We were supposed to shoot the Carmelina video that day or the next. Dale Junior was flying in from North Carolina to be in it when his plane was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Kansas. The phone kept ringing, I remember that very well, and when I turned on the television and saw what was transpiring in New York, my mind was flooded with innumerable questions. The three most predominant were: premeditation, impact, and response.
It’s ironic, of course, that the video for Carmelina features torture as its central theme; a clinical, detached, sterilized torture that is presented as entirely routine. It was, in truth, an idea that I took from my favourite film, Brazil, but when I watch it now it seems almost uncanny to me given the course taken with regards to the use of torture and rendition to known torturers by those nations who have claimed to hold the moral high ground since 9/11.
I remember thinking to myself that the response would be, in a word, immense, and at the time thought that the US intelligence community must surely have some significant insight into the impetus of the attacks, one that was far more clearly defined than would later be revealed. In fact, I thought that they would have been far more astute about labeling it blowback.
In Blowback, published prior to 9/11, Chalmers Johnson explores the realities of covert operations abroad and their implications on the United States. The term itself, coined by the CIA, is defined as:
“The unintended consequences of covert operations. Blowback typically appears as a surprise, apparently random and without cause, because the public generally is unaware of the secret operations that caused it. In its strictest terms, blowback was originally informational only and referred to consequences that resulted when an intelligence agency participated in foreign media manipulation, which was then reported by domestic news sources in other countries as accepted facts.”.
There is little question that what occurred on September 11th had roots, and that the attacks themselves were not engineered without the consideration of US Middle East foreign policy history in mind, even if such context seems ridiculous to us, primarily because we were detached from its realities. The world public, which rallied behind the American people following that terrible day, as well as Americans themselves, got lost in a singular explanation, one which would lead to their support of operations and initiatives that have seriously undermined our most sacred principles and exposed the realities of what some of the world’s foremost military powers are both capable of and willing to do.
That, in itself, I believe, was one of the key purposes behind the attacks. To expose the hypocrisy of those that commonly play games with others abroad for their own benefit, and with little consideration for those used, while the general public knows little or nothing of it. There were, of course, other objectives involved, such as the immediate psychological ramifications it would have on the American public, the crippling of world markets, the damage and disarray it would cause the American military and political infrastructures, and the domestic fear that it would cause for years to come. But beneath all of that was something far more brilliant, and I do not mean to use that word to imply that the attacks were anything but murderous, rather to simply demonstrate that by undertaking them the government of the United States would be placed in a position to react as would be expected of them, and that much of the American people, rather than bothering to investigate possibilities, willingly allowed the curtailment of their liberties to occur and got onboard with the administration’s numerous initiatives, even those that had nothing to do with the events of that day whatsoever. In short, it exposed the prevalence of American militarism and how it has been used to affect people throughout the world for decades, be it half way around the world or within the United States itself. To believe that such goals were not a part of the reason for the attacks of 9/11 is to refuse to confront one very important thing: that those who planned the attacks were not fools by any means, and knew well enough what would occur following them, both domestically and internationally.
In truth, it is always easier to view such terrible occurrences in black and white while disregarding motive. But, like any premeditated crime, and 9/11 was surely that to the utmost degree, there is always a reason, even if those reasons are steeped in the psychotic or have historical relevancies that we are not able to put into proper context.
All of this is not meant to excuse or even justify the events of September 11th, but to ignore context is a very slippery slope. No sooner had the attacks taken place than two engines began to turn. One focused on Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the other, behind closed doors at the Pentagon, focused on Iraq. With regards to the former, it was something the world could get behind, a face and a group that, because of the images of that day, represented an immense evil, one that instantly galvanized world support for the United States, a global solidarity that the Bush administration would utterly squander to the point where the very same populations that had once held vigils for the victims of 9/11, including some 1 million Iranians in Tehran, would take to the streets in historically unprecedented numbers to protest the wholly engineered Anglo-American invasion of Iraq – before it even happened.
Six years on, the events of September 11th have been used to justify numerous things, from the unilateral invasion of Iraq to the use of illegal detention and torture – both of which were supported by the American public initially based not on factual realities, but rather the endless wheel of propaganda that 9/11 has afforded the American government. And like the attacks of 9/11, such undertakings have been both illegal in many respects and a very real threat to the reliability and conscience of our political infrastructures.
Coming Face To Face With Cause And Effect
In the sticky world of foreign interventionism and covert operations, it is always important to remember that most of what occurs within the cloud of the unknown often, if not always, has repercussions, even if such repercussions do not materialize for decades. Case in point, the engineered removal of the democratically elected Prime Minister Of Iran in 1953, Dr. Mohammed Mossadeq…
One has to wonder, had Mossadeq not been removed from power, would Iran have developed into the Middle East’s foremost democracy? And if that did occur, what impact would it have had on the region in general regarding the spread of democracy?
Unfortunately, Mossadeq’s removal led to decades of autocratic rule by a monarch and, ultimately, his removal by a movement steeped in the theocratic, one that was not about to overlook decades of Western complicity.
