Year of the preemptive predicament: WORLD VIEW

“I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.”

— W.H. Auden

REFLECTIONS on the first anniversary of the toppling of the Twin Towers will have reached saturation point by next week, so it makes sense to get in on the act early. Advance publicity suggests that the commemorations scheduled in New York and Washington next Wednesday will be sombre and sober. But there is room for doubt: a tendency towards kitsch is ingrained in the American psyche, and one way or another tackiness creeps into all mainstream events.

The idea of George W. Bush spouting his customary inanities to an audience of world leaders — who will, most conveniently, be gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly’s annual session - is a less than pleasant prospect. Had there been the remotest possibility that Bush would offer anything approximating a balanced perspective on the preceding year, one may have been more inclined to lend him an ear. Unfortunately, it may prove impossible to shut him out.

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, meanwhile, is expected to start reciting a list of September 11 casualties. The name of each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the catastrophe will be read out load. That is an unobjectionable way of remembering the victims of a profound tragedy. But will anyone ever give comparable prominence to the more that 5,000 Afghan civilians believed to have been killed in retaliatory military strikes? Does anyone even know their names? Does anyone care?

September 11 is often cited as the day the outside world decided to pay America a visit. The murderous manner of the intrusion was certainly uncalled for and remains worthy of unequivocal condemnation. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the US has been visiting the world for more than a century, often with deadly, albeit usually less spectacular, results.

Shock, horror, fear, mourning — these were perfectly natural responses to the enormity of passenger-laden jets ploughing into the most potent symbols of American economic and military power. The frenzied flag-waving that followed was also understandable, although somewhat less excusable. But ought not these gut reactions have given way in due course to greater introspection? It is at least conceivable that a better America — less insular, less arrogant, less ignorant — could have arisen from the ashes of the Twin Towers.

What we get instead is a debate about whether the structure proposed to replace the hole in Manhattan’s heart will have an equivalent amount of commercial space; in other words, will it be equally lucrative?

Even more alarmingly, what we get instead is a degree of unilateralism rarely encountered since the Second World War. The concept of pre-emptive military strikes against suspected enemies would have been marginally less offensive had its primary implication been: Let’s kill them before they kill us. But it isn’t. It’s more like: Let’s neutralize anyone who might hold a grudge that could one day possibly lead to violence against US properties or personnel.

There goes half the world. At least.

At the domestic level, the aftermath of September 11 has involved a progressive whittling away of civil liberties. Racial profiling has become commonplace. Tolerance of dissent has decreased markedly. And academic freedom has taken at least a few body blows. To cite but one example, the Washington Post reported last month that the University of North Carolina “finds itself besieged in federal court and across the airwaves by Christian evangelists and other conservatives” because it requires all first-year students to read a text titled Approaching the Quran: Early Revelations. The book was chosen in an attempt to promote a better understanding of Islam, which clearly makes sense in the circumstances. But one TV commentator, describing Islam as “our enemy’s religion”, said it was a bit like teaching Mein Kampf in 1941.

Come to think of it, studying Mein Kampf in 1941 wouldn’t have been such a bad idea; why should it be presumed that attempting to understand the nature of the beast would in any way have undermined the struggle against Hitler? Islam, of course, falls in a somewhat different category. It is hardly synonymous with Osama the way Nazism was with the Teutonic tyrant. And it would certainly be interesting to query those Americans who are determined to reinforce their ignorance on this score about how they perceive American Muslims, including a substantial section of the African-American community. are they to be designated as “the enemy within”? Should they be confined in internment camps?

This is precisely the sort of narrow-mindedness that creates the impression of an America determined to teach the world a lesson, but unwilling to learn any lessons itself.

It’s an infectious disorder, and its particularly rampant among the upper echelons of the Bush administration. There are few, if any, grounds for hoping that the likes of John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz will ever make a recovery — and tens of thousands of people could die as a consequence.

But not all Americans have succumbed to the disease. And therein shines a ray of hope, for if the US is ever to change, the momentum for that transformation will have to be generated from within.

Take Walter Mosley, the writer and activist once cited by Bill Clinton as his favourite novelist. “Most black people in America were not surprised by 11 September,” he noted in a recent interview. “Like everyone else, they were shocked by the magnitude of it, and appalled by the deaths, but they weren’t surprised by the hate and anger that produced it. Black Americans are very aware of the attitude of America towards people who are different, people whose beliefs are different, people of a different colour. We live with that attitude every single day. We know how hated America is.”

He went on: “Because of our history and our experience right here in America, as well as in Africa, we have an understanding of the rage and anger of America’s so-called enemies. Black people know that most Arabs and Muslims are good people, that their beliefs are just as valid as Christian beliefs, that they have been at the receiving end of American so-called foreign policy for years. As a people of colour, we know how America treats other people of colour — with suspicion or disdain...

