WARD CHURCHILL ON 9-11
Notes on Ward Churchill’s 2003 book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality ( Oakland, CA: Ak Press).
The back cover of the book indicates that Ward Churchill is a Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He is a Keetoowah Cherokee and a member of the Colorado branch of the American Indian Movement. Among his many authored and edited books, of special interest for anthropology is A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present (San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1997). He has also written about racism, Marxism, and many other topics.
A primary purpose of the present book is to explain why 9-11 happened. Churchill doesn’t deal with any deficiencies on the part of any components of the government of the U.S. in preventing 9-11. Instead, he looks to the motives of the perpetrators. In the first chapter he quotes the Bible: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap” (Galations 6:7). His argument is that the 9-11 attack was not a senseless and unprovoked targeting of the innocent from the perspective of the terrorists, despite the spin of the U.S. government and mainstream media. Instead, the attack focused on paramount symbols of America’s military and economic imperialism that has caused so much death, destruction, and suffering throughout the world. In particular, he cites the consequences of the sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that sacrificed the lives of half a million children from starvation and disease as well as the lives of many adults. He also mentions the unjust massacre by the American military of many thousands of Iraqi soldiers fleeing from Kuwait on the road to Basra at the end of the Persian Gulf War. As another example, among many, Churchill discusses the U.S. support of Israel against the occupied and oppressed Palestinians. Despite the many complexities Churchill considers, ultimately his explanation of 9-11 is simple, the negative correlate of the Golden Rule--- don’t do to other people what you would not want them to do to you. In the case of 9-11, those who have been seriously wronged for decades took revenge, something Churchill believes to be an inevitable reaction inherent in human nature.
Beyond this argument, Churchill’s book is most valuable in providing an extensive inventory of the regular involvement of the U.S. in various kinds of warfare primarily for economic profit from 1776 to 2003 (pages 43-79). Accordingly, Churchill forcefully contests the self-image of America as “the most peace-loving of nations” (pp. 39-40). Furthermore, he lists numerous ways that international law has been violated repeatedly by the U.S. since 1945 (pages 104-268).
Churchill, however, does not simply present a devastating indictment of U.S. policies and actions in historical perspective, he also offers some constructive suggestions of ways out the morass that amount to U.S. leaders publicly admitting guilt and offering apologies, reparations, and the like. He recommends trial by the International Criminal Court of, among others, Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright, both former Secretaryof State. However, such initiatives do not seem likely.
Churchill is not himself justifying 9-11, but trying to understand it. Furthermore, he certainly is challenging the popular ideas that this horrendous tragedy was an unprovoked and senseless attack on the innocent. However, his style is often not just blunt, but many would say insensitive and insulting, especially to the relatives and friends of the victims (e.g., see pp. 13-14, 42, 81). He even goes so far as to compare the U.S. with Nazi crimes against humanity. Any such reference is bound to get a strong reaction from many corners, although some in the U.S. have compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler. But, in essence, Churchill poses a legitimate, if provocative, question--- Were the Nazi’s really so unique? Churchill also predicts that fundamental change for the better in the U.S. will only occur with violence (p. 82). [See the movie Gandhi].
Typically the mainstream media and other agents have concentrated for the most part on undermining the credibility of this messenger, instead of directly challenging the argument and evidence in his message. Many of the critics attack Churchill personally by trying to call into question his Native American and/or scholarly status as well as prevent him from speaking in public. But such censorship is antithetical to First Amendment freedom of speech as well as to academic freedom and can be viewed as un-democratic and un-American. However, in the process of attacking Churchill’s character, relatively little attention has been given to the penetrating issues and questions he raises as well as the historical facts he catalogs. Despite the possibility of some differences in interpretation, the facts themselves are readily available from numerous and diverse independent sources, many cited by Churchill.
He quotes Noam Chomsky’s observation shortly after 9-11: “…if you really want to put an end to terrorism, you have to begin by no longer participating in it” (p. 16). In other words, the U.S. needs to obey international law and act in a civilized and humane manner in its foreign policies and other relations. A military response to 9-11 will simply generate more violence. [Most unfortunately, Churchill’s prediction has proven true subsequently in Iraq since the 2003 bombing attack and ground invasion by the U.S. Also see the recent movies Munich and Syriana].
If one wishes to consider the various criticisms of the opponents to Churchill, then they can be found readily on the internet including the website of FOX News:
Churchill is not alone, others have marshaled essentially the same argument among other points, albeit in a far more moderate fashion:
Noam Chomsky, 2003, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company/Metropolitan Books.
Richard A. Clarke, 2004, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, New York, NY: Simon and Schuster/Free Press.
Chalmers A. Johnson, 2004, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.
Gore Vidal, 2002, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated, New York, NY: New York, NY: Nation Books/Thunder’s Mouth Press.
Also see the film Hijaking Catastrophe 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire (Sinclair Library AV - DVD 2514).
For some anthropological perspectives and opinions on these and related matters, see some of the essays in:
Robert J. Gonzalez, ed., 2004, Anthropologists in the Public Sphere: Speaking Out on War, Peace, and American Power, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Also see articles in the American Ethnologist August 2004 31(3), Critique of Anthropology March 2004 1(4), and various issues of the AAA Anthropology News, and:
Denizen, Norman K., and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds., 2003, 9/11 in American Culture, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
See Churchill’s websites:
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/Churchill.html
http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/faculty/churchill.html
http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorID=62