The removal of Mossadeq is a rather straightforward example, in truth. Where lines become blurred is when one begins to examine the support of various groups and regimes in the region depending on how that support coincided with Western foreign policy objectives. And in saying that, the blatant hypocrisy displayed by Western powers cannot be disregarded when examining cause and effect.
For example…
While aiding the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the United States was also involved in aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. In fact, after the Israelis captured Soviet made tanks in Lebanon, the CIA worked to transfer them to the Mujahideen by way of the Pakistani ISI. Of course, the majority of the fighters in Afghanistan had long since held Israel in contempt for their occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, so the obvious question has to be asked – did they know that those tanks and arms that had come via ISI were, in fact, part of a greater transfer from the Israelis to the CIA and then to the ISI?
This sort of convolution is nothing new in the annals of covert Western operations. With regards to Afghanistan, it should not be lost on anyone that the point of supporting the Mujahideen was to have them drive the Soviets out of the country and, in turn, exhaust as much of the Soviet’s military resources as possible. That being the case, it is also of paramount importance to realize that once that goal was accomplished the country would be in the hands of religiously motivated guerrillas, the majority of which were entirely sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.
At the time, backing both the Israelis and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan served US ends. But the duality of that sort of mindset is not something that remains cloaked in secrecy forever. Obviously those involved in helping liberate Afghanistan had ties to, or even came from, Lebanon and Palestine. And eventually the realization that both ends of the candle were being burned by those that had helped support them would be revealed. So too is it important to remember that while the Saudis were involved in aiding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, they were also US allies and worked closely with them. And yet, being a Muslim country, not to mention one in which Islam’s two most holy sites reside, they had allied themselves with a Western power that had extremely strong military ties with Israel.
While not the whole story, such realizations were obviously not lost on the likes of Osama Bin Laden, nor should they have been on the CIA. In the after-action report filed regarding Operation AJAX, CIA analysts conceded that the operation could, at some point, produce blowback. One wonders what the thoughts of CIA analysts were during the 1980’s when the United States was engaged in not only aiding the Mujahideen and what we now refer to as The Northern Alliance, but also the regime of Saddam Hussein. And all the while, in the background, military assistance to Israel continued unabated. That’s not even taking into account other covert operations in other parts of the world, such as in Latin America where the CIA was getting its hands dirty in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua – just to name a few. Nor does it take into account operations in Africa, Europe, or Asia.
As the Iran-Contra scandal would expose, the US was involved in playing both sides in the Iran-Iraq conflict, though the CIA’s assistance was primarily focused on Saddam Hussein’s efforts. His use of gas against the Iranians was aided by the CIA, who provided him satellite coverage of Iranian positions and troop movements, allowing his forces to better target them. And, as is to be expected, the crimes perpetrated by his regime were, at the time, largely overlooked. Even after he gassed Halabja and the House passed a resolution calling for the suspension of aid to Iraq, the Reagan White House vetoed it stating that it was unclear if Hussein had been responsible or the Iranians had been. And while they did issue a weak statement of condemnation, their support for his regime did not end.
Again, these are historical realities that are not exclusively available to us, but to those that would use them to formulate policies of their own, ones that, after years of either doing business with the United States covertly, or being used as unwitting proxies in the ‘global war against Communism’, might take offense.
Traditionally, we have explained away our evils by evoking the Cold War as justification for our actions. We tell ourselves that it was all necessary and played an integral role in the eventual demise of the Soviet Union, which is a rather skewed perspective when one refuses to take into account the part played by the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev and others that worked to help dismantle what they, themselves, viewed as a corrupt entity that was, quite obviously, in its last throes.
So how are we to explain away those actions that have led others to formulate policies, be they steeped in religious fanaticism or not, that are steeped in the recognition of our usury and interference? Because to them the Cold War was never the foremost justification for their actions, even though our reasons for covert support or intervention primarily was. And when the Soviet block fell, and we proclaimed ourselves the victors of the Cold War, what then became of our relationships with those that we had coddled and used in that struggle, even though to them the defeat of global Communism was never their aim?
Pax Americana
During the Gulf War, coalition forces staged air and ground operations from bases within Saudi Arabia. At the end of the war, US military presences in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait remained, something that displeased a great many Saudis, Osama Bin Laden among them, given that Islam’s two most holy sites are located in that country. The United States would continue to have a military presence in Saudi Arabia until 2003, after which they were forced to relocate after the Saudis finnaly refused to allow them to launch air strikes against Iraq from Saudi bases.
The displeasure created by the US military’s presence in Saudi Arabia for more than a decade should not be disregarded or considered of little import. It is, in fact, a point of real importance with regards to the motivations of men like Osama Bin Laden and others that, to this day, remain in Saudi Arabia and hold drastically anti-Western views, not to mention unfavourable ones regarding the Saudi regime. To us it might not seem that big a deal, but it is not our perspective that matters, something that we all too often disregard when doing the math behind questions such as “why do they hate us?”.
