September 13, 2001
Why did it happen ?
My western analytical mind keeps coming back to that. If only I could figure out the motivation, then I could begin to discover a solution to the problem.
Earlier today, reading the Sacramento Bee, USA Today and the San Francisco Chronicle gave me data. This afternoon, as I bicycled to join 8000 of my friends and neighbors for the annual Davis Dinner at the Dump, a truck raced passed me with his American flag flying, and my first thought was “Right On! In spite of the tragedy, it has brought us together”.
Then I remembered, a decade ago, the last time SOME Americans waved the flag, and suddenly all of the pieces of data came together:
1. Oil Dependence: In the not too distant future, probably within 25 years, only one country in the world will not have to import oil, Saudi Arabia (as we call it).
2. A President’s Ego: George Herbert Bush, Ol’ 41, had the best foreign policy resume in U.S. history: Congress, head of the national GOP, the head of the CIA, U.S. ambassador to China and the U.N., Vice President. And he was an Oil Man.
1. + 2.: The U.S. had no permanent military presence in Saudi Arabia, which could become a problem if the U.S. ever had to “take” their oil. (Gosh, would the U.S. do that ?)
3. The Gulf War (a decade ago): In U.S. Senate public testimony the following spring, the U.S. to ambassador to Iraq, April Glasspie, reported that she met with Saddam Hussein on the last day of July, 1990, and under direct orders from the U.S. State Department (and the White House), informed the dictator of Iraq that if Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. would NOT interfere or retaliate. August 2nd, Iraq invaded Kuwait, which gave Ol’ 41 all the excuse he needed to create an international supermajority and Desert Shield was invented.
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President Bush plays golf in the rain: In one of the most absurd images in all of U.S. history, he than ran off to his previously scheduled vacation in Maine, and to contrast with his sleepy predecessor, actively played golf and went fishing even though it was pouring rain, to show that he could vigorously run the country and the war.
5. Desert Storm: Even the Saudi leadership felt threatened enough by pathetic Iraq to join the western powers. It was really an opportunity for U.S. troops to practice desert maneuvers with 21st century weapons, an armada toying with a 19th century defense. It is the only time in history that friendly fire accounted for a majority of the victor’s casualties. And the U.S. gained a permanent military toehold in the land of Mohammed (and oil).
6. Islam vs. the West: A quarter of the world’s people are Muslim. While they respect Christians and Jews as “people of the book” (Bible means “book”), ever since the Crusades a millennium ago the west has characterized “Arabs” (only 5 percent of the followers of Islam) as the worst kind of enemy. As Frank Viviano points out in the San Francisco Chronicle, 9/13/01, “The high price of disengagement”:
“Yet as we have grown ever more powerful since the collapse of the Soviet Union, economically and militarily, we have also grown ever more ignorant of the world beyond our borders.
“We are ignorant, especially, of the awful weight of that world’s unresolved history, and our inevitable enmeshment in it. That is the starting point for understanding why so much of the Islamic world appears to detest the United States, to the point of cold, inhumanly calculated suicide assaults on countless innocent victims. Nothing can excuse such assaults. But neither can our blindness be excused”.
7. Osama bin Laden’s response: As pointed out in the graphic accompanying the article in the same day’s S.F. Chronicle by Erin McCormick, “Few have the means to carry out attack,” “1990: The Gulf War and flow of overseas troops into the Middle East fuels bin Laden’s anger against the U.S.” Who provoked whom ? Whose culture was being invaded ? Whose traditions have been repeatedly trampled on and desecrated ? Who has been ridiculed ? (The picture in Monday’s paper was a Palestinian girl who was being pushed by an Israeli boy, while a girl was tugging on her scarf from behind.) To understand the terminology, look at a map of the Eurasian continent: it is from the European perspective that Saud is “The Middle East”. The Christian west dominated the western hemisphere in the 16th century when the Pope divided it between the Spanish and the Portuguese; Asia and Africa in the 19th century, and the Middle East in the 20th century. Remember, as long as the Muslim Moors controlled Spain, resident Jews were safe. It was the Christian Inquisition that drove the Jews out.
