[Discussion] The left & 9/11

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The Left and 9/11
by ADAM SHATZ
[from the September 23, 2002 issue]
Since the September 11 attacks, it's become a clich=E9 to say that the =
left is
divided over American foreign policy. But "divided" doesn't begin to =
capture
the diversity of opinion about the war in Afghanistan and the war on
terror--or, for that matter, the inner conflicts that have racked many
people on the left. Standing outside my apartment on Flatbush Avenue in
Brooklyn on September 11, I saw the towers on fire. As shaken and =
horrified
as I was, I knew two things: (1) the American government--my =
government, for
better or for worse--would respond; and (2) that despite my fear that =
the
response would be disproportionate, I wasn't going to be attending any =
peace
rallies, at least not yet.=20
Since then, the fog of war has grown thicker and thicker. On some days, =
I'm
sympathetic to Noam Chomsky's critique of the war on terrorism as an
arrogant war of empire. On other days, I remember the view from =
Flatbush
Avenue on September 11, and I'm gripped by the sense that =
anti-imperialism
is a woefully incomplete guide to today's situation. I never saw the
Soviets, the Cubans, the Sandinistas, the ANC or the PLO as enemies. Al
Qaeda is another matter altogether.=20
Curious whether others shared my own ambivalence, I undertook an =
informal
investigation of left-wing opinion on American foreign policy since =
9/11. I
spoke to a range of left intellectuals, from social democrats who were
convinced that Afghanistan was a necessary and just war, to
anti-imperialists who believed that it was a nasty war of retribution. =
More
important, I spoke with people, arguably the left majority, who fell
somewhere in between, in that sea of uncertainty that is the post-9/11
condition. They weren't ecstatic about the war in Afghanistan, but they
couldn't bring themselves to oppose it either. The question that has =
vexed
them is where to draw the line between self-defense and imperial
aggrandizement.=20
Some of the people I interviewed opposed going to war in October =
because
they feared a bloody quagmire and didn't trust the Bush Administration, =
but
changed their minds a month later when the Taliban unexpectedly fell. =
Others
went in the opposite direction, coming out against the war only after =
US
bombing began to inflict heavy civilian casualties. A few people =
supported
targeted strikes against Al Qaeda training bases, but not the overthrow =
of
the Taliban--not because of any sympathy for the regime but because the =
Bush
Administration might be emboldened to overthrow other governments. =
Others
argued, in contrast, that we shouldn't be bombing Afghanistan unless we =
were
willing to send in ground troops. Some said that a struggle against =
radical
Islam is necessary, but that we should be waging it in Saudi Arabia, =
not in
Afghanistan. And many of the people who cautiously supported the Afghan
intervention passionately assailed the war on terror as a new cold war, =
a
danger to both American democracy and security.=20
To be honest, I've held a number of these positions myself. There may =
not be
thirteen ways of looking at "America's new war," as CNN almost =
instantly
(and vaguely) named it, but there are certainly more than two.=20
Reading the left press, however, you wouldn't necessarily know this. =
Since
September 11, the debate on the left has been framed by the extremes of =
pro-
and antiwar opinion--that is, if you can call it a debate. It's more =
like a
shouting match, with accusations of treason of one kind or another =
being
flung by both sides.=20
New Left Review editor Tariq Ali sneers at supporters of the war, =
including
his ex-friend Christopher Hitchens, as "the new empire loyalists," =
while
Hitchens excoriates opponents of the war on terror as "Ramadanistas." =
In
"Can There Be a Decent Left?", an essay in the spring Dissent, Michael
Walzer--who lent his signature to "What We're Fighting For," a prowar
manifesto sponsored by the center-right Institute for American
Values--accused the antiwar left of expressing "barely concealed glee =
that
the imperial state had finally gotten what it deserved." (When I asked =
him
to say whom he had in mind, he said: "I'm not going to do that. =
Virtually
everyone who read it knew exactly what I was talking about.")=20
The debate reflects sharp disagreements not only about the war on =
terror but
about America's enormously expanded role in the world. Radical
anti-imperialists ground their claims in the sordid history of US
involvement in Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile, East Timor and =
Nicaragua. As
the left-wing war historian Gabriel Kolko puts it: "Everyone--Americans =
