Confronting Ourselves
Conclusion
excerpted from the book
Citizens of the Empire
The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity
by Robert Jensen
City Lights Books, 2004, paper
p98
... without empathy, without the ability to move outside our own
experience, there is no hope of changing the world. Andrea Dworkin,
one of the most important feminist thinkers of our time, has written,
"The victims of any systematized brutality are discounted
because others cannot bear to see, identify, or articulate the
pain." It is long past the time for all of us to start to
see, to identify; to articulate the pain of systematized brutality.
It is time to recognize that much of that pain is the result of
a system designed to ensure our pleasures.
p98
Cluster bombs
It is my experience that people can feel
empathy for the pain of others in certain situations, such as
the pain of a loved one or friend, or in certain cases the suffering
of people far away who are hit by a natural disaster or cruel
twist of fate. But the key in Dworkin's insight is "systematized
brutality?' Empathy seems less forthcoming for those victims,
especially when it is one's own government or society or culture
that is systematizing the brutality. When the pain is caused by
our government, we are channeled away from that empathy. The way
we are educated and entertained keeps us from knowing about or
understanding the pain of others in other parts of the world,
and from understanding how our pleasure is connected to the pain
of others. It is a combined intellectual, emotional, and moral
failure-a failure to know, to feel, and to act.
Let's take a simple example, the CBU-87,
also known as the cluster bomb, which is a part of the U.S. arsenal
(along with other cluster munitions that are delivered by surface
rocket or artillery).
It is a bomb that U.S. pilots drop from
U.S. planes paid for by U.S. tax dollars. Each cluster bomb contains
202 individual submunitions, called bomblets (BLU-97/B). The CBU-87s
are formally known as Combined Effects Munitions (CEM) because
each bomblet has an antitank and antipersonnel effect, as well
as an incendiary capability. The bomblets from each CBU-87 are
typically distributed over an area roughly 100 by 50 meters, though
the exact landing area of the bomblets is difficult to control.
As the soda can-size bomblets fall, a
spring pushes out a nylon "parachute" (called the decelerator),
which stabilizes and arms the bomblet. The BLU-97 is packed in
a steel case with an incendiary zirconium ring. The case is made
of scored steel designed to break into approximately 300 preformed
thirty-grain fragments upon detonation of the internal explosive.
The fragments then travel at extremely high speeds in all directions.
This is the primary antipersonnel effect of the weapon. Antipersonnel
means that the steel shards will shred anyone in the vicinity.
The primary anti-armor effect comes from
a molten copper slug. If the bomblet has been properly oriented,
the downward-firing charge travels at 2,570 feet per second and
is able to penetrate most armored vehicles. The zirconium ring
spreads small incendiary fragments. The charge has the ability
to penetrate 5 inches of armor on contact. The tiny steel case
fragments are also powerful enough to damage light armor and trucks
at 50 feet, and to cause human injury at 500 feet. The incendiary
ring can start fires in any combustible environment.
Human Rights Watch, the source for this
description, is one of many groups that has called for a global
moratorium on use of cluster bombs because they cause unacceptable
civilian casualties. Those casualties come partly in combat, because
the munitions have a wide dispersal pattern and cannot be targeted
precisely, making them especially dangerous when used near civilian
areas. Even more deadly is the way in which cluster bombs don't
work. The official initial failure-to-explode rate for the bomblets
is 5 to 7 percent, though some de-mining workers estimate that
up to 20 percent do not explode. That means in each cluster bomb
from ten to forty of the bomblets fail to explode on contact as
intended, becoming land mines that can be set off by a simple
touch. Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 1,600 Kuwaiti
and Iraqi civilians have been killed, and another 2,500 injured,
by the estimated 1.2 million cluster bomb duds left following
the 1991 Persian Gulf War. For decades after the Vietnam War,
reports came in of children and farmers setting off bomblets.
The weapons were also used in the NATO attack on Serbia and the
U.S. attack on Afghanistan.
