Reply To Casey

Casey's statement merits careful reading, and is a usefulcontribution. It offers some welcome opportunities to bring out more informationabout the terrible crimes he is laboring to conceal, and it helps us understandattitudes and techniques of apologists for crimes for which they shareresponsibility, a matter with important consequences in the richest and mostpowerful country in the world. 

First, let's clear away some of the initial debris thatCasey scatters in his effort to obscure the central issues. To begin with,recall the "claim" of mine that initiated these interesting exchanges,for which Casey offers his curious paraphrase. The "claim" consists ofa single sentence, in a composite response to inquiries from journalists,observing that the toll of the "horrendous crime" committed on Sept.11 with "wickedness and awesome cruelty" may be comparable to theconsequences of Clinton's bombing of the Sudan in August 1998. That plausibleconclusion may be shocking to those who have been well-trained to consider theircrimes against the weak to be as normal as the air they breathe.

But as in innumerable other cases, the picture looksdifferent at the other end of the guns. Dr. Idris Eltayeb, one of Sudan'shandful of pharmacologists and chairman of the board of the pharmaceuticalfactory destroyed by US missiles, says that the crime "was just as much anact of terrorism as at the twin towers - the only difference is we know who didit. I feel very sad about the loss of life [in New York and Washington], but interms of numbers, and the relative cost to a poor country, [the bombing inSudan] was worse" (James Astill, Guardian, Oct. 2, 2001). 

Unfortunately, he may be right, even if we do not take intoaccount "the political cost to a country struggling to emerge fromtotalitarian military dictatorship, ruinous Islamism and long-running civilwar" before the missile attack, which "overnight [plunged Khartoum]into the nightmare of impotent extremism it had been trying to escape" (Astill).These political costs may have been even more harmful to Sudan than thedestruction of its "fragile medical services," Astill concludes threeyears after the attack, confirming the reasoned judgment of Financial Timescorrespondent Mark Huband, which Casey tries hard to evade, and ludicrouslyattributes to me. 

There was also a cost to the US, which I did not discuss,but which happens to be of great significance right at this moment. Let's beginwith Casey's rendition, then turn to the facts. 

Casey writes: "Chomsky informs us that the bombing ofthe factory brought to a halt `compromises' that might have ended the decadesold 1civil war' between Sudan's `warring sides.' ...Chomsky's suggestion thatthe Sudanese government had this profound desire to move toward moderation andagainst terrorism is all the more appalling in its uncannily poor timing,"because of the Bush administration's moves to enlist Sudan in its coalition.More accurately, because Washington has finally agreed to accept Sudan'slong-standing offers to provide crucial information about the terrorist networksand to turn over bin Laden operatives implicated in terrorist acts against theUS. 

Let us put aside the childish fabrications and flights ofimagination about the Financial Times report that I cited accurately andwithout relevant omission. More important is the fact that with unerringconsistency, Casey again has the story exactly backwards. 

Just before the missile strike, Sudan detained two mensuspected of bombing the American embassies, notifying Washington, US officialsconfirmed. But the US rejected Sudan's offer of cooperation, and after thebombing Sudan "angrily released" the suspects (James Risen, NYT,July 30, 1999), since named as bin Laden operatives. Recently leaked FBI memosadd another reason why Sudan "angrily released" the bin Ladenassociates. The memos confirm that the FBI wanted the suspects extradited, butthe State Department refused. One "senior CIA source" now describesthis and other rejections of Sudanese offers of cooperation as "the worstsingle intelligence failure in this whole terrible business [of Sept. 11]. It isthe key to the whole thing right now," because of the voluminous evidenceon bin Laden that Sudan offered to produce, offers that were repeatedly rebuffedbecause of the administration's "irrational hatred" of the Sudan, thesenior CIA source reports.

Included in Sudan's rejected offers was "a vastintelligence database on Osama bin Laden and more than 200 leading members ofhis al-Qaeda terrorist network in the years leading up to the 11 Septemberattacks." Washington was "offered thick files, with photographs anddetailed biographies of many of his principal cadres, and vital informationabout al-Qaeda's financial interests in many parts of the globe," butrefused to accept the information, out of "irrational hatred" of thetarget of its missile attack. "It is reasonable to say that had we had thisdata we may have had a better chance of preventing the attacks" of Sept.11, the same senior CIA source concludes (David Rose, Observer, Sept. 30,reporting an Observer investigation). 