and
those people who are the objects of their efforts--would be far better =
off
if the United States did nothing, closed its bases overseas, withdrew =
its
fleets everywhere and allowed the rest of the world to find its own way
without American weapons and troops." Left interventionists, by =
contrast,
invoke the recent history of the Balkans, where they argue American =
military
intervention helped create the conditions for Slobodan Milosevic's =
downfall
and for the democratization of Serbia; they also point out that in =
post-cold
war geopolitics, there are worse things than the expansion of =
NATO--ethnic
cleansing and genocide, for instance. "I think it should have occurred =
to a
lot of people that there are many places in the world where American
intervention would be considered desirable," says Hitchens. One camp
inclines toward automatic hostility to any American military =
intervention;
the other veers toward an embrace of American expansionism.=20
The prowar left and the antiwar left have both tended to view the =
conflict
through ideologically tinted prisms. Reflexive anti-Americanism is one =
such
prism. As Don Guttenplan, a London-based correspondent for The Nation,
observes, for a small but vocal section of American radicals, "there is =
only
one imperialism, and if it isn't American it's not imperialism." In the =
past
decade this theology of American evil has assumed increasingly twisted
forms, including, in some cases, a creeping sympathy for Serbian
nationalism. It has also produced a highly selective solicitude for the
oppressed: "Muslim grievances" are to be heeded when they emanate from
Palestine, but ignored or even repudiated when they arise in Bosnia or
Kosovo. This has damaged the left's moral standing and widened the =
chasm
with human rights activists, who should be our natural allies.=20
The MIT linguist and prolific essayist Noam Chomsky has emerged as a
favorite target of those keen on exposing the left's anti-Americanism.
Although Chomsky denounced the attacks, emphasizing that "nothing can
justify such crimes," he seemed irritable in the interviews he gave =
just
after September 11, as if he couldn't quite connect to the emotional =
reality
of American suffering. He wasted little time on the attacks themselves
before launching into a wooden recitation of atrocities carried out by =
the
American government and its allies. In a clumsy analogy, Chomsky =
likened the
attacks to Clinton's bombing of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in =
Sudan
(wrongly suspected of manufacturing biological weapons), which resulted =
in
one direct casualty. According to Chomsky, because the destruction of =
the
plant placed tens of thousands of Sudanese at risk of malaria and other
lethal diseases, it was "morally worse" than 9/11.=20
Much of what Chomsky said--his argument that the United States should =
treat
the attacks as a crime, rather than an act of war, and that it should
apprehend the terrorists and bring them before an international court =
rather
than declare war on Afghanistan--was echoed by more centrist thinkers,
including the British military historian Michael Howard in Foreign =
Affairs
and Stanley Hoffmann in The New York Review of Books. The problem was =
not so
much Chomsky's opposition to US retaliation as the weirdly =
dispassionate
tone of his reaction to the carnage at Ground Zero, but, as Todd Gitlin
points out, "in an interview undertaken just after September 11, the =
tone
was the position."=20
"There's a humbling insight into the US pretension of occupying the =
moral
high ground in Chomsky's work," international legal scholar and Nation
editorial board member Richard Falk reflects. "Part of what he's saying =
is
true. Objectively viewed, the United States isn't the victim but in =
many
contexts, including its response to terrorism, the perpetrator." But, =
adds
Falk, he's "so preoccupied with the evils of US imperialism that it
completely occupies all the political and moral space, and therefore =
it's
not possible for him to acknowledge that even without intending to do =
so,
some US military interventions may actually have a beneficial effect."=20
Instead of taking "an either/or view" of American military =
intervention,
Falk argues, "we should look with as much care as possible at the case =
where
the interventionary claim is being made, and consider the effects of
intervening and not intervening." As his own writings on Afghanistan
illustrate, however, it's not always easy to make these calls. Falk =
changed
his position on Afghanistan several times before arriving at the =
conclusion
that the war was "just and necessary," despite the use of tactics like
cluster bombs that he believes were "in clear violation of the laws of =
war."

