Everything was going smoothly. Serbia, on its knees, had just sold Milosevic to the International Criminal Tribune for a fistful of dollars (most of which turned out to be earmarked to pay debts going back to Tito's time). NATO was expanding eastwards toward a powerless Russia. Saddam Hussein could be safely bombed whenever one felt like it. Invaded by UCK, Macedonia was obliged to accept the farce of a disarmament of that same UCK by the very ones who armed it in the first place. The Palestinian territories were under tight control while their leaders were assassinated by smart bombs. For the past few years, stockholders had been making record profits. The political left had died out and all political parties had rallied to neoliberalism and "humanitarian" interventionism. In short, as certain commentators put it, we were living in peace.

Then suddenly shock, surprise, horror: the greatest power of all times, the only truly universal empire struck in its very heart, at the center of its wealth and power. A unique and all-powerful electronic spying network, unparalleled security measures, a staggering defense budget -- none of this was of any use in preventing the catastrophe.

Let us be perfectly clear. We do not share the attitude expressed by Madeleine Albright when she was asked whether pursuing the embargo against Iraq was worth the price of half a million Iraqi children who have died: "this is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it", she replied. The massacre of innocent civilians is never acceptable. But this does not mean we should not try to understand the underlying meaning of that incredible attack.

The American pacifist A. J. Muste once remarked that the problem in every war was posed by the winning side: the victor had learned that violence succeeded. The whole of postwar history illustrates the pertinence of that observation.

In the United States, the War Department was renamed Defense Department, precisely when there was no direct danger threatening the country, and one government after the other launched campaigns of military intervention and political destabilisation in the guise of containing communism -- against moderately nationalist governments such as that of Goulart in Brazil, Mossadegh in Iran or Arbenz in Guatemala. To limit ourselves to the present, let us examine a few questions rarely raised concerning Western, especially American, policy.

- The Kyoto protocol: the principal United States objection is not on scientific grounds, but merely that "it is bad for our economy". What are people who work 12 hours a day for slave wages to make of such a reaction?

- The Durban conference. The West rejects the slightest thought of reparations for slavery and colonialism. But isn't it clear that the State of Israel functions as a form of reparations for anti-Semitic persecutions, except that in this case the price is paid by the Palestinian Arabs for the crimes committed by Europeans? And isn't it obvious that this shift of responsibility must be felt as a sort of racism by the victims of colonialism?

- Macedonia: here is a country that the West pushed into independence in order to weaken Serbia and whose government has always faithfully followed Western orders. As a result it has been subjected to attacks by terrorists armed by NATO and coming from territory under NATO control. How does this look to Slavic Orthodox peoples, especially after the expulsion, as NATO looks on, of the Serbian population of Kosovo and the eradication of a large part of its cultural heritage?

- Afghanistan: it is too quickly forgotten that Osama Bin Laden was trained and armed by the Americans, who openly admit that they were using Afghanistan to destabilize the USSR even before the Soviet intervention. How many people have died in the game that former President Carter's adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, calls "the great chessboard"? And how many terrorists, in Asia, in Central America, in the Balkans, or in the Middle East, are left to run loose after having been used by the "Free World"?

- Iraq: for ten years the population has been strangled by an embargo that has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths -- of civilian victims. All because Iraq tried to recover the oil wells that were de facto confiscated from them by the British. Let us just compare the treatment given Israel for its totally illegal occupation of territories conquered in 1967. Is it really likely that the notion, generally accepted in the West, that Saddam Hussein is to blame for everything, makes much sense in the Arab-Muslim world?

By pure coincidence, the September 11 attacks took place on the anniversary of the overthrow of Allende, which not only marked (a fact easily forgotten) the installation of the first neoliberal government, that of General Pinochet, but also the start of a broad movement against national and independent movements in the Third World which was to lead those countries to bow to the dictates of the IMF.

This is why we suspect that in Latin America, in Indonesia, in Iran, in ruined and humiliated Russia, in China where nobody is fooled by attempts to destabilize this emerging giant, as well as in the Muslim world, the September 11 tragedy will cause people to shed little more than crocodile tears.