Returning to Casey's debris, consider his opening claimthat "Noam Chomsky rushes to accuse his adversary of `racist contempt' forAfrican victims of terrorism, of a callous refusal to acknowledge their veryexistence." Anyone with minimal literacy can instantly determine that Iunambiguously and explicitly said the precise opposite: that the"adversary" is clearly not a racist, and therefore surely did not meanwhat his words imply: namely, the "racist contempt" that Casey's wordsdo in fact express. Most of the rest is an irrelevant harangue, which I willignore, including the repeated inventions (that I referred to "hundreds ofthousands of deaths" of Sudanese, etc.). 

Something can be learned, however, by a closer look atCasey's techniques for evading the crimes for which he and all of us shareresponsibility. In response to apparent unfamiliarity with the consequences ofthe Sudan crime, I quoted a few prominent passages from major journals, in onecase the lead front page story -- not as an "argument by authority,"as Casey pretends, but to illustrate the kind of information that was readilyavailable to anyone who cared enough to pay attention. In all but one case thewriters were respected journalists, whose names I only partially listed: EdVulliamy, Henry McDonald, Shyam Bhatia, Martin Bright, Patrick Wintour (LondonObserver), Mark Huband (Financial Times). Compare Casey's rendition.

 The other example was the most important, because ofthe highly credible source: the anniversary article in the Focus section of the BostonGlobe by Jonathan Belke, who Casey dismisses as a mere "employee"of the Near East Foundation who is "living and working in Cairo"; howridiculous. As Casey knows from his internet search, Belke is regional programmanager for the Foundation, and writes on the basis of field experience in theSudan, which is why I quoted his conclusions at length. The Foundation is arespected development institution that dates back to World War I. It providestechnical assistance to poor countries in the Middle East and Africa,emphasizing grassroots development projects run by local people, and operateswith close connections to major universities, charitable organizations, and theState Department, including such well-known Middle East diplomats as RichardMurphy and John Badeau, JFK's Ambassador to Egypt, who headed the Foundation formany years, among other prominent figures in Middle East educational anddevelopmental affairs. For its regional program manager to live in Egypt, ratherthan in New York, does not seem entirely unreasonable, contrary to Casey's oddperspective. I did not take the space to mention any of this, but am glad to doso now so as to bring out more clearly the significance of Belke's comments. Thesame facts help illustrate the nature of Casey's evasion of his responsibilityfor crimes.

To repeat, the citations were not an "argument byauthority" -- though in Belke's case particularly, that happens to be thecase -- but a sample of the information readily available to anyone who cares;information, incidentally, which Casey gives no reason to question. For example,he makes much of the fact that 50% is different from 90%, a contradiction --except that there is no contradiction when a leading specialist (Belke) saysthat 50% of the products and 90% of the "major products" weredestroyed. And as is evident without comment, all of these are rough estimates,for a simple reason: Belke, who worked on the scene, is one of the few whoinvestigated. The situation would have been quite different, needless to say, ifcriminals and victims had been interchanged instead of conforming to thestandard pattern of the history of Europe and its offshoots for hundreds ofyears. 

Dismissing without further comment Casey's fabrications andforays into other topics -- topics that are worth a serious look, but areplainly irrelevant here -- consider a very straightforward analogy: simply askwhat the reaction would be if bin Laden's network in a single stroke haddestroyed half the "affordable medicine for humans and all the locallyavailable veterinary medicine...and 90 percent of the major pharmaceuticalproducts" of, say, Israel or the United States, as well as the sole factorythat might replenish them. And suppose further that the victim was under severesanctions that "make it impossible to import adequate amounts of medicinesrequired to cover the serious gap left by the plant's destruction" so thata year later the bombing "continues to deprive the people of Sudan ofneeded medicine" (Belke), a "tragedy for the communities who needthese medicines" -- namely, the large majority of the population --according to the lead multi-authored story in the Observer, citing thetechnical manager with "intimate" knowledge of the plant. 

Suppose further that the development specialist citedconcludes from his own direct experience in the field that the bombing"brought to light a whole new spectrum of meaning to the phrase `crimesagainst humanity'." 

And suppose we add further the appropriate counterpart tonewly released confirmation of what an interested observer might have surmised:The Al-Shifa facility destroyed in the US missile attack was "the only oneproducing TB drugs - for more than 100,000 patients, at about £1 a month.Costlier imported versions are not an option for most of them - or for theirhusbands, wives and children, who will have been infected since. Al-Shifa wasalso the only factory making veterinary drugs in this vast, mostly pastoralist,country. Its speciality was drugs to kill the parasites which pass from herds toherders, one of Sudan's principal causes of infant mortality" (Astill). 

The grim toll of our crimes mounts still further -- atleast, if we are willing to apply to ourselves the criteria that we brandishwith grand moralistic flourishes when professing outrage over the crimes ofothers. 

