Bakunin Chomsky

“Bakunin Chomsky”

By assuming a fictitious character Bakunin Chomsky, Professor Jonathan Graubart delivered the following speech at the Fred J. Hansen/ Charles Hostler Lecture Series.

It’s a pleasure to be here: Thanks to Professor Gupta for inviting me to fill in for Prof. Graubart.      Please don’t confuse my views with Graubart’s. For all the FBI and Homeland Security informers in the audience, please just report my name. He is after all, untenured.
          
I’m Bakunin Chomsky, long-time political activist, freelance professor of law and IR, now based at the Emma Goldman Institute in San Cristobal, Mexico. My parents named me after one of the legendary 19th century Anarchists, Mikhail Bakunin. I’m in town for US-Mex celebrations of the 120th anniversary of the anarchist-led Haymarket demonstrations held in Chicago, May 4, 1886. Haymarket was a wildly successful demonstration of anarchist-led protests to improve daily working condition and social organizing of the workplace. The Haymarket demonstrations have since become the most celebrated event of worker solidarity in the globe, popularly known as May Day.

Interestingly, the one country in the world in which the Haymarket demonstrations of May, 1886 are not well known is the one where the events occurred, the USA. I decided then that my brief comments today on terrorism will touch on two other prominent terrorist events in US history that enjoy very little reflection here. The deeds of the great abolitionist John Brown in the period right before the Civil War and the US State’s dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Let me point out now, to avoid being lynched: I consider the 9/11 plane attacks a clear example of terrorism and one that merits wide condemnation.

My Point today: show a historical pattern whereby our gatekeepers in academia, the media, and governments apply a double standard toward Terrorism. Thus, Terrorism of the Weak that challenges the dominant Order is brutally condemned without any consideration of context while Terrorism of the Powerful is at best ignored and more often Praised.

I. Start with a Generic Def. Of Terrorism: My father Noam likes to refer to one given in 1980s by US Army: Calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious or ideological in nature through intimidation, coercion, or instilling of fear.
     Implication: intended audience is not just immediate victims but a far broader one, maybe a whole society.  Ok, reasonable enough.
     
II. John Brown Example:
A. 19th Century Christian-socialist-feminist Abolitionist who had this crazy view that slavery was a moral obscenity. Concluded that nonviolent protest was not sufficient: slavery remained and slaveholders were well organized in killing and intimidating both slaves who threatened revolt and abolitionists seeking to end slavery through legislation.

B. Two famous deeds:
     1. Goes to “Bleeding Kansas” in 1856 where there is a battle over whether the territory will be a free or slave state. In response to series of lynchings carried out by slaveholder groups in territory, Brown leads a group that hacks to death five slaveholders. Pt: send a message to all slaveholders.

     2. Leads armed raid on US military base, Harpers’ Ferry, Virginia, 1858. Holds a group hostage with hopes of inspiring a mass slave revolt. This failed, Brown was captured and killed by the state.

C. Assessment: clearly terrorist: General view of all “responsible” politicians of time (including most Republicans) was to condemn Brown uncritically and not scrutinize the far more heinous and structural form of terrorism, known as slavery, that Brown and many others resisted.

D. But was Brown wrong? I submit it’s not an easy answer. You might think it accomplished nothing. But the close historical record suggests you are wrong. With the help of influential thinkers, like Henry David Thoreau, Brown’s actions become widely publicized and disseminated. This publicity likely both accelerated the start of the Civil War and pressured moderates in the Republican Party, like Lincoln, to demand the abolition of slavery as a condition for ending the war.
     Worthwhile to point out that although Brown is somewhat well known, he has long been considered a kook despite the overwhelming historical record that his actions were well thought out, occurred in a context of unspeakable atrocities backed by state authority.

II. Event 2: US Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, Aug 6, Aug 9, 1945:
A. Although these bombings are reasonably well known of in US history, there is very little commentary that points out that these are the two most heinous terrorist actions committed in world history. In Japan, the term “Ground Zero” has a very different meaning.

B. You have bombs that by design are meant to kill upward of a hundred thousand civilians. Hard to imagine a more flagrant condemnation of Laws on War Crimes.

