After The War

[Speech delivered at Columbia University, NYC, November 20, 2003, at an event commemorating Edward Said.Transcript courtesy of Democracy Now. A shorter adaptation from this appeared as TheDoctrine Of Change Of Course]

The first remark has to do with the title. The title that was announced was "after the war", which is a goodtopic. We should be concerned with what is coming ahead, but any title like that, especially in the UnitedStates requires a kind of a word of caution. There is a trap which is deeply rooted in the intellectual culture,and we have to avoid it. The trap is the doctrine that I sometimes call the doctrine of change of course. 

It'sa doctrine that's invoked every two or three years in the United States. The content of the doctrine is yes,in the past, we did some wrong things because of our innocence or out of inadvertence, but now that's allover, so we can't not waste any more time on this boring, stale stuff, which incidentally we suppressed anddenied while it was happening, but must now be effaced from history as we march forward to a glorious future. 

And if you look, it is literally every two or three years that the doctrine is invoked. There is aqualification. We are permitted, in fact, required to recall with great horror the misdeeds of officialenemies, and we're also required to admire with awe, our own magnificent achievements in the past in bothcategories, relying in no small measure on self-serving reconstructions, which quickly collapse if you followthe path of paying attention to the facts, but fortunately, that dangerous course is excluded by theconvenient doctrine of change of course, which blocks any such heresies.

The doctrine is entirely understandable on the part of those who are engaged in criminal enterprises, whichmeans just about any power system, any system of concentrated power past and present, and of course, itincludes its acolytes, one of the major commitments of respected intellectuals right throughout history is tobe the acolytes of the systems of power.

Since intellectuals write history (but it doesn't look like that), you have to be cautious about what peoplewrite about themselves. If you look carefully, you will find that the course, the doctrine, is dishonest,cowardly, but has advantages. It does protect us from the danger of understanding what's happening before oureyes, and, therefore, inducing the kind of conformism that is useful to systems of power and domination. So,it has its advantages. 

In any event, the word "after" in the title is appropriate but with some qualificationsthat should be kept in mind. And what has happened before --  if we escape the domination of thedoctrine, whathas happened before can be expected to persist for elementary reasons. Policies and actions are rooted ininstitutions. There's some variation, but limited. The institutions are stable. Therefore, it's onlyreasonable to expect the policies and actions to persist, adopt adapted to circumstances. If you want tounderstand anything about the world that is to come, and have any influence on the way it evolves, it is more thanuseful to keep this in mind. Well, let's go to after the war. We might as well, adopting the doctrine ofchange of course, we might as well start with today.

So, today our leader is in London. The mayor of London greeted him by declaring that George Bush is thegreatest threat to life on the planet that we have most probably ever seen. As I walked in, I was told bysomeone that they just heard over the radio that someone else I forget who, announced that he is the mostunwelcome visitor to England since William the Conqueror.

These sentiments are described here as rather -- met with some surprise, but that reflects again the usefulcategory of the useful quality of forgetting the recent past. Similar sentiments have been very widelyexpressed since September, 2002, to some extent before, but particularly since then.

Within weeks after September, 2002, a crucial moment in world affairs, within weeks, even the mainstreamU.S. press was compelled to report that the world now regards George Bush as a greater threat to peace thanSaddam Hussein. That fact is an understatement because much as Saddam Hussein was hated and reviled, he wasnot regarded as a threat. Even by the countries that he had attacked, Iran and Kuwait, both of whichunderstood perfectly well that after a decade of sanctions that had devastated the society, and after havingbeen effectively disarmed, however awful Saddam Hussein was, he wasn't going to threaten anybody. 

In fact, itwas the weakest country in the region. One of the reasons why it was attacked, it met the primary conditionsfor target of attack, it was defenseless and known to be. In fact, they had joined the other states in theregion in trying to integrate Iraq back into the region for several years over strong U.S. objections. So, thestatement, while correct is understated. These kinds of reactions that you hear today and you have beenhearing for the past year if you pay attention, are as far as I'm aware, are entirely without precedent. Ican't remember anything like them. And how one decides to evaluate the sentiments that are expressed, onething is clear, no sane person should ignore them.

Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a European Union poll which aroused some interest here. The poll wasasking Europeans what they thought was the greatest threat to world peace, and it turned out that theUnited States was ranked right next to North Korea and Iraq, same percentage.

Well, that was felt to be a surprise, but it shouldn't have been a surprise, because that's what polls havebeen showing for a year, over a year, growing concern and fear that the United States is out of control underthe present leadership, and is a tremendous threat to peace.

