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If You Only Have a Hammer |
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By Scott Tucker, Author, The Queer Question, Former Mr. International Leather
Hope begins where optimism ends. If the official optimism often sounded desperate before September 11, it has an even more hollow and booming sound after. The Soviet Union pulled its troops out of Afghanistan in 1989 after a disastrous ten year war. Under the Carter Administration, the United States had begun funding Islamic militant groups to draw the Soviets deeper into a bloody sand trap. This is not my private opinion, it was the public declaration of Zbigniew Brzezinski (who had been Carter's National Security Adviser) to a French interviewer for Le Nouvelle Observateur. The deliberate policy of the U.S. was to deliver to the Soviet Union its very own Vietnam war. Brzezinski had no regrets in that pre-September 11 interview. On the contrary, he stated that the end of the Soviet bloc meant more in world history than stirring up a few bands of Muslim militants.
In the United States, the War on Drugs made clean needle exchanges politically "unpragmatic," therefore often illegal and underfunded. In Russia and some republics of the former Soviet bloc, syringes were reused without proper sterilization for medical care. All with consequences which will be with us for decades to come. People with bright ideas promised that open markets meant open roads. It was not just "Morning in America" but a new day round the globe. Everyone with a will could find a way upward and onward. That was optimism after Communism, and before September 11.
If a system of legal justice is undermined by drastic economic inequalities, then those inequalities must become the law of the land. Then certain fictions must be given real force, which is just what happened in 1886 when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad that a private corporation was a natural person under the Constitution, protected by the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was to write sixty years later, "There was no history, logic or reason to support that view." We, the people, were railroaded by corporations, both then and ever since. Under any fair system of international law, Henry Kissinger deserves his day in court. Then, after due deliberation, he might well share a cell block with Osama bin Laden, Augusto Pinochet and others judged guilty of crimes against humanity. Kissinger knew quite well just what kind of "collateral damage" was involved in the United States' bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Throwing civilian populations into a state of terror was part of United States military policy during the undeclared Vietnam war. In mass killings, the numbers grow numbing because no one's heart can break so many thousands and millions of times. Grief is keener the closer it strikes home, and after September 11 it is not such a mystery why all lives are not weighed equally in the scales of justice. That might explain why we seem unwilling to wage this war on the principle of an eye for an eye--which was, after all, one of the ancient arguments for a sense of proportion in punishment--and then call it quits. Sam Smith, editor of The Progressive Review, has suggested that we start counting the enemy dead at number one and stop counting at the number six thousand. How will we know if those six thousand are really the terrorist enemies we're looking for, or if God must sort them out? Perish the thought.
Just as those guilty of the September 11 attacks chose not only a military target but also a civilian workplace, so George W. Bush has declared that heavy bombardment of another nation is legitimate in this "war of a different kind." When we acknowledge that every last soldier cannot and should not be put behind bars, then the generals still deserve special scrutiny when war crimes are considered.
Neither generals in general (not all of whom might be judged equally guilty), nor rabid politicians one and all, but the real architects of atrocity would be put on trial. Wasn't this one of the lessons of the Nuremburg Trials after World War II? Or did we only learn that military victors put the judges on the bench? If our common national interest is best served by the present war, then seeking justice for all under international law can wait till kingdom come. Acts of terrorism, so the argument runs, end all arguments. The talking heads in the shining box all agree on one point: If we, the people, are so smart, then corporate sponsors would be paying our bills, too. Obviously we are already well spoken for. When the life-like Cokie Roberts was asked if there was any "real" political dissent against the current war, she answered, "None that matters." (Memo to Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, California: Your lone vote against your Congressional colleagues does not count except to count you out of the company of those who do count. Whose votes do count? Could we count on a fair answer from the Supreme Court? Don't count on it.) And when dissent is voiced and heard nevertheless (even if the dissent is a sad and sober recounting of history), then indeed the dissenters are likely to be counted among "Blame America Firsters," to use the phrase coined by former Ambassador to the UN Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
