things don't come out of nowhere. They come from something.Whether it is a crime in the streets or a monstrous terrorist crime oranything else. There's reasons. And usually if you look at the reasons, someof them are legitimate and ought to be addressed, independently of thecrime, they ought to be addressed because they are legitimate. And that'sthe way to deal with it. There are many such examples.

But there are problems with that. One problem is that the United States doesnot recognize the jurisdiction of international institutions. So it can't goto them. It has rejected the jurisdiction of the World Court. It has refusedto ratify the International Criminal Court. It is powerful enough to set upa new court if it wants so that wouldn't stop anything. But there is aproblem with any kind of a court, mainly you need evidence. You go to anykind of court, you need some kind of evidence. Not Tony Blair talking aboutit on television. And that's very hard. It may be impossible to find.

Leaderless Resistance

You know, it could be that the people who did it, killed themselves. Nobodyknows this better than the CIA. These are decentralized, nonhierarchicnetworks. They follow a principle that is called Leaderless Resistance.That's the principle that has been developed by the Christian Rightterrorists in the United States. It's called Leaderless Resistance. You havesmall groups that do things. They don't talk to anybody else. There is akind of general background of assumptions and then you do it. Actuallypeople in the anti war movement are very familiar with it. We used to callit affinity groups. If you assume correctly that whatever group you are inis being penetrated by the FBI, when something serious is happening, youdon't do it in a meeting. You do it with some people you know and trust, anaffinity group and then it doesn't get penetrated. That's one of the reasonswhy the FBI has never been able to figure out what's going on in any of thepopular movements. And other intelligence agencies are the same. They can't.That's leaderless resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized networksare extremely hard to penetrate. And it's quite possible that they justdon't know. When Osama bin Laden claims he wasn't involved, that's entirelypossible. In fact, it's pretty hard to imagine how a guy in a cave inAfghanistan, who doesn't even have a radio or a telephone could have planneda highly sophisticated operation like that. Chances are it's part of thebackground. You know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups.Which means it's going to be extremely difficult to find evidence.

Establishing Credibility

And the US doesn't want to present evidence because it wants to be able todo it, to act without evidence. That's a crucial part of the reaction. Youwill notice that the US did not ask for Security Council authorization whichthey probably could have gotten this time, not for pretty reasons, butbecause the other permanent members of the Security Council are alsoterrorist states. They are happy to join a coalition against what they callterror, namely in support of their own terror. Like Russia wasn't going toveto, they love it. So the US probably could have gotten Security Councilauthorization but it didn't want it. And it didn't want it because itfollows a long-standing principle which is not George Bush, it was explicitin the Clinton administration, articulated and goes back much further andthat is that we have the right to act unilaterally. We don't wantinternational authorization because we act unilaterally and therefore wedon't want it. We don't care about evidence. We don't care aboutnegotiation. We don't care about treaties. We are the strongest guy around;the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want. Authorization is a badthing and therefore must be avoided. There is even a name for it in thetechnical literature. It's called establishing credibility. You have toestablish credibility. That's an important factor in many policies. It wasthe official reason given for the war in the Balkans and the most plausiblereason.

You want to know what credibility means, ask your favorite Mafia Don. He'llexplain to you what credibility means. And it's the same in internationalaffairs, except it's talked about in universities using big words, and thatsort of thing. But it's basically the same principle. And it makes sense.And it usually works. The main historian who has written about this in thelast couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called Coercion, Capital, andEuropean States. He points out that violence has been the leading principleof Europe for hundreds of years and the reason is because it works. Youknow, it's very reasonable. It almost always works. When you have anoverwhelming predominance of violence and a culture of violence behind it.So therefore it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all problems inpursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow them you'd really opensome very dangerous doors. Like the US is demanding that the Taliban handover Osama bin Laden. And they are responding in a way which is regarded astotally absurd and outlandish in the west, namely they are saying, Ok, butfirst give us some evidence. In the west, that is considered ludicrous. It'sa sign of their criminality. How can they ask for evidence? I mean ifsomebody asked us to hand someone over, we'd do it tomorrow. We wouldn't askfor any evidence. [crowd laughter].

Haiti

In fact it is easy to prove that. We don't have to make up cases. So forexample, for the last several years, Haiti has been requesting the UnitedStates to extradite Emmanuel Constant. He is a major killer. He is one ofthe leading figures in the slaughter of maybe 4000 or 5000 people in theyears in the mid 1990's, under the military junta, which incidentally wasbeing, not so tacitly, supported by the Bush and the Clinton administrationscontrary to illusions. Anyway he is a leading killer. They have plenty ofevidence. No problem about evidence. He has already been brought to trialand sentenced in Haiti and they are asking the United States to turn himover. Well, I mean do your own research. See how much discussion there hasbeen of that. Actually Haiti renewed the request a couple of weeks ago. Itwasn't even mentioned. Why should we turn over a convicted killer who waslargely responsible for killing 4000 or 5000 people a couple of years ago.In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows what he would say. Maybe he'llsay that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is probably true.We don't want to open that door. And he is not he only one.