Of course there will be shouts of indignation and messages of sympathy. There will be applause for "firm responses" when they occur (will they destroy a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan or bomb the civilian population of an Arab country?). Large numbers of intellectuals will be found to produce clever analyses full of false analogies connecting these attacks to whatever it is they are against: Saddam Hussein, Kadhafi, Western pacifists and anti-imperialists, the Palestinian liberation movement or even China, Russia or North Korea. It will be repeated that such barbarism is totally alien to us: after all, we prefer to bomb from high altitude and kill gradually by means of embargos. But none of that will solve any basic problem. There is no use attacking revolt itself.

What must be attacked is the suffering that produces revolt.

Those attacks will have at least two negative political consequences. For one, the American population, already disturbingly nationalist, will "rally round the flag", as they put it, supporting their government however barbaric its policy.

Americans will be more than ever determined to "protect our way of life" without asking the price to be paid by the rest of the planet. The timid movements of dissent that have emerged since Seattle will be marginalized if not criminalized.

In CIA parlance missions that are “successful” create backlashes. The CIA aptly calls this “Blowback.”

At the end of WW II the US took empire from a weakened Britain and France. Among the first casualties was East Europe, which was sacrificed on the mantle of superpower relations. That same deal between superpowers saw Greece put down by England and the US, with Soviet compliance. The Soviets and the West also concluded that the people of both their respective spheres would be put down if necessary in the interests of “stability.” Democracy on both sides of the Cold War divide was shelved.

The US maintained order during its tenure of hegemony through use of both covert and overt operations that helped signal the very blowback we witnessed on the 11th. In 1953 Allen Dulles, brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, thought it clever to maintain order in Iran by overthrowing its democratically elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh.

The popular Mossadegh “erred” when he decided Iran’s oil belonged to Iran and not the multi-national corporations who held “rights” to it. He nationalized Iran’s oil. Allen Dulles sent in the CIA with suitcases full of money (the CIA had no oversight and so could spend liberally) to destabilize the government.

They sent their agent Kim Roosevelt to remove Mossadegh. Kim Roosevelt was the grandson of that famous defender of the Spanish American War that brought the US no end of blowback. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf accom panied him—no, not the General we all know who commanded US forces in the Persian Gulf war, but his father. Schwarzkopf trained the Shah of Iran’s secret police in all sorts and manners of techniques that brutal dictatorships employ against their citizens. This bought “stability” and the return of oil to its “rightful” owners. The US oil companies got 40%, the Brits 40%, the Dutch 14% and the French 6%. Yet, in overthrowing Mossadegh a 25-year-long period of repression was launched against dissenters in Iran with significant blowback for all parties concerned. Most significantly this created a radical Islamic fundamentalist response that led to the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeni. In part, yesterday’s tragedy is blowback from Washington policies executed 50 years back.

During the 1980s the US found another opportunity for CIA mischief in the Middle East. In 1978 the Soviet Union frowned upon the more radical Marxist government that arose on its border in Afghanistan.

Given that the Soviets cynically wielded terms like “Marxism” in the same way the US has often done with “democracy,” the Soviets felt no compunction about overthrowing a radical Marxist government with democratic impulses. As a superpower it sought obedience. The Soviets installed a government in Afghanistan loyal to themselves and would suffer blowback that in part led to the very dissolution of the USSR.

Coming off its own failed decades long attempt to install and maintain unpopular governments in Vietnam, the US was bemused by the Soviets finding themselves in a similar situation in Afghanistan. Among opponents of the Soviet backed regime in Afghanistan were Islamic fundamentalists. The CIA fanned the flames of fundamentalist fervor in order to fuel the ant-Soviet Afghani movement, the Mujahadeen. Yet, here too there would be blowback.

When the Soviet Union collapsed the highly motivated fundamentalist force the US helped create and train in covert operations (the stuff of terrorism) they now turned their sights on their former benefactor. The marriage between Afghani fundamentalists and the CIA was purely one of convenience. When no longer “convenient” these highly-trained militants could now turn on that other source of misery in the Middle East: the US. Again, this was blowback.