Falk has been widely chastised for his vacillations. "Will the old Falk
please stand up? We need you, Richard!" the antiwar lawyer Peter Weiss =
wrote
in a letter to The Nation. "He wanted to be vindicated, he didn't want =
to be
right," says Hitchens, from the other end of the spectrum. And yet one =
could
argue that it was the opposite--that Falk was trying to stake out a
principled position, one attentive both to the delicate balance between
human rights and domestic security, and to the rapid changes on the =
ground
in Afghanistan. In doing so, he spoke for many people on the left, =
though
unlike some of us he expressed his uncertainty and ambivalence, and was =
not
afraid to admit that he had been mistaken.=20
While Falk did not evaluate the war through the distorting prism of
anti-Americanism, he also avoided the misleading view of many prowar
liberals, for whom America's struggle against Al Qaeda and Israel's war =
with
Palestinian suicide bombers are one and the same. "America's crime, its =
real
crime, is to be America herself," Paul Berman wrote in The American =
Prospect
shortly after the attacks. "The crime is to exude the dynamism of an
ever-changing liberal culture. America is like Israel in that respect, =
only
fifty times larger and infinitely richer and more powerful." The =
implication
of Berman's argument is that no change in Middle East policy could stem =
the
tide of Arab anger, directed as it is not against specific American or
Israeli policies but against "our" way of life. Though rarely cited
explicitly, Israel shapes and even defines the foreign policy views of =
a
small but influential group of American liberals. It's one reason =
Berman and
like-minded social democrats at the journal Dissent may support a war
against Iraq. Saddam Hussein has not attacked us, but, as Ann Snitow, a
member of the Dissent editorial board, reminded me, "Who is 'us'? Is it =
New
York or Tel Aviv? The 'us' slides around."=20
Unlike most Americans, leftists didn't have to ask the question "Why do =
they
hate us?"--and not because of any glee that the chickens had come home =
to
roost. The left press had spent the better part of the past two decades
critiquing American policies that have fanned anger and resentment in =
the
Arab and Muslim world.=20
Yet the attacks also placed the left on the defensive. Although bin =
Laden
represents a grisly perversion of anti-imperialism, the atrocities =
posed a
challenge to the sentimental Third Worldism that has been a cornerstone =
of
the radical left since the Vietnam era. "A lot of us came up in the =
period
when the most imperialist actions were coming from the West," says =
Robin
D.G. Kelley, a professor of Africana Studies at New York University. "I
think anyone who supports some blind Third World unity has to think =
again
now."=20
The atrocities also exposed an intelligence failure on the left. For =
years,
progressive writers had referred to terrorism in scare quotes, largely
because security hawks and Israel lobbyists cynically applied the term =
to
acts of indiscriminate violence by national liberation movements, and =
never
to those by states. And while many feminists were decrying the Taliban =
long
before President Bush discovered what a burqa was, some left-wing =
scholars
had presented a sanitized image of Islamic fundamentalists as authentic
populists, even as a potentially democratizing force in the Arab world. =
The
Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? was the title of one highly praised =
study.
Guess what the answer was.=20
"This war is a real crisis for the left," says Katha Pollitt, "in that
finally there is an enemy who has attacked us, as opposed to any enemy
that's in our heads, and one that's completely unsympathetic to the =
goals of
the left."=20
There was also confusion and disagreement about how to combat this new
enemy, stateless and elusive as it is. "There are numerous ways of =
dealing
with terrorism, and the military option is not the only one or =
necessarily
even the best one," says Eric Foner, an American historian at Columbia
University. "It wasn't Western intervention, it wasn't Western bomber
jets...which went and got rid of Khomeini," Tariq Ali observes. "It was
biology: He died. And after he died, it opened up conflicts in that =
society.
