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from 25 november 2001 blue vol II, #12 edition 01 september 2002 update |
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by Steve Booth
Disregard the propaganda, distrust everything, question the things you are being told. September 11th marked the end of an era, but not in the way the establishment wants you to think, as they try to stampede people with fear. Looking back, taking a long historical view, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration onwards, we can see S-11 as part of a logical progression, a rising curve. Something like this was certain to happen eventually. The real surprise in September was over the magnitude of what happened, not that the attacks took place. We should not delude ourselves, there is worse to come. We struggle to understand this situation, and it has many facets, but we tend to look at the situation through a developed world perspective, and this warps our understanding. Battle Between Super-powers The first, most obvious analogy to make here is that of the Cold War. Between 1945 and 1990, the world was effectively divided into two power blocs, Russia and America, Communism and Capitalism. From the Berlin Airlift, 1948, through the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, Vietnam, 1961-1974, to the collapse of the Iron Curtain in November 1989; world politics was essentially a battle between the two Super-powers. In this, propaganda was as important as weaponry. Cold War Mark Two So, one inroad into understanding what is happening now, is to think of the situation as a Cold War 2, with Radical Islam [footnote 2] cast in the role of Soviet Russia. America, we understand, as a homogeneous bloc, with its military-industrial complex, its mass-media, Disneyland, Hollywood films like 'Independence Day' and 'Top Gun', spy satellites, daisy-cutter bombs and stealth technology planes. As with the McCarthy era in the 1950s ("whoever is not for us is against us") and the whole 'Paranoid style in American Politics' [footnote 3], the US establishment, with Bush as frontman, will be able to pull together sufficient a coalition of support to launch the Great Crusade. Remember, 'war is the health of the state'. From the point of view of (say) a CIA chief, arms company director or newspaper magnate, a new Cold War looks a good option. While projecting paranoia about 'the enemy within', various repressive measures can be rushed through Congress, the power of the Securocrats enhanced yet again. Budgets are increased, contracts extended indefinitely, and best of all, the Great Crusade will distract attention away from domestic social problems. The early stages of the Vietnam War, or the 1991 Gulf War are good models here. Propaganda and vested interests will be able to keep it moving, perhaps for at least seven to ten years, depending on the circumstances of the conflict and the reality back-load. [footnote 4] Snapshot 1: Mosaddeq, Iran 1951-53 In 1951 Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq threatened the wholesale nationalization of Anglo-Iranian oil. In August 1953, riots in Tehran brought down Mosaddeq's regime. A team of 5 CIA officers under Kermit 'Kim' Roosevelt financed the Tehran mobs with a $1M slush fund in 500 rial notes. After Mosaddeq went, Reza Shah Pahlavi's regime gave 40% of Iranian oil rights to Gulf, Standard, Texaco, and Socony-Mobil. The affair was soon elevated as an example of a model operation in CIA mythology. Oil We should not under-estimate the importance of oil here. How much longer will the oil last? In 2000, oil reserves were estimated at 140.4 thousand million tons. Annual use was put at 3452.2M tons, giving us another 40 years. The Middle East holds 675.7M barrels of this, 65.4%, or two thirds of world oil. [footnote 5] Attempts are being made to exploit the oil reserves in the former Soviet Republics, the North Caspian area, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, West Siberia and even Afghanistan itself. Yet the region is politically unstable. Clearly some way to assert western hegemony needs to be found. The oil has to be taken to the sea by pipeline. It could not go via Iraq, Iran, so Afghanistan and Pakistan would seem to be the preferred route. What happens in Kabul is less to do with Osama Bin Laden, as to do with pipelines and access to the oil. Under the 'Cold War 2' explanatory paradigm, the West's actions can be understood as a conflict over resources. As the oil runs out, this struggle will intensify. Snapshot 2: Iran, 1979 In the face of the Shah's land reforms, and the 'White Revolution' technological modernisation programme, the Muslim