“After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia (with 12,000 armed men) but was rebuffed by the Saudi government. Bin Laden publicly denounced his government’s dependence on the U.S. military and demanded an end to the presence of foreign military bases in the country. According to reports (by the BBC and others), the 1990/91 deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in connection with the Gulf War upset Muslims because the Saudi government claims legitimacy based on their role as guardians of the sacred Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina. After the Gulf War cease-fire agreement left Saddam Hussein remaining in power in Iraq, the ongoing presence of long-term bases for non-Muslim U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia continued to undermine the Saudi rulers’ perceived legitimacy and inflamed anti-government Islamist militants, including bin Laden.” – [Link]
More often than not, we tend to look at our actions and positions from a wholly selfish standpoint rather than attempting to empathize with others. In doing so, especially given the mindset created during the Cold War era, we often fail to realize the magnitude of our external influencing.
There are currently some 2,500,000 US personnel serving in the Armed Forces around the world. They man, in total, 737 military bases, making the Pentagon one of the planet’s foremost landlords. To put into perspective just how enormous the US global military presence is, at the height of its dominance, the Romans policed from Britannia in the north to Egypt in the south, from Hispania in the west to Armenia in the east, with a total of 37 major military bases.
To think that such military arrogance should simply be tolerated by the world’s population without question or, in extreme cases, even retaliation, is a stretch. In the face of such an overwhelming global power, and its manipulative undertakings, primarily in the latter half of the 20th century, one seriously wonders why it should come as a shock that someone, somewhere, that has taken offense to the actions or abuses of such a power, might act.
The point is not whether you agree with their cause or not, it’s whether you understand the ramifications of a global imperialism that is routinely cast in a positive light so to detract from the fact that it is, in fact, a global power that, despite its denials to the contrary, acts without impunity with regards to its own objectives.
One ultimately must wonder – if “freedom” is so very contagious and sought after then why does it require 737 military bases to safeguard its survival? And if, by way of examining that question, you come to the conclusion that it isn’t really about freedom, then you must ultimately ask yourself – what is it about?
In the early 1990’s, while Paul Wolfowitz was penning the guidelines for US dominance over the post Cold War world, flames were beginning to spread in various pockets that had once been provinces of US covert assistance. And Afghanistan was one of them.
Forgotten Afghanistan
After being forced to leave Sudan in the spring of 1996, Osama Bin Laden returned to the place of his greatest triumph, a triumph made possible because of the assistance of external forces that aided him and others like him. It would be there that he would help fund the Taliban’s rise to power, a movement in which he would find refuge until the invasion in 2001.
After the attacks of September 11th, despite immediately being linked to them by the United States and then Great Britain, Bin Laden initially denied involvement and released a statement that praised the attackers but claimed that the attacks had been carried out by “individuals with their own motivation”. Of course, after the invasion of Afghanistan, video tapes would be found on which Bin Laden displayed foreknowledge of the attacks and his reasoning behind them, contradicting his initial statement.
The reality is that we may never know the actual truth behind the plot. Being that Bin Laden is most likely in Pakistan, and may even be secretly protected by the Pakistani ISI or others, it isn’t likely that his apprehension is going to occur any time soon. And, of course, that suits the likes of the Bush administration immensely. The longer they can use Bin Laden as their ghost, the more ambiguous and convoluted the War On Terror can become. And that, as we’ve seen demonstrated in Iraq, includes unilateral action against those that had nothing to do with 9/11 but can provide the United States opportunities – as ill conceived as they might be.
But despite that, the war in Afghanistan remains the forgotten war, one that has been largely neglected by the United States in favour of Iraqi operations. In all, there are some 51,000 NATO forces currently in Afghanistan, which was invaded in 2001 directly in response to the attacks of September 11th. Compared to that, there are currently 145,000 US troops alone in Iraq, with 250,000 US troops participating in its initial invasion.
So which is the priority? The apprehension of the man suspected of plotting the devastating attacks on September 11th and the ability to ensure that Afghanistan is secure? Or the implementation of the Bush doctrine in as many locations as will allow before it’s replaced by a new foreign policy platform that will have to struggle to overcome what it has set into motion? Besides Afghanistan, the United States is not only embroiled in a bloody and costly war in Iraq that has completely overshadowed the war in Afghanistan, but have also been active in Somalia, where US air and special forces were used to help remove the ICU from power.
In response to the attacks of September 11th, the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien pledged Canada’s support for US efforts to remove the Taliban from power and capture Osama Bin Laden. Neither objective has been wholly accomplished since 2001, and Canadian involvement in the war has only escalated. There are those that claim that our role in Afghanistan is a vital national security measure, and that by being there we are somehow preventing terrorism from rearing its ugly head on Canadian soil. To this day I struggle to even comprehend such logic, and the attacks in London only further prove that just because we act militarily elsewhere that terrorism is not deterred abroad. If anything, it is encouraged.
The irony is that those we now fight in Afghanistan were once aided by the very country that initially invaded it in 2001 in response to 9/11. And by way of association, we have inexorably linked ourselves to their legacy.