And it was the Iranians, without the help of bomber jets, who voted out =
the
hard-line clerics."=20
But Iran is a nation-state whose ambitions do not extend beyond the =
region;
Al Qaeda is a shadowy network of cells dispersed, in clandestine =
fashion,
throughout the world and inspired by an implacable vision of a war to =
the
death with "Crusaders and Zionists." As Ali notes, nonmilitary policies =
like
police work and spying may prove ideally suited to tracking down Al =
Qaeda
terrorists and preventing future attacks: Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind =
of
the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, was apprehended by =
traditional
police methods. And yet there are some settings in which police methods =
can
hardly be expected to work, like Afghanistan. "Which was the court =
where
these guys could be summoned?" asks Todd Gitlin. "Were subpoenas to be
dropped at the mouths of the caves of Tora Bora?" What's more, the call =
for
"police work" rather than war sounded somewhat disingenuous, coming as =
it
did from some of the same people who used to call for the abolition of =
the
CIA, an organization to which much of the policing would presumably be
entrusted. A noisy debate over the reform of the CIA rocked mainstream =
and
conservative circles after 9/11, but, as the investigative journalist =
Ken
Silverstein notes, the left didn't participate. "Whatever the solutions =
are,
it's a reasonable debate," says Silverstein. "But it wasn't a debate =
that
was vibrant on the left. When people on the left hear the words =
Pentagon or
CIA, they immediately go into the mode of, 'Oh, they're big, bad
organizations and that's all I need to know.'"=20
When it comes to military action, moreover, the left has been similarly =
hard
pressed to develop an informed critique that transcends pacifist =
platitudes.
"What we should be learning from the last couple of decades," Barbara
Ehrenreich reflects, "is that there's a variety of forms of [military]
intervention." Once the war in Afghanistan began and it became clear =
that
America would rely once again on high-altitude bombing--and the =
assistance
of ruthless local proxies--a number of left-liberal writers who =
supported
the intervention called for ground troops. The cultural critic Ellen =
Willis
was among them. "There's no such thing as a war without consequences =
for
yourself," she says. "The idea that some people in the military have =
that
America should never have any casualties is ridiculous."=20
But ridiculous to whom? Given the mercurial realities of American =
electoral
politics, and given the "lessons" of Vietnam, keeping American =
casualties to
a minimum makes perfect sense to both the American government and the
American military, not to mention the American people.=20
When I mentioned this problem to Willis, she said: "I think it's =
incumbent
on people to say what they think.... If you're going to be a critic, be =
a
critic of those things that you're really critical of, and support the
things that you can support." It's a reasonable argument, but it may =
also be
a touch na=EFve. As Pollitt reflects, "A fundamental problem with
intellectuals is that they think they're much more powerful than they =
are,
and they find these middle paths."=20
The war on terror, though far more controversial than the war in
Afghanistan, has found some impassioned liberal supporters, =
particularly the
circle around Dissent, the magazine Walzer edits. Dissent emerged =
during the
cold war as a journal of the social democratic left, and it has long
maintained commitments to social justice and labor rights. But =
historically
it has been identified (albeit critically) with American foreign =
policy, in
opposition to Communism and to Third World and especially Arab =
militancy--a
threat to Israel, the journal's special object of concern. Communism is
dead, but Arab militancy is perceived as more virulent than ever. A new
enemy, together with a new war that, like the cold war, not all =
leftists
support, gave Dissent a renewed sense of purpose at a time when it =
seemed
rudderless. The journal has thus devoted much of its critical energy =
since
9/11 to castigating the sins of the left. At Dissent's first editorial =
board
meeting after the attacks, the liveliest topic of conversation was
reportedly Chomsky, whom Walzer appears to regard as an even greater =
menace
to society than Osama himself.=20
The bellicosity of Christopher Hitchens is more surprising. It's true =
that
Hitchens also supported American military interventions in the Balkans =
and
in Haiti. Even so, it's hard not to be taken aback by his zealous =
embrace of
the war on terrorism, his conditional support for a pre-emptive strike
against Iraq and by the ferocious invective he has poured on antiwar
critics. Hitchens, a self-described "root-and-branch anti-Zionist," =
once
disdained the very notion of a foreign policy premised on =
antiterrorism. In
an essay published in The Nation on December 5, 1981, he wrote about =
The New
Republic: "The cult of 'anti-terrorism'"--notice the quotes--"has taken =
a
sturdy hold on that once-proud magazine, and has spilled over from =
gung-ho
attitudes on Israel to a pastiche of Reaganism in general--at least in =
the
area of foreign policy."=20
It's true that the world, and not just Hitchens, has changed since =
1981.