8. Jihad: In trying to rally the Muslim world, Saddam called it “jihad,” or Islamic holy war, but that didn’t really go far because it was really only about Saddam’s power grab to take Kuwaiti oil.
I am no friend of terrorism of any stripe. My father was a major in the U.S. Army Military Police, I was born in Munich during the Berlin Airlift, and I consider politics to be so important that I think every day is the 4th of July.
We need to learn to respect other people’s cultures, and let them go their own way, or it will come back to haunt us.
When I try to go inside bin Laden’s mind, I see a committed follower of the religion of a quarter of the people on the planet. Just as I support a permanent home for Israel, I demand a permanent, safe home for an independent Palestine.
The egotistical sins of Father Bush have come back to haunt us all. Until we remove the U.S. troops from Saud, the terror will continue as the only choice they can see. Next time it will be five suit cases, or twenty, that together will make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like a picnic. And no amount of security, or suspension of civil liberties will be able to prevent it. We are the richest, most powerful nation on the planet, and if we want to maintain our status, and our lives, then we need to learn to respect the rest of the world’s peoples.
Jon Li is a U.S. citizen who lives in Davis, California. During the 1980s, he was active in the US/USSR Bi-Lateral Nuclear Weapons Freeze and is registered with the Green Party.
Debate with Political Science professor Randolph Siverson
September 18, 2001
To: rmsiverson@ucdavis.edu
From: Jon Li <jli@davis.com>
Subject: Disputed Transcript
Dear Randy
What I am most proud of is that I filed away the story about April's March 1991 testimony in my head, and was able to draw it up recently.
Your interaction with me Sunday was great. It reminded me of your Poli Sci methods class. I said one thing, and you immediately understood the implications of what I meant and challenged my assumptions. It also made clear that you were already familiar with the following transcript.
From other sources, it appears that this was her only meeting with Saddam in her 2 years as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, and she later testified that she didn't think he would be stupid enough to interpret it as encouragement. But that was after Desert Storm.
I misspelled Glasspie, which caused me a few hours delay in discovery.
Obviously, this was fun.
Jon.
July 25, 1990 - Presidential Palace - Baghdad
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions:
Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?
Saddam Hussein - As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - What solutions would be acceptable?
Saddam Hussein - If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam s view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)
Glen Clark Responds:
September 16, 2001
Jon, I'm going to respond to your essay pt. by pt.
Re: "their motivation..." Here, Americans are at a real disadvantage, because our leaders are so ignorant. They are experts beyond any pretenses I may entertain at corporate finance and high-stakes political intrigue, but their knowledge of history, and of the culture produced by the world, much less America, is retarded. I am sure Condi Rice is a very educated person, but I bet I know more about the Middle East than she. I had friends who were "terrorists." When I was in Davis, one of my good friends was an Armenian "terrorist," part of a cell struggling to make Turkish Armenia part of the Soviet Union. He was a fine, civil man, vastly educated within his narrow dedication. I thought he had serious flaws in his analysis, but I admired him, much as I admire you, Jon, as someone dedicating himself to the world. I also had close friends among Ethiopians, Josif and his brothers, pun well-intended, whom you knew. These guys were "terrorists," trained to be Communist activists in America. I am sure that they have settled into academic professions and that their original cells have dissolved as the Cold War ended; they also had deep ambivalences over Eritrea, as you and maybe .ooo1 percent of Americans understand (probably not including Condi). The point here, re: "motivation," is to take in the real fact of their personal development, which is so completely strange to Americans who grew up in suburbs (or even on bases like you): they are gifted peasant sons, taken from their milieu and trained by secret political organizations and given money and responsibilities which completely overwhelmed their identities as sons of particular fathers and mothers, even as members of clans or villages. Were my friends, some of the best men I've known, ready to die for their causes, even to navigate jets into skyscrapers? I'm sure they were.
