by Nick Cooper

10:59pm Wed Sep 19 '01

In a time of military action, propaganda and fear, we find ourselves choosing between supporting the government, or opposing violence; between the struggle against an enemy, or the struggle against violence itself. When the United States military begins to use violence against a group of innocent civilians, as it has in many times throughout our history, those of us who choose to be opposed to violence will know that our government is acting as terrorists. There is no speech we will need to listen to, no news analysis we need to watch, no interpretation necessary, because to us, such violence is always wrong.

For the other group, those who will support the U.S. government, things are a bit more confusing. The tv news is necessary to explain to them what is going on because it is so complicated. The official bad guys keep switching -- sometimes Iran, sometimes Iraq. Furthermore, the worst terrorists used to be our partners - Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein worked for years with massive support from the CIA. Furthermore, their most hated and horrific activities seem to be things we taught them how to do and gave them the materials to do.

Modern warfare has meant killing, torturing, starving and oppressing innocent civilians in order to achieve political objectives. George W. Bush has said the recent attacks were not an act of terrorism, but acts of war. I had thought terrorism was considered the worse of the two, and would be essentially the same as what is called a "war crime." The Geneva Convention states that an attack aimed chiefly at civilians should be considered a war crime. People who commit war crimes are terrorists whether they wear a turban or a business suit. The United States has a long history of sponsoring terrorism.

The U.S., through bombing and sanctions, destroyed the bodies of more than a million innocent civilians in Iraq. These were civilians who of course had never done anything to support Saddam Hussein. Who had supported Saddam Hussein? The U.S. -- all through the 80s with billions in weapons and aid. But these civilians who never voted for Saddam were the victims of U.S. bombs. What is the essential distinction between them and the civilians in the World Trade Center and Pentagon? We killed civilians and some military in Iraq because we didn't like what Saddam was doing; someone else kills civilians and some military in the U.S. because they didn't like what we were doing. Somehow we justified ourselves because Saddam had invaded Kuwait, certainly others have their reasons based on U.S. intrusions into their countries.

The President has called for a war against all nations who harbor terrorists. But what limited definition of "terrorist" is this? The United States has citizens who should be considered terrorists by other nations. Certainly Bush is not endorsing Nicaragua, Chile, Cambodia or Laos to bomb the U.S. because we allow Oliver North and Henry Kissinger to live here. There is another level of horror beyond killing civilians to torturing and slowly poisoning them for which these men are responsible.

How unbearable it is to watch the public and the media allow these distortions to go unquestioned, while these men, our "Christian" leaders who have nothing in common with Jesus and everything in common with Pontius Pilate, launch a slaughter of civilians they have named "Operation Infinite Justice" but which would be better called "Operation Endless War." How upset I am to feel the hatred in my fellow U.S. citizens, attacking foreign looking people, calling for blood, wanting so badly to either strike out at anyone or somehow go back to the consumer daydream from which they were suddenly awoken.

There is simply no answer to the question of how killing any number of terrorists or civilians will decrease our susceptibility to terrorism. And if security is not attainable, what are we striving for -- revenge? It seems we are striving, rather, to be at war. A vague war with unspecified enemies or objectives. A war that benefits only those who thrive off violence -- the terrorists. Like the war on drugs, a war on terrorism it is unwinable without more fundamental changes. Like the war on drugs it will be profitable for those in power. Like the war on drugs it will kill more innocent people than it protects.

Security is not an end in itself or we would all prefer to live in some sort of jail. We must seek a global system of justice, however difficult it is, instead of security, because only justice is sustainable. What is the point of a democracy in which we have sacrificed civil rights, our humanitarianism and can't even travel anywhere? What is the point of trying to bring bin Laden to justice in a country where we can't even bring our own war criminals to justice? What is the point of trying to go after all these manifestations of a problem without addressing the problem itself? What is the point of trying to save the American system if we only have a little time left because of the unsustainability of our practices in warfare, agriculture, energy management, human rights and of requiring growing profits with shrinking resources?

Only commanders of nations that lose a war are tried for war crimes in that war. No U.S. citizen has ever been tried. I believe that only an International War crimes Tribunal system, empowered physically and politically to find, arrest and try all war criminals could represent global justice. The U.S. government rejects this proposal because it would mean that U.S. citizens would be brought to trial. It is outrageous to think that war crimes were not committed by the U.S. in Vietnam or elsewhere. It is xenophobic to think that only foreign leaders should be brought to trial, when U.S. leaders continually violate directives against bombing civilian infrastructures and covertly creating instability. What else but xenophobia and exultation of might over right could make us reject an international court's jurisdiction over our commanders. Perhaps some other countries' hatred of us could make us a target for more lawsuits, but this would be preferable to being targeted by terrorists because no uninvolved civilians would die and because of the principles of fairness that would be part of such a grand and international attempt at justice. Perhaps Americans would feel that their Constitution should not be superseded by an international agreement, but are they the same Americans who have allowed the WTO to do that very thing (and the WTO's goals are certainly less exaulted than justice)? The rest of the world is learning to work together on things like this -- the chemical and biological weapons ban, the Kyoto accords and disarmament -- and only the U.S. is resisting.

James Baker has stated that we need to prepare for a new level of warfare -- requiring covert operations, assassinations and things that we didn't think were very nice in the past. I know what we have done in the past, it already included covert aggression, assassinations of relatively peaceful people like Patrice Lumumba and Salvador Allende, and endless violations of domestic and international law. It already wasn't nice. It already was horrible! What evil can they possibly be preparing us for now?