"Why do they hate us?"
A small group of militants, hundreds or a few thousand, hated the U.S.A. so
much that they spent years planning their attacks on New York City and Washington
D.C. They did not care that they would murder thousands of people, mostly working
people. They were so perversely dedicated that they were willing to die themselves
in the attacks.
Around the world a great many people were pleased by the assault, to the point
of celebrating. Many, many more did not support the explosion of the Twin Towers,
and even condemned it, but still
expressed understanding for the motives of the terrorists. There were few or
no political or religious leaders in mostly-Muslim countries or elsewhere who
endorsed the attacks. Even the assailants kept quiet; no one took "credit"
(if that is the right word). Osama bin Laden denies responsibility and the Taliban
regime claims that he is innocent. Yet many people also showed some satisfaction
at the attack, a sort of pleasure in seeing the school yard bully get his nose
bloodied.
Why do "they" hate "us"? ask many bewildered US workers.
The US population is generally ignorant, mis-educated, and deliberately lied-to,
about international affairs even more than domestic politics.
They see the US as a peaceful and friendly country, which helps other nations
out of good-will, and otherwise wants to be left alone. Suddenly, as they see
it, out of the blue, the US was attacked. US
working people identify with the national state; since they are kindly and decent
people, they assume that their national government is also kindly and decent.
Like the terrorist attackers, US workers mentally make a nationalist bloc between
the US state (and ruling class) and the US working population. They think of
themselves as "America" and say, "we" and "us"
when speaking about the national state of which they really know little and
have less control.
The "explanation" offered by the US government and media is that "they"
hate our "freedom," our "democracy," and "our way of
life." This supposed explanation is given most strongly by US figures on
the right, who agree with the worst Islamists in opposing separation of church
and state, equality for women, and rights for Gays and Lesbians. However, the
charge that "they," in their poverty, resent US
wealth, is closer to the truth. (Of course, to understand why so many hate the
US is not to justify the few who committed mass murder at the World Trade Center
and Pentagon.)
That the USA. is the most powerful state on earth today is well known, but few
think through what this implies. For one thing, it means murderous military
intervention in the affairs of other countries. The
criminal Vietnamese war killed millions of Vietnamese and fifty thousand US
soldiers. The Vietnamese people have never really recovered. Then, in the last
twenty years, the US has bombed or invaded Haiti, Panama, Grenada, Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and, of course, Afghanistan. These military
interventions were mostly done against the will of the existing governments,
and
often in an effort to overthrow the existing governments. There have also been
military interventions by proxy, in which the US gave large scale support to
"rebel" groups against established governments. The most well-known
(and "successful") were the U.S-supported contra war against the Sandinistias
in Nicaragua and, again, the US support of extreme Islamists in Afghanistan
.... including Osama bin Laden and the predecessors of the Taliban. Now the
US state complains when the monster it created in Afghanistan turns on it.
The US state's military missions, military alliances, and "peacetime"
military bases cover the globe. Its European military alliance, NATO, has actually
expanded despite the collapse of the Soviet Union. Three decades after the end
of the Korean War, a large number of US troops remain in South Korea. US troops
remain in Panama, even after the canal was "given" back to Panama.
They were useful in seizing Noreiga, the Panamanian president, for trial in
the US Bizarrely, a US base remains in Guantanamo, Cuba, all through the reign
of Castro. The US was a major supporter of the Pakistani military through the
Cold War, including the Afghanistan struggle. The US continued to be friendly
to Pakistan, even as that state built up the Taliban. Each of these instances
could be argued about, but altogether, they make a pattern of a superpower which
throws its military weight around.
The US government remains the most heavily armed nuclear power, with nuclear
missiles capable of exterminating human life on earth many times over. Following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, many
liberals called for seizing the opportunity to create world-wide nuclear disarmament.
Instead, the US plans to break all existing arms control agreements by setting
up an unworkable "missile defense shield," which will only create
a new arms race.