C. Think about the Setting: Japan was effectively defeated. Only sticking point was whether surrender would be unconditional or not (meaning let Hirohito stay emperor). Hirohito, in fact, made overtures through Stalin to inform Truman of Japan’s willingness to surrender.

E. Truman and his Sec. Of War, James Byrnes refused the overtures. Why, they wanted to drop the atomic bombs. Why did they want to drop Atomic bombs? Not to hasten Japan’s surrender or save US lives. It was to send a message to USSR to back off in its own imperial ambitions to grab more of Europe and Asia.
     In other words: US govt ordered two consecutive bombs intended to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians to send a broader message of geopolitical intimidation to the USSR.
     Actual toll: 200 thou dead right away, another 100 thou over 5 years.
     After 2 bombings, Japan did surrender. US then allowed Japan to retain its emperor, which had supposedly been unacceptable before.

F. One would like to think such horrendous actions would have been condemned in the US: No, Americans wildly celebrated the “successful” mass terrorist murders of innocents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even now, 61 years later, there has been shockingly little scrutiny of this most heinous action. Indeed, Truman is now worshipped, especially by our so-called opposition political party, the “fighting Dems” who say vote for us because we can wage war more effectively, like Wesley Clark),

III. Big Points About the War on Terror that Go beyond Brown and Hiroshima:
A. There is a Continued Pathological Unwillingness to Scrutinize Terrorist Actions of the Powerful: If anything we hear about how the US needs to be even more brutally terrorist to accomplish its objectives.  

B. At the UN, all the so-called antiterrrorist efforts are designed to back the US agenda.
     Thus the UNSC passed a binding resolution that requires all states to institute domestic policies that parallel the Patriot Act-led policies of the US.
     Moreover, the UN Sec Gen’l is pushing for a GA def of terrorism that limits terrorism to that committed by nonstate actors. The idea is then to allow the SC to interpret which actors are deemed terrorist; meaning the US and other great powers effectively decide for us.

C. This is Both Morally Abominable and has the effect of Increasing Both the Terrorism of the Strong and the Terrorism of the Weak.
      US, other powerful states, like Russia and China, and friends of the powerful, like Israel and Turkey, will feel unleashed to engage in state terror for their own “security” concerns.
      Such actions, will in turn increase desperation and misery in areas suffering from State Terror: Meaning they will turn to the retail terror of the weak, like blowing up synagogues, mosques, churches, making lethal weapons out of planes, trains, and buses.

Khaleel Mohammed

Khaleel Mohammed

Remarks delivered by Professor Khaleel Mohammed on panel entitled “Can we Defeat Terrorism?” at the Hansen Institute for World Peace and Hostler Institute on World Affairs Lecture series at SDSU, on May 4, 2006.
     

Post 9/11: A Muslim Perspective.


The pervasive Muslim view of the so-called war on terrorism, and the repercussions for Muslims and Islam can be best expressed by the title of Professor Akbar Ahmed’s excellent book “Islam Under Siege.” Let us not misunderstand the meaning of the term: Islam is not only under siege from those without, but also from those within. The war on terrorism, you see, has not only brought about the demonization of the innocent, but has empowered the very entity against which it is supposedly waged.

Islamophobia—a latent centuries-old condition—has now surfaced as a strain of the most virulent potency. For all the declarations of the islamophobes that their war is not against Islam, but against Islamism—the rhetoric of evangelist preachers reveal the truth: Muslims and their religion are to be excised by whatever means possible. Influential preachers like Franklin Graham claim that the God of Islam and the God of Christianity cannot be the same being—and US generals like Boykin buy into that hateful concept. What has escaped that attention of many is that Franklin is simply redirecting Marcion’s medieval Judeophobia, having thus compared the God of Judaism and the God of Christianity.

It is far to demonize Islam without any recourse to proof. A few months ago, KPBS hosted a show about the Darfur genocide and the moderator claimed that it was a war of ‘fundamentalist Islam” against Christians. This blatant untruth—the overwhelming majority of the Darfur victims are Muslim—was presented with the calm conviction of absolute certainty—and the spellbound audience lapped it up almost as divine truth.

