LEWINSKY MISSILE, AMRICAN LOGIC AND THE REST OF US
‘Here comes Madeleine Albright She is actually half-bright The facts are bright But she wants put off the light’ These are the opening stanzas from a poem by an Iraqi poet. The occasion was not the protracted Gulf War, nor was it the great cover up at the Capitol Hill, with which Mrs. Albright, the Secretary of State, was busy for the most of the month of August. Nor is it even the imminent American attack on Iraq over the protracted weapon inspection. The occasion was when the Secretary of State, newly appointed, was trying to hide her Jewish ancestry. The evidence began to pour and she had to admit to her East European Jewish extraction. The poet was making reference to her unsuccessful attempt to lie. After a few rumblings in the press, she got away with it. She was lucky on two counts: one she was not under oath and two, she was a Jew. President Clinton, however, was unlucky on two counts, one, he was under oath and two he was a gentile. If the story told in the British press is true, one may not agree with the Iraqi poet that Albright is not bright. The story is told, in the British press, of her visit to Saudi Arabia (or is it Saudi-America) and the King was not available and had to see the heir apparent, Prince Abdullah, said to be a traditionalist with no particular love for America. Abdullah received his august guest in a tent in a desert, to underscore his attachment to his Bedouin tradition. In the discussion, which is believed to have touched on security, Abdullah was reported to have informed his august guest that as Bedouins they live by desert fables. One such fable is that of a Bedouin with a large flock of sheep but who was losing a sheep to a wolf every now and then. He complained and was advised to employ some dogs to watch over his vulnerable flock and he swiftly and gladly did. But he soon realised that he had to slaughter far more sheep to feed the dogs than the ones he was losing before the dogs came. He naturally started to have second thoughts about the dogs. Albright was reported to have got the message, but perhaps for the avoidance of doubt, she was said to have asked her host that she knows who the wolf was but she wants to know who the dogs were. So she can actually be bright. Many will still recall, what was popularly called Lewinsky missiles, American swift bombing of suspected terrorist’s targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, following the simultaneous bomb attacks on American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-essalam, Tanzania, early August, a time when president Clinton was in the heat of the Monica Lewinsky affair. A Washington reporter called the coincidence "hilariously convenient" and Simon Jenkins of the Times of London added that "Mr. Clinton can hardly expect the world to think otherwise". Hours after the attack Mr. Blair, the British Prime Minister, was already supporting the attack before even the details were clear. While many, particularly the Muslims countries were surprised that at this rather early and premature stage, a country like Britain should be endorsing such an action, in Britain itself many were not surprised. As someone put it to the writer, from the time of Mrs. Thatcher, the so-called iron lady, any time an American president asked a British prime minister to jump, the latter will only ask how high? But never why? Many should know why, all we need do is to recall the Falklands war. British-US relationship has passed the test of Lord Melbourne, who said "I want someone who will support me, not when I am in the right but when I am in the wrong." During the Falklands war, "America thought Britain was wrong, but desperate. Desperate won. The foe was also suitable, soft target, it could be easily blasted, dismembered and fried, with out much ado …". No one in his right senses will endorse, much less support terrorism. But in our sober moments we should be able to see the need to ask the simple but fundamental question: What is it that constitutes terrorism? Who is a terrorist? Is it, as Gore vidal suggests, "anyone who objects, say, to our [American] support for Israel?" What is it that breeds terrorism? Is terrorism a symptom or a disease? If it is symptom then, what is the disease of which it is a manifestation of? If it is a disease how do we trace its etiology? Where do we draw the line between terrorism and wars of liberation? And where we disagree on definition who should be the arbiter? A story quoted by Chomsky in Pirates and Emperor, might help illustrate the point better. The story is about a pirate who was captured and brought before Alexander the Great. Alexander asked the pirate: ‘How dare you molest the people?’ The pirate replied: ‘And how dare you molest the entire world? I am called a thief because I do it with a little ship only. You do it with a great navy and you are called an Emperor.’ The question is: Where do we draw the line and who draws it? This is not to justify the action of the pirate. Piracy remains piracy irrespective of the scale and irrespective of the pirate. Rather, the story helps to put piracy in perspective and to understand the American logic which seems to defy regular logic. By regular logic I mean the ordinary logic by which a crime remains a crime irrespective of who commits it, where and when. It would appear the typical American mind does not operate in this fashion, as Gore Vidal, perhaps the best American writer alive, found out in California during a political meeting in the Cold War days. A lady asked him, after a speech, ‘I have two questions. First what can I do as an average American housewife to fight communism and second, what is communism’. By regular logic, the lady ought to have first found out what communism is all about before find out how best to fight it, if she needs to. But Americans are no ordinary people, so they do not operate by ordinary regular logic. There is another dimension of the American logic, in the words of Gore Vidal, "a constant stream of enemies is the only justification of the half-century of military procurements; $5.5 trillion thus far." That was why when communism collapsed two new wars were launched, one against drugs and the other against terrorism. In the name of the war against drug, Panama was invaded, about two thousand of its people killed, Noriega its leader kidnapped and put on trial in a Miami court which had no jurisdiction over him, then put in jail for a crime that made no sense to many for the captured cocaine paste turn out to be tortilla flour. In the name of the war against terrorism, Mr. Clinton, shortly after his election in 1992, attacked Baghdad with 23 cruise missiles which hit and destroyed residential areas, killing large numbers of Iraqis, mainly women and children. Interviewed on his way to church with his wife, Clinton said "I feel quite good about this, and I think the American people feel good about it." One of the latest victims of this war against terrorism was the private Sudanese pharmaceutical factory, in Khartoum, which America alleged to be producing chemical weapons. America, by its logic, needed not prove its allegation beyond doubts, before taking action; it was the prosecutor, the judge and the executor, all three in one. The fact that this factory had secured a contract from the United Nation to produce drugs for export did not mean a thing. One does not need to be in love with Khartoum to see the absurdity. A better reason would have been economic; hitting the only viable project capable of earning foreign exchange for Sudan would mean cutting the enemy supply line, which America has pledged to do in many policy statements. But then American logic is no ordinary logic. John Pilger, the author of the documentary, ‘War by Other Means’, is one journalist who has excelled in this business of economic warfare. In a recent article he described what he calls Iraq’s silent holocaust, "the consequences of the imposition of "economic sanctions" by the United States and Britain (under the usual UN flag of convenience) against the Iraqi civilian population, notably its children." By the admission of FAO and WHO, both UN agencies, more than half a million children have died as a direct result of sanctions. Other sources have put this figure at well more than a million. "Baby food and enriched powdered milk are blocked along with vital hospital equipment: stethoscopes, X-ray machines, medical swaps, scanners and water purifiers." It therefore baffled John Pilger that Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, "said he wept for the children who were killed in Omagh [in Northern Island] by a [IRA] terrorist act; but he is silent on the children who die in Iraq as a result of one of the most enduring terrorist acts of the late 20th century conducted largely by his government and its principal ally." By American Logic, the children in Iraq or Nigeria for that matter cannot be the same with those of America or Europe; by ordinary regular logic they ought to be. Where can the rest of us turn for protection and succour in a world where might has become right? United Nation? Certainly not! Following the American strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan, the 15 member security council conveniently avoided even raising the issue. Laura Silber, reporting for the Financial Times of London, wrote that, "There was silence when its president asked if there were any new issues any of them wanted to raise …". To the reporters that had gathered anxiously waiting to hear what the council had to say, the President, Danilo Turk, Slovenia’s ambassador to the UN, said, "so far there has not been any reaction from any members of the council … either formal or informal." Mr. Turk may well be right, why should there be any reaction from any member? How many time has Israel violated UN resolutions and how many time has the UN done anything? How many times has the UN provided a cover for the terrorisation of lesser people? Why has the UN, especially the security council, ignored calls to democratise? Whose cause is the UN really serving? These are only a few questions that the Lewinsky Missile have raised. Until we can find answers for them there seems to be only one thing to do: the next time an American president is caught pants down, we should all take cover. Sometimes this week the FBI and people of the justice department were questioning Mr. Clinton over another allegation of misuse of funds. With the good performance of the Democratic Party in the recent polls the scare of impeachment may be receding, but Lewinsky affair is far from over. This may have well informed the renewed crusade against Iraq over the protracted weapons inspection that is in its eighth year and never seem to be over. It may have never been meant to be over. The exodus (today 11/11/98) of 250 UN inspectors and staff is a clear signal of an eminent American attack on Iraq. The alibi is Saddam’s refusal to cooperate and keep his words to the UN scribe. But Israel has consistently and flagrantly done the same thing. Saddam is not an angel, far from it, he is one tyrant that this century cannot forget in a hurry. But "two wrongs," Thomas Szasz said, "don’t make a right, but they make a good excuse."
