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Terror Blowback: US Metropolis to Mesopotamia and Back

Scott D. O'Reilly - 2/28/2005

In 1926 one of the cinema's monumental achievements arrived on screen, the visionary sci-fi classic Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang. However, Susan Sontag wisely observes, "science fiction films are not about science, they are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art. Lang's film was not about natural disaster, but rather the man made variety. And the calamity Lang depicts is the same archetypal catastrophe described by Plato more than 2,000 years ago when he warned that the greatest tragedy a polity could face was to be divided against itself, where "you have one half of the world triumphing, and the other half plunged into grief." Lang's film revived Plato's timeless moral lesson for modern audiences, a lesson that has proven eerily prophetic.

Metropolis begins with a magnificent view of futuristic skyscrapers stretching towards the sky. We soon encounter a fabulously wealthy but idle elite frittering away their time on trivial pursuits and hedonistic pleasures. But beneath the 'city of tomorrow' a vast army of workers toils endlessly, manning the machines that power the city above, but without ever being acknowledged or detected. Although the workers' labor is indispensable to the smooth functioning of Metropolis the city dwellers remain largely oblivious that their carefree lifestyle depends on the masses that inhabit cavernous dwellings below. Only when a man made disaster that threatens to destroy foundations of the great Metropolis do the two classes come to recognize that their existence depends on overcoming their ignorance of one another, and the exploitative practices that engender the imbalances that endanger them all.

Seventy-five years after the premiere of Metropolis life seemed to imitate art when third-world terrorists based in the caves of Afghanistan brought down Manhattan's World Trade Towers, skyscrapers that symbolized the first-world's prosperity. I do not wish to imply that the individual victims of that tragic attack should be compared to the 'idle elite' in Lang's film, or that the perpetrators of 9/11 deserve comparison to the 'exploited masses' Lang depicts. However, in a very broad sense, the relationship between the industrialized West and its third-world oil suppliers does resemble the dysfunctional pattern displayed in Lang's film. How many first-world consumers, when they are filling up their gasoline tanks appreciate the predicament of their third-world brethren who, although they inhabit the land above vast oil reserves, rarely share in the benefits such resources provide. The West's social and economic progress is fueled by Middle Eastern and third world oil, but the indigenous inhabitants of these forgotten lands barely register in our consumer consciousnesses even as we gaze at the dial on the petrol pumps. But the dysfunctional relationship between the oil-consuming nations and the oil-producing ones has fostered such sharp social and economic imbalances that some sort of disaster became virtually inevitable.

Was terrorism the inevitable result of a global disequilibrium between the have and the have-nots? Not terrorism per se. Nevertheless, understanding and confronting the current threat of global terrorism requires an ecological approach. The Bush administration, however, has chosen to promote 'the war on terror' as an old-fashioned morality play -- a battle of good versus evil, with the civilization itself pitted against the forces of barbarism. This view is self-serving and dangerous to the point of delusional; it is likely to strengthen terrorist forces not diminish because it exacerbates the conditions that helped breed terrorism in the first place. An ecological approach to terrorism, in contrast, recognizes that the 'root causes' of politically motivated violence stem from deep-seated imbalances in the relationship between antagonists in a dysfunctional relationship.

The United States has been deeply enmeshed in politics of the Middle East for more than half a century for two reasons: 1) to ensure a steady supply of cheap oil upon which first-world economic growth depends and 2) insure that none of America's strategic rivals threatened to dominate the region. To put it crudely, for decades America's interest in the Persian Gulf often amounted to little more than oil and anti-communism. To these ends the United States has supported or tolerated politically repressive regimes throughout the region so long as the oil kept flowing and America's rival were kept at bay.

During the 1970 the Carter administration under the direction hawkish national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski the U.S. developed a plan of arming Islamic militants in Afghanistan as a way preventing the Soviet Union from expanding its sphere of influence in the oil rich Persian Gulf. Funding and arming Islamic fundamentalists was pursued with even greater enthusiasm by the subsequent Reagan/Bush administration, and later by the first president Bush, as a way of bankrupting and exhausting the 'evil empire' through a costly proxy war.

None of America's leaders, however, gave much thought to what would become of the 'freedom fighters' once they had defeated the Soviets. As Pakistan's former president Benazir Bhutto warned the United States, by arming the most extreme fundamentalists "you are creating a veritable Frankenstein." Her words have proven prophetic, as the success of the mujahideen in vanquishing one superpower seemed to instill in them the belief that the world's remaining superpower could be defeated.

The war in Afghanistan may have been an economic disaster for the Soviet Union, but it was certainly a bonanza for many defense contactors in the United States. One of the main conduits for arming the Afghan resistance were the Saudis, who used their petro-profits to funnel arms to the 'freedom fighters,' as well as build what amounts to a private security force for the royal family. Over time an interesting little ecosystem emerged, and it worked something like this: The Saudis provided cheap gasoline for American consumers, which provided the Saudi royal family with an abundance of petro-dollars. In order to avoid a trade imbalance American officials encouraged the Saudis to 'recycle' a substantial portion of their petro-profits through America's defense contractors, companies such as Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, General Electric and the like. The latter has become an effective way of currying favor with highly placed American officials as petro-dollars are recycled in other ways, including donations to presidential libraries, consulting fees for retired government officials, and barely disguised forms of cronyism. As former CIA operative Robert Baer recounts in his book "Sleeping with the Devil," The Saudis bought weapon systems from the defense contactors, the defense contractors made campaign donations to the politicians who brokered arms sales, and politicians rewarded their constituencies by earmarking lucrative defense contracts for their home districts.