cleric Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini was arrested in 1963 and deported in 1964. He went to live in exile in Paris. By November 1978, Tehran was torn with riots, and the Shah's regime close to collapse. In Britain, concern was being raised over British defence contracts to Iran [footnote 6] 875 Chieftain tanks had already been supplied, 1200 more were on order, with contracts worth £500 M. Lucas, GEC, Racal, David Brown, British Leyland and Rolls Royce were all affected. A Rapier missile contract was also threatened. Khomeini returned from exile, the Shah left, and on February 11th 1979, Shahpur Bakhtiar, the Shah's caretaker Prime Minister, was forced out. By April, the Ayatollah declared Iran an Islamic republic. On 4th November, militant students took over the US embassy in Tehran. Definition of a Super-Power The 'Cold War 2' explanatory paradigm works within the West, but it breaks down when we ask 'Is Radical Islam a Super-Power?' what is Super-Power? Firstly, Super-Powers have a strong ideology which draws things together. America has capitalism. but Islam has different factions - Sunni, Shi'ite, Sufi. Secondly, Super-Powers have a homogeneous political control structure, linked to a military-industrial complex. A Super-Power has propaganda, armed forces and intelligence services which have a global reach. Then we get the nuclear weapons, ICBMs and satellites. We can see how Islam as a whole possesses these things collectively, but it is disconnected in terms of its political culture and weak in terms of its military-industrial complex. Islam, however, really does have a global reach, more than 450 M people stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; from Dakar across North Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia and parts of the Philippines; while many Islamic people live in the West. What is really strange and new here, and why Radical Islam is perhaps 80% of the way there in its Super-Power status, is that the US's own domestic airliners can be turned into improvised cruise missiles and used against the US's own installations. But just suppose that one of those airliners had a briefcase sized nuclear bomb on board? Snapshot 3: Iran-Contra, November 1986 onwards The scandal first broke on 3rd November 1986, when Al Shiraa, a Lebanese newspaper, published some of the details. From a basement in the White House, Lt Colonel Oliver North and Admiral John Poindexter ran 'Project Democracy'. On May 25th - 28th 1986, contrary to the Boland Amendment of the NSC Act, Col North and Robert McFarlane took a plane filled with military supplies to Tehran, hoping to trade them for hostages. Payments went through 16 stages of pass through, and $48M went to the Contras. In the end, complex flow charts had to be used to explain the process to the Tower Commission. The Historical Context Over the second half of the Twentieth Century, the situation leading up to S-11 and beyond developed in four basic phases. Phase one, the Post-Colonial period, (1945-1967) saw the decline of the Colonial Powers; Britain and France, and their replacement by the US. Suez 1956 and the Algerian war for independence are representative here. Part of the conflict related to the Cold War, eg with the Russians courting Nasser over the Aswan Dam, or US Thor ICBMs in Turkey precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis. Phase two, saw the rise of terrorism, oil power and fundamentalism (1967-1979) and lasted from the Six Day War to the Iranian Islamic Revolution. The 5th September 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, where 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, and the 23rd December 1973 OPEC 100% increase in the price of oil were key events here. There were many airliner hijackings. Phase three; 1980-1990, particularly with the Reagan Era, marked a decline in US prestige, with US actions inevitably violent, corrupt and hypocritical. The failed attempt to rescue the Tehran hostages, 25th April 1980, the August 1982 Shabra and Shatila refugee camp Lebanese militia massacre of over 1,000 Palestinians, the US bombing of Tripoli 15th April 1986, the running sore of Iran-Contra, 1986-1987, the USS Vincennes shooting down of an Iranian airliner, 3rd July 1988, 290 dead, are examples here. This led into Phase four; the 'New World Order' (1990-2001) which began with the US-Iraq Gulf War, and ended with S-11, and in between stood the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Centre, 26th February 1993, US humiliation in Somalia, Gulf War Syndrome, Bosnia and ethnic cleansing, and the periodic 'Lewinski' bombings of Iraq. September 11th can be understood as a response to the fact that the US has basically used the Middle East as a punch bag. Snapshot 4: The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, 29th June 1998