Behind this mountain of military might is an economic drive, a need to dominate
the world economy and draw wealth from all the world. That the US is so much
richer than the "Third World" countries is widely admitted. Not admitted
is that the US is rich because these other nations are poor. Their ruling classes
may share in the riches of the US/European/Japanese ruling classes, but the
poverty of their
masses is the wealth of that world ruling class. The US is the main beneficiary
of modern imperialism. Unlike the old colonialism, there are few countries which
the US state owns outright, except for Puerto
Rico and several islands and peoples in the Pacific, peoples who have as much
right to self-determination as any large nation.
Otherwise, US capitalism's domination of the world is neo-colonial: the oppressed
nations have "independent" national states, with their own governments,
flags, and postage stamps, but their economies are still completely dependent
on the world market. They cannot develop their
industries, plan their economies, or decide on a balance of production and consumption,
by themselves. Which national economy dominates the world market? Only one,
that of the US capitalists. The US economy serves as a giant magnet, pulling
all other economies toward it (and its junior partners and sometime competitors,
the Western European and Japanese national capitalism's). Loans to build up
national economies? Go to US banks or to world financial institutions (World
Bank or International Monetary Fund) dominated by the US Want to build modern
industry? Get investments from US capitalists. Need modern chemicals or machinery
or medicines? The international patents are owned by US companies. As a result,
the poor, exploited, nations are deeply in debt to the richer, imperialist nations,
especially the US. The nations of Africa have had to fight hard to get the slightest
break from US firms to produce cheaper medicines for AIDS.
The Soviet Union controlled its empire in Eastern Europe by military force,
as the British used to control their world-wide empire. But US capitalist imperialism
only uses force as a last resort. First, it holds the world together through
its economic might. In the poverty-riddled lands of the Arab East and in other
oppressed nations, there is enormous resentment of the domination of US wealth
over their economies. Often this comes out as hostility to US cultural products,
such as movies or music or foods. Whatever the faults or virtues of US movies
or fast-food, what is really being expressed is a fury at imperialism, not necessarily
a dislike of international culture.
In over 50 years since the end of World War II, world capitalism has simply
been unable to industrialize the poor nations of the South. Most of Africa remains
destitute. A few world regions have developed some industry, especially in Southeastern
Asia. But even these, the most successful, remain developed in a most uneven
and unstable fashion, as becomes clear in any economic crisis. The people of
Eastern Europe and Russia thought that overthrowing Soviet state-capitalism
would make them like Western Europe. Instead, they are like Latin America. The
industrialized nations of before World War I were the US, Western Europe, Russia
(barely), and Japan. Today, these are still the industrialized nations - with
Russia still barely among them. World capitalism has maintained the international
imbalance of economic development.
In the Arab and Muslim regions, this inequality is easy to see. There are many
nations filled with desperately poor people. The vast wealth of petroleum oil
has helped a layer of people in a few nations-but even these nations have been
unable to develop even relatively independent economies. The US industrial economy
is built on cheap, widely-available oil. Transportation depends on gasoline.
Food depends on oil-based fertilizer and pesticides. Clothing, housing, and
other things widely use oil-based plastics. Considering that this is a nonrenewable
resource, as well as terribly polluting and a cause of the greenhouse effect,
this oil-using habit will someday have to be cut way back. But meanwhile, Westerners'
high standard of living requires this cheap, available oil, while the people
of the Arab East , the source of most of the oil, remain marginalized, unindustrialized,
and poor.
Inside these poor countries, the political results are what would be expected,
namely a lack of democracy and freedom. The US state prides itself on its democracy,
but this has only been possible
because of its great wealth, built in part on the poverty of other peoples.
Due to its wealth,US corporate rich have been able to give up some crumbs to
the working classes, when the working class forces them to. To prevent revolutionary
struggles, the US ruling class has been willing, under pressure, to provide
some of its bounty to buy off layers of the middle class and working class.
