By Tom Kando
Just a few days after the anniversary of 9/11, I join Madeleine in her American patriotism (see her recent The American Way).
So I’m thinking: The enormity of this event inevitably enters it into world history, not just US history. Today, the average Dutchman or Senegalese may not be glued to the TV watching documentaries of what happened on 9/11/01.
BUT:
9/11/01 was such a monumental event, it has been so well documented, it has had such enormous impact, that it will forever remain a world event.
However you interpret it. I, of course, take the standard view that it was a monstrous act perpetrated by evil people. Others add all sorts of dimensions - it was a stab at the heart of the world empire, Wall Street, etc. It would be the same if rebels had burned down the Roman Colosseum two thousand years ago, or something like that. I suppose from the vantage point of those who want to overthrow the existing world order, you can see the US, New York and Wall Street as the “head of the snake.” But let’s cut down on the bs.
When I see the 9/11 footage, innocent office workers and clerks jumping hand-in-hand out of windows 1000 feet up, I’m thinking: Thank God that Americans are not going quietly. Thank goodness that they can still get mad. I want to tell Phil Donahue and Norwegian intellectuals that the time for pacifism has not yet arrived.
Marshall Montgomery once said, “We British fight our wars overseas. We prefer it that way.” Well, I’m sorry folks, but I also prefer it that way. When they came to kill 3000 innocents in New York City, they managed to bring the war home to America. But that was an exception.
Since then, America has done enormous mischief in the other guy’s backyard (not just the two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere). It’s been ugly. To some extent, America has been flailing, sometimes attacking the wrong targets (Iraq), causing incredible mayhem, exhausting itself for no clear benefit. But hey, the other guy hit first. If 9/11 was not a casus belli, I don’t know what is. The time for pacifism has not yet arrived.
Now, just about on the anniversary of 9/11, a rampaging mob has murdered another four innocent Americans, including an ambassador, and massive anti-American rioting is spreading across the Muslim world. All this allegedly over a tiny, idiotic anti-Muslim video (By the way, have you noticed that 100% of the rioters are men?).
It’s surreal. Most of the rioters haven’t seen the video. Its existence is protected by the 1st Amendment. The US Government and the American people (except for the 5 individuals who produced the allegedly blasphemous film) have nothing to do with it. So there is nothing to apologize for. The video is irrelevant to the real agenda behind the attacks. Must I continue to list the obvious?
The real disease and abomination in the world today is religious fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalism in the West is ugly and it is poisoning politics. But Muslim fundamentalists overseas are something else! The politics of the “Arab Spring” are now largely driven by “Islamicists.” We have come to accept “Islamicism,” as long as it is not too “extreme.”
But isn’t even “moderate Islamicism” wrong? Doesn’t it violate the fundamental separation of church and state? The Western World is suffering from battle fatigue. It has resigned itself to something which should be unacceptable: the merging of religion and politics in the Muslim world. leave comment here
6 comments:
Most of what is said here seems to me unexceptional, except the implication, perhaps unwarranted, that we need to go to war because 4 innocent Americans were killed in Libya. There also seems to be the implication that we went to war in Iraq because we were attacked; I suspect that is my misreading. So far as I know, we weren't attacked.
Occasionally, I suspect we have to go to war, but I fear we go to war far too often and don't quite know what we're getting into. That may not be a reason for pacificism, but it does suggest being cautious.
Thank you for your comments.
They remind me of my differences with my academic colleagues 33 years ago, when the Iranians took our Teheran embassy hostage: At that time, I published an innocuous letter in the university student paper recommending that President Carter be “strong.” This resulted in a decade-long war between myself and dozens of my colleagues, who accused me of being a racist, a McCarthyist, a bigot, a xenophobe, a war monger, a John Wayne (perish the thought).
In rebuttal of your comments:
(1) I do not suggest that we go to war (any more than I did 33 years ago in response to the Iranian hostage crisis).
(2) We did go to war against Iraq because we were attacked. It was the wrong war, the wrong enemy and the wrong pretext, but it WAS in response to 9/11.
(3) By any definition of the word, we were ATTACKED in 1979, on 9/11 and again two days ago. Storming embassies and killing ambassadors represent ATTACKS, and if 9/11 was not an attack, I don’t know what is.
(4) of course being cautious is of the essence. If you read any of our hundreds of posts, you will find that we are by and large AGAINST war, AGAINST precipitous military action, AGAINST the military-industrial complex, FOR reduced American intervention overseas, etc. etc.
HOWEVER:
When outrageous behavior occurs, the appropriate response is OUTRAGE. In 1979, the Iranian Ayatollahs behaved outrageously. 9/11 was an outrage. The murder of Americans 2 days ago was an outrage. If you lack outrage on such occasions, it is either because you are not wired properly, or because your outrage is selective, i.e. only directed at the offenses of one side but not those of the other.
