David Bircumshaw

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From: "Alan Sondheim" <[log in to unmask]>
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Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 4:13 AM
Subject: [ImitaPo] Susan Sontag


> Imitation Poetics
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> Susan Sontag, "The Traitor," Fires Back
> David Talbot, Salon
> October 17, 2001
>
> Writer Susan Sontag has produced many texts during her four-decade
> career, including historical novels and reflections on cancer,
> photography and the war in Bosnia. But it was a brief essay, less than
> 1,000 words long, in the Sept. 24 issue of the New Yorker that created
> the biggest uproar of her life.
>
> In the piece, which she wrote shortly after the terror attacks of
> Sept. 11, Sontag dissected the political and media blather that poured
> out of the television in the hours after the explosions of violence.
> After subjecting herself to what she calls "an overdose of CNN,"
> Sontag reacted with a coldly furious burst of analysis, savaging
> political leaders and media mandarins for trying to convince the
> country that everything was OK, that our attackers were simply
> cowards, and that our childlike view of the world need not be
> disturbed.
>
> As if to prove her point, a furious chorus of sharp-tongued pundits
> immediately descended on Sontag, outraged that she had broken from the
> ranks of the soothingly platitudinous. She was called an
> "America-hater," a "moral idiot," a "traitor" who deserved to be
> driven into "the wilderness," never more to be heard. The bellicose
> right predictably tried to lump her in with the usual left-wing peace
> crusaders, whose programmed pacifism has sidelined them during the
> current political debates.
>
> But this tarbrush doesn't stick. As a thinker, Sontag is rigorously,
> sometimes abrasively, independent. She has offended the left as often
> as the right (political terms, she points out, that have become
> increasingly useless), alienating some ideologues when she attacked
> communism as "fascism with a human face" during the uprising of the
> Polish shipyard workers in the 1980s and again during the U.S. bombing
> campaign against the Serbian dictatorship, which she strongly
> supported.
>
> Sontag, 68, remains characteristically unrepentant in the face of the
> recent attacks. On Monday, she talked with us by phone from her home
> in Manhattan, reflecting on the controversy, the Bush war effort and
> the media's surrender to what she views as a national conformity
> campaign.
>
> Did the storm of reaction to your brief essay in the New Yorker take
> you by surprise?
>
> Absolutely. I mean, I am aware of what a radical point of view is;
> very occasionally I have espoused one. But I did not think for a
> moment my essay was radical or even particularly dissenting. It seemed
> very common sense. I have been amazed by the ferocity of how I've been
> attacked, and it goes on and on. One article in the New Republic, a
> magazine for which I have written, began: "What do Osama bin Laden,
> Saddam Hussein and Susan Sontag have in common?" I have to say my jaw
> dropped. Apparently we are all in favor of the dismantling of America.
> There's a kind of rhetorical overkill aimed at me that is astonishing.
> There has been a demonization which is ludicrous.
>
> What has been constructed is this sort of grotesque trinity comprised
> of myself, Bill Maher and Noam Chomsky. In the Saturday New York
> Times, Frank Rich tried in his way to defend us by arguing for our
> complete lack of importance, by saying that any substitute weather
> forecaster on TV has more influence than any of us. Well, it's not
> true of course. Excuse me, but Noam Chomsky is quite a bit more than a
> distinguished linguist. Our critics are up in arms against us because
> we do have a degree of influence. But our own "defenders" are reduced
> to saying, "Well, leave the poor things alone, they're quite obscure
> anyway. "
>
> Look, I have nothing in common with Bill Maher, whom I had never heard
> of before. And I don't agree with Noam Chomsky, whom I am very
> familiar with. My position is decidedly not the Chomsky position
>
> How do you differ from Chomsky?
>
> First of all, I'll take the American empire any day over the empire of
> what my pal Chris Hitchens calls "Islamic fascism." I'm not against
> fighting this enemy -- it is an enemy and I'm not a pacifist.
>
> I think what happened on Sept. 11 was an appalling crime, and I'm
> astonished that I even have to say that, to reassure people that I
> feel that way. But I do feel that the Gulf War revisited is not the
> way to fight this enemy.
>
> There was a very confident, orotund piece by Stanley Hoffman in the
> New York Review of Books -- he's a very senior wise man in the George
> Kennan mold, certainly no radical. And I felt I could agree with every
> word he was saying. He was saying bombing Afghanistan is not the
> solution. We have to understand what's going on in the Middle East, we
> have to rethink what's going on, our foreign policy. In fact, since
> Sept. 11, we're already seeing the most radical realignment of
> policies.
>
> Bill Maher has abjectly apologized for his remarks --but you don't
> seem to be getting any more docile in the fact of this storm of
> criticism. Why not?
