U.S. military in Afghanistan in "war" dissented by some American scholars and intellectuals.
[IslamOnline - 4/19/02] WASHINGTON - A number of European newspapers have published a letter written by American intellectuals to their European counterparts decrying the U.S.-led "war on terrorism" as unjust and destructive, and calling for solidarity with oppressed peoples, but the letter has received little notice in American media, according to some of its signatories.
"It has been published in Le Monde, and [is] circulating around Europe," said Francis Boyle, an international law professor at the University of Illinois who signed the letter. But "so far, [it has] no real publicity here in the United States, except a bit on the Internet."
Signed by 137 American scholars, lecturers, researchers, writers and activists, the letter, which condemns the anti-terror strategy of U.S. President George W. Bush, was written in response to another letter entitled "What We're Fighting For," sent by a different breed of American intellectuals representing the Institute for American Values, which Boyle says stands for "far right-wing" values.
"This was just propaganda by far-right wing intellectuals, and that's why we responded the way we did," Boyle told IslamOnline.
"People felt a response was in order from another group of American intellectuals to European intellectuals that this is not a just war, which clearly it is not, and telling them therefore that they should not be supporting this war on terrorism."
The pro-war letter argues that the war on terrorism fits a philosophical definition of a "just war" and is designed to protect universal values, but the response counters that the U.S. is an "unchecked superpower" which drums up support by "convincing ordinary people that war is necessary to defend or to spread noble ideas."
"Only by joining in solidarity with the victims of U.S. military power can we in the rich countries defend whatever universal values we claim to cherish," the letter states firmly.
It begins by outlining the destructive dangers posed by the war effort itself, and explains the problem with the pro-war argument.
"The central fallacy of the pro-war celebrants is the equation between 'American values' as understood at home and the exercise of United States economic and, especially, military power abroad," it says.
The letter argues that the "right to self-defense" does not belong to the U.S. alone, but to all peoples; that the U.S. method of "self-defense" seems to include bombing other countries and toppling their governments - including Afghanistan and possibly Iraq - and that "it is U.S. global power projection that is being defended, not domestic freedoms and way of life."
Boyle, who was a guest on a FOX News show two days after the September 11 attacks, expressed his concern about the arrogant power being flaunted by the United States after the attacks.
"We're acting like we're the Romans here, and we have a right to dominate the world and impose 'Pax Americana' wherever we want, and then repress any dissent here in the United States on the alleged ground that dissenters are not patriotic," he said, stressing that this was only his opinion.
On the day he was interviewed by IslamOnline, Boyle also spoke on a Canadian television show against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands; he told IslamOnline that the Middle East crisis was part of the bigger problem of "the Americans ruling the world," and using the Israelis as its mercenaries to police the region.
"That's just a component of this much broader attempt by the United States government to impose on the world," he said.
Boyle told IslamOnline that he had heard very positive responses from Europeans to the letter.
"There's more interest in Europe, and here in the U.S. we've just been blocked," he said. "I have heard from people in Europe and the response so far has been good... I think it's good for people in Europe to understand that not everyone in the U.S. has taken leave of their senses."
The letter's signatories include Edward Herman, an economist and media analyst in Philadelphia and the co-author of Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent; Marc Herold, a University of New Hampshire professor who compiled an extensive report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan; and the well-known writer Gore Vidal, among many others.
Reiterating that he spoke only for himself, Boyle said that the September 11 attack "was clearly a crime that should have been handled as a matter of international and domestic law enforcement."
"We've done that before," he said, giving the examples of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1998 twin embassy bombings in Africa.
"But this, they decided to treat it as an act of war, to go to war, and tried to analogize it to what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor, and make this into some type of World War II situation.
"Clearly there's another agenda here, because the facts did not at all come close to the rhetoric," he said.
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[posted 4/19/02]
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