Both British and U.S. forces in the Iraq
War used cluster munitions, including versions fired from artillery.
British military officials say their cluster munitions use a different
fuse system that cuts the dud rate to 2 percent. U.S. officials
said that retrofitting the U.S. arsenal in this fashion would
be too expensive. The army officer in charge of the program acknowledged
there have been major improvements, but "it's just that they're
not fielded yet?' As a result, the cluster dud rate in the 2003
Iraq War was about the same as in the 1991 Gulf War. After the
war, a newspaper reported that U.S. military officials were rethinking
the widespread use of cluster munitions -not on humanitarian grounds
but because the duds "significantly impeded American troops'
battlefield maneuverability' rendering "significant swaths
of battlefield off limits to advancing U.S. troops?'
p102
... during the 2003 war, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff (acknowledged that "it's unfortunate that we had to
make those ) choices about hitting targets in civilian areas,
but as we've said before as well, war is not a tidy affair, it's
a very ugly affair."
p102
One of the central concepts in international law, in the law of
warfare, is that civilians shall not be targeted. That means not
only a prohibition against intentionally killing civilians, but
as the Geneva Conventions state, against attacks that are indiscriminate.
Article 51's description of indiscriminate attacks is: "those
which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which
cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently,
in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives
and civilians or civilian objects without distinction." That's
a cluster bomb.
Cluster bombs are made by Alliant Techsystems
of Minnesota. I'm from that part of the country. There's a term
widely used there about the friendliness of Minnesotans, who are
legendary for avoiding conflict (at least open conflict)
"Minnesota nice?' Alliant employs
11,200 people, most of whom are no doubt nice. Many of the military
personnel who drop cluster bombs and defend the use of cluster
bombs are no doubt nice. Many of the U.S. citizens who don't seem
to mind that we drop cluster bombs are no doubt nice. Minnesota
nice. United States nice.
p104
Most people in the United States take for granted a standard of
living that the vast majority of the world can barely imagine
and can never expect to enjoy. Many of us can recite the figure
that the United States is about 5 percent of the world's population
yet we consume about 25 percent of the world's oil and 30 percent
of the gross world product. How is that related to foreign policy
and military intervention?
The clearest statement of the connection
came in February 1948 in a classified U.S. State Department document,
known as Policy Planning Staff memorandum 23. The policy paper
had been drafted by George Kennan, the first director of the State
Department's Policy Planning Staff. In the section on Asia, Kennan
wrote:
Furthermore, we have 50% of the world's
wealth but only 6.3% of the population. This disparity is particularly
great between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation,
we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real
task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships
which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without
positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will
have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and
our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate
national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can
afford the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.
Kennan argued for restraint in U.S. policy
in the Far East, acknowledging the limits on the U.S. ability
to dictate policy to nations in the region, particularly China
and India. He went on to say:
We should stop putting ourselves in the
position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering
moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague
and for the Far East-unreal objectives, such as human rights,
the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day
is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power
concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans,
the better.
Kennan advocated ditching the idealistic
slogans about freedom, but it turned out those slogans were too
effective for U.S. policymakers to give up. Still, Kennan's statement
embodies the philosophy of a small elite sector of the United
States whose goal is subordinating the interests of other peoples
to the profit needs of American corporations. Most of us are not
part of that sector. But although this nation's foreign policy
and wars are designed to benefit an extremely small sector of
the country, the general affluence of the culture is an important
part of how those elites win support for those policies and wars.
That is, people in working- and middle-class America who live
comfortably have come to believe that their continued comfort
depends on U.S. dominance around the world. Is that why so many
working- and middle-class Americans are generally willing to support
policies and wars of dominance, to protect that comfort? If leaders
can propose a relatively cost-free way (that is, few American
casualties and limited expenditures) to continue that dominance
and ensure continued material comfort, will most Americans continue
to endorse it, especially when the deeply ingrained mythology
about how the United States fights for freedom can be tapped?
