Beyond September 11
01 May 2004
New preface by Phil Scraton to "Beyond September 11 - an anthology of dissent" (Pluto Press)
Beyond September 11 was conceived, written and edited in the immediate aftermath of that one fateful day. It was completed as allied forces proclaimed the ‘liberation’ of Afghanistan from Taliban rule, as over 600 men and boys were flown to be caged in Guantanamo Bay, as thousands of Afghans picked their way through the rubble of their former homes, and as a buoyant US Administration flexed its military muscle for the next phase in its self-styled ‘war on terror’. The text captures that moment. It records George W. Bush projecting the war from the “focus on Afghanistan” to a “broader” battlefront. It concludes with a passage on the rewriting of history, the degradation of truth and the pain and suffering “of death and destruction heightened by the pain of deceit and denial”. Finally, it proposes that unleashing the world’s most powerful military force against relatively defenceless states, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, would promote recruitment to the very organisations targeted for elimination. There was little doubt that next in line after Afghanistan would be Iraq; a target made more poignant by the belief among US hawks that Saddam Hussein’s regime represented the business unfinished by George W. Bush’s father.
Barbara Lee, the lone Democrat congresswoman who voted against the military offensive in Afghanistan, exposed the dangerous reality masked by the rhetoric of freedom and liberation:
I could not ignore that it provided explicit authority, under the War Powers Resolution and the Constitution, to go to war. It was a blank cheque to the President to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events – anywhere, in any country, without regard to nations’ long term foreign policy, economic and national security interests and without time limit.[1]
National security and “just wars”
Her fears were soon realised. In September 2002 the White House published the US Administration’s new national security strategy.[2] Penned by Condoleeza Rice, it reflected the confidence of an administration committed to strengthening the power and authority of its military-industrial complex at the expense of the declining influence of an ineffectual United Nations. In his Foreword the US President affirmed that the “great struggles of the 20th Century between liberty and totalitarianism” were over, the “victory for the forces of freedom” had been “decisive”. The conclusion of the Cold War had left “a single, sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy and free enterprise”.[3] There had been no compromise. Advanced capitalism, serviced by social democratic governments committed to the management of inherent structural inequalities, had defeated the communist alternatives. A new, grave danger had emerged at the “crossroads of radicalism and technology”.[4] ‘Radicalism’ was code for ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘technology’ for ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
The strategy stated that “freedom and fear are at war”.[5] In this context US foreign policy would prioritise “defending the peace, preserving the peace and extending the peace” in the “battle against rogue states”. These states “brutalize their own people”; “reject international law”; “are determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction”; “sponsor global terrorism”; “reject basic human values”. Most significantly, they “hate the United States and everything for which it stands”.[6] They would be reminded that the “United States possesses unprecedented – and unequalled – strength and influence in the world”. This would be reflected in the US National Security Strategy “based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects our values and our national interests”.[7] For, the “war on terror is a ‘global’ war” with the United States “fighting for our democratic values and our way of life”.[8]
With the ‘justification’ e