Analyze This

"Stop the Insanity Here"

September 11 was a day of sadness, anger and fear. Like everyone in the United States and around the world, I shared the deep sadness at the deaths of thousands.

But as I listened to people around me talk, I realized the anger and fear I felt were very different, for my primary anger is directed at the leaders of this country and my fear is not only for the safety of Americans but for innocents civilians in other countries.

It should need not be said, but I will say it: The acts of terrorism that killed civilians in New York and Washington were reprehensible and indefensible; to try to defend them would be to abandon one's humanity. No matter what the motivation of the attackers, the method is beyond discussion.

But this act was no more despicable as the massive acts of terrorism -- the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes -- that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime. For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism. And it has supported similar acts of terrorism by client states.

If that statement seems outrageous, ask the people of Vietnam. Or Cambodia and Laos. Or Indonesia and East Timor. Or Chile. Or Central America. Or Iraq, or Palestine. The list of countries and peoples who have felt the violence of this country is long. Vietnamese civilians bombed by the United States. Timorese civilians killed by a U.S. ally with U.S.-supplied weapons. Nicaraguan civilians killed by a U.S. proxy army of terrorists. Iraqi civilians killed by the deliberate bombing of an entire country's infrastructure.

So, my anger on this day is directed not only at individuals who engineered the Sept. 11 tragedy but at those who have held power in the United States and have engineered attacks on civilians every bit as tragic. That anger is compounded by hypocritical U.S. officials' talk of their commitment to higher ideals, as President Bush proclaimed "our resolve for justice and peace."

To the president, I can only say: The stilled voices of the millions killed in Southeast Asia, in Central America, in the Middle East as a direct result of U.S. policy are the evidence of our resolve for justice and peace.

Though that anger stayed with me off and on all day, it quickly gave way to fear, but not the fear of "where will the terrorists strike next," which I heard voiced all around me. Instead, I almost immediately had to face the question: "When will the United States, without regard for civilian casualties, retaliate?" I wish the question were, "Will the United States retaliate?" But if history is a guide, it is a question only of when and where.

So, the question is which civilians will be unlucky enough to be in the way of the U.S. bombs and missiles that might be unleashed. The last time the U.S. responded to terrorism, the attack on its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, it was innocents in the Sudan and Afghanistan who were in the way. We were told that time around they hit only military targets, though the target in the Sudan turned out to be a pharmaceutical factory.

As I monitored television during the day, the talk of retaliation was in the air; in the voices of some of the national-security "experts" there was a hunger for retaliation. Even the journalists couldn't resist; speculating on a military strike that might come, Peter Jennings of ABC News said that "the response is going to have to be massive" if it is to be effective.

Let us not forget that a "massive response" will kill people, and if the pattern of past U.S. actions holds, it will kill innocents. Innocent people, just like the ones in the towers in New York and the ones on the airplanes that were hijacked. To borrow from President Bush, "mother and fathers, friends and neighbors" will surely die in a massive response.

If we are truly going to claim to be decent people, our tears must flow not only for those of our own country. People are people, and grief that is limited to those within a specific political boundary denies the humanity of
others.

And if we are to be decent people, we all must demand of our government -- the government that a great man of peace, Martin Luther King Jr., once described as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" -- that the
insanity stop here.

Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu Other writings are available online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/freelance.htm 

To the Editor, 

Houston Chronicle

I wish to comment on the recent opinion piece by Robert Jensen, which the Chronicle published under the headline, "U.S. Just as Guilty of Committing Own Violent Acts." Jensen is identified as holding a faculty appointment at the University of Texas at Austin. Those remarks were made entirely in his capacity as a free citizen of the United States writing and speaking under protection of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. No aspect of them is supported, condoned, or officially recognized by The University of Texas at Austin.

There is no tie whatever to the University or its programs. He is not speaking in the University's name and may not speak in its name.

Using the same liberty, I convey my personal judgment that Mr. Jensen is not only misguided, but has become a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy. He often speaks on such matters in the public media. Perhaps there is some comfort in the fact that practically no one here takes his outbursts seriously.

One of the things that our students must learn is that there is a good deal of foolish opinion in the popular media, and they must become skilled at recognizing it and discounting it. Their reaction to Mr. Jensen's private columns seems generally healthy to me. 

I, too, am disgusted by Jensen's most recent items. But I also must defend the freedom granted to all citizens under the First Amendment. It is the bedrock of American liberty.


Larry R. Faulkner, President

Dear President Faulkner,

Today I saw your editorial response to Bob Jensen's opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle. As an intellectual and a tenured faculty member at the University of Texas, I have regarded the University as, ideally, a place for diverse points of view. I believe that it is valuable for universities to cultivate an environment--even when it is difficult, unprofitable, and unpopular--for the generation and dissemination of knowledges that challenge what we take for
granted.

It is your privilege, of course, to disagree with Professor Jensen. However, in publishing such a strident denunciation of his ideas and denying his belonging to our university community, you shut down that kind of environment. Your letter derides one of your own faculty, a scholar who is is well-educated, well-informed, and well-published, as an outsider to the University's realm. While you frame your response in terms of his and your individual right to free speech, I believe you also have a responsibility to recognize that, coming from someone in your position, this kind of response can have a chilling effect on the intellectual climate of the University.

Professor Jensen's claims are well supported in fact. The United States has not balked at killing civilians when it suits the administration's geo-political or economic aims. In Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, U.S. bombs killed at least 200 thousand civilians, and the ongoing economic sanctions there result in the deaths of thousands of young children every month. It seems perfectly reasonable to ask why hitting the World Trade Center with a plane is considered terrorism but systematically starving children to death is a legitimate form of warfare. I realize that raising such critical questions may offend some in a time of mourning, but the Bush administration has not given us much time to deliberate before declaring an amorphous war against an amorphous enemy.

If Professor Jensen's thoughts represent "undiluted foolishness," then I prefer the company of fools to that of cowards. I would have hoped that you would stand up to public criticism and legal pressure (which I assume prompted your defensive response) on behalf of one of your own and in defense of an open, diverse University community.  I am extremely disappointed in you and grieve over the fact that, as someone critical of U.S. foreign policy, I may not be safe here, either.
--
Dana Cloud
Associate Professor
Department of Communication Studies
CMA 7.114/mail code A1105
The University of Texas, Austin
Austin, TX 78712

(512) 471-1947
fax (512) 471-3504  
dcloud@mail.utexas.edu  
website: http://www.utexas.edu/coc/speech/faculty/DCloud/