Despite the way in which it has been presented since, the shock
occasioned by September 11, 2001 is not totally unprecedented. Something
similar occurred on August 2, 1990, when the Iraqi army invaded
Kuwait. From August 2 through to the liberation of Kuwait in early
1991, the world was riveted to what seemed at the time a tectonic
shift of unprecedented proportions. And yet ten years later, the
date hardly commands attention.
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A
U.S. Marine patrol walks across the charred oil landscape near
a burning well during perimeter security patrol near Kuwait
City on March 7, 1991. (AP Photo/John Gaps III) |
In
fact, the jury is still out on August 2, 1990. Perhaps it was the
start of a new world order, as it enhanced Americas exclusive
leadership of the planet, accelerating the demise and dismemberment
of the Soviet Union, and generating large influxes of oil money
reserves into the US economy from the Arabian Gulf and elsewhere.
But all things considered, not much changed, above all for the societies
where the crisis erupted: over a decade later, the same authoritarian
governments are in place across the Middle East, and US presence
remains fragile and problematic in the region.
Oddly
enough, one of the most important single consequences of the Second
Gulf War was September 11. Despite the massive victory on the ground
and the rout of the Iraqi army with hardly a fight, the conflict
never ended. The depth of frustration that this caused, as American
soldiers remained deployed in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, while
Iraqi civilians were left unprotected against their government and
burdened by an interminable sanctions regime in a country torn asunder,
can hardly be overstated. Something was clearly rotten in the whole
region.
Thus,
it is not really all that surprising that the deadlock in the Middle
East, where all the countries of the region are still ruled by authoritarian
regimes, finally erupted in New York by way of Afghanistan, which
had become the haven of disgruntled and frustrated young men from
Saudi Arabia, mainly, and from other countries of the Muslim world.
The combination of the Saudi and Afghani systems arguably produced
a monster which struck in the heart of the US, a result all the
more ironic since America had been the unconditional protector of
the Kingdom's rulers for two generations and the enthusiastic supporter
of the Mujaheddin in their fight against the Soviet Union.
The
Middle Eastern Character of September 11
Naturally,
the causal chain between August 1990 and September 2001 is porous.
One element, however, is shared: its Middle Eastern character, including
the longest conflict in modern times over the Jewish settlement
of Palestine. That is why it remains an open question about how
defining a moment September 11 really has been, when viewed from
a long-term and multi-causal perspective. It is possible to put
the event, however tragic, in the context of recurrent eruptions
in an ongoing Middle East crisis, in which New York/September 2001
takes its place in the line of Kuwait/August 1990, Iraq-Iran/1980-1988,
Lebanon/September 1982, Iran/February 1979, all the way to Jordan-Egypt-Syria
in June 1967, including the assassination in California, a year
later, of Robert Kennedy, the leading contender for the US presidency,
by a thug from the Middle East. Viewed in this way, the tragedy
of September 11 appears more Middle Eastern. It is a reading that
could easily be turned into a retrospective clash of civilizations
pitting East against West, America and the Middle East, Islam v.
Christendom.
The
risk of exaggeration is obvious, and such shortcuts are as dangerous
as they may be misleading, justifying many conspiratorial theories
that feed the extremes in both camps. Yet the Middle Eastern connection
culminating in September 11 can hardly be denied.
So
is September 11 a watershed or a footnote in history? Yes, it was
spectacular and massive; yes, it broke with the continental insulation
of America from violence; but these two characteristics may not
be sufficient to establish its centrality. In the history of the
American nation, unless, God forbid, it experiences a disaster of
larger proportion, the New York massacres will rank next to the
three or four most significant dates since the formation of the
United States: the declaration of independence, Gettysburg, Pearl
Harbour and the fall of the Berlin Wall. But for the event to rank
high objectively, it needs to usher in some sort of a new era in
American and world history. Unless this happens, September 11 may
one day seem like an historical footnote in much the way August
2, 1990 does today.
Understanding
comes hard. The tools which social sciences offer to understand
September 11 are in some ways remarkably defective: politically,
economically, sociologically, legally, psychologically, even architecturally
or aesthetically, angles vary. What is certain is that in twenty
years, perhaps even at the turn of the next century, works will
have accumulated to assess the event from every conceivable perspective.
It would be presumptuous to anticipate the correcting passage of
time, and the example of the closing pages of Tocquevilles
Democracy in America offer a wise warning. Tocqueville was
long viewed as a kind of prophet. Between the Bolshevik revolution
of 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989-91, those
celebrated passages closing the first volume in 1835 in which
the French author predicted the rise of Russia and America seemed
eerily prescient. And yet today, at least in terms of Russia, they
ring hollow. This should be kept in mind when we think about September
11.

The
Ambiguities of "Terrorism"
Still,
a reading of the event can reasonably start from the initial reaction
of the US government, which was initially shared by the world. This
reaction was defined the following day as a new worldwide war on
terrorism and confirmed by the Security Council. In Resolution 1368,
adopted unanimously on September 12, the massacres carried out in
New York, Washington and Pennsylvania were described as "acts
of terrorism". In an important sense, the shape of the new
conflict---and for many, above all in the United States, it was
a new World War III---was defined by this one term.