Personal memories: 1) after my marriage to Zelda, of Israel twice removed, I spent my "marriage party" with the Ethiopians talking world politics. (2) Josif once went into my bathroom when I was living in a studio at the Alvarado apartment ghetto in Davis and saw my little Soviet flag and said, "Why do you have the banner of the working class on your toilet?" He was confused as to my irony. My point: these people do not know irony. (3) Mersedeh, my Iranian lover, whose family was decimated by Islamic fundamentalism.
Then there is the Mahdi.
I have read much of the Koran, and in the preparation of my historical poem acquired a knowledge of Islam surpassing many of Bush's advisers. I have not heard mention of the Mahdi in the post-attack journalism.
I'll give you the bottom line first, out of deference to the fact that you are an American: Christians wait for Armageddon; Muslims make it happen.
The Mahdi is Allah's General who initiates the Last Jihad, holy war before the Final Judgment of Allah, who will survey the slaughter and separate humanity into the right (those who are blessed by their acts), and into the fore (those who were his warriors and deserve greater rewards), and into the left (the unbelivers, including America, who shall be punished like desert beasts). Every century since Mohammad's revelation, great warriors have appeared to renew the Islamic Empire, proclaiming themselves the Mahdi - the princes, like Bin Laden, of the Almoravids, the Almohads, the Fatimids, the whirling dervishes, etc. etc. The Shiites also have the concept of The Thirteenth Imam, Khomenei once considered that, who will likewise appear to initiate the apocalypse. To understand the motivation of these fanatical Islamic terrorists, we need to know this apocalyptic faith which has such power among young men taken from families, clans and villages into a vastly ennobling mission.
I am sure that Bin Laden is considered the Mahdi today by Palestinians who have the choice of sending their sons into the ditches of Israel to maintain sewers or into the streets of Intifadah, and by the sons of Baghdad who remember American bombs which kiled their sisters, and by the sons of Kabul who have heard their parents talk about Soviet soldiers raping their mothers. There will always be a Mahdi appearing in the Islamic world where people have so little to lose. If you soberly look at the Islamic societies whose broad masses have become commercialized or "petit bourgeouis," like Lebanon, Morroco, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, you will not see armies forming for the Mahdi, though you may see men like Bin Laden offering themselves megomaniacally as the Mahdi.
Oil dependence: until I have been shown data which forces me to change my analysis, I will repeat, that the United States is not dependent on Arab-controlled oil. Japan and Germany are. The U.S. has enough oil in Alaska, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Yucatan of its ally Mexico. The international military function of America, which I object to as a father and citizen, is to provide defense for the oil supplies of Europe and Japan.
Bush's ego: Cheney is Bush, Senior, same resume, Dubya's effective appointment of his father to lead foreign policy, at great behind-the-scenes struggle with Powell, who has a vision of world peace and alliances which reminds me of Dulles and may be quixotic. I am sure that Dubya, and more importantly Cheney, maintain as a foundational foreign policy bottom line, that America will go to the last measure to defend the delivery of oil to Europe and Japan. They see the system of oil as synonymous with 21st century civilization, and have no real belief that we need to move toward a transition to another fuel.
Beyond that, as to Dubya's ego, he strikes me as a very minimally educated privileged son as dependent on his advisers as Reagan and Harding were; in the case of Harding, disaster, in the case of Reagan, judgment is mixed, but I would say we were lucky. As bad as Clinton was personally, he was as smart as anyone around him.
The advisers of Bush, Dubya, strike me as terribly flawed morally (Perle, etc.) or humanistically - that is, the ability to consider the perspective of another place in the world from other than an American focus (Cheney, etc., with Powell being a possible exception). As for Dubya personally, he strikes me as being terribly in over his head, in a way that makes Clinton look visionary.
