by Noam Chomsky
Similarly, when the US terminated Guatemala’s brief democratic experiment with a military invasion, setting off 40 years of horror, the concern voiced internally (though not publicly) was that the “social and economic programs of the elected government met the aspirations” of labor and the peasantry and “inspired the loyalty and conformed to the self-interest of most politically conscious Guatemalans.”19 More dangerous still, Guatemala’s
agrarian reform is a powerful propaganda weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign enterprises has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbors where similar conditions prevail.20
The threat to order was suppressed with 40 years of brutal violence and massacres.
These are constant refrains in the internal record. Accordingly, the policies continue with only tactical modification when the Cold War can no longer be invoked, as in 1991, when Washington moved at once to reverse Haiti’s hopeful democratic experiment, then undermined the OAS embargo while the military junta tortured and murdered, and finally restored the elected president on the condition that he adopt the policies of Washington’s defeated candidate in the 1990 elections, who had received 14 percent of the vote. Subsequent debate focuses on the question of whether this “humanitarian intervention” in defense of democracy was well-advised.21
Against the background of large-scale aggression and terror, actions that would be considered major crimes if perpetrated by others are mere footnotes: for example, the murder of 80 Lebanese in the worst terrorist atrocity of 1985, at the peak of fury about “international terrorism,” a CIA-initiated car-bombing targeting a Muslim leader. Or the destruction of half the pharmaceutical supplies of a poor African country (Sudan) in 1998, with a death toll that is unknown, and uninvestigated: Washington blocked a UN inquiry. The bombing was legitimate, the editors of the New York Times explained, because the US “has the right to use military force against factories and training camps where terrorist attacks against American targets are being prepared” (or perhaps are not).22 The reaction would presumably be different if, say, Islamic terrorists were to destroy half the pharmaceutical supplies in the US, Israel, or some other favored state.
These and other examples of retail terror may fall under the category of “creative deterrence.”
The human toll is too vast to try to calculate, but for rogue states with tremendous power, crimes do not matter. They are eliminated from history or transmuted into benign intent that sometimes goes awry. Thus, at the outer limits of admissible critique, the war against South Vietnam, then all of Indochina, began with “blundering efforts to do good,” though “by 1969” it had become clear “that the intervention had been a disastrous mistake” because the US “could not impose a solution except at a price too costly to itself.” Robert McNamara’s apology for the war was addressed to Americans, and was either condemned as treachery (by hawks) or considered highly meritorious and courageous (by doves): If millions of dead litter the ruins of the countries devastated by our assault, and still die from unexploded ordnance and the lingering effects of chemical warfare, that is not our concern, and calls for no apology, let alone reparations or war crimes trials.23
Quite the contrary. The US is hailed as the leader of the “enlightened states” that are entitled to resort to violence as they see fit. In the Clinton years its foreign policy has ascended to a “noble phase” with a “saintly glow” (according to the New York Times), as America is “at the height of its glory,” with a record unsullied by international crimes, only a few of which have been mentioned.24
Rogue states that are internally free—and the US is at the outer limits in this respect—must rely on the willingness of the educated classes to produce accolades and to tolerate or deny terrible crimes. On this matter too there is a rich record, reviewed extensively elsewhere. It should not elicit much pride.
2
Rogue States
The concept of “rogue state” plays a preeminent role today in policy planning and analysis. The April 1998 Iraq crisis is only one of the most recent examples. Washington and London have declared Iraq a “rogue state,” a threat to its neighbors and to the entire world, an “outlaw nation” led by a reincarnation of Hitler who must be contained by the guardians of world order, the United States and its “junior partner,” to adopt the term ruefully employed by the British foreign office half a century ago.1
The concept merits a close look. But first, let’s consider its application in the current crisis.
The Iraq Crisis
The most interesting feature of the debate over the Iraq crisis is that it never took place. True, many words flowed, and there was dispute about how to proceed. But discussion kept within rigid bounds that excluded the obvious answer: the US and UK should act in accord with their laws and treaty obligations.
The relevant legal framework is formulated in the Charter of the United Nations, a “solemn treaty” recognized as the foundation of international law and world order, and under the US Constitution, “the supreme law of the land.”
The Charter states that “the Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42,” which detail the preferred “measures not involving the use of armed force” and permit the Security Council to take further action if it finds such measures inadequate. The only exception is Article 51, which permits the “right of individual or collective self-defense” against “armed attack . . . until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” Apart from these exceptions, member states “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force.”
There are legitimate ways to react to the many threats to world peace. If Iraq’s neighbors feel threatened, they can approach the Security Council to authorize appropriate measures to respond to the threat. If the US and Britain feel threatened, they can do the same. But no state has the authority to make its own determinations on these matters and to act as it chooses; the US and UK would have no such authority even if their own hands were clean—hardly the case.