>
> Well, I'm not an institution, and I don't have a job to lose. I just
> get lots of very nasty letters and read lots of very nasty things in
> the press.
>
> What do the letters say?
>
> That I'm a traitor. The New York Post, or so I've been told, has
> called for me to be drawn and quartered. And then there was this Ted
> Koppel show -- the producer invited me onto the show a week ago. It's
> not my thing, but I did it. And they got someone from the Heritage
> Foundation [Todd Gaziano], who practically foamed at the mouth, and
> said at one point, "Susan Sontag should not be permitted to speak in
> honorable intellectual circles ever again." And then Koppel said,
> "Whoa, you really mean she shouldn't be allowed to speak?" And he
> said, well maybe not silenced, but disgraced and "properly discounted
> for her crazy views."
>
> So there's a serious attempt to stifle debate. But, of course, God
> bless the Net. I keep getting more articles of various dissenting
> opinions e-mailed to me; naturally, some of them are crazy and some I
> don't agree with at all. But you can't shut everyone up. The big media
> have been very intimidated, but not the Web.
>
> I don't want to get defensive, but of course I am a little defensive
> because I'm still so stunned by the way my remarks were viewed. What I
> published in the New Yorker was written literally 48 hours after the
> Sept. 11 attacks. I was in Berlin at the time, and I was watching CNN
> for 48 hours straight. You might say that I had overdosed on CNN. And
> what I wrote was a howl of dismay at all the nonsense that I was
> hearing. That people were in a state of great pain and bewilderment
> and fear I certainly understood. But I thought, "Uh-oh, here comes a
> sort of revival of Cold War rhetoric and something utterly
> sanctimonious that is going to make it very hard for us to figure out
> how best to deal with this." And I have to say that my fears have been
> borne out.
>
> What do you think of the Bush administration's efforts to control the
> media, in particular its requests that the TV networks not show bin
> Laden and al-Qaida's video statements?
>
> Excuse me, but does anyone over the age of 6 really think that the way
> Osama bin Laden has to communicate with his agents abroad is by posing
> in that Flintstone set of his and pulling on his left earlobe instead
> of his right to send secret signals? Now, I don't believe that
> Condoleezza Rice and the rest of the administration really think that.
> At least I hope to hell they don't. I assume they have another reason
> for trying to stop the TV networks from showing bin Laden's
> videotapes, which is they just don't want people to see his message,
> whatever it is. They think, Why should we give him free publicity?
> Something very primitive like that. Which is ridiculous, because of
> course anyone online can see these tapes for themselves. Although I
> see the BBC, our British cousins who are of course ever servile, are
> discussing whether to broadcast the tapes. We can always count on the
> Brits to fall in line.
>
> Why has the media been so willing to go along with the White House's
> censorship efforts?
>
> Well, when people like me are being lambasted and excoriated for
> saying very mild things, no wonder the media is cowed. Here's
> something no one has commented on that I continue to puzzle over: Who
> decided that no gruesome pictures of the World Trade Center site were
> to be published anywhere? Now I don't think there was single directive
> coming from anywhere. But I think there was an extraordinary
> consensus, a kind of self-censorship by media executives who concluded
> these images would be too demoralizing for the country. I think it's
> rather interesting that could happen. There apparently has been only
> one exception: one day the New York Daily News showed a severed hand.
> But the photo appeared in only one edition and it was immediately
> pulled. I think that degree of unanimity within the media is pretty
> extraordinary.
>
> What is your position on the war against terrorism? How should the
> U.S. fight back?
>
> My position is that I don't like throwing biscuits and peanut butter
> and jam and napkins, little snack packages produced in a small city in
> Texas, to Afghani citizens, so we can say, "Look, we're doing
> something humanitarian." These wretched packages of food that are
> grotesquely inadequate -- there's apparently enough food for a half
> day's rations. And then the people run out to get them, into these
> minefields. Afghanistan has more land mines per capita than any
> country in the world. I don't like the way that humanitarianism is
> once again being used in this unholy way as a pretext for war.
>
> As woman, of course, I've always been appalled by the Taliban regime
> and would dearly like to see them toppled. I was a public critic of
> the regime long before the war started. But I've been told that the
> Northern Alliance is absolutely no better when it comes to the issue
> of women. The crimes against women in Afghanistan are just
> unthinkable; there's never been anything like it in the history of the
> world. So of course I would love to see that government overthrown and
> something less appalling put in its place.
>
> Do I think bombing is the way to do it? Of course I don't. It's not
> for me to speculate on this, but there are all sorts of realpolitik
> outcomes that one can imagine. Afghanistan in the end could become a
> sort of dependency of Pakistan, which of course wouldn't please India
> and China. They'd probably like a little country to annex themselves.