If that is true, then in addition to being
able to face the pain of the world, we also need to reduce our
own pleasures. The degree to which people believe they must keep
consuming at this level to be happy will tend to distort the ability
to see the degree to which our pleasures require others' pain.
I believe the level of consumption in this country can only be
maintained if people in other places (and increasingly a growing
number of people here at home) suffer deprivation. By any standard,
the level of poverty in the world is a moral outrage; more than
a fifth of the world's people still live in abject poverty (under
$1 a day), and about half live below the barely more generous
standard of $2 a day; at least half the world cannot meet basic
expenditures for food, clothing, shelter, health, and education.
More than 840 million people were undernourished in 1999-2001,
with world hunger on the rise in the last half of the 1990s. The
sources of poverty, like the causes of most social/political phenomena,
are complex. But at the heart of worldwide inequality today is
the continued economic domination of the underdeveloped world
by the developed world with U.S. trade, foreign, and military
policy square at the center of that system of domination. We are
helping keep the poor of the world poor.
p111
People with power are perfectly happy for the population to be
cynical, because that tends to paralyze people and leads to passivity.
Those same powerful people also do their best to derail critique-the
process of working to understand the nature of things around us
and offering judgments about them because that tends to energize
people and leads to resistance.
p112
The world we live in is reactionary because it is trying to squeeze
... important human dimensions out of us in the political sphere
and constrict the range of discussion so much that politics does
seem to many to be useless. To resist that one must be radical,
be political, and be radical in public politically.
p115
Cynicism might be an appropriate reaction to injustice that can't
be changed. Hope is an appropriate response to a task that, while
difficult, is imaginable. And once I could understand the structural
forces that produced injustice, I could imagine what a world without
those forces- and hence without the injustice-might look like.
And I could imagine what activities and actions and ideas it would
take to get us there. And I could look around, and look back into
history, and realize that lots of people have understood this
and that I hadn't stumbled onto a new idea.
In other words, I finally figured out
that I should get to work.
So hope emerged out of cynicism. I began
to see the power of radical analysis and the importance of collective
action. I began to take the long view, to see that we face a struggle,
but that it is not a pointless struggle. The exact choices we
should make as we struggle are not always clear, but the framework
for making choices is there.
p117
Basically, there are two choices ... articulated by Noam Chomsky:
We can either predict the worst that no change is possible -and
not act, in which case we guarantee there will be no change. Or
we can understand that change always is possible, even in the
face of great odds, and act on that assumption, which creates
the possibility of progress.
p119
I realize that this struggle doesn't seem appealing to many. I
have heard lots of people say that they can't cope with the complexity
of politics. It seems too much, too big, too confusing. All they
can handle, they say, is to focus on their individual lives and
do the best to fix their lives. I have heard many parents say
that their contribution to a better world is to raise their children
with progressive values. That's all well and good; better to have
children with progressive rather than reactionary role models.
But I think these folks misunderstand not just their moral obligation
but the nature of progress, individual and collective. We don't
fix ourselves in isolation. We don't build decent lives by cutting
ourselves off from problems just because they are complex. There
are no private solutions to public problems. Yes, there are times
when difficult situations force us to turn inward and deal with
pressing problems in our lives. But I am arguing against the permanent
division of our lives into these artificial categories. Our personal
problems are never wholly individual, and hence they can't be
fixed in individual ways. Part of the solution is always to be
found in the bigger struggle, in which we all have a part.
p121
Real hope-the belief in the authentic underpinnings of hope-is
radical. A belief that people are not evil and stupid, not consigned
merely to live out predetermined roles in illegitimate structures
of authority, is radical. The willingness to act publicly on that
hope and that belief is radical.
We all live in a society that would prefer
that we not be radical, that we not understand any of this. We
live in a society that prefers productive but passive people.