Outlaw states do not accept these conditions: Saddam’s Iraq, for example, or the United States. The US position was forthrightly articulated by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, then UN ambassador, when she informed the Security Council during an earlier US confrontation with Iraq that the US will act “multilaterally when we can, and unilaterally as we must,” because “we recognize this area as vital to US national interests” and therefore accept no external constraints. Albright reiterated that stand when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan undertook his February 1998 diplomatic mission: “We wish him well,” she stated, “and when he comes back we will see what he has brought and how it fits with our national interest,” which will determine how we respond. When Annan announced that an agreement had been reached, Albright repeated the doctrine: “It is possible that he will come with something we don’t like, in which case we will pursue our national interest.” President Clinton announced that if Iraq failed the test of conformity (as determined by Washington), “everyone would understand that then the United States and hopefully all of our allies would have the unilateral right to respond at a time, place, and manner of our own choosing,” in the manner of other violent and lawless states.2
The Security Council unanimously endorsed Annan’s agreement, rejecting US/UK demands that it authorize their use of force in the event of non-compliance. The resolution warned of “severest consequences,” but with no further specification. In the crucial final paragraph, the Council “DECIDES, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter, to remain actively seized of the matter, in order to ensure implementation of this resolution and to ensure peace and security in the area”—the Council, no one else; in acco
rdance with the Charter.
The facts were clear and unambiguous. Headlines read: “An Automatic Strike Isn’t Endorsed” (Wall Street Journal), “UN Rebuffs US on Threat to Iraq If It Breaks Pact”(New York Times),etc. Britain’s UN ambassador “privately assured his colleagues on the Council that the resolution does not grant the United States and Britain an ‘automatic trigger ‘ to launch strikes against Iraq if it impedes” UN searches for chemical weapons. “It has to be the Security Council who determines when to use armed force,” the ambassador of Costa Rica declared, expressing the position of the Security Council.
Washington’s reaction was different. US Ambassador Bill Richardson asserted that the agreement “did not preclude the unilateral use of force” and that the US retains its legal right to attack Baghdad at will. State Department spokesperson James Rubin dismissed the wording of the resolution as “not as relevant as the kind of private discussions that we’ve had”: “I am not saying that we don’t care about that resolution,” but “we’ve made clear that we don’t see the need to return to the Security Council if there is a violation of the agreement.” The president stated that the resolution “provides authority to act” if the US is dissatisfied with Iraqi compliance; his press secretary made clear that that means military action. “US Insists It Retains Right to Punish Iraq,” the New York Times headline read, accurately. The US has the unilateral right to use force at will. Period.
Some felt that even this stand strayed too close to our solemn obligations under international and domestic law. Senate majority leader Trent Lott denounced the administration for having “subcontracted” its foreign policy “to others”—to the UN Security Council. Senator John McCain warned that “the United States may be subordinating its power to the United Nations,” an obligation only for law-abiding states. Senator John Kerry added that it would be “legitimate” for the US to invade Iraq outright if Saddam “remains obdurate and in violation of the United Nations resolutions, and in a position of threat to the world community,” whether the Security Council so determines or not. Such unilateral US action would be “within the framework of international law,” as Kerry conceives it. A liberal dove who reached national prominence as an opponent of the Vietnam War, Kerry explained that his current stand was consistent with his earlier views. Vietnam taught him that force should be used only if the objective is “achievable and it meets the needs of your country.” Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait was therefore wrong for only one reason: it was not “achievable,” as matters turned out.3
At the liberal-dovish end of the spectrum, Annan’s agreement was welcomed, but within the narrow framework that barred the central issues. In a typical reaction, the Boston Globe stated that had Saddam not backed down, “the United States would not only have been justified in attacking Iraq—it would have been irresponsible not to,” with no further questions asked. The editors also called for “a universal consensus of opprobrium” against “weapons of mass destruction” as “the best chance the world has of keeping perverted science from inflicting hitherto unimagined harm.” A sensible proposal; one can think of easy ways to start, without the threat of force, but these are not what are intended.
Political analyst William Pfaff deplored Washington’s unwillingness to consult “theological or philosophical opinion” (the views of Thomas Aquinas and Renaissance theologian Francisco Suarez), as “a part of the analytical community” in the US and UK had done “during the 1950s and 1960s,” but not the foundations of contemporary international and domestic law, which are clear and explicit, though irrelevant to the intellectual culture. Another liberal analyst urged the US to face the fact that if its incomparable power “is really being exercised for mankind’s sake, mankind demands some say in its use,” which would not be permitted by “the Constitution, the Congress, nor television’s Sunday pundits”; “the other nations of the world have not assigned Washington the right to decide when, where, and how their interests should be served” (Ronald Steel).