This creates popular contentment and a willingness to channel grievances through
the political process. But the rulers of the poor nations of the South do not
the wealth to buy off their working populations.To keep them down, they must
be repressed. At best they go through cycles of government, from corrupt, authoritarian,
"democracies," to overt dictatorships (kings, generals, ayatollahs,
mullahs, leaders of socialist parties, or little brothers of the poor)-and then
back again. They may go from a fake "democracy" to a revolutionary
or Islamic dictatorship, and go back again, never really winning self-management
for working people.
The exploited people of the Arab East know full well that the US state props
up the kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan as it once helped the Shah of Iran,
and now works with the dictator of Syria. All over the world, the US state has
supported dictators. When US leaders declare that the "terrorists"
oppose us because of our values of "democracy" and "freedom,"
it is a sick joke.
US rulers pick and chose which dictatorships to be horrified at and which to
make allies. They pick and chose which atrocities to condemn and which to ignore.
For example, they publicized the horror
of Yugoslavian "ethnic cleaning" of the Albanian Kosovars in order
to justify their bombing campaign against the Milosevic regime. Meanwhile, they
have ignored the decades of almost genocidal war
waged by the US ally Turkey against it's Kurdish citizens. Turkish Kurds have
been denied the right to speak their language, to associate in political parties,
or to determine their national fate. This has been backed up by military campaigns
of great brutality, including the torture of Kurdish leaders and the extermination
of whole villages. The US public is not aroused about this because the US government
and media have not emphasized it. The Turkish military has been a useful ally
against Iraq, Yugoslavia, and now Afghanistan.
Similarly, the Bush administration has welcomed the support of the present Russian
government against the Afghan rulers. Meanwhile the Russian state has been running
a years-long assault on the people of
Chechnya, which is still within the Russian borders. To deny the Chechens' independence,
the Russians have been waging a most vicious war against them, destroying much
of their nation. But
Chechnya, a nation with many Muslims, is near Afghanistan and the Afghan people
know all about it.
But what most angers people in the mostly-Muslim nations has been two things:
US support for Israel and the continued US war against Iraq. Israel is the result
of the Zionist movement, an effort to plant
European people in the "Third World" land of Palestine. Zionism's
aim was to create a Jewish State, a state of "the Jewish people" everywhere
in the world, as opposed to the people of whatever
religion who actually lived there. It intended to occupy all the land supposedly
held by the ancient Hebrews 2000 years ago. Its justification was the Jewish
bible - and a promise by the British empire
(the "Balfour Declaration"). The main people who were actually living
there were not to be consulted of course and could not be, because these goals
required dispossessing those Palestinian Arabs. A Jewish
population, fleeing from the after-effects of Hitler's genocide, was channeled
into Palestine to replace the original population (who had had nothing to do
with European atrocities). Through a series of wars,
massacres, and supposedly legal actions, the Palestinian peasants and workers
were mostly dispossessed. Their lands, their farms, their orchards, their villages,
and their cities were taken away. They are not allowed to return nor granted
compensation. A small number still live in Israel as second class citizens,
Muslims and Christians in a (by definition) "Jewish state." Half of
the others live in the West Bank (of the Jordan River) or on the Gaza Strip,
under Israeli occupation. The other half is scattered among the Arab nations
and elsewhere.
For some time now, most Palestinians and their organizations have accepted the
reality of Israel. They know it will not go away and cannot be militarily defeated.
Therefore they have only asked for
self-determination on what is left of Palestine, on the West Bank and Jordan.
The Israeli state has controlled these areas for 35 years now, the longest military
occupation of another land in recent history. While pretending to negotiate
(the Oslo "peace process"), actually the Zionists have expanded the
number of their settlements in the these Occupied Territories, as well as the
size of the settlements. This has been spearheaded by reactionary Jewish fanatics,
the mirror image of the Islamic fanatics. But it has had the support of the
various Israeli governments, both liberal and conservative. The state has linked
the settlements by a network of roads and military garrisons. The Palestinian
areas have been carved into unviable islands. Meanwhile, the Israeli state has
insisted on the right to own virtually all of
Jeruselum, while the Palestinians have only asked for half. Not surprisingly,
the so-called peace process died of its own hypocrisy.
