Along the Color Line
November 2001


The Failure of U.S. Foreign Policies

By Manning Marable 
 
    The bombing campaign against the people of Afghanistan
will be described in history as the "U.S.  Against the Third
World." The launching of military strikes against peasants
does nothing to suppress terrorism, and only erodes American
credibility in Muslim nations around the world. The
question, "Why Do They Hate Us?," can only be answered from
the vantagepoint of the Third World's widespread poverty,
hunger and economic exploitation.

    The United States government cannot engage in effective
multilateral actions to suppress terrorism, because its
behavior illustrates its complete contempt for international
cooperation. The United States owed $582 million in back
dues to the United Nations, and it paid up only when the
September 11 attacks jeopardized its national
security. Republican conservatives demand that the United
States should be exempt from the jurisdiction of an
International Criminal Court, a permanent tribunal now being
established at The Hague, Netherlands. For the 2001 World
Conference Against Racism, the U.S. government authorized
the allocation of a paltry $250,000, compared to over $10
million provided to conference organizers by the Ford
Foundation.

    For three decades, the U.S. refused to ratify the 1965
United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racism.  Is
it any wonder that much of the Third World questions our
motives? The carpet-bombing of the Taliban seems to Third
World observers to have less to do with the suppression of
terrorism, and more with securing future petroleum
production rights in central Asia.

    The U.S. media and opinion makers repeatedly have gone
out of their way to twist facts and to distort the political
realities of the Middle East, by insisting that the Osama
bin Laden group's murderous assaults had nothing to do with
Israel's policies towards the Palestinians.  Nobody else in
the world, with the possible exception of the Israelis,
really believes that. Even Britain, Bush's staunchest ally,
links Israel's intransigence towards negotiations and human
rights violations as having contributed to the environment
for Arab terrorist retaliation.

    In late September, during his visit to Jerusalem,
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw stated that frustration
over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might create an excuse
for terrorism. Straw explained: "there is never any excuse
for terrorism. At the same time, there is an obvious need to
understand the environment in which terrorism breeds."
Millions of moderate and progressive Muslims who sincerely
denounce terrorism are nevertheless frustrated by the United
States's extensive clientage relationship with Israel,
financed by more than $3 billion in annual subsidies. They
want to know why the U.S. allowed the Israelis to move over
200,000 Jewish settlers -- one half of them after the
signing of the 1993 peace agreement -- to relocate in
occupied Palestine. It is no exaggeration in saying that for
most of the world's one billion Muslims that Israel is as
anathema to them, as the apartheid regime of South Africa
was for black people.

    How does terrorist Osama bin Laden gain loyal followers
from northern Nigeria to Indonesia? Perhaps it has something
to do with America's massive presence -- in fact, its
military-industrial occupation -- of Saudi Arabia. The
Washington Post recently revealed that in the past two
decades, U.S. construction companies and arms suppliers have
made over $50 billion in Saudi Arabia. Today, over thirty
thousand U.S. citizens are employed by Saudi corporations,
or by joint Saudi-U.S. corporate partnerships. Just months
ago, Exxon Mobil, the world's largest corporation, reached
an agreement with the Saudi government to develop gas
projects worth between $20 to $26 billion. Can Americans who
are not Muslims truly comprehend how morally offensive this
overwhelming U.S. occupying presence in their holy land is
to them? Even before September 11, the U.S. regularly
stationed five to six thousand troops in Saudi Arabia.
Today, that number probably exceeds 15,000 American troops.
How would the U.S. government react if the P.L.O.'s close
ally, Cuba, offered to send 15,000 troops to support the
Palestinian Authority's security force? There is, to repeat,
no justification for terrorism by anyone, anytime. But it is
U.S. policies -- such as the blanket support for Israel, and
the blockade against Iraq that has been responsible for the
needless deaths of thousands of children -- that help to
create the very conditions for extremist violence to
flourish.

    There is a direct linkage between the terrible events of
September 11 and the politics represented by the United
Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban,
South Africa, only days prior to the terrorist attacks. The
U.S. government in Durban opposed the definition of slavery
as "a crime against humanity." It refused to acknowledge the
historic and contemporary effects of colonialism, racial
segregation and apartheid on the underdevelopment and
oppression of the non-European world.

    It polemically manipulated the charge of anti-Semitism
to evade discussions concerning the right of
self-determination for the Palestinian people. The world's
subaltern masses represented at Durban sought to advance a
new global discussion about the political economy of racism
-- and the United States insulted the entire international
community. Should we therefore be surprised that Palestinian
children celebrate in the streets of their occupied
territories when they see televised images of our largest
buildings being destroyed? Should we be shocked that
hundreds of protest marches in opposition to the U.S.
bombing of Afghanistan are being held throughout the world?

    The majority of dark humanity is saying to the United
States that racism and militarism are not the solutions to
the world's major problems. Transnational capitalism and the
repressive neoliberal policies of structural adjustment
represent a dead end for the developing world. We can only
end the threat of terrorism by addressing constructively the
routine violence of poverty, hunger and exploitation which
characterizes the daily existence of several billion people
on this planet. Racism is, in the final analysis only
another form of violence.

    To stop the violence of terrorism, we must stop the
violence of racism and class inequality. To struggle for
peace, to find new paths toward reconciliation across the
boundaries of religion, culture and color, is the only way
to protect our cities, our country and ourselves from the
violence of terrorism. Because without justice, there can be
no peace.

--

Dr. Manning Marable is Professor of History and Political
Science, and the Director of the Institute for Research in
African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York.
"Along the Color Line" is distributed free of charge to over
350 publications throughout the U.S. and internationally.
Dr. Marable's column is also available on the Internet at
www.manningmarable.net .

Copyright (c) 2001 Manning Marable. All Rights Reserved.