This drug trade was often tolerated as long as the drug traders were yesteryear's allies against Communism, and will be tolerated in years to come whenever such trade and allies prove useful in the War on Terrorism. If we shift our focus from the official War on Drugs to the realm of science and medicine, then we find that the United States has waged an all too familiar trade war on many generic drugs which compete with the patented products of Big Pharm. Not without resistance and criticism, of course, both within and beyond our borders. The irony (which always comes too late) is that anthrax may change some hearts and minds on these subjects--in a way AIDS never did, though thousands die of this disease daily round the globe. A fair number of people who live in a different world than people living with AIDS are not only demanding their Cipro prescriptions, but other antibiotics as well. In the world after September 11, more folks are are thinking for the first time about pharmaceutical patents, generic drugs and public health. Rallying troops to "Operation Enduring Freedom" means bombing Afghanistan, a country in which workers, peasants and armed factions depend upon poppies and opium as currency; and rallying troops to "Plan Colombia" means making deals with death squads in the Andes, a region where workers, peasants and armed factions likewise depend upon coca fields and cocaine as currency. As it links and projects both the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism round the globe, an unelected Republican regime in Washington can rely on a battalion of New Democrats. They have fallen into a lockstep line of march in Congress and many state legislatures. Is this the wrong time to remember that Carter, Reagan, Bush senior, Clinton, and Bush junior have all followed that path of "pragmatism"? No, on the contrary, this is the right time to underscore the consequences of actions taken by a succession of bipartisan administrations. According to Dan Rather of CBS News on October 18, "They hate us because they're losers and we're winners." That would make the world much simpler, of course. Then democracy is not really at stake, but only the divine right of kings. "Unless the (US air) strikes stop, there will be a huge number of deaths," according to a United Nations source quoted in the London Observer (excerpts of that are article are attached below). The official who remained nameless was plainly tipping off reporters that a more official United Nations appeal will follow. A three year drought, widespread hunger and the world's worst refugee crisis in Afghanistan now belong in conversations with friends and neighbors in the United States. (Donations can be made to UNHCR, The United Nations Relief Agency at www.usaforunhcr.org and 800-213-2650. You can also specify "Afghan Relief" among other options at https://ssl.charityweb.net/mercycorps/index.htm .) If flags are going to be put in windows and in public places, then the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States belongs in bold text beside them: "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS, OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES." The First Amendment is violated in schoolrooms nationwide when the Pledge of Allegiance becomes a requirement for students "in good standing." The single clause "under God" in that pledge makes it a statement of faith which should be neither mandatory nor customary in any secular institution. Citizens who are deeply loyal to democracy should not be bullied into uniformity in these matters. Barbara Kingsolver, a subtle and thoughtful writer, recently told the following story in one of her newspaper columns. Her daughter came home from school saying the students had been asked to wear red, white and blue the following day. Kingsolver suggested that wearing black in mourning might be more appropriate, but let her husband persuade her that the far right has no private property rights over a national symbol. That point can be granted and yet that is not the most serious point at issue now. In terms of analogous social coercion upon young students, we should consider the history of school prayer. If we grant that such coercion is out of order, then it is likewise wrong to coerce particular and uniform displays of patriotism among students in public schools. Should children pay the price in suspicion, ostracism and ridicule for the beliefs of their parents? This question generally has a reflexive majoritarian bias. We could avoid subjecting young students to such stigmatization by avoiding uniformity of faith and of faith-based loyalty oaths in public institutions. And what's more, the First Amendment helps make the case here much stronger. So does a clause in the first paragraph of The Declaration of Independence, namely, "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation." Those are the words one band of colonial American revolutionaries chose to make their own case against the power of kings, and to present it before the court of the world. At present, a decent respect for the opinions of fellow citizens means taking the risk of democracy all over again. This open letter began with a song of hope, but a few plain words of warning are finally in order. There's an old saying: "If you've only got a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Limited military action, in the context of international law, is legitimate against clear and present dangers. Unlimited "preemptive strikes" are not. War is a hammer. In the name of "Infinite Justice" the United States struck back with the best weapons money can buy. In the hope of enduring freedom, we'd better think twice. Thomas Scott Tucker tstucker@bellatlantic.net (No copyright, copy freely. 10.22.01. Courtesy of www.openletteronline.com |
Open dissent against United States policy and military action, such as by these protestors, is sharply criticized by many following the Sept. 11 attacks 
The U.S. strikes at Afghanistan from the air 
Despite the focus on terrorism, activists still haven't forgotten about the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, which gave the presidency to Bush 
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