Robert Jensen
School of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert Jensen 2001
lecture, Grace United Methodist Church, Dallas, October 8, 2001, sponsored
by the Dallas Peace Center
by Robert Jensen
In his message to the nation on Sunday, George Bush got one, and only one,
thing right: “There is no neutral ground.”
He is right, in kind of a twisted way. After Sunday, Oct. 7, for Americans
to claim neutrality would be self-indulgent, a position available only to
those who are comfortable in their privilege and willing to hide in that
privilege. As Dante said, “The hottest places in hell are reserved
for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
It is a strange day when one can quote George Bush and Dante together, but
these are strange times. Times of great moral crisis.
Bush is right about neutrality, but wrong -- dangerously wrong -- about what
our choices are.
The choice for the American people is not between supporting terrorists who
kill our brothers and sisters in the United States or supporting the war
that our president has begun, which has already killed our brothers and sisters
in Afghanistan and will no doubt kill many more in many more places, if we
are to believe what the politicians and generals say.
Our choice is different. We must choose between sanity and insanity. Between
a path toward justice and a path of war.
The sane path is the path toward justice. That path gives us two tasks. First
is the justice necessary to hold accountable those who have killed innocents.
Second, and every bit as important, is the justice that could dry up the
reservoirs of pain and oppression in which terrorism breeds.
The path of insanity is war, the belief that we can repeat the mistakes of
the past and achieve new results. The belief that missiles can solve the
problems caused by policy.
I say the path toward justice, rather than the path of justice, because justice
is not a state of being, it is a goal toward which we must continually strive.
Much of the talk of the past month has been about bringing the terrorists
to justice, and that focus has been appropriate in the face of such an inhuman
crime. But if we are to talk seriously about security for Americans, that
question of justice must be dramatically expanded. We must ask: “What
about justice around the world?”
Notice that I said “security for Americans,” not “national
security.” For 56 years we have been told that American foreign policy
and the military machine were geared to protecting national security. That
has been true, if one understands the phrase “national security”
not to mean the security of the people of the nation, but the security for
a small segment of that nation to pursue its economic interests around the
world with as little disruption as possible.
Let’s go back to 1948, when State Department planner George Kennan
wrote:
“The US has about 50 percent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 percent
of its population. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy
and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern
of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity
without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have
to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming, and our attention will
have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.
We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and
world benefaction. We should cease to talk about such vague and unreal objectives
as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization. The
day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.
The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”
For 56 years, the United States has hung onto idealistic slogans, all the
time acting just as Kennan recommended. Our leaders continue to use the pompous
and empty rhetoric of world benefaction, of democracy and freedom. So, the
attack on Afghanistan is sold to us as humanitarian; we have to take out
Taliban air defenses to allow our planes to do air drops of supplies (never
mind that air drops are the most ineffective and dangerous way to distribute
food). Because part of the Taliban air defenses are mobile, we have to bomb
everywhere. We bomb them so we can feed them. Well, some of them. And not
enough to stay alive. But that is all the humanitarian cover that is needed
in a country where most people get their news from CNN and FOX.
Now it is time to ask: Have these policies to protect national security protected
our security, the security of the people? The answer was delivered on Sept.
11.
So, let us begin the task of thinking seriously about those policies. Let
us take up the examples that Osama bin Laden himself has offered.
Before we do that, let us be clear: To examine U.S. foreign policy and the
complaints of the Arab and Muslim world is not to in any way suggest that
terrorism can be justified. We must separate the task of explanation from
justification. The killing of innocents can never be justified. But just
as obvious: To prevent further killing of innocents, we must try to understand
the motivations of terrorists.
I do not pretend to know what motivates Osama bin Laden. But it is not difficult
to understand what he uses to motivate his followers. In the videotapes he
uses to recruit people into his network, bin Laden mentions three specific
U.S. policies:
One is U.S. support for Israel and the U.S. role in the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict. The anger of Arabs on this count is justified. For more than three
decades the United States has been the biggest obstacle to a just settlement
of that conflict. The much vaunted “peace process” that the United
States directs is simply the latest round in a long policy of rejecting the
international consensus for a regional peace. The U.S. policy is clear: It
give $3 billion a year in aid to Israel, which is turn performs the duties
of the local enforcer of U.S. power.
Second is the ongoing economic sanctions on Iraq. Again, the complaints of
the Arab world are justified. For more than a decade, the cruelest economic
siege in modern history has been in place, at the demands of the United States.
We are told it is to weaken Saddam Hussien (our one-time friend turned the-next-Hitler
when he disobeyed U.S. orders), yet he only grows more powerful. And in the
meantime, over a decade more than 1 million civilians have died as a direct
result of the sanction, according to U.N. studies.
Third is the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, in the holy lands of
Islam. These troops are there to prop up a Saudi government that has no legitimacy
and would collapse without U.S. support, but which cuts favorable deals with
U.S. oil companies and banks. The also are there to assert U.S. power in
the region. Is it so surprising that much of the Arab world is not pleased
with this policy?
Those troops -- several thousand in Saudi and Kuwait -- are of course a remnant
of the Gulf War. It is instructive to remember that war as we march ahead
a decade later into another conflict.
