Today, there is no shortage of mainstream commentators prepared to speak out strongly against the war policy of the George W. Bush era. Even current US President Donald Trump claims to have been an opponent of the Iraq invasion and of the broader orientation of the Republican administration of 2001-09.
But in the days after 9/11, no major media outlet would hear a word against the US. Those of us who said that US imperialism, not terrorism, posed the greatest threat to the world were vilified, marginalised and condemned as terrorist sympathisers.
Socialist Alternative is proud that we took an unequivocal anti-imperialist stance, even in those early and dark days when doing so was deeply unpopular. The article republished below was put out on 12 September 2001. We think its arguments, unlike so much written then and since, stand the test of time.
Socialist Alternative magazine editorial
The September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., are a horrific tragedy.
The bodies of thousands of ordinary working-class people—of all races, religions and political beliefs—lie in the rubble of New York’s World Trade Centre.
But the response of the world’s leaders, and of the media commentators and opinion writers, has been marked by a hideous hypocrisy.
US President George Bush, along with others such as Tony Blair, and our own John Howard and Kim Beazley, have fallen over themselves to condemn terrorism, violence and murder.
They have vowed to fight the “uncivilised” actions of people who they accuse of having no regard for the sanctity of human life. But it is the likes of Bush, Blair and Howard who preside over a system that condemns millions to death and misery all around the world.
Up to 200,000 civilians were murdered in the oil-driven Gulf War in 1991. More than 500,000 children have died since as a result of crippling sanctions.
Around the world—in Indonesia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America—despotic regimes financed and supported by the US government have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people.
The genocide of one-third of the East Timorese population was directly supported by the US, Australia and Britain. The brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine is propped up by the $1.5 billion in aid it receives from the US every year.
And the logic of the capitalist system has condemned millions to death through war and poverty around the globe. 20,000 children starve to death and die of preventable diseases every day because US grain is dumped in the ocean to keep prices up, and because multinationals conspire to stop medical treatments being accessible to the world’s poor.
And while George Bush rails against terrorism, the fact is that Bin Laden, accused of being behind the September 11 attacks, shares with Timothy McVeigh the distinction of having been trained in terrorism by the US government.
The CIA trained Bin Laden as a commander in its proxy army that fought the USSR after its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Bin Laden was “so effective a recruiter [for the Afghan guerrillas] that close comrades at the time actually thought he was working for the CIA”.
The same US government that today denounces Bin Laden and the Taliban lauded them as “freedom fighters” in the 1980s.
The rulers of the world have no interest in human rights, or in the lives of ordinary people. As Leon Trotsky said over 80 years ago:
“[We have] nothing in common with those bought and paid for moralists who, in response to any terrorist act, make solemn declarations about the ‘absolute value’ of human life. These are the same people who, on other occasions, in the name of other absolute values—for example, the nation’s honour or the monarch’s prestige—are ready to shove millions of people into the hell of war.”
That millions of people around the world passionately hate imperialist US policies is the fault of the US ruling class; of the politicians and businessmen who grow fat through the suffering and death of ordinary people.
The tragedy of the attacks on the US is that ordinary Americans have had to suffer for the genocidal and inhumane policies of their rulers. In answer to the question of where responsibility lies for this senseless loss of life, there can only be one answer: Capitalism.
But whilst we understand the anger directed against America, Marxists are not terrorists.
We utterly oppose the idea that, by killing ordinary people, a tiny minority can change the world for the better. It is only through the mass, democratic action of ordinary people that we can hope to rid the world of oppression and suffering.
Terrorism, far from weakening our rulers, only strengthens them. This attack represents an unmitigated defeat for the left, the working class, and people fighting oppression.
Already we have seen Israeli troops rolling into Jericho—unrestrained by world opinion, which has now swung against the Palestinian Intifada.
We have seen racism—whipped up by the media and the government—being played out through violent attacks on Muslims and Arabs.
Refugees fleeing the oppressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan are now accused of being terrorists. Racist talkback callers are free to argue that refugee boats should be shot out of the water. The Bush administration, previously isolated from other world powers in its attempt to go ahead with the “National Missile Defence” system, has already cobbled together a consensus with NATO, as well as countries like Australia, to attack with impunity any group it sees fit in retaliation for the terrorist attacks.
President Bush promised to “hunt down and punish” those responsible, and he was matched, word for word and threat for threat, by politicians across the political spectrum. US conservative Robert Kagan wrote, “Congress should immediately declare war. It does not have to name a country. It can declare against those who have carried out today’s attack and against any nations that may have lent their support”.
John Howard and Kim Beasley have feverishly competed to pledge support to any US war effort.
These events have created the conditions where it will be easier to crack down on the anti-capitalist movement. There have already been attempts to draw links between this terrorist attack and the anti-capitalist protests coming up against the IMF [International Monetary Fund] in Washington, as well as the CHOGM [Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting] and CBF [Commonwealth Business Forum] protests here.*
So while we utterly oppose terrorism, the real threat to people around the world is not terrorism, but the racism, militarism, repression and nationalism that has been unleashed in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
Our target must be the racist scapegoating of refugees, and of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent in Australia.
We must reaffirm our total solidarity with the people fighting against oppression and imperialism around the world, who now face the prospect of horrific reprisals from the military and ideological might of the US state.
And most importantly, we must continue to build the movement against CHOGM and the CBF. These protests will be a prime opportunity to stand up against the racism and militarism now being peddled by our leaders.
It is only by building a mass movement of ordinary people that we can provide an alternative to the politics of despair and impotence that terrorism represents, and rid the world of poverty, hunger, militarism, oppression and inequality—in other words, the very conditions that made the September 11 attacks possible.
* The CHOGM and CBF were to meet in Brisbane in October 2001. After 9/11, the meetings were cancelled. Anti-war protests were organised for the same date, in opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan. Despite the hysterical pro-war atmosphere, several thousand people attended the rallies in Melbourne and Sydney.