I work at a university that is part of that society, and has many
of the same problems. Many classes at the university are either
explicitly or implicitly designed to convince students that everything
I have argued here is fundamentally crazy. The same goes for much
of what comes to us through the commercial mass media.
p123
In many ways, I am a typical white middle-class American. I have
never lived outside the United States. I have traveled little
outside North America. I speak only English. For personal and
political reasons I expect to live out my life here. This country
is, and feels like, my home. And yet I have never felt more alien
in the United States. Since childhood I have always felt a bit
out of step with the dominant culture of the United States, and
that feeling has grown stronger as I have grown older. After 9/11-as
my home has become a homeland-the alienation has peaked.
I have never been more distant from my
peers. I have never felt so fundamentally alone so often. The
community in which I feel comfortable has shrunk dramatically.
When in "normal" settings, such as at work, I usually
feel as if I live in some parallel universe. I have been less
interested in attending routine social gatherings outside of my
political cohort. I find myself more frequently communicating
over e-mail with like-minded people in other cities rather than
chatting with colleagues in the hallway. Instead of looking for
ways to expand my social circle, I have let it contract.
There is no reason to pretend I don't
feel this way, and from conversations with others around the country
I know that many others feel similarly. The United States has
taken an ugly turn since 9/11. Decent people should feel alienated;
we have a right to feel that way. And at the same time-if we truly
believe in creating an alternative to this ugly world-we cannot
allow ourselves the luxury of alienation, nor can we wallow in
our sense of being different. We must not separate ourselves from
the larger world that creates this sense of being alone. If we
do that-if those who want to resist the American empire cut ourselves
off from the larger society-it will be the ultimate exercise of
privilege.
p124
A serious movement must start with this reality: We citizens of
the United States are citizens of the empire. One of the people
most happy about that fact, Atlantic Monthly correspondent Robert
Kaplan, has suggested we move beyond the obvious,, that the United
States now possesses a global empire"- and start figuring
out how to run it. While many celebrate the empire, the reflections
of one of Britain's most eminent historians, Eric Hobsbawm, are
relevant here:
The present world situation is unprecedented.
The great global empires of the past-such as the Spanish and notably
the British-bear little comparison with what we see today in the
United States empire. A key novelty of the U.S. imperial project
is that all other empires knew that they were not the only ones,
and none aimed at global domination. None believed themselves
invulnerable, even if they believed themselves to be central to
the world-as China did, or the Roman empire. Regional domination
was the maximum danger envisaged until the end of the cold war.
A global reach, which became possible after 1492, should not be
confused with global domination.
[Tithe U.S., like revolutionary France
and revolutionary Russia, is a great power based on a universalist
revolution and therefore on the belief that the rest of the world
should follow its example, or even that it should help liberate
the rest of the world. Few things are more dangerous than empires
pursuing their own interest in the belief that they are doing
humanity a favour.
U.S. policymakers routinely take exception
to that claim. Near the end of the Iraq War, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld stated flatly: "We don't seek empires. We're
not imperialistic, we've never been. But imperialism does not
require the direct imposition of colonial relations. Again, quoting
Hobsbawm: "Of course the Americans theoretically do not aim
to occupy the whole world. What they aim to do is to go to war,
leave friendly governments behind them and go home again."
It matters little that we do not directly
take ownership of territory and install colonial governors as
did empires of the past; the modalities of control have changed,
but not the goal of control. Although many still recoil at thinking
of the United States as an imperial power, the facts are clear.
The United States today has:
* global reach, in military, political,
economic, and cultural terms;
* a social structure and value system
oriented toward the accumulation of power and rationalization
of vast disparities in consumption of resources;
* the technological means to subdue other
societies to achieve those ends;
* at elite levels, a culture of barbarism
in which leaders are willing to act outside of basic moral considerations;
and
* a general population that, with the
exception of a dissenting minority, either actively endorses or
does nothing to stop the imperial project.
The empire works through military and
economic power through the use of the national military force
to dictate the composition of governments (most recently in Afghanistan
and Iraq) and binational or multinational organizations it dominates
to dictate the terms of trade and investment (regional trade agreements,
the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World
Bank).