“What I believe is that the only way to make sure that sort of atrocity does not happen again is to make sure we don’t do it to anyone else...

“When people say, ‘Surely you don’t want this to happen to America again?’, my answer is, ‘I don’t want it to happen to anyone again’. You cannot ignore rage. It just does not go away. It only goes away when the causes of that rage are addressed. You do not have to look outside America to see how that is the case.”

Mosley is not alone, but the prevailing political atmosphere is designed to make them uncomfortable. As another writer, Michael Steinberg, puts it: “For critics of the war [against terror], a day at the office is rather like being a homosexual in a homophobic world — you search others for signs that it’s safe to come out to them.

“How did this happen? Most Americans have little knowledge of the rest of the world, an ignorance the media do little to dispel; and most would like to believe that the war on terror is the best way to ensure safety in the future. Many adhere to an almost Manichean division of the world into good guys and evildoers, a worldview which makes the most outrageous of Bushisms seem plausible.”

There will be no dearth of Bushisms next week. Don’t expect too many mentions of Osama bin Laden, though. In fact, it’ll be surprising if his name comes up at all in pronouncements by the high and mighty, never mind that his capture or decease was the primary excuse for the bombardment of Afghanistan. His whereabouts unknown, the reputed leader of Al Qaeda (actually it’s not even certain whether that is the title of an organization or a generic code name; and one of the more bizarre theories about the origins of the nomenclature suggests it may be a nod to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation) has become an embarrassment to his enemies. He may, of course, be dead, as General Musharraf keeps suggesting. But Mullah Omar, another potential prize catch, was last week reported to have been sighted in the vicinity of Kandahar. The source for this riveting piece of information was none other than our old friend Reliable Diplomatic Source, who has rarely been heard from since the fall of Najibullah.

Guantanamo Bay, too, is unlikely to figure in any speeches. The US naval base in Cuba is a prison for hundreds of captives, most of them probably Taliban foot soldiers, who have been deprived of their rights under the Geneva Convention.

There will certainly be no mention of the fact that if the CIA and the FBI had been more cooperative and less incompetent, it may well have been possible to unravel the 9/11 conspiracy and detain Mohammed Atta and his cohorts before they caught their flights on that fateful day.

But, then, where would the Bush presidency be today without 9/11? Still struggling to overcome the stigma of its dubious legitimacy, and mired in corporate sleaze. The Bush coterie’s reputation for scandalous business practices may be of greater immediate concern to Iraqis than to Americans, because the next batch of damaging revelations may be pre-empted by an assault against Baghdad. In this context, the concept of pre-emptive strikes almost begins to make sense, notwithstanding its immorality.

mahirali@journalist.com

Argentina: from riches to rags

THE French used to call someone of great wealth “rich as an Argentine.” That was after World War I, when Argentina, blessed with verdant land, a small, well-educated European population, and natural resources, ranked among the world’s five most prosperous nations.

Latin Americans used to call Argentines insufferable snobs — “Italians who speak Spanish, who think they’re British” — went the old saying. Today, the once haughty Argentines, reduced to near paupers, are an object of pity. Buenos Aires, formerly the ‘Paris of South America,’ with its elegantly dressed men and chic, unapproachable ladies, is headed in the direction of Kolkata (Calcutta).

During my last visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina’s then minister of the economy, Domingo Cavallo, gave me a book he wrote about the many similarities between his nation and Canada, another huge, underpopulated, nation with vast resources and agricultural bounty.

Today, Argentina has become a horrifying economic and political disaster, having gone in a single century of manic profligacy from riches to rags. Its northern mirror-image, Canada, has also wasted its natural endowments, ending up with a semi-worthless currency, and increasingly unproductive economy, in spite of being a branch of the mighty US market. The reason for Canada’s anaemic performance is simple: increasingly corrupt, ossified, one-party rule that has debauched the currency and bleeds productive wealth from the economy through high taxes to buy popularity. The description of Canada made in the late 19th century, “rich by nature, poor by government,” still, alas, holds true.

As for wretched Argentina, these biting words should be its national motto. Eduardo Duhalde, the country’s fifth incompetent president since last December, barely clings to power. The world’s two worst jobs are leader of Argentina and Pakistan.

Last fall, the government reneged on its $141 billion debt, causing international lenders, upon whom Argentina’s economy depended, to cut off the cash, plunging the country into a political, economic, and social crisis. The economy is declining at nine per cent annually. Depositor’s bank accounts and life savings — mostly in dollars — have been frozen — that is, confiscated. Argentina’s financial system is bankrupt. Almost half the nation’s 37 million inhabitants have fallen below the poverty line, including a once vibrant middle class.

Angry mobs are burning, rioting, and looting. Kidnappings and armed robberies have become common. Argentina is teetering on the brink of anarchy, illustrating Lenin’s dictum that the fastest way to wreck a nation is to debauch its currency.