The Gulf War began with a crisis in the Middle East, Iraq’s invasion
of Kuwait. Let’s put aside the considerable evidence that the United
States wanted to set up Iraq -- subtly encouraging Iraq to make a move against
Kuwait to resolve its grievances about borders, oil fields, and debts, allowing
a war that the Bush administration desperately wanted -- and just concentrate
on what we know for sure. The United States used that Iraqi invasion to extend
its power in the Gulf. It derailed any attempts at a diplomatic settlement
of the crisis and made sure that the solution would be military and American
imposed. U.S. officials declared over and over that there would be no negotiations,
and then were praised for their great diplomacy. When just before the war
Hussein looked as if he might concede most of his agenda and negotiate a
withdrawal, the Bush administration was worried, for they knew they could
not justify a continued military presence without a war. “We have to
have a war,” Bush said to his advisers (see Bob Woodward’s book,
Shadow). And the war came, with at least tens of thousands killed immediately
and hundreds of thousands to die in the immediate aftermath from disease
and malnutriton.
What have we seen in the past month? A horrible attack on civilians occurred,
and a response was necessary. But what response? From midday on Sept. 11,
the Bush administration, backed by Democrats in Congress and cheered on by
the media, declared the solution to this would be massive military retaliation.
U.S. officials have declared over and over that there would be no negotiations,
that the Taliban must meet all demands without question. This is what Americans
call diplomacy, but is a transparent sham. For this, the Bush administration
was praised for its great restraint for waiting 26 days before it unleashed
the dogs of war.
Now we are on the path of war. Now we are reacting to the provocation of
Sept. 11 with another attempt to impose our will upon the world through our
military. It is precisely this kind of use of military power that has brought
us to this place in history. We are targeted because of what we have done.
Again, that is not to justify the terrorist attacks; it is to try to understand
them. If the United States did not have such a record of cruel and callous
policies to deepen its domination in the Middle East, Osama bin Laden would
not be able to recruit suicide squad members. Whatever bin Laden’s
agenda and theology, it is the legitimate anger of the Arab and Muslim world
that sustains his network.
So, the question for the American people: Are we strong enough, moral enough,
mature enough to face these facts and choose a new course?
Our leaders have demanded that we continue on the path that brought us here.
That is, quite simply, insane, if one’s goal is the security of the
American people and justice in the world.
But the men who plan these things are not insane, of course. They just believe
that the national security is primary over the security of people, and they
care not one whit for justice. And they believe that they can continue to
ensure the national security with the same tools that has bolstered it for
56 years: The threat of force and the use of force; the most destructive
military capacity in the history of the world and a willingness to use it.
What those of us outside the planning circles of the elite have to understand
is that these methods have ensured national security for their interests,
but they have comprised the security of the people. And we have to understand
that only we can change that. We first have to craft arguments that can help
other people see these things. So, let’s talk strategy.
I know many principled pacifists, and I have great respect for them. I am
not a pacifist; I believe there are times and places where it is just to
respond to violence with violence in order to protect innocents and seek
liberation. But whatever one’s view of that question, the argument
I think we have to make right now to the public is not about nonviolence
as a moral imperative.
From my experience as a guest on many talk radio shows the past few weeks,
I can tell you that pacifism is of interest to virtually no one in the United
States. Even if you are a pacifist, I would strongly recommend that you make
other arguments. The only public display of pacifism that could possibly
mean anything right now would be for pacifists to put their bodies on the
line, to put themselves somewhere between the weapons of their government
and the innocent victims in Afghanistan. Short of that, statements evoking
pacifism will be worse than ineffective; they will paint all the antiwar
movement as self-indulgent and out of touch with reality.
I think we must focus on something beyond “war is bad.” Yes,
war is bad. But we must make clear and rational arguments that expose the
façade of U.S. foreign policy and its vapid talk of humanitarian intentions.
We must make Americans face the fact that our country is the empire, and
it operates with the same imperial arrogance and cruelty that has been the
mark of all empires. And we must make them see that the empire protects only
a small segment of elites, not the people.
My goal here tonight is simple: I am afraid, and I want you all to be afraid,
too. The men in the White House and the Pentagon have unleashed the dogs
of war, but I fear they have unleashed something far worse than any war we
have ever seen.
I remember the beginning of the Gulf War. I remember the sadness and fear
I felt when that war began. I remember how day by day, as the bodies piled
up, I would die a little inside. It was a difficult time. In many ways, I
have never recovered from that; it was a harsh coming of age for me.
But this feels different. This feels far worse. This doesn’t feel like
a war. Let us name what has happened: Not just a war, but a new insanity
has been unleashed upon the world. An unlimited war that our leaders counsel
could go on indefinitely. A war against enemies in the “shadowy networks,”
which means we will never know when the shadowy enemy is vanquished. This
is quite possibly the policy-makers’ shot at the final, and permanent,
militarization of U.S. society. Add to that the possibility of more terrorist
attacks from the fringe of the Arab and Muslim population even more convinced
of the depravity of Americans, and the possibility of entire countries destabilized.
Are you scared? How can you not be?
This insanity was touched off by the fanaticism of men who believe they understand
God’s will and have the right to kill to bring about that vision.
This insanity has now been furthered by the fanaticism of men who believe
they have a right to run the planet by force to protect their privilege.
These men have drawn lines and told us we must choose sides.
I will choose sides, but not on their terms.
I will choose not just to speak for the peace that our leaders have rejected,
but also to speak hard truths about the unjust world that our leaders seek
to maintain.
Our president is right; there is no neutral ground.
So, let the men who talk with God and the men who play with power draw their
lines. And let the rest of us step outside of the lines into a circle. Let
us not only join hands in prayer but also lock arms at the barricades of
dissent and civil disobedience. Let us build a movement that can steer a
nation off the path of war and onto the path toward justice.
Let us take the president’s final words from Sunday and make them our
own:
“We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will
not fail” at the task of our lifetimes, the task of creating justice
where there is so much oppression, the task of regaining sanity in a world
gone mad.
Robert Jensenis a professor of journalism at the University of Texas and
a memberof the Nowar Collective (
www.nowarcollective.com). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.