I am quite surprised by your bellicosity and characterization, "...monstrous act(s) perpetrated by evil people"
In the early 70s I spent 3 months in the Shah's Iran, a bloody place, and over a year in Afghanistan, and for shorter periods, I was in Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan. I can assure you that in the eyes of these peoples, Arabs and Persians, Western society is monstrously evil and they back up their claim with copious empirical evidence of murder, mayhem, subterfuge, dispossession and subjugation committed upon themselves by oil-hungry amoral nations who know nothing of honor, in their eyes a most prized attribute, and only unbridled greed!
I have long argued that the so-called Arab Spring is ACT V of an unfolding tragedy that began post-WWI. The evidence of recent events moving forward support my prediction.
There will be blood shed between those whose only refuge from the shifting desert sands is fanatical religious belief and those who believe with religious fervor that their greater "fitness" by virtue of their material achievements, entitles them to exploit those who are less fit --- market fundamentalism.
It's a shame that those who became powerful by hook and crook, were unable to systematically employ their power to produce a greater good -- a general welfare.
It's a real mess alright, and we cannot be passive in uor response to those who in-surge against our dominance, but it's pernicious nonsense when we wring our hands and claim ourselves innocent victims. Our hands are dripping with the blood of millions.
Marc:
thanks for your (predictable) reaction.
It reminds me of my differences with my academic colleagues 33 years ago, when the Iranians took our Teheran embassy hostage:
At that time, I published an innocuous letter in the university student paper recommending that President Carter be “strong.” This resulted in a decade-long war between myself and dozens of my colleagues.
It was difficult then and it is difficult now for such people to see things clearly, to move beyond the knee-jerk mea culpa attitude, beyond the selective use of ancient historical facts.
The American far-Left is at a disadvantage, due to flawed and deeply ingrained intellectual habits (guilt, for one thing). It took a Frenchman, the philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy, to provide a clearer perspective on the recent murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens: “This time, the imbeciles have won,” he said. Indeed. Arabs had no stronger advocate in the US than Ambassador Stevens.
History can be used in many ways. Yes, yes, the Shah, Mossadegh, etc. But then, what about the Balfour Declaration? Or the Crusades, for that matter. At the very least, we must mention all of European colonialism, i.e. the carving up of the planet by Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, etc. Why are the descendants of these empires collegial clubs today - the Commonwealth, the former French Union, etc.? I have not tallied which country has the bloodiest hands, but I doubt that it’s “Satan America.”
Back in 1979, my opponents and I discussed in innumerable articles in local papers all aspects of US foreign policy and of the relationship between the US and the Middle East. I can’t do this again now.
Tom,
Do I detect in your tone -- "I can’t do this again now" -- a bit of That Smirk that I blogged about yesterday? Is this the old brush off?
I think you misread me. Intentionally so?
As you should know, I am no moral relativist. I am merely saying that we need to do a more honest accounting if we are to hope to contribute to creating anything better than what we have -- a tragic mess!
In the moral sphere -- all that really matters from my point of view -- the West cannot claim superiority. Western Christian goodness does not withstand the slightest scrutiny. (And feel free to go as far back as you like with respect to what might be called Western cultural tradition.)
In fact it can be argued that the West's having become the dominant cultural and economic force on the planet during the past few centuries, makes it -- makes us -- more culpable than others for creating the contradictions we suffer so loudly today. It is we who have been the in lead, in effect setting the stage for the global events that give us cause to so self-righteously declaim others as evil-doers.
Characterizing ourselves as more GOOD and our enemies as more EVIL only works when the claim has some basis in a shared historical narrative. Where we truly blameless or even substantively less to blame, then I would believe as I once did, in our greater Goodness. I do believe for example, that practicing Buddhists on the whole, are more morally Good than practicing Protestant Capitalists. There's a difference!
What I say has nothing to do with guilt. What good is guilt if it changes nothing? What I say is about acknowledging our substantial contribution toward making the world as we experience it today in order that we might have some chance of enacting our role going forward to better effect -- toward a greater good.
it took more than a century for us to create the conditions of Islamic hatred of the West. If a century is what it takes to shape such widely held feelings, then we had better get to work, doing our best toward shaping things better.
Marc:
My point is absurdly simple: When people misbehave, the rest of us have to reprimand them and make them stop misbehaving. Wanton violence and murder are BAD. The people who do this are BAD. Is this so difficult to understand?
The rest, I already know all that. No need to re-invent the wheel. You are changing subjects on me and you put words in my mouth.
Where do I say anything about the superiority of the West or of Christianity? I am a Jewish atheist who only believes in the superiority of reason (a Western contribution).
When the people who misbehave are Americans, Europeans or something else, our blog denounces them. This week they happen to be Muslims. Is that so difficult to comprehend?
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