Comments on Note on “9/11 Trutherism” by CK MacLeod

But I still think that, even if Israel stands as a perhaps primary symbolic "crime," the theft that proves Arabs are less equal than others, it's still just a small part of what makes the U.S. a material "accessory," and, getting specifically to the theme of this short post rather than the long one I just put up, just a small part of the 9/11 Truth displaced by Trutherism. I dislike counterfactuals, so I won't say "if Israel had never been founded." I'll just say that the history of Western/U.S. involvement in the fate of the East didn't begin and end with "the Jewish State."

Incidentally, I agree that that's a mouthful and a half from Ben Gurion. Best never think of it nor mention it again ;)

Recounting the history of the US in the Arab and or Muslim world, adding up the debits and credits according to one’s own calculus, doesn’t add much to ones’s understanding before the exercise...

I strongly disagree. The position of Rauf's attackers amounts to "there are no meaningful debits."

@ bob:
There may be an Israeli or Palestinian lurking in the background, but, just insofar as far as Rauf's direct comments were concerned, or for that matter the announced pretexts for AQ's war against the U.S., Israel didn't come up.

Therefore, to use a word drawn from the lexicon of criminal law, a word, moreover, the use of which cannot be justified as applying to the United States in the case of 9/11, was malicious and was definitely intended to exploit the justiciable culpability that the word ordinarily evokes. It was a cunning and, for that reason, contemptible way of framing the question.

The "question" had been framed by Ed Bradley, as a point of clarification regarding the immediately prior discussion of opposition to US policy in the Middle East. Rauf was specifically asked to assure Bradley and the audience that he, Rauf, wasn't claiming that "we in the United states deserved what happened." Rauf did so, and then introduced the word "accessory" clearly in the sense of not being responsible in the same way as the actual perpetrators, but of having contributed to it, and not in relation to the "US government" and even less to the people of the US, but to "United States policies."

The difference, as anyone who wasn't setting out from a position of the closest possible hostile scrutiny of Rauf would immediately understand, is simple: Rauf disclaims any notion that the US "deserved" the punishment of 9/11. He does explicitly claim that US policies set the groundwork for the act, both by contradicting our own values (his initial comment) and (his final comment) by "making" Bin Laden. (When I use the word "groundwork," Joe, I am using a metaphor. I am not making a cunning reference to the Bin Laden family's construction background. When I use the word background, Joe, even though I speak and write English as my first language, I am not making a cunning reference to painting, photography, or any other visual art.)

A peculiar verbal transference or confusion occurs over the course of the dialogue in which 9/11 functions first as a punishment (deserved or not), and then as a crime. The initial question is whether 9/11 was a fitting punishment for unjust acts (the previously mentioned policies leading to anti-Americanism): Again, we are already speaking metaphorically here, on the level of moral-historical speculation. Rauf then defines not those American policies as unjust-acts-worthy-of-punishment (i.e., crimes), but 9/11 as the unjust act - a harmful act committed against innocent parties, regardless of particular statutes against, say, flying jetliners into skyscrapers during business hours. He then assigns a lesser but significant portion of responsibility for this "crime" to United States policies, and that is clearly the intent of his use of the word "accessory."

In what appears to me to be a diversionary effort on your part to justify your emotional and ideological reaction to Rauf and the GZ Mosque controversy, you import diverse historical events and theoretical social, religious, political contradictions, when Rauf, in his brief contribution quoted in the interview, is actually quite specific about the basis of opposition to US policy: "It is a reaction against the US government politically, where we espouse principles of democracy and human rights, and where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries." Is there any argument to be had over the accuracy of this description? Or are you now going to explain how Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, just for example, were not oppressive regimes?

Along similar lines, regarding Bin Laden's having been "Made in the U.S.A.," Rauf is again, obviously, speaking metaphorically. He's as little a mad scientist as he is a lawyer: He is not saying that the U.S. assembled skin, organs, teeth, and hair and constructed a FrankenLaden's monster. He probably believed at the time, as many did and as many still do, that Bin Laden had been in the direct pay of the U.S. via the CIA, and had also received Saudi and probably Pakistani support with the blessings of the U.S. He further likely believed that Bin Laden & Co. were allowed to run riot in Afghanistan when the U.S., its anti-Soviet business done, largely fled the scene, not giving a flying fig about what happened afterward. And he probably also had in mind the post-Gulf War I Iraq sanctions + Saudi basing policy that served as a key rallying/rhetorical point for AQ during the '90s.

I, however, have something more in mind, because support for the foreign fighters directly via the US or indirectly via US allies, the abandonment of Afghanistan, and the sanctions + basing policy are in my opinion pieces of a larger, very unfashionable yet always in vogue accessorization of US strategy. I would go much further than Rauf would probably dare to go, in that I don't think the category of "deserving" history's punishments is very helpful. How one apportions such "deserts" is a matter of belief and ideology. There is no objective standard.

I will leave further comments on Rauf's statement, from the perspective that I find most interesting, until later. Unfortunately, I now find myself with another few hundred words to cut out of an entirely too long, and too long delayed, draft post.

@ Joe NS:
I have a post to go up in detail on this subject, Joe, so I'll refrain from an extensive reply, and will instead invite you to re-consider and perhaps amend your comment in light of my remarks, then re-submit it at the appropriate time. I myself will take another look at my post and see whether there are any simple changes I can make that will take your approach into account and explain why I chose a different perspective on his remarks.

In addition, if you're going to parse Rauf's words so closely, to the extent of attempting to read his mind, assess his character, and impute underlying, unspoken rationales, you should at least make the effort to refer to them as actually delivered, and as well to consider the context, which was conversational - that is, an interview on 60 Minutes. That doesn't mean that I doubt he chose his words with care, but I do think it's a bit much to apply a strict juridical interpretation to them and then to build on it in the way you do.

You can find the transcript here: http://www.islamfortoday.com/60minutes.htm

You might want to save it for the next post, narc - this was just a spin-off of my ongoing work answering J-Bone's question.