After 9/11, certain things have become painfully clear: Muslims have become the target. The imprisonments at Guantanamo, the recent revelations of secret CIA managed prisons in Europe, the calling by one broadcaster for the nuking of Mecca reminds us of a bygone time in which human rights were absent. Last week, a British Muslim student seeking to get a visa to study in the US was told that he had to pay an extra fee for a security check because his name resembled those of terrorists.

There is no point denying the obvious: a sense of fear and doom hangs over the average Muslim. And this very fear is what the Islamists capitalize upon—for every time there is an outrage committed against a Muslim, the Jihadists come closer to their goal of causing Muslims living in the west to feel that there is indeed a war, and that Muslims are the target. What the fear has brought is a circling of the wagons by the extremists on both sides of the fence. Today’s Union Tribune reported that in Sweden, the authorities had rejected a call by a local Muslim leader for special allowances for Islamic law among Muslims. Before 9/11, such a call would have been unthinkable—Muslims were willing to live their lives as citizens of secular countries, leaving Islamic law a subject for Mosque discussions only.

The perception, however, that there is an “us” and “them” has allowed the extremists to ask for the rights for “us” against “them.” The very warped perception forces extremists to want to define themselves against “them” –and so we see a rise of the wearing of the veil, and fundamentalism among Muslims more than ever before.

The US government has sought to eliminate any threat of terrorist activity—as any government ought to do—but has in many cases imprisoned innocents, attempted convictions on the most flimsy grounds—all the while giving actual terrorists a good look at how the system works. Given the way the US legal system operates, the war is not being won in any way, and casuistry and game-playing make a mockery of justice.

A few months ago, in San Diego, I was an expert witness in the Mohammad Abdi case. This Somalian was charged with several offences, among them, that he had not declared himself an employee of the Saudi government. The State’s position was that as an imam and propagator of Islam, he received a salary from the Saudi government. The defense’s argument was that in certain interpretations of Islam, the money paid to the imam is not considered as a salary—and having studied Islamic law, I knew this to be true. The state employed someone who was not familiar with Islamic terminology and used the shallowness of translation to insist that Mr. Abdi was lying. Now it is possible—and I state that simply for argument--that Mr. Abdi may have been lying about other issues of his case, but on the issue of the salary, he was correct. Nonetheless, he was convicted and given double the sentence requested by the state attorneys. He ended up requesting to be deported to Somalia rather than stay in a US jail.

In Lodi California, the opposite scenario happened. Trying to deceive the jury into believing that a very warlike supplication that an accused had on his person was actually a peaceful prayer, the defense sought recourse to what I call “the translation loophole.” What the defense chose not to reveal was that the translation offered was from a sect that is considered heretical in normative Islam, and that the accused would not ever want to be associated with that sect (the Ahmadiyya). The Ahmadiyya sect does not believe in Jihad or any concept of war, and obviously will seek to explain away any classical reference to Jihad.

The almost daily newspaper reports about US connections with torture of Muslim prisoners are letting the nation see that there is a serious double standard regarding Muslims. For an Iraqi “insurgent” to kidnap a civilian is barbaric and terrorist; but for US forces to “detain” a person’s wife or family in order to force him to cooperate is right.
As Mr. Chomsky pointed out in his address to you, the actions of 9/11 were nothing else but the worse form of terrorism. None can deny this. Yet, when Muslims ask if the US bombing of the Sudan medical plant was any different, there is either silence or denial. In fact, many people don’t even know that such a bombing occurred –buttressing the general Muslim view that our blood, our lives don’t count.  