Actually, the poll -- the commentary on the poll focused on something else, namely, the U.S., North Korea,and Iran were ranked right below Israel, which was ranked as the greatest threat to peace. But my strongsuspicion is that that's because the questions in the poll were wrongly asked. You have to be really carefulreading polls. Israel in itself is not a threat - much of a threat at all, but U.S. support for Israel is anenormous threat to world peace. And I presume that that's what people were answering.

However, the question was phrased, and if that's correct, then the major threat perceived to world peace inEurope are U.S. support for Israel, which is the regional superpower and the U.S. actions elsewhere in theworld. Well, if that's the right interpretation, then the polls are reflecting an understanding of phenomenathat are real and important and widely understood.

They were just pointed out in a important book that is about to appear by Dilip Hero, one of the mostastute and knowledgeable commentator, historians dealing with the contemporary Middle East and theinternational framework in which its problems arise. What he says is about after the war, the book's aboutthe Iraq war, and its consequences. He says, what has actually happened in Iraq is something deadlier than theworst scenarios sketched by the so-called liberal pessimists. The invasion of Iraq has led to an alliance ofArab nationalism with Islamic militancy steering both of them towards an amalgam, which is very ominous forthe region and in fact for the world. Again, today's newspapers give you or examples of that.

That's another contributing factor to this extremely dangerous amalgam is U.S. support for Israel'scontinued rejection of a long-standing international consensus on a political settlement for theIsrael-Palestine issue, and its ongoing actions to undermine any possibility that a political settlement canbe reached. Always crucially with decisive U.S. support - otherwise those actions are impossible . 

For 30 yearsnow, the U.S. has been unilaterally, and that's worth stressing, unilaterally blocking the possibility of apolitical settlement and providing the decisive diplomatic, economic and military means that permit theactions that step by step make any such settlement impossible. That's dramatically true right now. It's allconsistently suppressed in the doctrinal system, and now of course, it's to be, if even mentioned, eliminatedfrom history by the usual means, the convenient doctrine of change of course. Well, this has been decisive for30 years, and it's going on, and we should pay attention to it if we care about the future. Today's news againgives further reasons.

With regard to Iraq, the predictions before the war by intelligence agencies and independent analysts werepretty uniform. It was predicted that the invasion of Iraq would increase the threat of terror, and wouldyield the amalgam that Dilip Hero is talking about. It would increase the terror and of proliferation of theweapons of mass destruction. 

The logic of that is straight-forward. If you announce to people I'm going tocome and attack you, at will without any pretext, they don't say thank you, here's my neck, cut it. What theydo is respond in some fashion. No one can respond to the United States in military force. The U.S. spendsabout as much by now as the rest of world combined, and it is far more technologically advanced, so peopleturn to the weapons available to them, and the weak do have weapons available to them.

Two, in fact, terrorand weapons of mass destruction, which are now not that hard to construct. Sooner or later it, will be united.For example, they might be united in a small nuclear weapon sneaked into a New York Hotel room. Not at all outof the question. And by inciting terror and inciting proliferation, as a deterrent or for revenge, thoseprobabilities are being increased. 

Well, those were the predictions before the Iraq war, and there have been-- they have been verified, not surprisingly, since the war. It has apparently, according to specialistsin the various countries involved, stimulated proliferation, not surprisingly, and it has certainly stimulatedterror. The same intelligence agencies and independent analysts are reporting a sharp spike in recruitment forAl Qeada-style organizations, and if you pay attention and you observe an increase of horrendous terroristacts all over the world.

Exactly as predicted, the administration was certainly aware of this. I mean they can figure it outthemselves even without reading the reports of their own intelligence agencies, and they don't desire thatoutcome, but they don't care that much. It just has a low priority, ranked alongside of other concerns. Andthose other concerns are not insignificant. Some of them are domestic. These are not conservatives. They areradical reactionary statists, who are dedicated to unraveling the progressive achievements, legislation andactions of the past century, and to do that, they have a very narrow hold on political power. They mustmaintain it in order to carry out that program. 

You see it day by day in the legislations produced and theactions undertaken and they have an international program, which has been announced, dominating the world byforce, permanently, preventing any challenge, and in particular, controlling the very crucial energy resourcesof the world. Mostly in the Middle East, secondarily in Central Asia and a few other places. Those are seriousgoals and they are worth undertaking from the perspective of the policy managers, even if it does increase thethreat of destruction, in fact maybe the destruction of the species, proliferation of weapons of massdestruction, the stimulation of terror to which the population of the United States will also be subject asbefore. 