As for the U.S. "taking" the oil fields from Saudi Arabia: the genesis of Saudi rule was Islamic holy war; as I phrased it in my poem:
In Arabia Wahhabi sultan Ibn Saud
defeats Hussein his rival's armies
in the Hejaz and compels the law of God
upon his enemies
This is a country named after its founder (stop to imagine that, singular on the map), who is not in any real way different from the founder of the Taliban, whose social structure is based on the clan. They have immeasurable wealth, out of which Bin Laden was produced. There is no separation of church and state, no rule of law, nothing basic to our way of life. Women remain slaves. Saudi Arabia could revert in a day to Jihad, the only mitigating influence being the softness of wealth, which was not much of a mitigation with regard to Bin Laden.
When Eisenhower sent the CIA to coordinate the seizing back of nationalized oil fields in Iran under Mossadeq (a situation very comparable to what you are suggesting), it led irrevocably to Khomeini's Jihad, and that was in a country which produced way more cosmopolitan middle-class commercial culture than in Arabia today (Mersedeh).
The only U.S. military response in Arabia, homeland of Jihad, must be in the interest of whatever Koranic Despot rules there, or you will have a war against us waged with unfathomable resources, while Americans wave candles at night to support victims of terrorsim, and pack their kids' lunchbags with ritalin.
The Gulf War: here there are two connections - the failure of Bush, Sr., to get rid of Saddam, and the possibility of the Pakistani military dicatatorship using our weapons against us. On the first, I believe Bush, Sr., and Cheney, and a few others, chose to let Saddam remain in power, selling out the Shiites and the Kurds to slaughter, because of Saddam's ability to maintain oil delivery. However, I think Bush Sr., Cheney, and others see this as a mistake in retrospect, and that the foreign policy of these mandarins has moved from a focus on oil delivery to one of defeating terrorism. So I would expect to see the removal of Saddam as part of the coming war, with an international effort toward maintaining oil delivery.
With regard to Pakistan, that is another "turkey-shoot" with a distinction - nuclear warheads. These weapons are aimed at India, of course, but constitute such a wildcard that I doubt we will bomb Islamabad if the fundamentalist elements in their military rally to the Taliban.
Bush, Sr., playing golf during the crisis with Iraq: I believe the foreign policy mandarins consense to Nixon's strategy of feigning the madman during the Christmas bombing of Hanoi as being the strategy to be discredited; the whole "play from strength and pretend to be a wildcard," i.e., the personalization of diplomacy, seems to have been a legitimate card to be played since Nixon. I don't really see Bush doing that now ("I'm a loving man, but I will do what is necessary," is to be contrasted with "I'm a wildcard, I'm different from normal Americans").
Desert Storm: I see it as yes, an opportunity to test weapons and deployment, but I admit to the leaders of the U.S. seeing a crisis, especially in the disruption of the oil economy, and also as a testing of national resolve, re: "Vietnam Syndrome." That turkey shoot has laid the foundation for what will happen now in Afghanistan, Iraq, and probably Lybia. Desert Storm eliminated civil resistance to war and empire as a major obstacle to foreign policy wielded by the oil powers that be.
Islam vs. the West: last night my family listened to a teacher whose father was a Serbian partisan against Hitler and emmigrated to America and became a world leader in plant pathology (his name is Mircetich). The teacher's name is Jon, he's a professional water skier and a real stud whom I am grateful to know for many reasons, not the least is that he can help me be a "real Dad," taking my kids on river adventures. But I was struck with the passion Jon spoke of for his kin in Serbia, and how much the war with Islam is still real for him, even though he is as American as we get - he has all the affects of a surfer hero, and is a cop wanting to move into teaching to be "positive." I believe this war with Jihad is still very real for Eastern Europe. What I know from history I would hope Powell acquires: for hundreds of years under the Persian-led Abbassids, Islam was the commercial world center, and the cuttting-edge of knowledge and science, until the European conquests we call the Renaissance.
Among Bush's men, Powell has the intuition, if not the knowledge, for a policy of world commerce, including the Muslim nations, that creates peace.