> So how in the world you're going to dethrone the Taliban without
> causing further trouble in that part of the world is a very
> complicated question. And I'm sure bright and hard-nosed people in
> Washington are genuinely puzzled about how to do it.
>
> Do you really think it could be done without bombing?
>
> Absolutely. But it's a complicated and long process -- and the United
> States is not very experienced in these matters. The point is, as I
> said in my New Yorker piece, there's a great disconnect between
> reality and what people in government and the media are saying of the
> reality. I have no doubt that there are real debates among military
> and political leaders going on both here and elsewhere. But what is
> being peddled to the public is a fairy tale. And the atmosphere of
> intimidation is quite extraordinary.
>
> And I think our protectors have been incredibly inept. In any other
> country the top officials of the FBI would have resigned or been fired
> by now. I mean, [key hijacking suspect] Mohammad Atta was on the FBI
> surveillance list, but this was never communicated to the airlines.
>
> The authorities are now responding to the anthrax scare -- to what I
> think are 99 percent certain to be just domestic copycat crazies on
> their own war path -- by spreading more fear. We have Vice President
> Cheney saying, "Well, these people could be part of the same terrorist
> network that produced Sept. 11." Well, excuse me, but we have no
> reason to think that.
>
> As a result of these alarming statements from authorities, the public
> is terrified. I live in New York and the streets were empty after the
> FBI announced that another terrorist attack was imminent. You have
> these idiots in the FBI saying they have "credible evidence" -- I love
> that phrase -- that an attack this weekend is "possible." Which means
> absolutely nothing. I mean it's possible there's a pink elephant in my
> living room right now, as I'm talking to you from my kitchen. I
> haven't checked recently, but it's not very likely.
>
> And meanwhile our ridiculous president is telling us to shop and go to
> the theater and lead normal lives. Normal? I could go 50 blocks, from
> one end of Manhattan to another, in five minutes because there was no
> one in the streets, no one in the restaurants, nobody in cars. You
> can't scare people and tell them to behave normally.
>
> We also seem to be getting contradictory messages about Muslims in the
> U.S. We're told that not all Islamic people are our enemy, but at the
> same time there's a fairly wide dragnet, which some civil liberties
> defenders have criticized as indiscriminate, aimed at rounding up
> Islamic suspects.
>
> Well, people are very scared and Americans are not used to being
> scared. There's an American exceptionalism; we're supposed to be
> exempt from the calamities and terrors and anxieties that beset other
> countries. But now people here are scared and it's interesting how
> fast they are moving in another direction. The feeling is, and I've
> heard this from people, about Islamic taxi drivers and shopkeepers and
> other people -- we really ought to deport all the Muslims. Sure
> they're not all terrorists and some of it will be unfair, but after
> all we have to protect ourselves. Racial and ethnic profiling is now
> seen as common sense itself. I mean how could you not want that if
> you're going to take an airplane and you don't want a fellow in a
> turban and a beard to sit next to you?
>
> What I live in fear of is there will be another terror attack -- not a
> sick joke like the powder in the envelope, but something real that
> takes more lives, that has the stamp of something more professional
> and thought out. It could be another symbolically targeted building --
> maybe not in New York this time, but in Chicago or some other
> heartland city that scares the rest of the country. And then you could
> get something like martial law here. Many Americans, who as I say are
> so used to not being afraid, would willingly accede to great
> abridgements of freedom. Because they're afraid.
>
> You called the president "robotic" in your New Yorker essay. But the
> New York Times, among other media observers, has editorialized that
> Bush has shown a new "gravitas" since Sept. 11. Do you think the
> president has grown more commanding since the terror attacks?
>
> I saw that in the Times -- I love that, gravitas. Has Bush grown into
> his role of president? No, I think he's acquired legitimacy since
> Sept. 11, that's all -- I don't call that "growing" at all. I think
> what we obviously have in Washington is some kind of regency, run
> presumably by Cheney and Rumsfeld and maybe Powell, although Powell is
> much more of an organization man than a real leader. It's all very
> veiled. And Cheney has not been much seen lately -- is this because he
> is ill? It's all very mysterious. I hate to see everything become so
> opaque.
>
> It seems important to the Times and other major media to shore up the
> president's image these days.
>
> Yes, I just don't understand why debate equals dissent, and dissent
> equals lack of patriotism now. I mean, look, I cry every morning real
> tears, I mean down the cheek tears, when I read those small obituaries
> that the New York Times publishes of the people who died in the World
> Trade Center. I read them faithfully, every last one of them, and I
> cry. I live near a firehouse that lost a lot of men, and I've brought
> them things. And I'm genuinely and profoundly, exactly like everyone
> else, really moved, really wounded, and really in mourning. I didn't
> know anyone personally who died. But my son [journalist David Rieff]
> had a former classmate who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald who died. A
> number of people I know lost friends or loved ones.
