Richard Falk

America and Americans on September 11th experienced the full horror of the greatest display of grotesque cunning in human history. Its essence consisted in transforming the benign everyday technology of commercial jet aircraft into malignant weapons of mass destruction. There has been much talk about Americans discovering the vulnerability of their heartland in a manner that far exceeds the collective trauma associated with the attack on Pearl Harbor. But the new vulnerability is radically different and far more threatening. It involves the comprehensive vulnerability of technology so closely tied to our global dominance, pervading every aspect of our existence. To protect ourselves against such the range of threats that could be mounted by those of fanatical persuasion is a mission impossible. The very attempt would turn America quickly into a prison state.

And yet who could blame the government for doing what it can in the coming months to reassure a frightened citizenry. Likely steps seem designed to make it more difficult to repeat the operations that produced the WTC/Pentagon tragedy, but it seems highly unlikely that a terrorist machine intelligent enough to pull off this gruesome operation would suddenly become so stupid as to attempt the same thing soon again.

The atrocity of September 11th must be understood as the work of dark genius, a penetrating tactical insight that endangers our future in fundamental respects that we are only beginning to apprehend. This breakthrough in terrorist tactics occurred in three mutually reinforcing dimensions: (1) the shift from extremely violent acts designed to shock more than to kill to onslaughts designed to make the enemy's society into a bloody battlefield, in this instance, symbolically (capitalism and militarism) and substantively (massive human carnage and economic dislocation); (2) the use of primitive capabilities by the perpetrators to appropriate technology that can be transformed into weaponry of mass destruction through the mere act of seizure and destruction; (3) the availability of competent militants willing to both carry out such crimes against humanity at the certain cost of their own lives. Such a lethal, and essentially novel, combination of elements poses an unprecedented challenge to civic order and democratic liberties. It is truly a declaration of war from the lower depths.

It is important to appreciate this transformative shift in the nature of the terrorist challenge both conceptually and tactically. Without comprehending these shifts, it will not be possible to fashion a response that is either effective or legitimate, and we need both. It remains obscure on the terrorist side whether an accompanying strategic goal accompanies this tactical escalation. At present it appears that the tactical brilliance of the operation will soon be widely regarded as a strategic blunder of colossal proportions. It would seem that the main beneficiaries of the attack in the near future are also the principal enemies of the perpetrators. Both the United States globally and Israel regionally emerge from this disaster with greatly strengthened geopolitical hands. Did the sense of hatred and fanaticism of the tactical masterminds induce this seeming strategic blindness? There is no indication that the forces behind the attack on the 11th were acting on any basis beyond their extraordinary destructive intent.

And so we are led to the pivotal questions: what kind of war? What kind of response? It is, above all, a war without military solutions. Indeed it is a war in which the pursuit of the traditional military goal of "victory" is almost certain to intensify the challenge and spread the violence. Such an assessment does not question the propriety of the effort to identify and punish the perpetrators, and to cut their links to governmental power. In our criticism of the current war fever being nurtured by an unholy alliance of government and media we should not forget that the attacks on the 11th were massive crimes against humanity in a technical legal sense, and those guilty of their commission should be punished to the extent possible. Having acknowledged this legitimate right of response is by no means equivalent to an endorsement of unlimited force. Indeed, an overreaction may be what the terrorists were seeking to provoke so as to mobilize popular resentment against the United States on a global scale. We need to act effectively, but within a framework of moral and legal restraints.

First of all, there should be the elementary due process of identifying convincingly the perpetrators, and their backers. Secondly, there should be a maximal effort to obtain authorization for any use of force in a specific form through the procedures of the United Nations Security Council. Unlike the Gulf War model, the collective character of the undertaking should be integral at the operational level, and not serve merely as window-dressing for unilateralism. Thirdly, any use of force should be consistent with international law and with the just war tradition governing the use of force- that is, discriminating between military and civilian targets, proportionate to the challenge, and necessary to achieve a military objective, avoiding superfluous suffering. If retaliatory action fails to abide by these guidelines, with due allowance for flexibility depending on the circumstances, then it will be seen by most others as replicating the fundamental evil of terrorism. It will be seen as violence directed against those who are innocent and against civilian society. And fourthly, the political and moral justifications for the use of force should be accompanied by the concerted and energetic protection of those who share an ethnic and religious identity with the targets of retaliatory violence.