On an almost daily basis too we see the stories of the atrocities committed by Muslim extremists—but we hear little of the bombings of entire villages in territories now occupied by US troops. We hear of calls asking for Muslims to speak up and condemn terrorism—as if Muslims do not. We hardly hear of the Lord’s Army, a Christian terrorist group, or of the terrorist activity of any group.
For Muslims in general, there is a sense of frustration, although not of futility. We are frustrated that in the post-shoah world, wherein we supposedly declared “never again” that demonization of Muslims still occurs. We are frustrated at a justice system that has purportedly tried to stamp out terrorist activity, but has succeeded only in costing the taxpayers money, but not in convincing convictions. But we also know that in the beginning, hostile Arabs tried to stamp out Islam, and that after them, there were several others, including the Crusaders and the Mongols. But we are still here. The American people are beginning to see how they have been misled into accepting a nonsensical war. After 9/11, the number of converts to Islam has risen tremendously. The Qur’an states that God made us as several different nations, so that we may find pleasure in taking the time to know and understand each other. Perhaps it is time that we do that rather than rush to hate.

Professor Lei Guang

Professor Lei Guang

Remarks delivered by Farid Abdel-Nour on panel entitled “Can we Defeat Terrorism?” at the Hansen Institute for World Peace and Hostler Institute on World Affairs Lecture series at SDSU, on May 4, 2006.


East Asian States and the US War on Terrorism

For the United States, 9/11 attack represented an act of ‘war’ that justified a military response. After quickly defeating the Taliban gov’t in Afghanistan, the US military moved on and waged a war in Iraq in 2003 because President Bush believed Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction. Neither has turned out to be true, but that has so far not changed this administration’s view on the need for a war on terrorism.  

So the war goes on. The US has been mobilizing on all fronts for the war—military, diplomatic, economic, organizational, and linguistic. While some law enforcement efforts continue at home and abroad, these efforts are subordinated to the anti-terrorism war, which involves military campaigns, pre-emptive strikes and unilateral action.

No doubt, the war on terrorism has produced much change in American politics. 9/11 and the war on terrorism has also been heralded as ushering in a new era of international politics, where non-conventional tactics, i.e. pre-emptive wars, have to be employed against non-traditional enemies who are not nation-states, who live a shadowy existence and are irredeemably evil.  It’s the era of secret prisons, wire-tapping of citizens and propaganda machines.

So if we live in this country, see things happening around us, and hear the rhetoric that comes out of Washington, we probably believe that indeed the world has entered a new era, that anti-terrorism is now the order of the day, and that it’s going to last a long, long time until we unilaterally declare total victory, a second coming of “mission accomplished.”

But, when we go outside of the US, things appear quite different. As Peter Katzenstein has pointed out “Although 9/11 significantly changed the US, the terrorist attacks did not change much of the world at large. The US sense of urgency to engage in what it regards a war of good against evil has not been widely shared abroad”

We have read a lot about the very public dispute between some of the European countries and the US regarding the war in Iraq, the nature of terrorism and the tactics that should be deployed in the fight against terrorism.  Here, I would like to comment on the responses by the governments in East Asia (primarily Japan, China, and the two Koreas).

I want to make two broad points: (1) one is that 9/11 has not fundamentally changed the way East Asian countries behave toward each other and in international politics…there is far more continuity between what they were up to before and after 9/11; (2) second point, the US war on terrorism has afforded new opportunities for these countries to pursue the same objectives they had before the crisis.

My talk today gives an overview of how East Asian states have responded to the “dangers” and “opportunities” presented by the US war on terrorism. To sum it all up, 9/11 and the US war on terrorism has not led to any fundamental changes in the behaviors of the East Asian states.  If anything, the war on terror has afforded new opportunities, For Japan, it’s the opportunity to break out of the straightjacket of its peace constitution; for China, it’s an opportunity to securing the US support for its domestic agenda and against Taiwan independence; For South Korea, it’s an opportunity to press ahead with North-South reconciliation. For North Korea, it’s time to take advantage of a distracted US to forge ahead with its nuclear programs to ensure the survival of the regime.

Farid AbdelNour

Farid Abdel-Nour

Remarks delivered by Farid Abdel-Nour on panel entitled “Can we Defeat Terrorism?” at the Hansen Institute for World Peace and Hostler Institute on World Affairs Lecture series at SDSU, on May 4, 2006.


The Moral Uselessness of Terrorism


In my remarks I will focus on how we use the term terrorism and why it is so difficult to define.  I argue that the very term serves a function of moral obfuscation.