The
problem is that terrorism as a concept remains so ill-defined that
the idea of attacking it systematically transforms the use of violence---in
international and domestic law the prerogative of states---into
an open-ended project of endless war. And that, surely, is inconceivable,
unless the American government now means to prosecute a series of
wars to end all violence in the world. In theory, of course, such
a neo-Kantian project for world peace might be laudable. But it
is certainly premature. It is also poorly conceived: the US government
itself does not consider its planetary fight against terrorism as
the end of all wars, and so it has stumbled from event to event,
the prisoner of its own elastic objectives in a battle against an
elusive specter that Washington and the rest of the world are unable
to define.
It
needs to be said that, despite being a highly law-conscious society,
America has not heeded its own recent history. In the negotiations
leading to the emergence of the International Criminal Court in
Rome in the summer of 1998, US representatives had convinced the
other parties that the inclusion of terrorism in the list of crimes
to be prosecuted in the Court was not appropriate, because a consensual
definition of that act could not be achieved. They were right, and
lawyers and historians have been unable to agree on such a definition
over the two centuries since "terreur" as politics was
introduced by Robespierre in 1793, and "terrorism" took
the characteristic shape that developed from the Law of Suspects
in September 1793 to the Grande Terreur, introduced by the Loi du
22 Prairial An II (10 June 1794): the absence of due process, which
led some 2500 "suspects" to the scaffold in Paris alone.
This policy was seen through by the most articulate amongst the
Founding Fathers, lawyer Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in 1794 a
thoughtful Memorandum on "the excesses" of the period,without
using the term "terror" once:
In
the early periods of the French Revolution, a warm zeal for its
success was in this Country a sentiment truly universal. The love
of Liberty is here the ruling passion of the Citizens of the United
States, pervading every class, animating every bosom. As long
therefore as the Revolution of France bore the marks of being
the cause of liberty, it united all hearts and centered all opinions.
But this unanimity of approbation has been for a considerable
time decreasing. The excesses which have constantly multiplied,
with greater and greater aggravations, have successively though
slowly detached reflecting men for their partiality for an object
which has appeared less and less to merit their regard.
These
excesses, considered by Hamilton as "accomplices with Vice,
Anarchy, Despotism and Impiety," should have stopped soon after
the revolution put the French monarchy in check. Instead of calm
and moderation succeeding "the first shocks of the political
earthquake", Hamilton continued, Americans have "been
witnesses to one volcano succeeding another, the last still more
dreadful than the former, spreading ruin and devastation far and
wide subverting the foundation of right security and property,
of order, morality and religion sparing neither sex nor age,
confounding innocence with guilt, involving the old and the young,
the sage and the madman, the long tried friend of virtue and his
country and the upstart pretender to purity and patriotism
the bold projection of new treasons with the obscure in indiscriminate
and profuse destruction."
The
indiscriminate killing of innocents "sparing neither
sex nor age, confounding innocence with guilt, involving the old
and the young, the sage and the madman, the long tried friend of
virtue and his country and the upstart pretender to purity and patriotism"
may well be considered the one defining characteristic of
"terrorism" on which everyone would agree. But the problems
underlined by Hamilton remain. Can a government, as in the case
of Robespierres state terrorism, be also responsible for such
acts? Does terrorism not occur when states or governments carry
out violence that takes the lives of innocent civilians ?
Another
lingering problem is the context in which civilians get killed.
Do the objectives pursued by the perpetrators matter, that is, does
it make any difference if we view them as freedom fighters or sheer
murderers? Small wonder, then, that the reality of an autonomous,
discrete "crime of terrorism", as opposed to "the
fight against oppression", is elusive and intractable.
Finally,
there is the problem of distinguishing terrorism from other crimes.
Until the USA Patriot Act was passed shortly after September 11,
it was hard to find the word in American criminal statutes, except
in conjunction with the use of special weapons or the hijacking
of planes. All serious crimes tend to instill fear, revulsion or
terror in society.
In
short, a working consensual definition of "terror" and
"terrorism" still does not exist. This is why the best
minds of humanity, starting with Hamilton, have avoided the term
for two hundred years. It is a term that defies definition. And
there is no reason to think that contemporary lawyers and lawmakers
will succeed in coming up with such a definition where Hamilton
and everyone since has failed.
But
if the killings on September 11 are not best described as "acts
of terror", or "terrorist attacks", does that mean
that a void ensues, at least in legal terms? Far from it. The occurrence
of brutal and massive crimes, in which mainly innocent civilians
have perished, has marred the conscience of humanity in recent years
so heavily that a panoply of remedies has developed in the field
of international criminal law against such "serious violations
of international humanitarian law". Domestic and international
tribunals, most remarkably the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals and
the ICC, have taken on board a so-called "universal jurisdiction."