Counseling such guidelines does not overcome a dilemma that is likely to grow more obvious as the days go by: something must be done but there is nothing to do. What should be done if no targets can be found that are consistent with the guidelines of law and morality? We must assume that the terrorist network has anticipated retaliation even before the attack, and has taken whatever steps it can to "disappear" from the planet, to render itself invisible. The test then is whether our leaders have the forbearance to refrain from uses of forces that are directed toward those who are innocent in these circumstances, and whether our citizenry has the patience to indulge and accept such forbearance. It cannot be too much stressed that the only way to win this "war" (if war it is) against terrorism is by manifesting a respect for the innocence of civilian life, and to reinforce that respect by a credible commitment to the global promotion of social justice.

The Bush Administration came to Washington with a resolve to conduct a more unilateralist foreign policy that abandoned the sorts of humanitarian pretenses that led to significant American-led involvements in sub-Saharan Africa and the Balkans during the 1990s. The main idea seemed to be to move away from a kind of liberal geopolitics and downsize the American international role by limiting overseas military action to the domain of strategic interests and to uphold such interests by a primary reliance on its own independent capabilities. Behind such thinking was the view that the United States did not need the sort of help that it required during the cold war, and at the same time it should not shoulder the humanitarian burdens of concern for matters that were remote from its direct interests. Combined with its enthusiasm for missile defense and weapons in space, such a repositioning of US foreign policy was supposed to be an adjustment to the new realities of the post-cold war world. Contrary to many commentaries, such a repositioning was not an embrace of isolationism, but represented a revised version of internationalism based on a blend of unilateralism and militarism.

In the early months of the Bush presidency this altered foreign policy was mainly expressed by repudiating a series of important, widely supported multilateral treaty frameworks, including the Kyoto Protocol dealing with global warming, the ABM Treaty dealing with the militarization of space, and Biological Weapons Convention Protocol dealing with implementing the prohibition on developing biological weaponry. Allies of the United States were stunned by such actions, which seemed to reject the need for international cooperation to address global problems of a deeply threatening nature.

And then came the 11th, and an immediate realization in Washington that the overwhelming priority of its foreign policy now rested upon soliciting precisely the sort of cooperative international framework it had worked so hard to throw into the nearest garbage bin. Whether such a realization goes deeper than a mobilization of support for global war only time will tell. Unlike the Gulf War or Kosovo War, which were rapidly carried to their completion by military means, a struggle against global terrorism even in its narrowest sense would require the most intense forms of inter-governmental cooperation ever experienced in the history of international relations. Hopefully, the diplomacy needed to receive this cooperation might set some useful restraining limits on the current American impulse to use force excessively and irresponsibly.

A root question underlying the American response is the manner with which it deals with the United Nations. There is reportedly a debate within the Bush Administration between those hardliners who believe that the United States should claim control over the response by invoking the international law doctrine of "the inherent right of self-defense" and those more diplomatically inclined, who favor seeking a mandate from the Security Council to act in collective self-defense. Among the initiatives being discussed in the search for meaningful responses is the establishment through UN authority of a special tribunal entrusted with the prosecution of those indicted for the crime of international terrorism, possibly commencing with the apprehension and trial of Osama bin Laden. Such reliance on the rule of law would be a major step in seeking to make the struggle against terrorism enjoys the genuine support of the entire organized international community.

It needs to be understood that the huge challenge posed by the attacks can only be met effectively by establishing the greatest possible distance between the perpetrators and those who are acting on behalf of their victims. And what is the content of this distance? An unconditional respect for the sacredness of life, and the dignity of the human person. One of the undoubted difficulties in the weeks and months ahead will be to satisfy the bloodthirst that has accompanied the mobilization of America for war while satisfying the rest of the world that it is acting in a manner that displays respect for civilian innocence and human solidarity. A slightly related problem, but with deeper implications, is to avoid seeming to exempt state violence from moral and legal limitations, while insisting that such limitations apply to the civic violence of the terrorists. Such double standards will damage the indispensable effort to draw a credible distinction between the criminality of the attack and the legitimacy of the retaliation.

