ENDING STATE TERRORISM

By Johan Galtung and Dietrich Fischer

[In this article written a year after September 11, 2001 when three thousand civilians were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and after the attack on Afghanistan, the authors ask: How can we break out of this vicious circle?]

[This article still burning today amid the Iraq war was published in the German Peace Movement “Forum” and is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.friedenskooperative.de/ff/ff04/6-64.htm. Johan Galtung is a professor of Peace Studies and director of Transcend, a peace- and development network. Dietrich Fischer, professor at Pace University, is co-director of Transcend (www.transcend.org).]


Several days after September 11, a psychologist on CNN advised parents whose children raised difficult questions. A little boy had asked: “What did we do that they hate us and injure us?” That is a mature question unlike its answer: “You could tell your child, there are good persons in the world and evil.” The boy had reached the stage of reciprocity on the scale of child development outlined by the psychologist Jean Piaget. In this phase, children see the actions of others as at least partly influenced by their own actions (and vice versa). On the other hand, the answer of the psychologist remained on the earlier phase of autism in which the bad actions of others are not affected by our actions.

Motivation helps explain, not justify. The humiliating Versailles treaty of 1919 that declared Germany solely responsible for the First World War and imposed heavy reparations for fifty years can explain Hitler’s success. Obviously nothing can justify what Hitler did. Understanding does not mean forgiving. However without understanding we are condemned to repeat history.

The US media never mentions state terrorism committed by the US against other countries. Since 1945 the US has intervened 67 times in foreign countries and caused twelve million deaths, half through public overt actions (Pentagon) and the other half through secret covert actions (CIA). This is practically unknown to most Americans and is seldom mentioned with the noteworthy exceptions of Chalmer Johnson’s book “Blowback” and Bill Blum’s “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower.” In addition 100,000 persons in the world die daily of hunger and preventable sicknesses in the midst of vast luxury and waste.

The targets of the attack on September 11 were symbolic: the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. They represented a system of world trade that concentrates indescribable wealth in the hands of a few while billions in the third world are impoverished.

Bin Laden’s statement broadcast by Al Jazira right after September 11 said: “Our nation has experienced this humiliation and degradation for more than 80 years.” He referred to the betrayal of Sykes-Picot of 1916 through whom Arabs fell under the rule of unbelievers, the broken British promise to give the Arab nations independence as a return favor for their assistance, the defeat of the Osmanian empire and the 1917 Balfour declaration that supported the founding of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Terrorism (carried out by men and women without uniforms) and state terrorism (carried out by men and women in uniform and making little distinction in civilian and military casualties) have the following characteristics in common: they use violence for political objectives, they injure people not directly involved in the fight, they spread panic and terror to gain capitulation, they have an element of surprise in relation to the where, who and when while the culprits escape retaliation.

The Wahlhabism, a fundamentalist branch of Islam and a state religion in Saudi Arabia and Puritanism, the middle class state-friendly religion of the US have several common characteristics: dualism (division of the world into US against THEM without any neutral), manichaism (WE are good, THEY are bad) and the inevitability of a final battle to “crush” them like vermin (Armageddon). The stricter variants of the three Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam share the concepts of a people chosen by God with a promised land, a glorious past and/or future and an experienced trauma. This can be found in the rhetoric of both Bush and Bin Ladin.

Al Qaida and the Wahlhabites see the US as greedy in its interest in oil (world trade) and military bases (Pentagon). In fact the US got hold of an old Soviet base near Kandahar. On May 20, 2002 the agreement for a Turkish-Afghan-Pakistani pipeline was signed by the two presidents and the former UNOCAL adviser Hamid Karzai who is now the Afghan premier. The US confirmed its image.

If the US had limited itself to a military campaign and left peacekeeping to the UN Security Council and the Organization of the Islamic Conference without creating US bases and left the right to the oil pipeline to the Afghan people, they could have won their war. However they lost it.

The long-term goal of Islamic fundamentalists seems to be respect for sensitive religious questions. The US aims at free trade and military protection. Trade that grants priority to basic needs could accomplish both goals.

Bush could have said:

“American citizens, the attack yesterday on two buildings that killed thousands was monstrous and totally unacceptable. The culprits must be captured and called to account by an international court. There is a clear UN mandate for this. However my address tonight goes beyond this. There are serious deficiencies in our well-intentioned foreign policy. We create enemies through our carelessness toward the basic needs of people all over the globe including their religious sensitivities. Therefore I will take the following steps:

· I will withdraw our military bases from Saudi Arabia
· I will recognize Palestine as a state (details will come later)
· I will start a dialogue with Iraq to identify conflicts that can be solved
· I will accept president Khatami’s invitation to do the same with Iran
· I will withdraw militarily and economically from Afghanistan
· I will stop our military interventions and be reconciled with the victims.”

That evening 1.3 billion Muslims would have embraced the US. The few terrorists would have had no water any more for their swimming. This would cost a speechwriter a half hour and ten minutes to give the address – compared to $60 billion for the Afghanistan war. This would not be simple psychologically but the benefits would be immeasurable.