An Enemy. At Last *
Ignacio Ramonet
On 11 September aircraft were diverted from their normal flight
routines. With fanatics at their controls, they headed for the heart of a big
city, intent on destroying the symbols of a hated political system. In the
explosions that followed, buildings were shattered. Survivors fled the
wreckage. The media were on the spot broadcasting live. I am not talking about New
York in 2001 but Santiago de Chile on 11 September 1973. With the
complicity of the United States, General
Pinochet staged his coup against the socialist government of Salvador Allende,
which began with the bombardment of the presidential palace by the air force.
Dozens of people were killed. It was the start of a regime of terror that was
to continue for 15 years.
With all compassion for the innocent victims of the
attacks on New York, it has
to be said that, of all countries, the US cannot
be described as innocent. It has a long history of involvement in violent,
illegal and often clandestine political actions in Latin
America, Africa, the Middle
East and Asia, with
accompanying personal tragedies of death, disappearances, torture, imprisonment
and exile.
The present rampant pro-Americanism of the West's
politicians and media should not blind us to a harsh but obvious truth.
Throughout the world, and particularly in the countries of the South, the most
common public reaction to the attacks in New
York and Washington has
been: what happened in New York was sad,
but the US deserved
it.
To trace the roots of such a reaction, it is worth
recalling that throughout the cold war (1948-89) the US was
involved in a crusade against communism. Sometimes that involved mass
extermination: thousands of communists killed in Iran; 200,000
opposition leftists killed in Guatemala; almost
1m communists killed in Indonesia.
Atrocities filled the pages of the black book of American imperialism during
those years – years
that also saw the horrors of the Vietnam war (1962-75).
This too was marketed as a battle between good and
evil. But at that time Washington seemed
to think that giving support to terrorists was not necessarily immoral. Through
the CIA the US
consciously endorsed projects of murder, hijacking, sabotage and assassination:
in Cuba against
the government of Fidel Castro, in Nicaragua against
the Sandinistas, and in Afghanistan against
the Soviets.
In Afghanistan during
the 1970s, with the support of two countries that could hardly be called
democratic (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan), Washington
encouraged the creation of Islamic detachments recruited in the Arab-Islamic
world and made up of what the press called freedom fighters. As we now know,
that was the environment in which the CIA enlisted and trained Osama bin Laden (see article by Selig S Harrison).
Since 1991 the US has
emerged as the worlds only superpower, effectively marginalizing the United
Nations. It promised to inaugurate a more equitable new world order, and it was
on that basis that the US embarked
on the war against Iraq. But it
has remained scandalously partisan towards Israel, to the
detriment of the rights of the Palestinians (1).
Despite international protests it has also maintained an unrelenting embargo
against Iraq, causing
the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians while preserving the regime in power.
All this has outraged public opinion in the Arab-Islamic world and sowed the
seeds for the spread of a radical Islamic anti-Americanism.
Osama Bin Laden is a creation of the US. Now,
with all the violence of Dr Frankenstein's creation, he has turned against his
maker. In assembling a war coalition against him, the US is prepared to rely on
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which for the past 30 years have contributed most to
the spread of radical Islamic networks around the world, where necessary using
terrorism.
The men around George W Bush are veterans of the cold
war. They may have reason to be pleased with the current events, in a sense a
godsend. At a stroke the attacks of 11 September restored what had been missing
since the collapse of the Soviet Union 10 years
ago – an
enemy. At last. The enemy may be known officially as terrorism but everyone
knows that the real name is radical Islam. And we can now expect alarming
side-effects, including a modern McCarthyism directed at the opponents of
globalisation. You enjoyed anti-communism? You're going to love anti-Islamism.
(1) See Alain
Gresh, Israël, Palestine, Vérités sur un conflit, Fayard, Paris,
2001.
Translated by Ed Emery
* Le Monde Diplomatique, France, october 2001.
Cuestiones
de América Nº 6, Noviembre de 2001
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