Institutional Racism
Where this phase differs from previous wars is over the question of territory. For the West, the conflict may focus on territory (eg oil reserves or Afghanistan) Matters are made difficult for the Crusade Coalition because of the dispersal of Islamic people throughout the West. Potential airliner bombers interpenetrate Western society. How can this situation be dealt with, except by massive repression? Modern leaders like Blair sell the image of a multi-racial, tolerant, pluralistic society, denying the latent racist reality underneath. At the same time, tabloid papers push racist hysteria, eg over asylum seekers, directly contributing to events like the death of 58 Chinese people in a truck at Dover, 19th June 2000, or the Glasgow Sighthill August 2001 racist murder of Kurdish asylum seeker Farzak Yuldi. [footnote 7] In order to fuel the Crusade, it will be necessary to further demonize 'Islamic Fundamentalism' in their propaganda. The post S-11 script contradicts the pluralistic narrative. Sometimes in the past, these contradictory narratives have clashed, eg the February 1989 Fatwah against Salman Rushdie over the 'Satanic Verses' was one case. Throughout the mid to late 1990s, the Stephen Lawrence case was a clear barometer. Initially, the police bungled the investigation, and the racist state connived at the cover up. Desperate for the black vote, Blair and New Labour promised an Inquiry into the Lawrence case. [footnote 8] The Security State fought back, on 26th February 1999 deliberately publishing the names and addresses of 40 people who had helped the enquiry [footnote 9].
Similarly, the April riots in Oldham and Bradford, prior to the UK 2001 general election, and the Burnley riot afterwards (25th June) can be placed inside this same process. The disgraceful and worrying fact that the BNP polled 11,000 votes in Oldham indicates the basic undercurrent of racism, as does the Edgar Griffin affair during the summer Tory leadership election. [footnote 10]
Authoritarianism versus Tokenism?
It is the old Nice cop / Nasty cop routine. The other side of the state / system inspired racism is co-option and assimilation. Here, the function of Blair is typical, blowing hot and cold on 'faith' based schools, trying to draw in a few figurehead representatives of the Muslim community as magistrates, councillors, police committee members and the like [footnote 11] How well does such a project sit with the tabloid-fueled hysteria about 'bogus' asylum seekers attempting to break through the Channel Tunnel? What about internment without trial, and plans to build more Campsfield and Oakington style concentration camps?
Cricket Test
The Norman Tebbit 'Cricket Test' has resurfaced, but now the suggestion is that young Muslim lads from Bradford, Manchester and Luton are going off to join the Taliban, to fight against SAS and US Special Forces in Afghanistan. Again this accords with the propaganda build up of a false locus for the conflict. The War in Afghanistan is a sideshow, as if the Northern Alliance capturing Kabul or the US backing one corrupt faction over another will do anything at all to avert the next 'Osama' attack. The conflict is elsewhere in Western cities, and on Western streets. Will Radical Islam
be able to recruit people in Bradford, in Newark USA, Toronto Canada, Paris? Or will a Blair-style bland, insipid, grey co-option programme prove more attractive? [footnote 12] With the West's obvious
hypocrisy, brutality, violence and double-dealing, I shouldn't bank on it.
Snapshot 5: East Africa, 9th August 1998
On the 3rd August 1998, more Monica Lewinski hearings were taking place in Washington, so Baghdad was bombed. Six days later, truck bombs exploded at the US Embassies in Nairobi Kenya, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. 224 people were reported to have died. Osama Bin Laden was blamed. Clinton testified before the Starr Enquiry on 17th, and so a crisis with the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq was arranged. As a reprisal for East Africa, US cruise missiles were fired into Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20th. American intelligence agencies claimed they had 'incontrovertible' evidence that the Shifa factory in Khartoum was manufacturing VX nerve gas. Others claimed it was simply a pharmaceuticals plant. On 25th August, a Planet Hollywood restaurant in South Africa was bombed, 2 people died, 20 were injured. A few days later, on 2nd September, Swissair flight 111 crashed off the US east coast, 229 people died, including many UN staff.