The Constitution does happen to provide such mechanisms, namely, by declaring valid treaties “the supreme law of the land,” particularly the most fundamental of them, the UN Charter. It further authorizes Congress to “define and punish . . . offenses against the law of nations,” undergirded by the Charter in the contemporary era. It is, furthermore, a bit of an understatement to say that other nations “have not assigned Washington the right”; they have forcefully denied it that right, following the (at least rhetorical) lead of Washington, which largely crafted the Charter.4
Reference to Iraq’s violation of UN resolutions was regularly taken to imply that the two warrior states have the right to use force unilaterally, taking the role of “world policemen”—an insult to the police, who in principle are supposed to enforce the law, not tear it to shreds. There was criticism of Washington’s “arrogance of power” and the like—not quite the proper terms for a self-designated violent outlaw state.
One might contrive a tortured legal argument to support US/UK claims, though no one has really tried. Step One would be that Iraq has violated UN Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, which declares a cease-fire “upon official notification by Iraq” that it accepts the provisions that are spelled out (destruction of weapons, inspection, etc.). This is probably the longest and most detailed Security Council resolution on record, but it mentions no enforcement mechanism. Step Two of the argument, then, would be that Iraq’s non-compliance “reinvokes” Resolution 678.5 That resolution authorizes member states “to use all necessary means to uphold and implement Resolution 660,”6 which calls on Iraq to withdraw at once from Kuwait and for Iraq and Kuwait “to begin immediately intensive negotiations for the resolution of their differences,” recommending the framework of the Arab League. Resolution 678 also invokes “all subsequent relevant resolutions”(listing them: 662, 664); these are “relevant” in that they refer to the occupation of Kuwait and Iraqi actions relating to it. Reinvoking 678 thus leaves matters as they were: with no authorization to use force to implement the later Resolution 687, which brings up completely different issues, authorizing nothing beyond sanctions.
There is no need to debate the matter. The US and UK could readily have settled all doubts by calling on the Security Council to authorize their “threat and use of force,” as required by the Charter. Britain did take some steps in that direction, but abandoned them when it became obvious, at once, that the Security Council would not go along. Blair’s initiative, quickly withdrawn, was a “mistake” because it “weakened the Anglo-American position,” a Financial Times editorial concluded.7 But these considerations have little relevance in a world dominated by rogue states that reject the rule of law.
Suppose that the Security Council were to authorize the use of force to punish Iraq for violating the cease-fire resolution (UN 687). That authorization would apply to all states: for example, to Iran, which would therefore be entitled to invade southern Iraq to sponsor a rebellion. Iran is a neighbor and the victim of US-backed Iraqi aggression and chemical warfare, and could claim, not implausibly, that its invasion would have some local support; the US and UK can make no such claim. Such Iranian actions, if imaginable, would never be tolerated, but would be far less outrageous than the plans of the self-appointed enforcers. It is hard to imagine such elementary observations entering public discussion in the US and UK.
Open Contempt
Contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in US practice and intellectual culture. Recall, for example, the reaction to the judgment of the World Court in 1986 condemning the US for “unlawful use of force” against Nicaragua, demanding that it desist and pay extensive reparations, and declaring all US aid to the contras, whatever its character, to be “military aid,” not “humanitarian aid.” The Court was denounced on all sides for having discredited itself. The terms of the judgment were not considered fit to print, and were ignored.
The Democrat-controlled Congress immediately authorized new funds to step up the unlawful use of
force. Washington vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to respect international law—not mentioning anyone, though the intent was clear. When the General Assembly passed a similar resolution, the US voted against it, joined only by Israel and El Salvador, effectively vetoing it; the following year, only the automatic Israeli vote could be garnered. Little of this, let alone what it signifies, received mention in the media or journals of opinion.
Secretary of State George Shultz meanwhile explained that “negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.”8 He condemned those who advocate “utopian, legalistic means like outside mediation, the United Nations, and the World Court, while ignoring the power element of the equation”—sentiments not without precedent in modem history.9
The open contempt for Article 51 is particularly revealing. It was demonstrated with remarkable clarity immediately after the 1954 Geneva accords on a peaceful settlement for Indochina, regarded as a “disaster” by Washington, which moved at once to undermine them. The National Security Council secretly decreed that even in the case of “local Communist subversion or rebellion not constituting armed attack,” the US would consider the use of military force, including an attack on China if it is “determined to be the source” of the “subversion.”10 The wording, repeated verbatim annually in planning documents, was chosen so as to make explicit the US right to violate Article 51. The same document called for remilitarizing Japan, converting Thailand into “the focal point of US covert and psychological operations in Southeast Asia,” undertaking “covert operations on a large and effective scale” throughout Indochina, and in general, acting forcefully to undermine the accords and the UN Charter. This critically important document was grossly falsified by the Pentagon Papers historians, and has largely disappeared from history.