Free Things that Can and Cannot Be Said by John; Arundhati; Cusack Roy Page A

to listen to them several times over to understand what we were really saying to each other. She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t seem to mind. When I asked her if I could use some of the transcripts, she said, “Okay, but make sure you edit out the idiocy. At least mine.”
    I’ll roll the tapes:
    AR: All I’m saying is: what does that American flag mean to people outside of America? What does it mean in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Pakistan—even in India, your new “natural ally”? 5
    JC: In his [Ed’s] situation, he’s got very little margin for error when it comes to controlling his image, his messaging, and he’s done an incredible job up to this point. But you’re troubled by that isolated iconography?
    AR: Forget the genocide of American Indians, forget slavery, forget Hiroshima, forget Cambodia, forget Vietnam, you know . . .
    JC: Why do we have to forget?
    ( Laughter )
    AR: I’m just saying that, at one level, I am happy—awed—that there are people of such intelligence, such compassion, that have defected from the state. They are heroic. Absolutely. They’ve risked their lives, their freedom . . . but then there’s that part of me that thinks  . . . How could you ever have believed in it? What do you feel betrayed by? Is it possible to have a moral state? A moral superpower? I can’t understand those people who believe that the excesses are just aberrations. . . . Of course, I understand it intellectually, but . . . part of me wants to retain that incomprehension. . . . Sometimes my anger gets in the way of their pain.
    JC: Fair enough, but don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?
    AR: Maybe ( laughs ). But then, having ranted as I have, I always say that the grand thing in the United States is that there has been real resistance from within. There have been soldiers who’ve refused to fight, who’ve burned their medals, who’ve been conscientious objectors. 6 I don’t think we have ever had a conscientious objector in the Indian Army. Not one. In the United States, you have this proud history, you know? And Snowden is part of that.
    JC: My gut tells me Snowden is more radical than he lets on. He has to be so tactical . . .
    AR: Just since 9/11 . . . we’re supposed to forget whatever happened in the past because 9/11 is where history begins. Okay, since 2001, how many wars have been started, how many countries have been destroyed? So now ISIS [also known as Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham] is the new evil—but how did that evil begin? Is it more evil to do what ISIS is doing, which is to go around massacring people—mainly, but not only, Shi’a—slitting throats? By the way, the US-backed militias are doing similar things, except they don’t show beheadings of white folks on TV. Or is it more evil to contaminate the water supply, to bomb a place with depleted uranium, to cut off the supply of medicines, to say that half a million children dying from economic sanctions is a “hard price,” but “worth it”? 7
    JC: Madeleine Albright said so—about Iraq.
    â€œ In Syria, you’re on the side of those who want to depose Assad, right? And then suddenly, you’re with Assad, wanting to fight ISIS. It’s like some crazed, bewildered, rich giant bumbling around in a poor area with his pockets stuffed with money, and lots of weapons—just throwing stuff around. ”
    AR: Yes. Iraq. Is it alright to force a country to disarm, and then bomb it? To continue to create mayhem in the area? To pretend that you are fighting radical Islamism, when you’re actually toppling all the regimes that are not radical Islamist regimes? Whatever else their faults may be, they were not radical Islamist states—Iraq was not, Syria is not, Libya was not. The most radical fundamentalist Islamist state is, of course, your ally Saudi