>>> <[log in to unmask]> 02/09/05 11:16AM >>>
Joe,
I just saw Mr. Churchill on TV in a response he made at Colorado University,
I believe, which was covered by MSNBC news. I'm sure it will be all over the
news tonight. I'm copying the written response I had sent earlier so you can
read it below.
Arlene
Ward Churchill Responds to Criticism of
"Some People Push Back"
In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media
coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my
character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, in
deed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be
reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.
* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the
Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S.
military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law
since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting
in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and
fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.
* I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out
that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we
cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have
never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but
that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S.
policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make
peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."
* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I
witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I
am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated
against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter
perpetrated by the United States around the world. My feelings are reflected in
Dr. King's April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of
urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, "I could never again raise my voice
against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly
to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today ¯ my own government."
* In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S.
Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a
result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that "we" had
decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the September 11
attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million
people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions
of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the
transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal
policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can
only expect equal callousness to American deaths.
* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as
"Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade
Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not
charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the
infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were
legitimately targeted by the Allies.
* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA
office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which
U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target
selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American
"command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility
converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S.
military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not
work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more
than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these
"standards" when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be
surprised when the same standards are applied to them.
* It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns"
characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not
directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random
passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to Pentagon logic, were simply part
of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's
no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis,
Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this
fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and
dehumanized in our name.
* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to
prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their
government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that
this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this
responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in
its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the
consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no
less than anyone else.
* These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the Justice
of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the Gustavus Myer
Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some people will, of
course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents questions that must be
addressed in academic and public debate if we are to find a real solution to the
violence that pervades today's world. The gross distortions of what I actually
said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real
issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this
country.
Ward Churchill
Boulder, Colorado
January 31, 2005
Return to "Some People Push Back" by Ward Churchill
|