The Argentine peso is now 70 per cent worthless; Canada’s ‘northern peso’ has nosedived 40 per cent in three decades, thanks to the bloated welfare state created by the late prime minister, Pierre Trudeau — the Juan and Evita Peron of Canada.

Peron and his blond-haired wife, Eva, a former bar girl, rose to power in the 1930s by the simple method of offering the ‘unwashed’ masses free or subsidized food, housing, medical care, transport, education and vast numbers of jobs in overstaffed nationalized industries. The government became the sole dispenser of patronage and a partner with powerful trade unions in what closely resembled Mussolini’s fascist corporate state in 1930s Italy.

Peron and his glamorous wife were adored by Argentines. Many credulous Argentine still venerate Evita as a saint. But the Perons left behind them a toxic legacy that poisons their nation to this day. In simple terms, Argentina could not, and cannot, afford the bloated welfare state created by the Perons 70 years ago. Once governments begin handouts and subsidies, they are almost impossible to end, or even diminish. New York City, for example, instituted ‘emergency’ six-months-only rent controls in 1945 and yet they remain in force today.

No elected government in Argentina has been able to cut unaffordable social spending or face down domineering unions. To paper over deficits created by reckless Peronist extravagance, every government had to borrow abroad and resort to fraudulent accounting. Last year, the credit ran out.

Foreign lenders, notably the US-dominated International Monetary Fund, made huge, irresponsible loans to Argentina under the mistaken assumption that governments can’t really default. Giving billions of ‘free’ borrowed money to politicians is like giving alcohol to children.

Every Argentine government, including the military regime of the 1970s and 1980s, was rife with corruption. Even so, billions from abroad poured into Argentina. As US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil correctly, but unpolitically, noted on his recent foray to Latin America, much of these foreign loans ended up in Swiss bank accounts.

The United States has had to rush to the rescue to avert a Latin America-wide financial crisis that could have triggered an international panic. Brazil just got $30 billion to prop up its currency and fend off a left-wing challenger in upcoming elections.

Tiny Uruguay got $1.5 billion, and Argentina is set to receive $14-15 billion from the IMF. Without emergency American aid, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay all face economic agony and social chaos that could bring to power leftist or dictatorial regimes. The rest of the continent is in a similar fix.

No one is to blame for wrecking Argentina, one of the world’s most beautiful countries, save the Argentine themselves. Their astounding foolishness and dazzling irresponsibility is a stark warring to us all. — Copyright Eric S. Margolis, 2002

Doves and hawks

To invade or not to invade. That is the question. The debate is going on all over the country in earnest. Here is how it’s shaping up.

Hawks: We must invade Iraq and kick Saddam’s butt in.

Doves: We can’t kick in Saddam’s butt without the approval of Congress.

Hawks: Who needs Congress? The president may kick anyone’s butt he wants to.

Doves: What about Saudi Arabia? If we attack Saddam, they will cut off their oil and we’ll run out in two months and have to siphon gas out of other people’s cars in the mall parking lot.

Hawks: Once our ground troops knock off the Evil Power, the Saudis will have to sell us oil. The royal family has no choice.

Doves: Instead of troops why can’t the CIA do the job? It would be a lot cheaper and more efficient.

Hawks: We can’t bump Saddam off because everyone in Baghdad looks like him — and we will never know the real one from the imposters.

Doves: Bush is just using the war to win the election in November.

Hawks: He is commander-in-chief. He doesn’t have to stoop to political tricks to start a war.

Doves: What about television? CNN will cover it and America will witness their sons live and in color fighting in Iraqi foxholes.

Hawks: They assured us they would never show any casualties during a battle.

Doves: What about our Air Force?

Hawks: They will carpet bomb Iraq from one end to the other, as they did in Afghanistan. And they will continue until Saddam cries “Uncle.”

Doves: I thought you were going to kill him?

Hawks: He could be in a cave where no one can find him. Doves: If we invade, it is going to cost billions and billions of dollars — and at least 250,000 troops, and the National Guard and another $100,000 for an occupying force that will have to remain there for 20 years.

Hawks: That is why we are hated all over the world.

Doves: Suppose Saddam agrees to UN inspections. Do we still invade?

Hawks: That’s up to the president. He still thinks his father should have done the dirty work during Desert Storm.

Doves: Why doesn’t George Bush Jr. say so?

Hawks: He can’t because he plays golf with his father.

Doves: Do you think the president will pay any attention to this debate?

Hawks: He has to if he has any chance of winning back the Senate.

Doves: I pray Saddam sees reason.

Hawks: I hope so. Because otherwise we are going to have to gas him before he gasses us.

Doves: Does the White House feel Hawkish?

Hawks: They do except for a mole that is leaking all our Iraqi plans to the “New York Times.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services