When Reaganites referred to "terrorism" in those days, they meant =
violent
resistance of any kind by radical nationalists, whether the PLO, the =
ANC or
Central American insurgents. And while this violence was sometimes =
directed
at innocent civilians, it often wasn't--it merited the quotes around it =
in a
way that Al Qaeda's religiously inspired and vastly more lethal attacks =
do
not. Even so, the war against terror seems to have taken a sturdy hold =
on
the left's most gifted polemicist, and has spilled over from gung-ho
attitudes on American power into a pastiche of Bushism--at least in the =
area
of foreign policy.=20
In the first couple of weeks after 9/11, as radicals flashed peace =
buttons
and denounced America's war before a shot was fired, Hitchens's voice =
was a
tonic. You didn't have to agree with his overheated (and now overused)
analogy between radical Islam and fascism to appreciate his candor =
about the
evil that occurred on September 11, and about the need to prevent =
similar
attacks in the future. In the bombers of Manhattan, he declared, "we =
have
met an enemy, and...he is not us, but someone else." While radicals =
noted
that the United States had armed and trained Islamic militants in
Afghanistan throughout the 1980s, as if "blowback" were reason enough =
not to
do anything about them now, Hitchens asked the obvious question: "Does =
this
not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power?"=20
"All that made sense to me," Guttenplan says of Hitchens's early =
responses
to 9/11. "What didn't make sense to me was saying we're getting on the =
bus
with George Bush." Which, in effect, is what Hitchens has been saying =
for
the past several months. "There may be some stupid and...self-righteous =
ways
of being in favor of this war or of the Bush foreign policy, but there =
is no
intelligent and no principled way of being against it," Hitchens =
thundered
in a recent debate with Tariq Ali. At that debate, Hitchens traced the =
war
back to February 14, 1989, when Khomeini declared a fatwa against his =
friend
the novelist Salman Rushdie. Never mind that the radical Shiites of =
Iran are
sworn enemies of the Sunni fundamentalists of Al Qaeda. For Hitchens, =
the
war on terror is a religious war, or rather an anticlerical war--even =
though
it is led by a born-again Christian. In a fairly laudatory assessment =
of
Bush's first year in office, published last January in the British =
Observer,
Hitchens praised the President for knowing his place ("He has not =
sought to
outgrow his limited stature.... In general, he has eschewed the =
temptations
of posturing or grandstanding") and for his tolerant stance vis-=E0-vis =
the
Muslim world ("he was, if anything, too immaculate in his deference to
Muslim sensitivities at home and abroad"). The contrast with his verbal
assaults on the Chomsky left, whom Hitchens calls "soft on crime and =
soft on
fascism," is stark and telling.=20
Hitchens's enthusiasm for the war on terror has led him to adopt some
strange positions. You would think that, as a longstanding champion of
Palestinian rights, he would be disturbed by Rumsfeld's cavalier talk =
of the
"so-called occupied territories" and Bush's crude ultimatum to the
Palestinians to either vote out Arafat or continue living under =
occupation.
But Hitchens told me that while he objects to "that whole tone of =
voice," he
prefers Bush's "tough love" to the "patronization" of Clinton's peace
negotiators. Nor is he troubled by the mounting civilian toll exacted =
by
America's crusade in Afghanistan. "I don't think the war in Afghanistan =
was
ruthlessly enough waged," he says. What about the use of cluster bombs? =

	If you're actually certain that you're hitting only a concentration
of enemy troops...then it's pretty good because those steel pellets =
will go
straight through somebody and out the other side and through somebody =
else.
