Nov.-Dec. 2001:
Drums of War, Voices for Peace
Pacifism in a Time of National Pain
Roots of Conflict
What’s Next for Global Justice?
Pentagon’s Blank Check
Our One-Dimensional Media
Countering Military Recruiting
The Constitution in Turmoil
A Nonmilitary Response
New Yorkers Against War

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War Resisters League
The Nonviolent Activist

The Conflict’s Deep Roots

by Wendy Schwartz

hat follows is excerpted from an Interview with longtime writer and analyst Phyllis Bennis by journalist Natalie Levisalles, originally published in September in the French daily Liberation.

photo: David McReynolds

As a specialist in the Middle East, did you think these terrorist attacks were predictable?

I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the scope and complex nature of this crime, or the capacity of a small group of secretive conspirators to carry out something on this scale. That said, however, it was certainly not surprising that some kind of military strike, inevitably more likely to target civilians because of the vast disparity of power between the United States as the sole superpower and any force or set of forces among the disempowered of the world, would take place. It was never realistic to believe, as too many in this country did, that Americans and American territory would remain forever immune from what Robert Fisk called “the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people.”

Why is the United States so hated in the Middle East?

I do not think “the United States” is hated in the Middle East; certainly American people are welcomed, envied, often admired. There is a craving, far more than I am comfortable with, for the symbols of the too-homogenized global culture for which America is unfortunately known. The kids wear Mickey Mouse T-shirts, the teenagers throw rocks stashed in their Levis pockets, many adults want the culture they see popularized on U.S.-based homogenized global media.

What is hated and resented is not even American power per se, but the way that power is used in the Middle East region and internationally. That includes the operationally uncritical (despite occasional verbal concerns) political, diplomatic and financial (around $4 billion a year) support for Israel and its occupation of Palestinian land, including providing F-16s and helicopter gunships used against refugee camps, settlements, house demolitions, assassination of Palestinian activists and leaders, checkpoints, curfews, closures, etc. It includes the United States arming and backing the repressive near-dictatorships and absolute monarchies throughout the region, ignoring the claimed commitment to “democratization” that shapes U.S. policy justifications elsewhere in the world. It includes U.S. sponsorship of 11 years of economic strangulation of Iraq, through sanctions now genocidal in their cumulative impact. It includes the stationing (permanently now, it seems) of U.S. troops throughout the region, particularly those occupying lands in Saudi Arabia.

But more than any single policy or even set of policies, the biggest cause of antagonism, I think, is the arrogance with which that unchallengeable U.S. power is exercised. That is, with the dismissal of the importance of international law, the ignoring of U.N. requirements, the abandonment of nearly-unanimous internationally supported treaties—essentially because the United States, while demanding that other countries abide scrupulously by the terms of U.N. resolutions and international law, threatening or imposing sanctions or even military assault in response to violations, holds itself accountable only to a separate “law of empire” which applies to the United States alone.

What should the United States do now?

It’s still too soon perhaps, to draw all the lessons that must be learned, but it is not too soon, even in the epicenter of our anguish, to begin to ask questions. It is not too soon for U.S. policymakers, and for the public, to begin the long process of examining U.S. policy, U.S. approaches to the world, the U.S. propensity towards unilateralism—and to begin to make crucial changes.

I think we need greater international cooperation; only then will we be able to at least consider the possibility of finding the perpetrators and holding them accountable according to the rule of law, not according to the laws of force. The United States should pull back from its bullying and threatened use of force against Afghanistan [and] Pakistan and, indirectly, against every Middle Eastern country and instead try to recreate a new kind of cooperative internationalism based on U.N. resolutions, international law and a commitment to fighting for justice rather than vengeance.

That may mean revoking its opposition to the International Criminal Court, instead recognizing its value for precisely this kind of international horror. The United States could even take the lead in moving to strengthen, rather than weaken, the court as it comes into formal existence, including supporting the creation of an independent internationally accountable police agency to enforce the court’s jurisdiction. Cooperation with Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc., would make possible a level of collaborative police work that will remain out of reach as long as U.S. diplomacy is defined by bullying and threatened bombing strikes.

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow in Middle East and United Nations Affairs at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.