Throughout this awful history, the US state has been the major ally of Israel.
The Palestinians fight with stones or small arms. Israel fights with US-made
helicopters and weapons, as well as its own (it is an
open secret that Israel has nuclear bombs). All US politicians assert their
undying support for Israel. Billions of dollars have been given to Israel by
the US state. This is partly due to the domestic strength of the pro-Israel
lobby, but Israel is useful to US imperialism in controlling the Arab states.
In war after war, Israel has beaten the Arab armies. In fury and frustration,
many Arab workers and peasants have turned from the secular movements which
are willing to recognize Israel. Some look toward fanatical religious parties
who are willing, in their military weakness, to use terrorist attacks on Israeli
workers. As long as the Israeli government, with US support, does not adapt
to living with Palestinians (by withdrawing both troops and settlements from
the Occupied Territories, for example), it will continue to enrage Arabs and
Muslims against both itself and the US.
The other issue which has particularly angered many Arabs and others has revolved
around the US war with Iraq. Like many other dictators, Iraq's Saddam Hussein
was supported by the US state when
it seemed convenient. For eight years, the Iraqi regime was in a pointless but
bloody war with its neighbor Iran. The US rulers were pleased that Iraq was
weakening the Iranian regime. The US provided intelligence to the state of Iraq,
permitted Hussein to buy hard-to-get weaponry, and helped him in other ways.
But, as bin Laden was later to do, Hussein turned on the US He decided to invade
Kuwait, a small but oil-rich country. It had one of those monarchical-feudal
regimes, which oppressed the large number
of Palestinians and non-Arabs who worked there. Due to the oil, and to the challenge
to its authority, the US state made an issue about this particular atrocity.
Suddenly Saddam Hussein was declared a very bad man and a vast military force
was assembled to defeat Iraq. And it was defeated, partly because the Iraqi
soldiers (workers and peasants) would not fight for their government.
In response to this defeat, Iraqis rose up to overthrow the government, especially
Shiite Muslims in the South and Kurds in the north of Iraq. But the US state
did not want a revolution. It might destabilize the region, upsetting all those
friendly dictatorships. Freedom for Iraqi Kurds might stir up the Kurds under
the control of the Turkish allies. The US rulers hoped to replace Hussein with
another military ruler, different from him only in being more cooperative with
the US So the US army stopped short of destroying the Iraqi military. It left
Hussein enough to reestablish his role. Instead the US military continued to
watch over and "protect" the Kurds and southern Muslims by flying
US planes over a large part of Iraqi airspace. Many people do not realize it,
but ten years after the Iraqi war, the US is still flying planes over Iraq and
still bombing it.
The other method the US used, to pressure Hussein, was an embargo. The Iraqi
rulers can only sell a controlled amount of its oil, and buy only a limited
amount of food and medicine and other goods.
This is supposed to either make Hussein behave or to inspire the military to
replace him. As an effective dictator, Hussein has kept his officers under control.
Meanwhile, he really does not care that his people starve or lack medicine,
so this does not pressure him. At least a half million children have died from
this embargo policy. That is many more people than died in the recent attacks
on the US The US rulers are continuing to wage a war on the Iraqi peasants and
workers. This is widely known in Europe and in the mostly-Muslim nations, but
the US working class has been kept in the dark.
So, there are good reasons for many people to hate the US, in the Muslim nations
and elsewhere. Even those who are favorable to the US are usually ambivalent,
liking something and hating others. Perhaps some of the hatred is irrational,
due to way US imperialism has broken up traditional societies but replaced them
only with poverty, chaos, and dictatorship. The program of many oppressed people
has sometimes gone into the dead ends of terrorism and religious dictatorship.
But they have legitimate grievances. Their working people have suffered far
more than working class people in the US have any idea. "Americans"
should not be surprised if the evil their ruling class has done abroad should
be returned to them.
Written by Wayne Price, a long-time revolutionary anarchist and libertarian
socialist who lives in New York City, near the heart of the storm