>
> I want to make one thing very clear, because I've been accused of this
> by some critics. I do not feel that the Sept. 11 attacks were the
> pursuit of legitimate grievances by illegitimate means. I think that's
> the position of some people, but not me. It may even be the position
> of Chomsky, although it's not for me to say. But it's certainly not my
> position.
>
> Speaking of your son, he seems to favor a tougher military response to
> Islamic terrorism than you do.
>
> Well, I don't want to go deeply into it, but clearly we don't see it
> exactly the same way. Whatever David thinks is tremendously important
> to me, but we do start from a different point of view. I feel that
> it's just a difference of emphasis, but without speaking for him, he
> feels it's deeper than that. But he's still the love of my life, so I
> won't criticize him.
>
> This is one thing I do completely agree with David on: If tomorrow
> Israel announced a unilateral withdrawal of its forces from the West
> Bank and the Gaza strip -- which I am absolutely in favor of ---
> followed by the proclamation of a Palestinian state, I don't believe
> it would make a dent in the forces that are supporting bin Laden's
> al-Qaida. I think Israel is a pretext for these people.
>
> I do believe in the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from the
> Palestinian territories, which is of course the radical view held by a
> minority of Israeli citizens, but certainly not by the Sharon
> government. And it's a view I expressed when I received the Jerusalem
> Prize there in May, which created quite a storm. But just because I am
> a critic of Israeli policy -- and in particular the occupation, simply
> because it is untenable, it creates a border that cannot be defended
> -- that does not mean I believe the U.S. has brought this terrorism on
> itself because it supports Israel. I believe bin Laden and his
> supporters are using this as a pretext. If we were to change our
> support for Israel overnight, we would not stop these attacks.
>
> I don't think this is what it's really about. I think it truly is a
> jihad, I think there is such a thing. There are many levels to Islamic
> rage. But what we're dealing with here is a view of the U.S. as a
> secular, sinful society that must be humbled, and this has nothing to
> do with any particular aspect of American policy. So I don't think we
> have brought this upon ourselves, which is of course a view that has
> been attributed to me.
>
> Let me ask you about another part of your essay that has riled your
> critics. You said the hijackers displayed more courage than those,
> presumably in the U.S. military, who bomb their enemies from a safe
> distance.
>
> No, I did not use the word "courage" -- I did use my words carefully.
> I said they were not to be called cowards. I believe that courage is
> morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good
> people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.
>
> My feeling about this type of safe bombing goes back to the U.S. air
> campaign against the Serbs in Kosovo, which I strongly supported,
> though I was criticized by many of my friends on the left for being
> too bellicose. I did support the bombing of the Serb forces, because I
> had been in Sarajevo for three years during the siege and I wanted the
> Serbs checked and rebuked. I wanted them out of Kosovo as I had wanted
> them out of Bosnia.
>
> When the U.S. campaign in Kosovo began, I happened to be staying with
> a close friend in a town on the tip of Italy, the boot, about 40 miles
> across from Albania, and the Apache helicopters were literally passing
> over my head. They landed at the Tirana air base in Italy, but they
> never took off for Kosovo because it was calculated that they might be
> shot down and the crew killed. And the U.S. was unwilling to accept
> these casualties.
>
> But in order to bomb precisely, without hitting hospitals and other
> civilian targets, you have to fly low to the ground with aircraft like
> these. And you have to risk being brought down by antiaircraft fire.
> So I was dismayed by the loss of civilian life in that U.S. bombing
> campaign, which I had hoped would be very precise.
>
> And so thinking about this, as I was writing my essay for the New
> Yorker, I became very angry. And I wrote, if you're going to use the
> word "cowardly," let's talk about the people who bomb from so high up
> that they're out of the range of any retaliation and therefore cause
> more civilian casualties than they otherwise would, in what is
> supposedly a limited military bombing.
>
> What about those in the antiwar camp who see a moral equivalence
> between the destruction of the World Trade Center and the U.S. bombing
> of Afghanistan?
>
> Well, I don't share that view. I'm not a pacifist, but I am against
> bombing. And I do think that if you want to conduct a military
> operation, you have to be willing to take casualties. There are not,
> strictly speaking, very many military targets in Afghanistan. We're
> talking about one of the poorest countries in the world. What they can
> do is bomb the soldiers, the camps where the Taliban soldiers are
> based. And you can imagine who they are, it's a lot of kids. We can
> drop a lot of napalm, and uranium-tipped bombs, and kill many
> thousands of people. We haven't been doing a lot of that yet. That's
> next. And then we'll get these other awful people to come in, this
> Northern Alliance, and it will be horrible.
>
> David Talbot is the founder and editor in chief of Salon, where this
> article originally appeared. AlterNet
>
>
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