Taking this Forwards
Why and how this is relevant to our Protest movement
The West needs this conflict, it is being pulled apart; global warming, recession, drugs, a growing anti globalization movement, political corruption, sleaze, political stagnation. The West has to build up the enemy, and is doubtless not beyond staging 'Gulf of Tonkin' style provocations to 'justify' the war, and keep things stoked. Who posted all the anthrax?
The two risks posed by the war against the Taliban are that:
Blair and Bush will find the Crusade (if it lasts) polarising society. They will consolidate their power base, further marginalising malcontents. Propaganda against Islamic Fundamentalism will be put out. Those elements of the Asian communities they cannot co-opt and assimilate will have to be suppressed, for this is the real front line.
Radical Islam needs more political and organizational coherence. S-11 demonstrates it has the organizational capacity to mount a major attack on the West. It has not yet coalesced into a bloc with sufficient clout to do really major damage to the US, but the potential is there. [footnote 13] By spreading Radical Islamic propaganda through Islamic communities in the West, it could have the capacity to open up a war on many fronts, with multiple aspects. Western atrocities in the Islamic world, systemic racist injustice and totalitarian oppression in the West itself, will only help tip the balance here.
All this could well move our protest movements forwards. If the Great Crusade goes on for a long time, the anti-war movement will have to grow and strengthen. It is possible, but not very likely that some hitherto co-opted social justice groups and civil liberties campaigns will react against the draconian powers legislation sought by the Coalition. Bombing starving peasants in Afghanistan, Iraq etc is a logical development of globalization, the imposition of the pax Americana, and will not solve the problems of UK or US society, but it might bring a humanitarian backlash. Such events increase the Third World sense of injustice felt against the West, and increase the likelihood of further desperate S-11 style attacks. The peace movement will be strengthened by the Crusade,
movements for social justice and for genuine opposition to racism must grow. What we need to do now is to speak out against what is happening, to work together, become an emphatic movement against the Great Crusade, and to build strong support networks for the future.
GREAT CRUSADE UPDATE
Much of this is about the NWO developing a military / weapons of mass destruction
/ terrorist / propaganda scare-story framework around the so-called Islamic
threat, in order to create an impression of Islam as a worthy opponent to
the structure of global capitalism. An external threat brings with it a
drive towards internal social and political coherence. It is also good for
business in the arms industry.
Since the original 'Great Crusade' article was written, events have rather
confirmed my analysis. As we will all be aware, George W. Bush has continued
with his war drive. Western racism has become more apparent, with the rise
of the far right in Europe: Jean Marie le Pen polling perhaps 6 M votes
in the French elections on 21st April 2002, the assassination of Pim Fortuyn
in Holland, 6th May, and closer to home the BNP doubling their vote and
gaining three council seats in Burnley, Lancashire, on the 2nd May. During
the time of these elections, authorities in Bradford published photographs
of race rioters, to further stoke the fires of racism. Asylum seekers remain
a convenient focus for state sponsored racist hatred. We have seen the riot
of asylum seekers in the Yarls Wood, Bedford, concentration camp, 15th February
2002. In Australia there have been several large scale escapes, hunger strikes
and protests at the Woomera detention camp. Most recently, a Mosque in Stourbridge,
Worcestershire, England, was smashed by police and immigration officials,
25th July 2002, in order to deport an Afghani family, who were seeking sanctuary
there. The TV image of riot police breaking down the mosque doors with battering
rams doubtless sends a message to the Islamic world. £50,000 was spent chartering
a plane to deport the Ahmadi family to Germany, on 14th August.
RADICAL ISLAM
One fault with the original Great Crusade article was that it did not say
enough about Radical Islam. Radical Islam is not Islamic Fundamentalism,
but rather a fusion of Islam as a religion, ideology and culture, with Modernism.
As such, Radical Islam is more to be found in the West than in the hills
of Afghanistan.
11th September showed that Radical Islam has the organizational capacity
to mount a major attack on the West. It has not yet coalesced into a bloc
with sufficient clout to do really major damage to the US, but the potential
is there. The significant issue is, can Radical Islam develop the political
and organizational coherence? In one sense, it is able to capitalise on
the relative openness of the West, in that modern scientific techniques,
flight schools and centrifuges, are available. Radical Islam can also operate
via the internet. Essentially, all this is a question of critical mass.