There are contradictory ways to address the atrocities of the 11th: the prevailing mood is to invoke the metaphor of cancer, and to preach military surgery of a complex and globe-girdling character that needs to be elevated to the status of a world war, and bears comparison with World War I and II; the alternative, which I believe is far more accurate as diagnosis and cure, is to rely on the metaphor of an iceberg. The attack on America was the tip of an iceberg, the submerged portions being the mass of humanity that is not sharing in the fruits of modernity, but finds itself under the heel of American economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic power. To eliminate the visible tip of the iceberg of discontent and resentment may bring us a momentary catharsis, but it will at best create an illusion of "victory." What needs to be done is to extend a commitment to the sacredness of life to the entire human family, in effect, joining in a collective effort to achieve what might be called "humane globalization."

The Israel/Palestine conflict, its concreteness and persistence, is part of this new global reality. All sides acknowledge relevance, but the contradictory narratives deform our understanding in serious respects. Israel itself has seized the occasion to drop any pretense of sensitivity to international criticism and calls for restraint in its occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Israeli spokespersons have been active in spreading the word that now America and the world should appreciate what sorts of adversaries Israel has faced for decades, and should learn from Israel's efforts to control and destroy its terrorist enemies. Those supporting Palestinian rights in contrast argue that the sorts of violence generated by Israeli oppression and refusal to uphold international law and human rights gives rise to a politics of desperation that includes savage attacks on Israeli civilian society. They argue that giving a suppressed people the choice between terrorism and surrender is abusive, as well as dangerous.

On the deepest levels, the high tech dominance achieved by American power, so vividly expressed in the pride associated with "zero casualties" in the 1999 NATO War over Kosovo, is giving to the peoples of the world a similar kind of choice between poverty and subjugation and vindictive violence.

Is our civil society robust enough to deliver such a message in some effective form? We cannot know, but we must try, especially if we value the benefits of discussion and debate as integral to the health of democracy. Such an imperative seems particularly urgent because of the vacuum at the top. There has been in these terrible days of grieving for what has been lost, no indication of the sort of political, moral, and spiritual imagination that might begin to help us all better cope with this catastrophe. We should not fool ourselves by blaming George W. Bush or Republicans. The Democratic Party and its leaders have shown no willingness or capacity to think any differently about what has occurred and what to do about it. Mainstream TV has apparently seen its role as a war-mobilizing and patrioteering mechanism with neither interest nor capacity to include alternative voices and interpretations. The same tired icons of the establishment have been awakened once more to do the journeyman work of constructing a national consensus in favor of all-out war, a recipe for spreading chaos around the world and bringing discredit to ourselves.

We are poised on the brink of a global inter-civilizational war without battlefields and borders, a war seemingly declared against the enigmatic and elusive solitary figure of Osama bin Laden stalking remote mountainous Afghanistan while masterminding a holy war against a mighty superpower. To the extent that this portrayal is accurate it underscores the collapse of world order based on the relations among sovereign, territorial states. But it also suggests that the idea of national security in a world of states is obsolete, and that the only viable security is what is being called these days "human security." Yet, the news has not reached Washington, or for that matter, the other capitals of the world. There is still present the conviction that missile defense shields, space weaponry, and anti-terrorist grand coalitions can keep the barbarians at bay. In fact, this conviction has turned into a frenzy in the aftermath of the 11th, giving us reason to fear the response almost as much as the initial, traumatizing provocations. As the sun sets on a world of states, the sun of its militarism appears ready to burn more brightly than ever!