If this shocking crime had targeted the US or one of itsallies, would the reaction be to dismiss it as a matter of no consequence, evenwithout the sole estimate available, by the most knowledgeable commentator, thata year later (correcting for population size) hundreds of thousands --"many of them children -- have suffered and died" from diseases thatwould be easily treatable if essential medicines for rampant diseases had notbeen destroyed, and cannot be replenished because of the destruction of thefacilities, the harsh sanctions, and the refusal to provide a pittance of aid?Is that what the reaction would be? 

Considering this question, we can ask whether Casey isindeed expressing "racist contempt" for the victims. I won't suggestan answer, for one reason, because the attitudes of a single person are oflittle moment. What is vastly more important is the nature of these "crimesagainst humanity," and the reaction to them -- our crimes: "astaxpayers, for failing to provide massive reparations, for granting refuge andimmunity to the perpetrators, and for allowing the terrible facts to be sunk sodeep in the memory hole that some, at least, seem unaware of them" (quotingfrom my response to the initial vituperations). 

Several points that Casey makes are, however, correct. Oneis that I did not provide "any specific proof or statistical evidence ofthese tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths upon which [I] speculate." Torephrase without the consistent lying, the expert source I cited did not providespecific proof or statistical evidence to support his estimate that "tensof thousands of people -- many of them children -- have suffered and died frommalaria, tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases." That is true; he didnot. There are no detailed statistics. The actual toll is "unknown,"as I stressed from the beginning.

And Casey surely understands the reason: there has been noserious investigation, again, unlike what would have happened if the victimswere people who matter, a fact that tells us a lot about ourselves. Casey isalso correct in saying that the general figures given by the WHO and others donot detect the consequences. The reason, as he surely knows, is that the dataare hopelessly imprecise, and even if far more than Belke estimates had died inthe first year, the fact would probably not show up in the rough surveys. We mayrecall that this is not the US or Israel. It is "one of the least developedareas in the world. Its harsh climate, scattered populations, health hazards andcrumbling infrastructure combine to make life for many Sudanese a struggle forsurvival"; a country with endemic malaria, tuberculosis, and many otherdiseases, where "periodic outbreaks of meningitis or cholera are notuncommon," so that affordable medicines are a dire necessity (JonathanBelke and Kamal El-Faki, technical reports from the field for the Near EastFoundation). It is, furthermore, a country with limited arable land, a chronicshortage of potable water, a huge death rate, wracked with AIDS, anunserviceable debt, a vicious and destructive internal war, little industry, andunder severe sanctions. What is happening within is largely speculation,including Belke's (quite plausible) estimate that within a year tens ofthousands had suffered and died as the result of the destruction of the majorfacilities for producing affordable drugs and veterinary medicines, theequivalent of hundreds of thousands in the US. 

That seems to exhaust anything that merits comment. Recallagain that this entire furious and almost wholly irrelevant reaction waselicited by a one-sentence observation in a composite response to inquiries fromjournalists, pointing out that the toll of a single incident of US state terrormay be comparable to that of the "horrendous crime" of Sept. 11;possibly an understatement. I also pointed out that this is a minor example ofour own crimes, unlike "much worse cases, which easily come to mind,"some quite uncontroversial in the light of the conclusions of the highestinternational authorities. 

We do not have to look very far. Today's headlines suffice.While we waste time on pathetic efforts to evade past crimes, we might ask howmany miserable Afghans have already died since Sept. 11, fleeing in terror ofthe announced bombings and attacks of the Northern Alliance, which hadterrorized much of the country ten years ago when they "torched anddevastated [Kabul] far more...than it ever was by Soviet troops" (RobertMarquand and Scott Baldauf, lead story, Christian Science Monitor, citing"experts"). For the past several weeks refugees have been swarming inagony towards borders that had been sealed under repeated US demands, as the NYTimes and others have been reporting since Sept. 16, while the few aidworkers were withdrawn under the same threats, they report. What is the likelytoll already? In the camps across the border, where there are some evacuated aidworkers and reporters, the scenes described are frightening enough. But thoseare the lucky ones, the few who were able to escape -- and who express theirhopes that ''even the cruel Americans must feel some pity for our ruinedcountry,'' and relent in this savage silent genocide (Boston Globe, Sept.27, p. 1). Competent observers fear that within the sealed borders, the outcomein the coming weeks might be catastrophic. There has been nothing to preventmassive air drops of food to the miserable people seeking to escape our threatsand the terror of the Taliban and the US-Soviet-Iran-backed Northern Alliance.If it has not been done, we have no one to blame but ourselves.