How do Iraqis feel about all of this? That's critically important and much harder to determine. It'sharder to determine the attitudes of people under military occupation, but it's not impossible. There's aseries of U.S.-run polls taking place. They're informative, so one recent poll actually had a front page storyin the New York Times, with a headline saying that Iraqis are pleased to be rid of Saddam Hussein. Well, wedidn't need a poll to tell us that. 

And presumably, although the question wasn't asked, are they happy to berelieved of the murderous U.S. sanctions, which had killed hundreds of thousands of people, devastated thesociety, and reduced it to total ruin? That question wasn't asked because you're not allowed to mention it.You're not allowed to mention that this took place. We don't consider our own massive crimes there. Thedoctrine of change, of course, is so extreme that you don't even mention it while it's going on, let alone inthe past. So, that question wasn't asked. And that almost predictable answer wasn't mentioned. 

Alsounmentioned is the fact that the murderous sanctions are a large part of the reason why Iraqis were unable tosend Saddam Hussein to the same fate that greeted other comparable monsters and tyrants and torturers who werealso supported by the people who are now in office in Washington, just as they supported Saddam Hussein rightthrough his worst atrocities and long after the war with Iran.

There's quite a rogue's gallery of Ceausescu of Romania, the Saddam supported by the Reagan and Bushadministrations right through the last minute overthrown from within and the same is true of a long list. TheMarcos, Duvalier, Mubutu, Suharto, a long list, all strongly supported, as long as they could maintain power,overthrown from within, ranking easily many of them, with Saddam Hussein in brutality and terror. But if youdestroy a society, and you compel the society to rely on the tyrant just for survival, and things like thatare not going to happen. This has been understood for a long time, and again, those are some of the thingsthat you just don't mention just like you don't mention the effects of the sanctions. Well, there was moreinteresting aspect of the poll in the headline. If you read down further in the column, there were otherresults given.

One of the questions asked in the same poll was - people were asked  - how they evaluated foreignleaders' favorability ranking. Do you have a favorable opinion of X, Y and Z? The one who ranked highest wasby far was French president Jacques Chirac. He was the international symbol of opposition to the invasion.Well below him, you found Bush, and even below him, the rather pathetic Blair, trailing behind. That wasreported without comment, although evidently, The New York Times reporter had some ... it bothered him a little andhe came back to it a couple of weeks later and mentioned it in another context and had a comment on it. Hegave the figures. His comment was "go figure". 

Well, I'm not sure how exactly to interpret that,but I presume what he meant is crazy Arabs, Go figure. Here we liberate them, and they are not thanking us forliberating them. What can it possibly mean, if they regard Jacques Chirac as the most favorable and give him the mosthighest favorable ranking of any foreign leader? Well, you know, figure. Columbia students might be able tofigure out a different interpretation, but anyway for the Times it was, "go figure".  

Turning toanother poll where this question was asked recently: How do you regard the coalition forces? Are they anoccupying force or a liberating force? By five to one, they were called an occupying force. Should thecoalition forces leave? By five to three, Iraqis wanted them to leave. That's a remarkable figure, becauseabout 95% of the population also reports that the security situation is much worse than it was before theinvasion. And the only thing that's keeping any kind of a lid on it is the occupying forces. But nevertheless,by a very substantial majority, they want them to leave. 

Well, what does that mean? Again, you can figure itout. Other polls ask people why did the United States invade Iraq? Well, here it's worth - in the UnitedStates, there's some straight answers. So the official reason that widely repeated as long as you can hang onto, is that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and their links to terror, which was such a threat to us thatwe had to invade it.

And then there was a massive government propaganda campaign in September of 2002 when the invasion waseffectively announced and it did drive a large part of the U.S. population completely off the internationalspectrum. The United States was the only country where a large part of the population was genuinely afraid ofSaddam Hussein, because of his weapons of mass destruction, and his links to terror. 

It turns out that thepeople who had those attitudes, those attitudes are strongly correlated with support for the war. Which is notin the least surprising. If I believed those things, I would support the war, too. I mean, if you believe thathere is a murderous tyrant accumulating weapons of mass destruction, responsible for 9-11, linked to Al Qaeda,planning new terror, we have to stop him in time, there's a rational decision to invade Iraq. Of course, therenever was any reason to believe there was a particle of truth to that. 

As I say, the U.S. was alone in havingany detectable part of the population even have those opinions. Even in places like Iran and Kuwait. The lyingabout that continues until the present. It doesn't matter that it was all debunked. So George Bush in hisradio addresses a couple of weeks ago, he continues to repeat that the U.S., I'm quoting him, "saved theworld from a tyrant, who was developing weapons of mass destruction, and cultivating ties to terror."