If one doubts the imperial intentions
of the current government, consider this clear statement of the
U.S. goal from the 2002 National Security Strategy document: "Our
forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries
from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling,
the power of the United States?' To do that, "the United
States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western
Europe and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements
for the long-distance deployment of U.S. forces." Once deployed,
the United States can accept no constraints on these forces: "We
will take the actions necessary to ensure that our efforts to
meet our global security commitments and protect Americans are
not impaired by the potential for investigations, inquiry, or
prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose jurisdiction
does not extend to Americans and which we do not accept."
This plan requires what the military calls
"full spectrum dominance' defined as "the ability of
U.S. forces, operating unilaterally or in combination with multinational
and interagency partners, to defeat any adversary and control
any situation across the full range of military operations."
In the military's terms, full spectrum dominance allows the United
States to be "persuasive in peace' "decisive in war'
and "preeminent in any form of conflict. In other words,
the goal is to be able to run the world, without significant challenge.
The consequences of this imperial project
have been grim for many around the world-those who have been the
targets of U.S. military power; those who have lived under repressive
regimes backed by the United States; and those who toil in economies
that are increasingly subordinated to the United States and multinational
corporations. Scratch the surface of U.S. rhetoric about its quest
to bring freedom and democracy to the world, and one finds the
suffering of the people who must live with the reality of U.S.
foreign policy. Like most empires, the United States claims to
be pursuing noble goals abroad: peace, freedom, democracy. But
U.S. actions show the real goal is to consolidate power and control
resources. This is hardly surprising: Empires are inherently immoral,
never designed to benefit the people in targeted countries (outside
of an elite who cooperate with the imperial power to their own
advantage). The material gains from the empire are concentrated
at the top of the imperial country, with some benefits to a larger
segment of society.
p130
This message of resistance to the empire is not an easy sell in
the United States these days.
To one segment of the American public,
these claims appear lunatic. Deeply invested in the political
mythology ... many people are reveling in triumphalism: "Yes,
the United States has emerged as an empire, and it's a good thing,
too?' From this view, the United States is the only force in the
world capable of imposing order. Hence, imperialism is not only
acceptable but morally required.
That imperial project is also widely considered
to be the best way to make Americans more secure. Rather than
examine the reasons the United States is targeted and address
those reasons, many people endorse the response of brute force-as
much as necessary. And in many circles, there is little interest
in questioning the high-energy use, high-consumption lifestyle.
As George W. Bush's press secretary put it when was asked in May
2001 whether Americans should "correct our lifestyles"
to reduce energy consumption: "That's a big no. The President
believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should
be the goal of policymakers to protect the American way of life.
The American way of life is a blessed one. "
p133
The way out of that alienation is faith that a country protected
by its power can relinquish some of that power; that a society
insulated by its privilege from many of the consequences of the
unjust use of power can renounce that privilege; that a people
comfortable in their affluence can collectively work to change
the system that makes them comfortable. It is a tall order. It
requires j not just a change in policies but in worldview. And,
perhaps even
p133
C. Douglas Lummis
... When many people, filled with hope,
take part in public action, hope is transformed from near-groundless
faith ... to plain common sense.
p134
Before 9/11, many Americans thought they could live in pampered
isolation, draining the world's resources without having to be
part of, or accountable to, the rest of the world. Many Americans
felt beyond the reach of the pain of the rest of the world. After
9/11, such self-indulgence is no longer possible; we now know
how vulnerable we all are. If in the past we were unmoved by moral
arguments about how our comfort was built on so much suffering
around the world, now there is a heightened measure of self-interest
to be considered. It is difficult to ignore the fact that U.S.
economic, military, and foreign policy must change. Our choices
are fairly stark.
