It is a suggestive coincidence that this week marks both the second anniversary of the terror attack on New York universally known as 9/11, and the 30th anniversary of General Augusto Pinochet’s infamous putsch in Chile. If baffled Americans are still trying to fathom why a band of extreme Islamists hijacked planes and flew them into the Twin Towers they need look no further than the bloody Chilean coup and its aftermath.
It is a simple historical fact that the United States government, through the CIA, instigated and supported Pinochet’s coup. The air-force attack on the seat of government in Santiago toppled a democratically elected president, led to the cold-blooded extra-judicial execution of many more people than died on 9/11, forced thousands into exile and precipitated 17 years of dictatorship in a country with strong democratic traditions. To this day, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger avoids travelling abroad for fear of legal action related to the coup and its attendant atrocities.
Since World War II, US imperialism — there is no other word for it —has led to millions of deaths and untold destruction in Third World countries, from Vietnam to Angola, from Nicaragua to Iraq. Its insistent indulgence of the repressive Israeli state has been a major factor in the downward spiral in the Middle East. US foreign policies have aroused the resentment not just of radical Muslims, but of ordinary men and women across the globe.
The saddest thing about 9/11 is that Americans have learned nothing from it. Instead of self-examination — what provoked such a paroxysm of self-destructive hatred? — they reacted by giving carte blanche to the neo-conservatives clustered round President George W Bush. Revenge replaced diplomacy, unilateralism the international community’s peace-making efforts. The “war against terrorism”, projected as a world initiative, has, in reality, been little more than a fig-leaf for the bellicose pursuit of what the US perceives to be its security interests.
As a consequence, it has squandered the horror and sympathy much of the world felt after 9/11. It is hard not to feel a certain grim satisfaction about the unravelling of its Iraqi adventure. Instead of being welcomed by a “liberated” populace, its forces are the daily target of guerrilla attacks. If Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was largely irrelevant to world terrorism before the war, it has now become the magnet for every wild-eyed incendiarist in the Middle East.
Mounting entropy has forced Bush to invite the United Nations into Iraq — a humiliating climbdown, given his contemptuous pre-invasion treatment of the UN. Originally intended to be funded from Iraqi oil revenues, the reconstruction exercise will largely be borne by US taxpayers, who are being asked to cough up close to $90-billion for the privilege. In the United Kingdom, the failure to find Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, coupled with the suicide of government scientist David Kelly and the revelations of the Hutton inquiry, may have fatally damaged the political prospects of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
It has been remarked that wars are needed to teach Americans geography. Because of their woeful ignorance of the world they dominate, there is little sign that ordinary US citizens are re-assessing their government’s response to 9/11. Recent surveys indicate that a sizeable chunk of the citizenry still believes Saddam was the evil genius behind the Twin Towers attack.
The hope must be that the occupation of Iraq degenerates into such a costly, messy and embarrassing affair that the US thinks very hard before unleashing its armed forces against another sovereign state. The world, as the Mail & Guardian predicted, has become more unsafe in the two years since the Twin Towers attack. It will only start to become safer when ordinary Americans feel the consequences of their government’s ruthlessly cavalier policies towards the non-European world.
Use the time wisely
The decision to postpone until next year Judge Edwin King’s inquiry into racism was one of rugby’s few good calls this week. A half-baked confection cooked up in the few weeks remaining before the World Cup is in no one’s interests, least of all those of the players expected to perform to the highest expectations in Australia.
But SA Rugby can seldom resist the urge to shoot itself in the foot. The manner in which the postponement was announced led both of Judge King’s assistants to quit the inquiry before it has begun. And the apologies issued by coach Rudolf Straueli and others should not be taken by rugby administrators and the public as adequate explanation of what went on between Geo Cronje and Quinton Davids.
The postponement must not be seen as an excuse to sweep the matter firmly under the carpet. The delay should be used constructively to ensure that a full commission is set up, with the all the necessary authority to investigate racism at all levels — including schools. It should give Judge King time to sharpen his scalpel and completely remove this cancer from the game.
Who knows, the outcome may even give the rotund minister one reason to justify to the South African public the space he takes up.