Re: Let Us Not Inherit This Ill Wind

Again, from where I am, this stuff pales into insignificance in the 
face of the op-ed stuff in the Wall Street Journal, including the 
following from Paul Johnson. After reading something like a dozen 
pieces or more in the same vein, I'm feeling truly terrorised -- by 
The West.


October 9, 2001

Commentary

The Answer to Terrorism? Colonialism.

By Paul Johnson. Mr. Johnson is the author of many books, including 
"Modern Times" and "The Birth of the Modern."

America has no alternative but to wage war against states that 
habitually aid terrorists. President Bush warns the war may be long 
but he has not, perhaps, yet grasped that America may have to accept 
long-term political obligations too. For the nearest historical 
parallel -- the war against piracy in the 19th century -- was an 
important element in the expansion of colonialism. It could be that a 
new form of colony, the Western-administered former terrorist state, 
is only just over the horizon.

Significantly, it was the young United States that initiated this 
first campaign against international outlaws (most civilized states 
accepted the old Roman law definition of pirates as "enemies of the 
human race"). By the end of the 18th century, the rulers of Algiers, 
Tunis and Tripoli had become notorious for harboring pirates and 
themselves engaging in piracy and the slave-trade in whites (chiefly 
captured seamen). European states found it convenient to ransom these 
unfortunates rather than go to war. Admiral Nelson, commanding the 
British Mediterranean Fleet, was forbidden to carry out reprisals. 
"My blood boils," he wrote, "that I cannot chastise these pirates."

By contrast, the U.S. was determined to do so. Pirates were the main 
reason Congress established a navy in 1794. In 1805, American marines 
marched across the desert from Egypt, forcing the pasha of Tripoli to 
sue for peace and surrender all American captives -- an exploit 
recalled by the U.S. Marine Corps anthem: "From the Halls of 
Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli."

It was reinforced in 1815 when Commodores Stephen Decatur and William 
Bainbridge conducted successful operations against all three of the 
Barbary States, as they were called. This shamed the British into 
taking action themselves, and the following year Admiral Lord Exmouth 
subjected Algiers to what was then the fiercest naval bombardment in 
history -- 38,667 rounds of cannon balls, 960 large-caliber shells 
and hundreds of rockets. However, these victories were ephemeral. The 
beys repudiated the treaties they were obliged to sign as soon as 
American and British ships were over the horizon.

It was the French who took the logical step, in 1830, not only of 
storming Algiers but of conquering the entire country. France 
eventually turned Algeria into part of metropolitan France and 
settled one million colonists there. It solved the Tunis piracy 
problem by turning Tunisia into a protectorate, a model it later 
followed in Morocco. Spain, too, digested bits of the Barbary Coast, 
followed by Italy, which overthrew the pasha of Tripoli and created 
Libya. Tangiers, another nuisance, was ruled by a four-power European 
commission.

The eventual decolonization of North Africa was a messy and bloody 
business. In Algeria in particular, which the French had ruled for 
over 120 years, they withdrew only after a horrific war that produced 
over a million casualties and overthrew the Fourth Republic. The 
Italian record in Libya was so bad that its memory was a key factor 
in Col. Moammar Gadhafi's seizure of power and the resumption of 
outlaw activities.

In the 19th century, as today, civilized states tried to put down 
piracy by organizing coalitions of local rulers who suffered from it 
too. Arabia and the Persian Gulf were a patchwork of small states, 
some of which were controlled by criminal tribes that pursued 
caravan-robbing on land and piracy at sea. Pirate sheikhs were 
protected by the Wahabis, forebears of the present ruler of Saudi 
Arabia. In 1815 Britain had to take action because ships of its East 
India Company were being attacked in international waters. But it did 
so only in conjunction with two powerful allies, the ruler of Muscat 
and Oman, still Britain's firm friend, and Mohamed Ali of Egypt.

British naval operations produced a general treaty against piracy 
signed by all the rulers, great and small, of the Arabian Coast and 
Persian Gulf. But Britain had learned from experience that "covenants 
without swords" were useless, and that the sheikhs would only stick 
to their treaty obligations if "enforcement bases" were set up. Hence 
Britain found itself becoming a major power in the Middle East, with 
a colony and base in Aden, other bases up and down the Gulf, and a 
network of treaties and protectorates with local rulers, whose heirs 
were educated at the British school of princes in India.