The Resonance of Bin Laden's Message in the Arab World

I think one needs to understand that while Osama bin Laden is an extremist and visionary and is capable of training dedicated warriors that are suicidal in their willingness to pursue his view of the encounter between the West and America and the Islamic world, what makes the bin Laden resistance to American power so potent is not only the tactics he used, but the fact that his message has a very wide resonance in the Arab world, and to some degree, in the Islamic world in general. It?s a resonance that?s based on two factors, I think. One is, the inability of the secular governments, secular Arab governments, to do anything to solve the fundamental problems of the Islamic world, of which the failure of the Palestinians to achieve self-determination is at the top of the list. And the frustration, futility and humiliation associated with the Arab inability to secure the rights of the Palestinian people under/over for all of this period has shown many people that one needs a different approach. And the different approach is what bin Laden, and before him Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran, expressed and that was a reliance on Islam, on tradition, on radical Islam, as the basis for a much more substantial resistance than what the secular Arab governments, the entrenched Arab governments, even the more religiously oriented ones like Saudi Arabia. They have all proved to be neutralized by U.S. power, economic power and military power. And they have not expressed real solidarity with the Palestinian people.

So in the wider Arab world there is a sense of satisfaction that finally some form of effective resistance to American power has been manifested and some of the suffering that the Palestinians and the Arab world have endured is now also being experienced by America, and Americans. And so this is the second reason why one needs to be very sensitive to the idea that this is not an isolated cult of the sort that some religious extremists groups?Aum Shinrikyô group in Japan, for instance, represented also an apocalyptic idea about the reconstruction of society around religious and traditional principles, but it, it didn?t have any resonance within the broad framework of society. Here, the message of bin Laden has this broad resonance. And his methods, however [void] of morality, other principles of restraint have shown a path that is effective, or seems to be effective, or more effective than anything that was obtained by traditional politics.

Well, I think one would?one has to go back a little bit to the discussion of why does the Islamic world resent the role of the United States in the world, and I think that the most widely shared basis of resentment is the perception that the United States has reinforced, economically and militarily, Israel?s unjust domination of the Palestinian land and Israel?s failure to allow the Palestinians to complete the process of de-colonization essentially, that both Israel and Palestine derive from an earlier colonial status, a mandated Palestine administered by Britain as a colonial entity. Israel has become a sovereign state, as of 1948, and for all this period of time, the Palestinians have been denied an equivalent right, which had been given to them by the United Nations back in 1947. And then since 1967, what remained of the Palestinian portion of that original mandate, which is only 22% of the initial Palestine?that has been not only occupied but it?s also been encroached upon through the establishment of these network of settlements that are owned and are linked to Israel by bypass roads and a series of links on which only Israelis can travel, even though they?re in the heartland of what is supposed to be Palestine. So it looks to?and then, then the problems of Jerusalem are also very connected with this?the Islamic world does not want to have to be subject to Israeli security and monitoring in order to visit and pray at the mosques in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is considered the third holy city of the Islamic world. And the international community had recognized that it was a city sacred to three different religions and that it should be substantially internationalized, that it shouldn?t belong to any state but should be an international city. All of these reasonable goals of Palestinian self-determination of an international Jerusalem have been defeated in the eyes of many parts of the Islamic world by the interposition of American military power and diplomatic muscle. There is a sense that this is defeating a normal relationship between the United States and that part of the world.

And there have been advocates over the years in the U.S. government?they are called often Arabists?who have favored a genuinely balanced approach to the two peoples and have argued that this is in the strategic interests of the United States, that it relates to stabilizing access to oil and to avoiding the emergence of political extremism in the region, and this view has consistently lost out in the internal debates within the U.S. government. And I think it?s lost out not because the arguments of those that are unconditionally pro-Israeli are more powerful, but because the domestic political equation has to be considered. And domestically, the organized pro-Israeli presence and its support in the U.S. congress and in the media is so overwhelming that it never seems to be in the interest of the politician who is subject to reelection in two or four years to stand up against that kind of a raid and a determined use of influence. And the few individuals who have stood up over the years have generally found themselves the objects of bitter attacks and highly financed campaigns of their opponents, and they?ve often been, generally been, defeated politically. And so there, it is a kind of hammerlock that the pro-Israeli forces have on the formation of U.S. policy. It?s very hard to see how that can be broken.

