If the first decade after 9/11 was devoted to making the Islamic world accountable for terrorism, the second will be devoted to making the West pay for perpetuating many of the causes of terrorism
Bravo for Turkey. Finally a country has shown the backbone to stand up to the Israelis. In the annals of global geopolitics, this stunning action is the equivalent of the 1973 Arab oil embargo against the West.
DECADE OF DEVASTATION: Critics say that the 9/11 attacks led to 10 unnecessary military conflicts and a clampdown on civil liberties in the US.
Coming just a few days before the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Turkey’s explusion of the Israeli ambassador is yet another twist in the tale for the Western powers as they struggle to reshape the Middle East in their image, occupy its energy-rich countries, eliminate unfriendly dictators, prop up friendly dictators and find ways of wiping Palestine off the map, even as they publicly deny trying to do any of the above.
Another game-changing moment will come if the Palestinians, too, show some backbone and remain steadfast in their pursuit of statehood via the UN General Assembly when it convenes for its annual session on Sept 20.
In announcing the decision, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying in Hurriyet Daily News: ”Our aim is not to harm the historical Turkish-Jewish friendship, but on the contrary, to urge the Israeli government to correct their mistake that does not befit this exceptional friendship. No state is above the law, and the time has come for Israel to pay a price for its illegal actions. This price, first of all, is being deprived of Turkey’s friendship.”
That comment, which was ”redacted” by most of the Western media, is set to become the defining dictum of the second decade of the post-9/11 era in which Israel, the US and the West will be held accountable for seeking above-the-law status in the so-called ”war on terror”.
Indeed, Western governments will be held accountable for violating their own claims to be great observers of the rule of law. In yet another 10th anniversary anti-climax, a growing chorus of voices is highlighting the US drift towards becoming a surveillance state devoid of any checks and balances, just like the former Soviet Union.
A Sept 1 comment by Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Commission for Human Rights was explicitly headlined: ”Ten years of global ‘war on terror’ undermined human rights _ also in Europe”.
He said: ”European government authorities have been deeply complicit in the counter-terrorism strategies pursued by the US Central Intelligence Agency. They permitted, protected and participated in CIA operations which violated fundamental tenets of our systems of justice and human rights protection.
”The framework for this cooperation was the CIA policy of rendition, detention and interrogation, called the RDI Programme. Based on the official information we now possess, notwithstanding the concerted efforts of the US authorities and their allies to keep every last detail secret, there is no doubt that all three elements of this programme have entailed systematic violations of human rights.”
Also last week, the US Bipartisan Policy Centre released the ”Tenth Anniversary Report Card: The Status of the 9/11 Commission Recommendations”, which went into great detail about the massive security apparatus launched to keep American safe but gave a failing mark to the protection of civil liberties. In a section titled ”Civil Liberties and Executive Power”, the report card noted that the 9/11 Commission had recommended formation of a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board under the executive branch ”to oversee adherence to the [privacy] guidelines we recommend and the commitment the government makes to defend our civil liberties”.
The report card noted, ”An array of security-related policies and programmes present significant privacy and civil liberty concerns. In particular, as the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community have dramatically expanded their surveillance of potential terrorists, they have used tools such as National Security Letters that may implicate the privacy of Americans.”
However, it said, ”legislation to establish this board … has, in fact, been dormant for more than three years. The Obama administration recently nominated two members for the board, but they have not yet been confirmed by the Senate.”
While noting that some government agencies individually have established chief privacy officers to monitor the impact of policies, regulations, and directives issued by their respective departments on civil liberties, the report card added: ”If we were issuing grades, the implementation of this recommendation would receive a failing mark. A robust and visible board can help reassure Americans that these programmes are designed and executed with the preservation of our core values in mind. Board review can also give national security officials an extra degree of assurance that their efforts will not be perceived later as violating civil liberties.”
These contradictions and double-standards, repeatedly warned about in this column over the years, prevail not just at an individual level but at a global level. The number of innocent people killed in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other battlegrounds of the so-called ”war on terror” far, far outnumber those killed in the 9/11 attacks, but no one has been held accountable.
Both overtly and covertly, Israel is a major player in the war on terror. So far, it has been able to operate with unquestioning impunity, at home and beyond. But the Turkish move, and the near-explusion of the Israeli ambassador by the Egyptian government last month, shows the world’s patience has run out.
If the first decade after 9/11 was devoted to making Arabs and the Islamic world accountable for terrorism, the second decade will be devoted to making Israel, the United States and the Western powers pay the price for perpetuating the root cause of much of this terrorism _ the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
In order to thwart this debate and disclosure, the so-called democracies will resort increasingly to anti-democratic methods, such as surveillance of their critics, torture, arrests, intimidation, threats, assassinations.
This contradiction in terms will in effect make them police states _ and hand Osama bin Laden a glorious posthumous victory. The only way to stop this is for the people of the West to undergo a similar awakening to that now spreading through the Middle East.
In the upcoming UN annual ministerial session, they will again have a chance to ”correct their mistake”, as the Turkish foreign minister says. Will they seize it? Sadly, I don’t think so.
