Sunday, September 14, 2003
Just One of the Many Questions that Linger. . .
In her Seattle Times guest column of 12 September, ("The question that lingers: Why do they hate us?"), Marsha Vande Berg sidesteps her stated topic and chooses instead to assert that the "true teachings" of Islam that in her opinion might provide an answer to the question are ultimately unknown and probably unknowable despite the efforts of "countless scholars". This depressing prospect is thankfully both untrue and irrelevant to the question posed.
The many answers to the question, "Why do they hate us?" since the terrorist attacks in 2001 can all be reduced to just two answers and their hybrids: They hate us because of WHO WE ARE, or, they hate us because of WHAT WE DO. The president clearly favors the first option. In his address to Congress following the attacks George W. Bush stated, "They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."
The problem with this view is that it really amounts to "they hate us because of who THEY are". This reductive, essentialist-and dangerous-conclusion leads inexorably to the situation we are now in, with the administration asking for another $87 billion to prosecute the so-called "war on terror" without any assurance that the war will produce the security everyone craves. Why? Because if they really do hate us because of who they are then really the only way forward is to kill the core, maybe even the bulk of "them" and frighten the rest in the process so they wouldn't dream of acting on this inherent and apparently incomprehensible hatred.
This is the strategy tried on and off by various Israeli governments in their dealings with the Palestinians without producing any meaningful increase in security. There is no reason to think that it will work any better in George Bush's hands because while such a strategy does eliminate the immediate threat (and this is a very good thing), it fails to address the real source of the motivating hatred.
The answer, "they hate us because of what we do" requires serious reflection on the fact that America's involvement with the Moslem and Arab worlds did not begin on September 11, 2001 but for practical purposes goes back at least to America's oil-related support for Abdul Aziz al Saud (the founder of Saudi Arabia and the great patron of fundamentalist Wahhabist Islam) in the 1940s. Our involvement continued through the C.I.A. stage managed overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Iran in the 1950s, the increased support for Israel following the annexation of Palestinian lands in the Six Day War in 1967, the disastrous support for the failed regime of the Shah of Iran which culminated in the entrenchment of Shi'ite fundamentalism and the capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, and more recently the Gulf War and the following decade of brutal (and ineffective) sanctions against Saddam Hussein, the brunt of which fell on the average Iraqi citizen.
This is not a list of sins for which 9/11 was the punishment; not at all. But it is a potent history of short-sighted policy decisions that form the concrete, analyzable, and addressable substance of opinion on the streets of the mostly poor and incredibly-poorly led nations of the Arab and Moslem Middle East. As the Israelis have learned, you CAN mediate the terror through aggressive military action. In fact, you must use all your resources to do so. But as the Pakistani commentator Tariq Ali has pointed out, it is not enough to kill "evildoers" like Usama Bin Laden even though doing so may help. The real problem is the continuous mutation of educated, bright, and capable young men (and now some women) into suicide bombers. The actual source of the hatred that distorts these young lives and drives them to destruction is the toxic environment of the streets of Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus, Baghdad and countless smaller places, where the lethal combination of poverty, unemployment, government corruption and ineptitude, AND American support for the responsible regimes promotes the creation of the sort of people who can fly a plane full of people into a building full of people.
Understanding this is not the same as making an excuse for it, which is usually the knee-jerk criticism of anything more subtle than a claim that such hatred cannot be understood. More importantly, understanding the real source of the hatred is the only way in which we will actually be able to formulate an effective set of strategies for preventing future attacks.
What would such a strategy look like? Well, it would include some of the things being done already. Clearly, given the fact of America's presence in Iraq, that part of the strategy must be optimized for positive effect on Moslems at large and the best way to do that is to restore order and security to the Iraqi people, hand over that security apparatus to local leaders, and recede into the background as soon as possible. This is what Rumsfeld, Bush, et al claim they intend to do, so the time has come for them-and us all-to bite the bullet, apply the needed resources, and do it.
Beyond that, increasing the effectiveness of American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by acting as a real fair broker (i.e., demanding the same compliance from both sides) would produce wonders for both that knotty problem and our reputation among average Moslems. Finally, the "moral clarity" so loudly touted by the president and his apologists could produce profound results if it were pursued as more than a mere slogan. It is not enough to pretend that such clarity consists of nothing more than saying "you are either with us or against us". This puts us not just into bed, but into a doomed marriage with oppressive, anti-democratic and even terrorism-supporting regimes in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Egypt, the Gulf States, etc., etc.