This begs the question of why the US was perceived as a source of “evil” by Islamic extremists? We are all familiar with the reasons.

A decade of bombing and embargoes have left Iraq’s electric, water, and health infrastructure in tatters. Saddam Hussein remains in power, but millions live in abject misery, and the United Nations’ own data shows over 700,000 children having died as a consequence of these US measures against Iraq.

The Iraqi leadership has been unaffected. Hussein has punished the Kurds in the north of Iraq with impunity and the Shiite Muslims of the south treated to Hussein’s bloody fist too. Yet, Iraq did not dissolve into separate nations. This was the goal of US policy. This has been achieved at a terrible human cost and is another reason for blowback against the US.

The specter of US policy toward Israel continues to haunt America. Copious amounts of aid flows liberally to the Israeli government and spills out into Palestinian communities in the form of state violence. But, peace between Israel and Egypt is critical to Middle East stability. The US gets little of its oil from the Middle East, but US oil companies are present there and more importantly oil must flow freely and predictably for the smooth functioning of the global economy over which the US presides.

Palestinians homes are routinely bulldozed and its people live under military occupation. When the Arabic nations try and address this matter civilly in the United Nations, as they just tried last week at the Durban conference, they are rebuffed by the US. Consequently, Palestinian children greet with delight the news of thousands of innocent people dying in the US on the 11th. This is blowback.

America will make many choices in the near future regarding how to engage the US. Let’s hope it remembers that actions have consequences. Jingoistic responses can backfire. Blowback might erupt quickly, or simmer for decades. When it strikes the consequences are devastating.

We are poised to escalate the violence or begin to plumb the depths of our history in ways that might reveal how we can end these cascading series of tragedies.

In the wake of the possible sabotage of TWA flight 800 and the bombing at the Olympics, President Clinton did what politicians always do at times like these: he grabbed for more power.

If that has a feeling of déjà vu to it, it should. Shortly after the blast at the federal building at Oklahoma City, Clinton asked Congress to pass a so-called counterterrorism bill. Congress obliged, giving the president the power, among other things, to deport aliens with secret evidence in the tradition of the old Star Chamber. But he didn't get all the power he wanted.

What he especially wanted was expanded authority to wiretap our telephones. Considering that the administration is already increasing wiretaps on Americans by more than 30 percent a year, one shudders to think what it will do with expanded authority.

Clinton failed to get the extra power the first time around because civil-liberties organizations rallied against him. Now, following the plane crash and the bombing, he has another chance. He has milked the incidents to the limit.

"We will continue to do whatever is necessary to give law enforcement the tools they need to find terrorists before they strike and to bring them swiftly to justice when they do," says Clinton. Whatever is necessary? Really? People used to believe that the end doesn't justify the means. But isn't that what Clinton is saying?

Terrorism — the deliberate killing or injuring of innocents for political purposes — is ghastly. That is not in question. The issue is whether the national government will use terrorism as a pretext for amassing power that is repugnant to the American tradition of individual liberty and limited state power. It might be easy for people to get caught up in the fear and anxiety associated with terrorism and to acquiesce in the administration's demand for more power. But that would be a betrayal of all that America once stood for and could stand for again. The terrorists would be the winners.

Governments have always accumulated power by keeping the citizens agitated about domestic and foreign enemies, hoping they will permit any outrage in the name of saving them from one set of barbarians or another. In America it was supposed to be different. The American system was based on the idea that the key to civil peace is not power but liberty.

Nothing can absolutely rule out the possibility that someone or some group will engage in wanton violence in a large, open society. But the chances are reduced considerably when two conditions obtain: foreign noninterventionism and domestic laissez-faire.

When the government intervenes in foreign conflicts, it can create fanatical enemies bent on vengeance. And when government intervenes in the domestic economy, it can cause such hardship (for instance, unemployment and bankruptcy) that some who suffer it may turn to violence out of frustration. Harming innocent civilians is not justified by such policies. But that doesn't change the fact that those policies can create the conditions that put people in desperate situations. The corollary is that in a laissez-faire society, people tend to experience control over their lives, removing the feeling of helplessness that can drive them to violence.