Your citation of the columnist Viviano, and the point about our inexcusable ignorance, is well-taken: whenever I repeat that Americans are blinded by money and ignorant as a result, everyone agrees.
Re: your point about perspective, if you look at a map, Afghanistan is the center of the world.
Re: civil liberties. Here we may differ. I have always practiced and taught that, in the words of the 14th Amendment, any persons who are in the jurisdiction of the United States enjoy the privileges and immunities of all citizens. But I have seen friends detained and fined in Juarez, trying to get their wives, whose children are American citizens, reuinited with their family, while cubicle-despots make them come back in a week with another payment. Meanwhile, terrorists with Bin Laden's money attend military flight schools to bomb trade towers.
We need to start deporting non-citizen students, professors, professionals, etc., whom the FBI decides have commitments to terrorists groups dedicated to destroy us. The United States really is the governmental format for the future of freedom. Who else is? That noosphere, that joining of world consciousness, is endangered now, and we have to make adjustments in our immigration law so that we are not in the position of affording the training for our own destruction. I know that this kind of license for the FBI and CIA will lead to discrimination against people fighting for liberation for people whom our government does not approve of, but this is a price such revolutionaries will have to pay for our freedom.
January 18, 2002
Washington Post
Saudi rulers may soon ask the U.S. military to leave
Washington – Saudi Arabia’s rulers are increasingly uncomfortable with the U.S. military presence in their country and may soon ask that it end, according to several Saudi sources.
Such a decision would deprive the U.S. of regular use of the Prince Sultan air Base, from which U.S. power has been projected into the Persian Gulf region and beyond for more than a decade.
Senior Saudi rulers believe the U.S. has “overstayed its welcome” and that other forms of less conspicuous military cooperation should be devised once the U.S. has completed its war in Afghanistan, according to a senior Saudi official. The U.S. has been using a state-of-the-art command center on the Prince Sultan base that was opened last summer as a key command-and-control facility during the Afghan conflict.
Saudis give several reasons for deciding that the Americans should leave, beginning with their desire to appear self-reliant and not dependent on U.S. military support. The American presence has become a political liability in domestic politics and in the Arab world, Saudi officials say.
The Saudi government also has become uncomfortable with a role in U.S. efforts to contain Saddam Hussein, and earlier ruled out use of Saudi territory as a base for bombing raids on Iraq.
The withdrawal of U.S. aircraft would end an American presence that began in the Gulf War and, administration officials warned, would seriously undermine America’s ability to protect Saudi Arabia or Kuwait as well as carry out future operations in Iraq.
Past and present U.S. officials said a Saudi decision to ask the Americans to pull forces out of their country also could complicate the Saudi-American relationship, which was put under great strain by the events of September 11th, and appear to give the impression of rewarding suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who has vilified the royal family for hosting American troops, about 5,000 at the present time.
Asked whether Saudi Arabia has told the U.S. it will ask for an American withdrawal, Victoria Clarke, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, declined to answer.
“We have a very good relationship with the Saudis,” she said Thursday night, and “we will continue to work with them in as cooperative a fashion as possible as we go forward.”
Saudi officials emphasized that Saudi-American relations would remain close, and would continue to include a military component. “You (Americans) would still have access” to Saudi bases after a withdrawal, one royal adviser said.
January 21, 2002
USA Today
U.S.: No sign of friction with Saudis
The U.S. believes that its military forces have a good relationship with Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis have not asked for a troop withdrawal from the kingdom, U.S. officials said Sunday.
The comments followed a Washington Post report Friday that Saudi rulers are growing uncomfortable with the U.S. military presence and may soon ask that it end.
“There have been no discussions of the kind suggested in that newspaper story or any comments coming from the Saudis that would suggest that kind of action,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told Fox News Sunday.
The White House said it was not aware of any contact in which Saudi officials expressed a desire for the U.S. military to leave. The U.S. has had troops in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf War; several thousand are stationed there, mostly at Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh. The base played an important part in the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, military experts say.