Defining terrorism would not be so difficult if when we used it we meant to describe a particular method of using violence.  If when we used the term we meant something analogous to what we mean when we use terms like “war” or “killing” there would not be such controversy surrounding its definition.  When we say “war” we try to capture with that word a political phenomenon, just as when we say killing we try to capture a social phenomenon.  In both of these cases we leave open the question of whether we approve of the war in question or whether we approve of the specific act of killing.  We can qualify the term war by saying “this is a just war” or “this is an unjust war”.  Similarly we can qualify the term “killing” by saying “this is a justifiable act of killing” (in self defense for example), or we can say “this is not a justifiable act of killing” in which case it might constitute murder.  We understand war and killing as phenomena in the world about which, depending on circumstances we can make different types of moral judgment.

This is not the case with the way we use the term “terrorism.”  We do not use the term to denote a phenomenon about any particular instance of which we can ponder if it is just or unjust.  We use the term terrorism in a way that already includes a final value judgment.  This complicates the question of defining it.  It means that in our political discourse we do not use the term terrorism in a way that is analogous to the way we use war or killing.  We use it instead in a way that is analogous to our use of the term “evil.”  In other words, when we label an act or a person as terrorist we do something analogous to what we do when we label someone or something as evil.

The term evil is not so much used to capture and denote a clearly identifiable political or social phenomenon. Rather, it is used to denote something about the relationship between the person who is using the term and the one who is being labeled by it.

The terms “terrorist” and “evil” have one very important feature in common.  They are never used to describe self.  They always describe an Other.   People might say “I am a sinner,” “I am a criminal,” “I am a murderer,” “I have broken the law,” “I have made a mistake,” but no one says “I am evil.”  However it flows relatively easily off our tongues to say “you are evil” or “he or she is evil.”  The same applies to terrorism.  Anytime anyone is accused of terrorism they respond with “I am not the terrorist, they are the real terrorists” (usually pointing to ones identified with his accusers).

No on says about him or herself “I am a terrorist” or about his or her group “we are terrorists.”  This tells us something about how this term functions in our political discourse and why it is not only difficult, but should prove to be impossible to define in any way that would have universal credibility.

Since the term terrorism always denotes actions that self would never perform, it serves to help define who “we are not” and how “we” are distinct from others (no matter who the “we” is).  The reason that a universal definition of terrorism is difficult is that each group will want the definition to exclude the types of actions that they themselves engage in or would like to feel entitled to engage in.  They would each like the definition of terrorism to include actions that others against whom they define themselves engage in.

Let us consider a couple of potential definitions of terrorism that capture the value judgment that is always wrapped into the term and hidden inside it, and see how these attempted definitions would be hard for us to accept because they do not allow for a moral gulf to separate “us “ from “the terrorists.”

We can begin with a definition I heard in this room during this lecture series that went something like this:  “we follow the rules of war—the terrorists do not.  This is what distinguishes us from the terrorists.”  At the time when I heard this definition, I was very offended because the speaker, who was a guest in our country, was insulting us all by implying that the U.S. is a terrorist state.  He must have been aware of the Guantanamo Bay detention center and the violations of the rules of war that are involved.  He must have also been aware of the violations of the rules of war in the Abu Ghreib prison.  Nonetheless he had the audacity to suggest that by violating the rules of war (something we do on a regular basis) we would be grouped as terrorists.

Such an attempt at a definition cannot be accurate because it does not serve to show how we are not terrorists.  So we should try to work with a more “refined” definition.

Perhaps, as innumerable public figures keep repeating ad nauseam, the difference between the terrorists and us is that “we do not target civilians, whereas the terrorists do.”   This attempt at a definition requires some careful interpreting.

First, it cannot mean that the terrorists kill civilians whereas we do not, because of course we kill civilians all the time and we kill them in large numbers.  Consider for example that during the first forty-two days of the Iraq war, U.S. and coalition forces killed 7312 civilians, more than double the number of civilians killed on September 11th.

Anyone who tries to define terrorism as the killing of civilians is someone with bad intentions towards us.  Such a person would be trying to label us as terrorists.