Thus, a free society in which the government abstains from foreign and domestic intervention is the best insurance against terrorism.

Let's look at some examples. The unconditional support the United States has given Israel — as well as America's direct military or covert intervention in Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere — has prompted victims of those actions to extend their hostility to the United States. The results have included the Pan Am 103 and the World Trade Center bombings. In contrast, other nations seem untouched by terrorism — Switzerland, for example, a traditionally neutral country.

Some analysts respond that foreign terrorism against America is an ideological phenomenon stemming from the perception of the decadent West as a threat against traditional Muslim society. I am skeptical. A far-off noninterventionist America might be despised by some Muslims.

But I don't believe it would inspire large-scale terrorism. For that, you need concrete offenses, such as American warships' pounding Lebanon with shells the weight of Volkswagens in the early 1980s or the CIA's helping the brutal shah regain power in Iran in 1953. I am willing to subject my theory to empirical testing. Let's end all foreign intervention and see whether the level of terrorism against Americans falls.

On the domestic front, the government has often created hardships with its monetary, spending, and tax policies, which can cause land values and commodity prices to change abruptly. Changes induced by government policies can lead to property foreclosures, business failures, and other hardships that may prompt desperate men to consider violence. Government meddling doesn't excuse violence, but it can explain it.

The United States thus can best be kept safe by ending treaty commitments, staying out of foreign quarrels, and practicing laissez-faire at home. Intrusive powers would work in the wrong direction. Instead of making Americans safer, those powers threaten them. OFficials may say they will wiretap and spy only with court orders and only against proven criminals. But experience has long demonstrated that the government cannot be trusted to keep its word.

It will bend or break the rules because the temptation will always be strong to do so. It will spy on advocates of unpopular causes and fringe religions. It will lie to get warrants. It will ignore the requirement to get a warrant altogether. The restraints intended to protect innocent Americans will count for little or naught. The more authority the government has to spy, the more dangerous it is for us. Government bureaucracy is the devil's playground. That goes double for so-called law-enforcement agencies.

The recent pattern is disturbing. A few years ago, the Clinton administration mandated that the telephone companies use older, inferior technology simply so it could wiretap freely. The new all-digital, fiber-optic technology makes wiretapping difficult or impossible. Clinton wants to shut down the free market in computer-encryption software simply so the government will have access to everyone's electronic "papers" and e-mail. He supports government suppression of so-called indecency on the Internet.

The theme in all this is control over people — before they have committed a crime. That is the way totalitarian states have always tried to manage their populations. They not only make peaceful activities crimes; they also unleash swarms of secret police to watch for suspicious behavior and to instill fear in the populace. They seek control.

In a free society, no one is interfered with unless he violates someone's rights or is caught in the process of doing so. Citizens are regarded as innocent of wrongdoing until proven otherwise. Given the direction of things, that principle could be at risk in the United States. For one thing, it was never perfectly established.

Using the old doctrine of civil forfeiture, government today seizes property from people not charged with crimes and imposes on the owners the burden of showing that the seizure was improper. The authorities have found a powerful weapon against people engaged in crimes without victims, such as drug offenses. It is attractive to them because the standard of proof they must uphold is much weaker than the criminal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" and because they can sell the property for cash.

The upshot is that we are not safer when we give government the power to engage in preventive measures. We are less safe. That is as true with terrorism as with other forms of crime. We must not do what people have too often done in the past. We must not let ourselves be stampeded into urging the government to mistreat us in order to save us from some alleged greater evil. That has always been a bad bargain. It is a bad bargain today.

There is no need to give the government massive new powers to intrude on our privacy and liberty. Those powers won't thwart terrorists bent on destruction, but they will further erode our freedom and power to conduct our lives as we wish. The authorities already have intolerable powers, even as they seek more. We should repeal those powers, not grant new ones. Instead, let's establish the best insurance against terrorism: domestic and foreign noninterventionism.