Costa Rica

For the last about 15 years, Costa Rica which is the democraticprize, has been trying to get the United States to hand over a John Hull, aUS land owner in Costa Rica, who they charge with terrorist crimes. He wasusing his land, they claim with good evidence as a base for the US waragainst Nicaragua, which is not a controversial conclusion, remember. Thereis the World Court and Security Council behind it. So they have been tryingto get the United States to hand him over. Hear about that one? No.They did actually confiscate the land of another American landholder, JohnHamilton. Paid compensation, offered compensation. The US refused. Turnedhis land over into a national park because his land was also being used as abase for the US attack against Nicaragua. Costa Rica was punished for thatone. They were punished by withholding aid. We don't accept that kind ofinsubordination from allies. And we can go on. If you open the door toquestions about extradition it leads in very unpleasant directions. So thatcan't be done.

Reactions in Afghanistan

Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan. The initial proposal, theinitial rhetoric was for a massive assault which would kill many peoplevisibly and also an attack on other countries in the region. Well the Bushadministration wisely backed off from that. They were being told by everyforeign leader, NATO, everyone else, every specialist, I suppose, their ownintelligence agencies that that would be the stupidest thing they couldpossibly do. It would simply be like opening recruiting offices for binLaden all over the region. That's exactly what he wants. And it would beextremely harmful to their own interests. So they backed off that one. Andthey are turning to what I described earlier which is a kind of silentgenocide. It's a…. well, I already said what I think about it. I don't thinkanything more has to be said. You can figure it out if you do thearithmetic.

A sensible proposal which is kind of on the verge of being considered, butit has been sensible all along, and it is being raised, called for byexpatriate Afghans and allegedly tribal leaders internally, is for a UNinitiative, which would keep the Russians and Americans out of it, totally.These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country out in thelast 20 years. They should be out of it. They should provide massivereparations. But that's their only role. A UN initiative to bring togetherelements within Afghanistan that would try to construct something from thewreckage. It's conceivable that that could work, with plenty of support andno interference. If the US insists on running it, we might as well quit. Wehave a historical record on that one.

You will notice that the name of this operation….remember that at first itwas going to be a Crusade but they backed off that because PR (publicrelations) agents told them that that wouldn't work [audience laughter]. Andthen it was going to be Infinite Justice, but the PR agents said, wait aminute, you are sounding like you are divinity. So that wouldn't work. Andthen it was changed to enduring freedom. We know what that means. But nobodyhas yet pointed out, fortunately, that there is an ambiguity there. Toendure means to suffer. [audience laughter]. And a there are plenty ofpeople around the world who have endured what we call freedom. Again,fortunately we have a very well-behaved educated class so nobody has yetpointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there will be another problem todeal with. But if we can back off enough so that some more or lessindependent agency, maybe the UN, maybe credible NGO's (non governmentalorganizations) can take the lead in trying to reconstruct something from thewreckage, with plenty of assistance and we owe it to them. Them maybesomething would come out. Beyond that, there are other problems.

An Easy Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror

We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it.There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namelystop participating in it. That would automatically reduce the level ofterror enormously. But that you can't discuss. Well we ought to make itpossible to discuss it. So that's one easy way to reduce the level ofterror.Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan is notthe only one, in which we organize and train terrorist armies. That haseffects. We're seeing some of these effects now. September 11th is one.

Rethink it.

Rethink the policies that are creating a reservoir of support. Exactly whatthe bankers, lawyers and so on are saying in places like Saudi Arabia. Onthe streets it's much more bitter, as you can imagine. That's possible. Youknow, those policies aren't graven in stone.

And further more there are opportunities. It's hard to find many rays oflight in the last couple of weeks but one of them is that there is anincreased openness. Lots of issues are open for discussion, even in elitecircles, certainly among the general public, that were not a couple of weeksago. That's dramatically the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA Today canrun a very good article, a serious article, on life in the Gaza Strip…therehas been a change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street Journal…that'schange. And among the general public, I think there is much more opennessand willingness to think about things that were under the rug and so on.These are opportunities and they should be used, at least by people whoaccept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and terror,including potential threats that are extremely severe and could make evenSeptember 11th pale into insignificance. Thanks.