And if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight =
through
that, too. So they won't be able to say, 'Ah, I was bearing a Koran =
over my
heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through.' No way, =
'cause
it'll go straight through that as well. They'll be dead, in other =
words.
"It pains me to hear that," says Edward Said, a friend of many years. =
"He's
gone back to nineteenth-century gunboat diplomacy--go hit the wogs."=20
Wars tend to spread beyond their original objectives, and the war in
Afghanistan is no exception. Hardly had the Taliban collapsed when a =
new war
was declared, a war on terror with a long list of enemies (almost none =
of
them related to Al Qaeda) and no obvious endgame. Not without reason, =
our
European allies increasingly see this war as a naked effort to remap =
the
world in US interests. The war's collateral effects now include =
widespread
violations of civil liberties at home, an aggressive foreign policy and =
an
emboldened unilateralism.=20
As it turns out, the more persuasive analysis on the left of these
collateral effects belongs not to Hitchens but to Chomsky. While =
Hitchens
was outlining his support for a war on "Islamo-fascism," Chomsky was
predicting that the terrorist threat would be invoked to justify =
further
adventures, just as it was during the Reagan Administration. And the =
second
war against terrorism is staffed by some of the same people who led the
first one. John Negroponte, Reagan's ambassador to Honduras and the =
point
man of our Central American wars, is our ambassador to the United =
Nations.
Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld, is Defense
Secretary. One can differ with Chomsky on Afghanistan and still see =
much of
value in his critique of the war on terrorism. "I don't believe that =
we're
ideologically committed to do evil," says playwright Tony Kushner. "On =
the
other hand, what Chomsky says about the globalization of the war is
absolutely true. It's the beginning of an unapologetic imperium, and =
that's
quite frightening."=20
Chomsky's framework for understanding US foreign policy is appealing =
because
it appears to see through the fog, while allowing those who accept it =
to
feel like they're on the side of history's angels. His world is an =
orderly,
logical one in which everything is foretold. The shape events assume =
may be
unexpected, but the events themselves are the predictable outcome of =
this or
that American policy. Applied to Vietnam, East Timor and Palestine,
Chomsky's analysis of American imperialism has demonstrated uncommon
prophetic powers. Applied to Cambodia and the Balkans, it has prevented =
him
from comprehending evil that has not been plotted from Washington.=20
Unlike Chomsky, Hitchens has an acute sense of the contingency, and the
ironies, of history. But he now talks about global politics as though =
it
were a great chessboard, which the United States could master provided =
it
learned the rules of the game.=20
Despite their strengths, since September 11 both these paradigms have =
proved
to be unreliable compasses. Chomsky's jaundiced perspective on American
power makes it virtually impossible to contemplate the possibility of =
just
American military interventions, either for self-defense or to prevent
genocide. Hitchens's intoxicated embrace of American power has left him =
less
and less capable of drawing the line between humanitarian intervention =
and
rogue-state adventurism. What the left needs to cultivate is an =
intelligent
synthesis, one that recognizes that the United States has a role to =
play in
the world while also warning of the dangers of an imperial foreign =
policy.=20
Even where a growing consensus is apparent, as in the case of Iraq, =
such a
synthesis remains elusive. Why does the left oppose war on Iraq? Do we
oppose it because the US government's reasons for going to war are =
always
deceitful, or because the United States has no right to unseat foreign
governments that haven't attacked us first, or because this war is =
ill-timed
and is likely to backfire? Do we oppose it because it's unilateral and
illegal under international law, or because the American government has
failed to put forward a coherent vision of Iraq after Saddam? As with
Afghanistan, there are more than two ways to be for or against an
intervention in Iraq. Like the war on terror, the debate on the left =
over
the uses of American force has no end in sight.=20