Where shall we put our faith? In the reactionary
program of the Republican Party and George W. Bush's perverse
"with us or with the terrorists" logic? Or in the kinder-and-gentler
imperialism of the mainstream Democratic Party and its fake multilateralism?
Or shall we put our faith in each other to find a way to stop
living on top of the world and start living as part of the world?
Can we face the task of being citizens
of the empire? Do we have the courage to stop being Americans
and become human beings? Do we care enough about ourselves and
the world to struggle to claim our humanity?
The rest of the world is waiting for our
answer.
p137
September 11 was a day of sadness, anger, and fear.
Like everyone in the United States and
around the world, I shared the deep sadness at the deaths of thousands.
But as I listened to people around me
talk, I realized the anger and fear I felt were very different,
for my primary anger is directed at the leaders of this country
and my fear is not only for the safety of Americans but for innocents
civilians in other countries.
It should need not be said, but I will
say it: The acts of terrorism that killed civilians in New York
and Washington were reprehensible and indefensible; to try to
defend them would be to abandon one's humanity. No matter what
the motivation of the attackers, the method is beyond discussion.
But this act was no more despicable than
the massive acts of terrorism-the deliberate killing of civilians
for political purposes-that the U.S. government has committed
during my lifetime. For more than five decades throughout the
Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians
or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other
way to understand it except as terrorism. And it has supported
similar acts of terrorism by client states.
If that statement seems outrageous, ask
the people of Vietnam. Or Cambodia and Laos. Or Indonesia and
East Timor. Or Chile. Or Central America. Or Iraq, or Palestine.
The list of countries and peoples who have felt the violence of
this country is long. Vietnamese civilians bombed by the United
States. Timorese civilians killed by a U.S. ally with U.S.-supplied
weapons. Nicaraguan civilians killed by a U.S. proxy army of terrorists.
Iraqi civilians killed by the deliberate bombing of an entire
country's infrastructure.
So, my anger on this day is directed not
only at individuals who engineered the September 11 tragedy but
at those who have held power in the United States and have engineered
attacks on civilians every bit as tragic. That anger is compounded
by hypocritical U.S. officials' talk of their commitment to higher
ideals, as President Bush proclaimed "our resolve for justice
and Peace?'
To the president, I can only say: The
stilled voices of the millions killed in Southeast Asia, in Central
America, in the Middle East as a direct result of U.S. policy
are the evidence of our resolve for justice and peace.
Though that anger stayed with me off and
on all day, it quickly gave way to fear, but not the fear of "where
will the terrorists strike next' which I heard voiced all around
me. Instead, I almost immediately had to face the question: "When
will the United States, without regard for civilian casualties,
retaliate?" I wish the question were, "Will the United
States retaliate?" But if history is a guide, it is a question
only of when and where.
So, the question is which civilians will
be unlucky enough to be in the way of the U.S. bombs and missiles
that might be unleashed. The last time the U.S. responded to terrorism,
the attack on its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, it
was innocents in the Sudan and Afghanistan who were in the way.
We were told that time around they hit only military targets,
though the target in the Sudan turned out to be a pharmaceutical
factory.
As I monitored television during the day,
the talk of retaliation was in the air; in the voices of some
of the national-security "experts" there was a hunger
for retaliation. Even the journalists couldn't resist; speculating
on a military strike that might come, Peter Jennings of ABC News
said that "the response is going to have to be massive"
if it is to be effective.
Let us not forget that a "massive
response" will kill people, and if the pattern of past U.S.
actions holds, it will kill innocents. Innocent people, just like
the ones in the towers in New York and the ones on the airplanes
that were hijacked. To borrow from President Bush, "mothers
and fathers, friends and neighbors" will surely die in a
massive response.
If we are truly going to claim to be decent
people, our tears must flow not only for those of our own country.
People are people, and grief that is limited to those within a
specific political boundary denies the humanity of others.
And if we are to be decent people, we
all must demand of our government-the government that a great
man of peace, Martin Luther King Jr., once described as "the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world"- that the insanity
stop here.
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