Arab-Americans & U.S. Hypocrisy

Well, I think, in the background of course, is a long-term demonization of Islam and of the Arab world. And September 11th has reactivated those in policies, and the mainstream media has certainly contributed to that end. There has been, at least a formal effort by the U.S. government to make it clear that its objectives are global terrorism and not Islam, and to try to reassure Americans?Arab-Americans and others of Islamic background?that they are not, that they should be protected in their Constitutional rights while, at the same time, using the security argument to detain particularly those of Arab background, who don?t, who are not citizens and to subject people of Arab-American background to much closer scrutiny than had been the case before. So they had to justify a certain degree of ritual profiling. So all of these features do contribute to an atmosphere where there is a lot of hostility directed at the Islamic community. There have been many incidents at the Islamic. . . And, I think not enough has been done to protect the Islamic presence in American society and also to suggest that Islam is not the source of the problem. The problem arises from this interaction between deeply seeded grievances and a form of political extremism that has emerged out of the Islamic world.

Post-9/11 Media Coverage of the Israel/Palestine Conflict

Israel enjoys a great deal of access to the power elite, both within the media and within government. And many of the most influential decision makers, both in the media and government, are intrinsically oriented very much toward a pro-Israeli position in any event and see their own politics as very much shaped by support for Israel. The Wall Street Journal is a notable example of that sort of point of view, where its editorial pages are really more militarist on the Israel-Palestine relationship than the U.S. government, and sometimes more than even the Israeli government?that they see no basis for any kind of negotiated end to the conflict, that they fully validate all the tactics that Israel has employed, including political assassinations and intrusions into the Palestinian territories. And they have no empathy or caring, understanding, of the ordeal of the Palestinian people under these conditions of occupation. And what is very blatant in The Wall Street Journal, I think, is in a more subtle way expressed by most of the mainstream media that deals with these issues.

And since September 11th, that treatment is intensified by the inability of most of the TV people, particularly to distinguish between the Palestinian terrorism and the al-Qaeda threat. And they don?t understand that the Palestinian recourse to violence is as a mode of resistance to a form of occupation that?s gone on for more than thirty years that doesn?t even acknowledge the guidelines of international humanitarian law, doesn?t respect the Geneva Convention, has constantly tried to create threats on the ground that interfere with Palestinian rights of self determination, especially the establishment of more than two hundred settlements with more than 400,000 Israelis living in them has also altered the nature of Jerusalem, has made it much more difficult for Palestine under any conditions to emerge with a state of their own that enjoys equivalent sovereign status to the Israel state and also has some rights to uphold its own security.

I think that the hard line Zionist attempt for several decades has been to associate criticism of Israel or Zionism with anti-Semitism, and so, and to try to occupy all the moral space by making that contention and linking it either directly or indirectly to the experience of the Holocaust and the unacceptability of anyone. . .any criticism [to] be directed at the Jewish state which has risen out of the victimization of Jews through the Nazi experience. And thus, if Jews themselves express criticism of the way in which Israel and Zionism operate, then from that viewpoint, the only way to explain it is to castigate those that take such a position and are Jewish as being self-hating Jews. Because uh to put it any other way would be to admit that there is a kind of domain of legitimate disagreement among Jews as to the nature and historic role of Zionism as well as to the wrong-doing of the Israeli state. And this kind of argumentation is one that is very hard to confront very directly.

And I think the best way to try to deal with it, as I've had to deal with myself on various occasions, is to point out that I don't consider myself an unpatriotic American because I criticize the U.S. government or some of the undertakings that it is associated with or even its global ideology. And that what it means to be in a democratic society is to have the opportunity to disagree. And certainly if you look at what the state of Israel has done from this perspective, either of international law or of international human rights, it would - It's hard for an objective person not to be highly critical. And so, one has to say that just because one's ethnic identity is Jewish is no reason to suppose that a critic of these policies is not entitled to voice those criticisms and to engage in debate. If there's a very substantive response to the criticism, that's fine, but to attack the critic rather than the criticism by suggesting that their motives are somehow associated with a psychological rejection of their own self seems to be very strained and unfortunate.