The fact of geographical dispersion need not be a real brake on this process;
the internet and air travel fill the gaps and render the distance unimportant.
Radical Islam can function in ethnic communities in the west; the Islamic
academies of Bradford, of Newark, New Jersey. There can be a cross-fertilization
of ideas back and forth from and to the Islamic world, to the universities
in Egypt or Pakistan, the spread of techniques, knowledge and ideas; all
of this masked in the normal human processes of business, marriage, education
and the visiting of relatives. It isn't the Osama Bin Ladens or Saddam Hussains
who are the cutting edge of Radical Islam, but the anonymous flight school
trainees in Florida, Turkish micro-biologists in Frankfurt, or Asian computer
programmers in San Francisco. Radical Islam is not a city or a state which
George W Bush can bomb or put sanctions against, it is more a state of mind.
It does not have a geographical location. It progresses at different rates
in different places. It is not something which the propaganda forces of
the west can influence or suppress.
ANTI WAR CAMPAIGN
As always, the anti war campaign has been seriously under reported in the
mainstream media. There is a general lack of support for Blair's role as
a mindless US puppet. Anglican, Methodist and Catholic church leaders came
out against the war drive on August 6th. It has been reported that Saudi
Arabia and Jordan do not support the war drive. It is unlikely that Bush
will have any regard for these objections. An important line is being crossed,
but so far the opposition movement punches below its weight, and in my opinion,
as yet lacks the social and political clout to make a real difference.
PREDICTIONS
Almost one year on from 11th September, one of the central tenets of the
original 'Great Crusade' article, that S-11 didn't really change anything,
but rather strengthened and speeded up trends already evidenced, has in
my opinion been vindicated. This is how I see events unfolding:
In the short term, America will extend its dominance on the ground, through
wars in Iraq and countries like Somalia. It will play off one Islamic faction
against another, and install puppet regimes, which are going to have to
be endlessly propped up with arms and aid. One indicator of Radical Islam
becoming a coherent force will not necessarily be 'weapons of mass destruction'
but the development of simple Islamic-produced weapons like a portable anti
helicopter weapon. Something as simple as this could tip the strategic balance
- the rising loss of American lives, and the increases in tax to cover the
war will bring a domestic US political backlash.
Blair will back Bush, no matter what, regardless of UK public opinion. It
is probable that globally, there will be an increasing dislike for the US,
which will hang around cultural pegs, bringing the rejection of McDonalds,
Disney, Hollywood etc. Europe will move away from the US, perhaps because
of protectionist trade wars.
In the Middle East, the Israel - Palestinian conflict will intensify, further
polarizing Arab opinion against America. Already, Saudi Arabia is distancing
itself. The stable, relatively Westernised countries; Saudi, the Gulf States,
Syria, Jordan, Egypt, will become breeding grounds for Radical Islam. The
three basic elements here are: (i) Access to advanced technologies (ii)
A backlash against the US (iii) A revival of interest in Islam.
After this, the next stage of the development of Radical Islam as the development
of an Islamic super-weapon. One possibility could be small nuclear weapons
simultaneously delivered to coastal cities like New York, Washington, Los
Angeles, or San Francisco, possibly in midget submarines. Less likely are
biological warfare super-plagues; botulism, Rift Valley Fever, or modified
Ebola. Here, much used airports like Heathrow or JFK might be used to spread
the virus round the world. Modernism is such that sophisticated weapons
could be developed in small, ordinary looking buildings. Like 11th September,
the preparations to attack the US would not show up on any satellite photograph,
radar screen or CIA intelligence summary.
Failing a super attack; I believe that the fall out from the US continuing
to widen its Crusade will ultimately bring about a decline in its influence.
High tech weapons will not save it, nor will satellite intelligence, because
the US state lacks the political willpower to wage a sustained, conventional
ground warfare; and is so culturally arrogant that it is incapable of winning
their hearts and minds.
Stephen Booth
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