In the case of September 11, rather than an inchoate war on terrorism,
America and the world could have argued and agreed that a terrible
and massive crime had taken place, whose authors and accomplices
ought to be relentlessly pursued, arrested, prosecuted and punished.
In lay parlance, what happened on September 11 was a massacre; in
law, a crime against humanity.
Hence
the difficulty of appreciating how much the massacre committed on
September 11 represents a watershed or a footnote. It would be a
footnote should the war against terrorism peter out for lack of
a definable enemy. Alternatively, it really might represent a turning
point---a negative one, alas---if the pursuit of violence causes
unprecedented chaos by allowing any power to go after any "terrorist"
whom it defines as such. Should any act of political violence against
a civilian allow the government whose citizen is targeted to unleash
its full force against the territory in which the "terrorist"
finds friends or support, the consequences will be graver still.
 |
PALESTINE.
Gaza. Funeral for Basel Saleem El Impasher, 13 years old, who
was
killed on the 19th of October, 2001. The family lives very close
to an Israeli
military post--Basel was probably killed by ammunition that
didn't explode at
the time of shooting. © Kent Klich, 2001. |
This
is easily illustrated. The year that followed September 11 has proved
to be a harbinger of portentous and unruly developments under the
label of war against terrorism, both over the Kashmir crisis and
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. That said, the possibility also
exists that September 11 could represent a positive turning point,
but only if any American and international use of violence toward
those who perpetrated the atrocity is regulated by justice, accountability
and due process. This is the course of law which America and any
other government would certainly have pursued, had September 11
been the result of American criminals working within the United
States. They would have been prosecuted and brought to justice,
and foreign states would have been responsible for ensuring their
arrest and trying them in accordance with international standards,
or surrendering them to an American tribunal.
Curiously,
the early depiction of a response to September 11 as "Infinite
Justice" and the US governments initial decision to take
gradual actions against the Taliban government derived from that
philosophy. But "Infinite Justice" was put aside as policymakers
became trapped in the false depiction of the massacres as "an
attack" and by the equally unwarranted prosecution of a crime
against humanity as "war on terrorism", with no end in
sight.
The
Need for US Consistency in the Middle East
Will
American administrations, present and future, be able or be willing
to try to recast the massacres of September 11 in their correct
mould, which is that of a crime against humanity, and to address
the Middle Eastern connection in a qualitatively different manner?
That is the crucial question. If they were to succeed in correcting
the deep flaws in their original definition of what happened, and
sought universal justice with the same vigour and robustness that
characterizes American constitutional law, September 11 would indeed
become a watershed event in the development of both law and morality
in international relations. But should the war on terrorism continue
unabated against ill-defined enemies, then the prospect that confronts
us is that of right abandoned for might, law distanced by realpolitik,
and justice abandoned to the asymmetric realities of contemporary
power politics.
As
for the Middle Eastern connection, the context of September 11 cannot
be ignored. What has been popularized in the American imagination
in the loaded question "why do they hate us?" should instead
provoke a series of questions about American policy in the region,
particularly towards Israel and the traditional Arab allies. It
is not difficult to understand American antagonism towards Palestinian
extremists blowing up passers-by in hotels and restaurants in Israel,
nor the distrust towards the current Iraqi government for breaches
of international law and the treatment of its population over three
decades. Such revulsion is natural and morally justified.
But
unless "friendly" governments in the region are judged
and treated by the same standards freedom and democracy
the vast majority of people
in the Middle East will remain suspicious, inimical or opposed to
the United States. Above all, no one in the region accepts the blind
spot in US policy constituted by its deafening silence towards the
Israeli government's exactions, epitomized by the support of Ariel
Sharon, a man the Bush administration described as a "man of
peace" despite the fact that an Israeli commission of enquiry
had found him "personally responsible" for one of the
worst massacres in recent history. By any objective standards, a
country ruled by such a person, with a policy of open discrimination
and domination of a population as large as its own, getting entrenched
in further violence every day, such country is not a democracy.
In
the same way as the sense in the Middle East that American policy
in the region is unjust has created the deep animosity towards the
US that is so widely felt, so justice needs to be the underlying
theme for the proper remembrance of September 11. A qualitative
correction is required, both in the need to describe September 11
as a day of massacre, consequently treating it as a crime against
humanity; and the need to hold all the governments in the region,
starting with Israel and other "allies", to the same standards
that governed the relationship with the Soviet Union during the
Cold War: no alliance until their government becomes democratic.
The
full span of the 21st century may well need to elapse before the
ultimate verdict is reached on the status of September 11 in American
and world history. But universalism, the rule of law, justice, pluralism,
accountability, good governance, human rights these are all
general variations on democracy, which remains sought shyly and
selectively in the region. Democracy in America, Tocqueville's
prophetic study in the early 19th century, now animates the agenda
of the world. Only America is the centre, no longer at the periphery,
forcing upon it the mantle of responsibility towards all the democrats
in the world.
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