The situation in South-East Asia and the Far East was not essentially 
different. Amid the countless islands of these vast territories were 
entire communities of orang laut (sea nomads) who lived by piracy. 
Local rulers were too weak to extirpate them. Only the Royal Navy was 
strong enough. But that meant creating modern bases -- hence the 
founding of Singapore. That in turn led to colonies, not only 
Singapore but Malaya, Sarawak and Borneo. The Dutch had been doing 
the same. It was a matter of complaint by the British that the 
Americans, while trading hugely in the area, rarely sent warships on 
anti-piracy missions -- President Andrew Jackson's dispatch of the 
frigate Potomac to bombard the pirate lair of Kuala Batu in 1832 was 
a welcome exception.

In this area then the war against piracy was directly linked to 
colonization -- British, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish -- a 
fact finally recognized by the U.S. when it annexed the Philippines 
after the Spanish-American War. The U.S. established a large naval 
base there, one of whose duties was pirate-hunting. The lesson 
learned was that suppression of well-organized criminal communities, 
networks and states was impossible without political control.

The great civilized powers, as now, preferred to act in concert. But 
this was easier said than done. In China, a vast but incoherent 
country, the Western trading powers had introduced the principle of 
extraterritoriality, whereby certain harbors were designated treaty 
ports and run by Western consuls and officials under European law.

In 1900, a militant Chinese terrorist group known as the Boxers 
seized control of Peking, with the covert approval of the Chinese 
government. Western embassies were sacked and the German ambassador 
murdered. An international force was organized to retake Peking, and 
it included Americans and Japanese as well as European troops. In 
view of the German loss, Britain agreed that the commander could be 
nominated by Kaiser Wilhelm II, but was taken aback when that 
intemperate monarch instructed his field marshal:

"No pardon will be given and no prisoners taken. Anyone who falls 
into your hands falls to your sword! Just as the Huns created for 
themselves a thousand years ago a name which men still respect, you 
should give the name of German such cause to be remembered in China 
for one thousand years that no Chinaman, no matter if his eyes be 
slit or not, will dare to look a German in the face."

America and her allies may find themselves, temporarily at least, not 
just occupying with troops but administering obdurate terrorist 
states. These may eventually include not only Afghanistan but Iraq, 
Sudan, Libya, Iran and Syria. Democratic regimes willing to abide by 
international law will be implanted where possible, but a Western 
political presence seems unavoidable in some cases.

I suspect the best medium-term solution will be to revive the old 
League of Nations mandate system, which served well as a 
"respectable" form of colonialism between the wars. Syria and Iraq 
were once highly successful mandates. Sudan, Libya and Iran have 
likewise been placed under special regimes by international treaty.

Countries that cannot live at peace with their neighbors and wage 
covert war against the international community cannot expect total 
independence. With all the permanent members of the Security Council 
now backing, in varying degrees, the American-led initiative, it 
should not be difficult to devise a new form of United Nations 
mandate that places terrorist states under responsible supervision.


URL for this Article:
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1002585224185071200.djm


Copyright © 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


At 3:09 am -0700 9/10/01, Michael Pugliese wrote:
>    I find the empirical detail pretty convincing that the Noamster was
>sloppy on the Sudanese bombing. The political conclusions of Leo Casey, are
>of course, arguable...But, unlike strict non-interventionists, Casey lays
>out criteria for judging the advisability or not of specific military
>action. And, allies of Chomsky, such as Richard Falk, who edited in the late
>60's an essential book on US and other War Crimes with Gabriel Kolko, in The
>Nation, has supported, for example, the intervention in Bosnia.
>     Just as in all intra-left debates, the level of invective gets tiresome.
>Read the case, then argue the politics espoused, pro and con. But, please
>w/o accusations of fascist apologia, as happened here recently w/o any type
>of proof. And esp. ironic, because one of my my main points of participation
>in the last two years on left lists, has been on a mostly European based
>list, Right-Wing Influences on the Left, which gathers information on "Third
>Positionist, " infiltration and ideological influence on the broad left
>esp. in the anti-globalization movement.
>     Michael Pugliese, "Social Imperialist." ;-(
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: LeoCasey@aol.com
>To: Michael Pugliese
>Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 6:51 PM