This means that we must refine our interpretation of the targeting civilians definition.  We might instead interpret it as follows: the difference between the terrorists and us is that we kill civilians only by mistake, that is unintentionally, while terrorists kill civilians intentionally.  I am afraid that someone who offers such an interpretation must also have bad intentions towards us. Because of course we kill civilians intentionally all the time.  For example, when our troops identify a city such as Fallujah for attack, they know and we know that cities include civilians (including women and children).  The attack on Fallujah in April 2004 yielded 300 children and women dead (aside from any civilian men).  It was no secret that Fallujah contained civilians, it was bombed to the ground nonetheless, intentionally killing civilians.  When our troops assassinated an al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan several weeks ago they took a number of civilians with him, intentionally, knowingly.  He was in a private home where civilians tend to live.

This means that terrorism cannot involve simply killing civilians intentionally.  That cannot be the way to define terrorism.  We must try to refine our interpretation of targeting civilians even further.  Perhaps by saying that we do not target civilians we mean that we only intentionally kill civilians when we suspect them of being in bad company, whereas terrorists intentionally kill civilians even when they do not suspect them of being in bad company.

I think one could go on—what does it mean to be in bad company, to suspect someone of being in bad company?  What does it mean to try to assassinate people we have vague suspicions about?  But there is no need to go on.  You get the point.

At best, the difference between the people we label as terrorist and us is a moral hair-split.  At worst, any distinction in the types of behavior we engage in and that they engage in is unsustainable.  Either way, we see that the term “terrorist” does not help us distinguish between different types of behavior in any morally significant sense.  Its main function seems to be to convince us that there are evil others who are unlike us in every respect, against whom we can define ourselves, and at whom we can look with self-righteous indignation.

The term terrorism serves to obfuscate the fact that the difference between those we label as terrorists and ourselves is not a moral gulf at all, but at best a moral hair, or perhaps there is no moral difference at all.

A Theory of Suicide

A Theory of Suicide Bombing

Notes on Mia Bloom’s chapter four. Five, and six.

Suicide attacks are unique in that with every attack the ranks of the true believers get depleted.  However, if it plays right to the intended audience, every suicide attack creates more willing volunteers.

Domestic politics is an important determinant of suicide attacks.  If the base accepts such attacks, the group that can deliver it, gains increase in political support.

Individual motivation

The volunteers in suicide attack are often driven by a sense of humiliation or deep injustice.  

Religion may play an important role in prompting people to become a shahid (martyr), but it si not always necessary.  For instance, the LTTE is not a religious organization.  Also, PFLP (Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine) is a Marxist organization.

Organization

Regardless of the individual motivations, it is the organization that decides when and how suicide attacks will take place.  There is a great deal of planning and logistical support that are needed for such attacks.  Thus, these attacks follow the strategic needs of the organizations.  These strategic considerations include a) retaliation against the enemy; b) vying for market share of popular support; and c) support of the state sponsor (if any) or the Diaspora.

Therefore, following these three factors, when the enemy (the state of Israel for Hamas, the PIJ, and other Palestinian groups, the Turkish government for the PKK, the Russian government for the Chechens, and the Sri Lankan government for the LTTE) over reacts and metes out community punishments, it only helps the suicide attackers.  When the popular base, or an external friendly state or the Diaspora supports them, these organizations become stronger.

On the other hand, suicide attacks stop when such actions reduce the popular support for the organization or, if a charismatic leader is eliminated.  Thus the PKK (Turkish Workers Party) lost its support base when in started a suicide attack campaign.  Also, the arrest of their leader Abdullah Ocalan caused them at abadon such attacks.

Hizballah gave up suicide attacks after it became part of the legitimate political process in Lebanon.  

Robert Pape claims that suicide attacks are particularly successful against democracies.  However, it is not clear how he defines democracy, since Isreal, India, Sri Lanka, US, Great Britain, and Spain may be considered as democracies, Russia and Turkey seem to have lesser claim to democratic principles.  Countries like Pakistan, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia cannot be regarded as democratic.