No one said it was going to be easy, but with the right answers to important questions, we do just have a chance.
The many answers to the question, "Why do they hate us?" since the terrorist attacks in 2001 can all be reduced to just two answers and their hybrids: They hate us because of WHO WE ARE, or, they hate us because of WHAT WE DO. The president clearly favors the first option. In his address to Congress following the attacks George W. Bush stated, "They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."
The problem with this view is that it really amounts to "they hate us because of who THEY are". This reductive, essentialist-and dangerous-conclusion leads inexorably to the situation we are now in, with the administration asking for another $87 billion to prosecute the so-called "war on terror" without any assurance that the war will produce the security everyone craves. Why? Because if they really do hate us because of who they are then really the only way forward is to kill the core, maybe even the bulk of "them" and frighten the rest in the process so they wouldn't dream of acting on this inherent and apparently incomprehensible hatred.
This is the strategy tried on and off by various Israeli governments in their dealings with the Palestinians without producing any meaningful increase in security. There is no reason to think that it will work any better in George Bush's hands because while such a strategy does eliminate the immediate threat (and this is a very good thing), it fails to address the real source of the motivating hatred.
The answer, "they hate us because of what we do" requires serious reflection on the fact that America's involvement with the Moslem and Arab worlds did not begin on September 11, 2001 but for practical purposes goes back at least to America's oil-related support for Abdul Aziz al Saud (the founder of Saudi Arabia and the great patron of fundamentalist Wahhabist Islam) in the 1940s. Our involvement continued through the C.I.A. stage managed overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Iran in the 1950s, the increased support for Israel following the annexation of Palestinian lands in the Six Day War in 1967, the disastrous support for the failed regime of the Shah of Iran which culminated in the entrenchment of Shi'ite fundamentalism and the capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, and more recently the Gulf War and the following decade of brutal (and ineffective) sanctions against Saddam Hussein, the brunt of which fell on the average Iraqi citizen.
This is not a list of sins for which 9/11 was the punishment; not at all. But it is a potent history of short-sighted policy decisions that form the concrete, analyzable, and addressable substance of opinion on the streets of the mostly poor and incredibly-poorly led nations of the Arab and Moslem Middle East. As the Israelis have learned, you CAN mediate the terror through aggressive military action. In fact, you must use all your resources to do so. But as the Pakistani commentator Tariq Ali has pointed out, it is not enough to kill "evildoers" like Usama Bin Laden even though doing so may help. The real problem is the continuous mutation of educated, bright, and capable young men (and now some women) into suicide bombers. The actual source of the hatred that distorts these young lives and drives them to destruction is the toxic environment of the streets of Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus, Baghdad and countless smaller places, where the lethal combination of poverty, unemployment, government corruption and ineptitude, AND American support for the responsible regimes promotes the creation of the sort of people who can fly a plane full of people into a building full of people.
Understanding this is not the same as making an excuse for it, which is usually the knee-jerk criticism of anything more subtle than a claim that such hatred cannot be understood. More importantly, understanding the real source of the hatred is the only way in which we will actually be able to formulate an effective set of strategies for preventing future attacks.
What would such a strategy look like? Well, it would include some of the things being done already. Clearly, given the fact of America's presence in Iraq, that part of the strategy must be optimized for positive effect on Moslems at large and the best way to do that is to restore order and security to the Iraqi people, hand over that security apparatus to local leaders, and recede into the background as soon as possible. This is what Rumsfeld, Bush, et al claim they intend to do, so the time has come for them-and us all-to bite the bullet, apply the needed resources, and do it.
Beyond that, increasing the effectiveness of American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by acting as a real fair broker (i.e., demanding the same compliance from both sides) would produce wonders for both that knotty problem and our reputation among average Moslems. Finally, the "moral clarity" so loudly touted by the president and his apologists could produce profound results if it were pursued as more than a mere slogan. It is not enough to pretend that such clarity consists of nothing more than saying "you are either with us or against us". This puts us not just into bed, but into a doomed marriage with oppressive, anti-democratic and even terrorism-supporting regimes in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Egypt, the Gulf States, etc., etc.
No one said it was going to be easy, but with the right answers to important questions, we do just have a chance.