The Saudi royal family even skimmed exorbitant fees, commissions, and kickbacks on the arms sales, while American politicians reaped campaign donations that ultimately enhanced their own political and financial fortunes. The only problem was that such an arrangement was, as political historian Kevin Phillips notes, that it has turned one of the most volatile regions in the world into a 21st century Dodge City.

Actually, there were other problems too; ordinary Arabs remained politically disenfranchised and shared little or nothing from their regions oil revenue. And as journalist Craig Unger points out in his book "The House of Bush, The House of Saud," Saudi elites refused to invest in educational and social programs that would train and equip their subjects to participate in the modern global economy. Instead, education has been done on the cheap, left to fundamentalist ideologues that preach against gender equality, the scientific method, and the separation of church and state. It has been a fool's bargain; cheap oil for the American masses, and education on the cheap for the Arab masses; while Arab and American elites swapped petroleum-profits for political influence, and oil for armaments.

The flow of Saudi crude and American armaments did much to enhance the political and financial fortunes of the Saudi royal family and the Bush dynasty in the United States. Both families, like addicts, have vested interests in retaining the status quo. The Bush network of patronage, power, and privilege is lubricated by campaign donations, crony capitalism, and barely disguised kickbacks. The Saudi royal family is even less discreet, essentially buying off Islamic extremists by making charitable donations to religious schools, massadaras, which promote hatred of America and the West. In a very real sense petroleum-profits have been fueling the forces now allied against the United States while enriching the same elites in the United States whose policies have put this country in the cross hairs of Islamic terrorists.

One can think of the relationship between the oil producing Middle East and the oil consuming United States as an addictive co-dependency. Leaderships in both countries remain largely in denial. Dick Cheney, for example, has given no indication that he has changed his mind from when he infamously declared that, "conservation cannot be the sound basis for a national energy policy." Indeed, the administration even offers a generous tax-break for consumers affluent enough to afford gas-guzzling Humvees; the same vehicle, ironically, the military has used extensively in both Gulf wars to secure Middle Eastern oil for Western consumers.

The Bush administration's tax-cut for Humvees can bee seen as a metaphor for everything that is wrong about their long-term approach to terrorism. As journalist Larry Everest trenchantly observes in his book, "Oil, Power, and Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda" the administration doesn't just represent the interests of the oil establishment, they are the oil establishment. Consequently, policies that favor petroleum profits persevere over policies reducing consumption in the interests of national security. For instance, raising the gasoline tax by 50 cents could be a powerful weapon in the war against terrorism. Had the 50 cent tax been instituted ten years ago when it was first proposed in Congress it is likely that it would have gone a long way towards discouraging the SUV craze that occurred over the ensuing decade, thereby significantly reducing demand. Concomitantly, more money would have been flowing to Washington in the form of tax revenue, rather than subsidizing the Saudi royal family, and indirectly Muslim extremists. Washington could have even used much of the tax proceeds to pay for research into alternative energy sources and conservation technologies. A 50 cent rise in a the Federal gas tax seems significant, but by lowering consumption much of the tax increase would have been offset by lower price per gallon due to less demand.

Before the election the Bush campaign, of course, is blasted Senator John Kerry for supporting the tax a decade ago, but it is arguably an even better idea now. Thus far the Bush administration has told Americans they can have it all -- guns and butter, and a tax cut to boot. There has been no call for shared sacrifice, or for changing habits that might lessen our reliance on Middle Eastern oil. In many respects the administration is asking the American people to do what it is doing, deny that our addiction to cheap oil is inextricably bound up with the terror threats the United States now faces.

Ecology, as Penny Kemp describes it, means consuming less and sharing more. This simple thought could go a long way towards addressing the underlying factors that contribute to terrorism. A commitment to energy conservation, efficiency, and alternative fuels as a national security imperative could have the three-pronged effect: repairing America's image as a responsible global citizen, lessening the amount of petro-dollars that get siphoned off to Islamic extremists, and reducing the need for an American presence in the Middle East which Islamic extremists cite as a humiliation and a prime motivation for terrorist violence.

Confronting terror is like a three-dimensional game of chess, and success on one level, the military, may produce unwelcome consequences on another level. Defeating terrorism, then, requires a multifaceted approach that addresses 'root causes.' Recognizing subtle but pernicious links between the defense industries and arms proliferation, between concentrated oil wealth and political corruption, and between personal consumption and public policy. Rightly or wrongly, America is deeply enmeshed in the volatile Middle East because many of want to fill up our SUVs. We should be aware of this, and that the price we pay for ignoring an ecological perspective can be measured in more than just dollars and cents.

In Lang's film the master of Metropolis has a hand in instigating an uprising that unleashes the forces that threaten the great city and all its inhabitants. He reckons that by provoking and then crushing a rebellion he can enhance his grip on power. Intentionally or not this pattern is not wholly dissimilar to predicament the United States now faces under the leadership of two generations of Bushes. Lang's film ends on a hopeful note, as the two warring classes recognize that reconciliation is the only hope of avoiding ruin. Perhaps that lesson is too much to wish for in the present circumstances, but if there is anything to viewing global terrorism from a global terrorism from an ecological perspective the sacrifices that attend conservation are to be preferred to military sacrifices.