Not sure if this belongs in GD or the Pit but I figure it’ll probably end up in the Pit soon enough so why not start it there?
I am sick to fucking death of dim-witted commentators comparing the WTC attacks to rape for the purpose of denigrating anti-war activists. The latest instance I’ve seen was from Jonathon Alter in the 10/15 issue of Newsweek, wherein he said:
Although it should be unnecessary to do so, let me first head off the reactionaries who will swarm this thread to question my patriotism and loyalty by saying in no uncertain terms that I do not condone the 9/11 attacks in any way. But please, can these commentators not see that there is a huge qualitative difference between a woman’s wearing a short skirt and walking down a dark alley at night and, say, The CIA overthrowing the lawful government of Iran and replacing it with the Shah? In the former, while the woman may not have made the best practical choices, she has a perfect right to wear what she wants and walk wear she wants. The CIA, OTOH, has absolutely no right to be toppling governments. Again, not a condonation of the terrorist attacks, but can we please stop pretending that these attacks came out of nowhere, unrelated to anything that had gone before?
Can you believe I’m going to side with you on this one, Otto? The rape metaphor is a tired and worn cliche, and is not really analogous to the US involvement in the Arab world.
I will quibble with your example of the CIA overthrowing Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 if only because that event, while reprehensible, has zip to do with the events of 2001.
You wanna know why the Middle East hates us? Here’s a few reasons.
1)We are seen to be the patrons of what the Arab world perceives to be the brutal and illegitimate occupation of Palestine by Israel. We are seen to not care for the plight of the disenfranchised Palestinians and to encourage the Israelis to oppress them even further. (Yes, I know the counter-arguments; I’m talking about the Muslim perspective.)
2)We are seen to be the backers of repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt. There is a great deal of general hatred for the corrupt and unIslamic autocratic leaders of those countries. We are seen as propping up decadent regimes in exchange for oil.
3)America is seen to be a source of moral decay and corruption of Muslim youth. We export McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and TV shows like Baywatch that are a threat to the patriarchal, traditional cultures of the Middle East.
4)We have military troops in their Holy Land. Bin Laden and his crew hate non-Muslims being in the same land as the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
America is seen to be the enemy of God and Muslims. The Iraqi embargo, the bombing of Afghanistan, the delay in helping the Bosnians are all seen as the anti-Islamic work of godless Americans.
We are losing the war for the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world.
That’s not fair. Muslims respect women, too. Many Muslim women cite respect and decent treatment from men as the reasons they wear hijab (the nun-like head cloth Muslim women wear). Even the Taliban think they respect women by keeping them locked up from the polluting eyes of men.
From what I’ve been reading, the Prophet (pbuh) taught that women were to be respected, they were were to be allowed to own property, and to have equal status with men. Unforutnately, his teachings were filtered throught the tribal, patriarchal cultures of the Middle East, leaving women in the status they have today.
OK. Stoning women for showing an inch of skin, not allowing them to become educated, not allowing them to work, etc., that is respect, and that is fair, right?
I understand about the the “normal” Muslims, but I am focusing on this fanatic group called the Taliban, and the people who have a disregard for human life: the murderers who killed at the Pentagon & WTC. FWIW
I posted in the immediate wake of the attack that IMO we should not be questioning past foreign policy decisions at that time, because it looked too much like “blaming the victim.” Now what are people claiming it is? Blaming the victim. Regardless of whether it is or is not – a separate issue entirely – that’s what it looks like.
I agree absolutely that 9/11 should not be compared to a rape, but I firmly believe that by saying the U.S. has in the past “toppled governments” you appear to be doing exactly what this columnist is accusing you of – blaming the U.S. (the victim), at least in part, for the attack against it on 9/11. And this:
. . . shows a fundamental misunderstanding of our position. It is not that we are “pretending” the attack took place in a vacuum, “unrelated to anything that had gone before,” but that we don’t care what went before, at least not at this time, because nothing – nothing the U.S. government could have done – up to and including “toppling governments” if that were true – would justify or excuse plowing passenger jets into buildings. Explain, yes. But then we see limited utility in attempting to explain these actions, at least right now. Therefore, it is not that we do not see the connections you are attempting to point out by raising ever real or perceived affront committed by the U.S. in the last 30 years, it is that we don’t think they are relevant. I’m sure you appreciate the difference.
You and I know that the conduct of the Taliban is barbaric, but you and I are not Pashtun Taliban supporters. They don’t think they are doing wrong. To the Taliban, AFAIK, their conduct is upholding God’s commands. We have to figure out how they think in order to deal with them after the war.
Absolute agreement, Jodi,and it was this willingness to immediately say that America had it coming that has made me despise the American left even more than I already did. But Otto has a valid point–right or wrong, we have made the Muslim world hate out guts. Even Kuwait, who we rescued from Iraq, has managed no more than faint support for the US. We need to win over the Muslim world in order to stifle the creation of more terrorists. We have to get the Arabic press and the Muslim people to see that America is not an evil oppressor and enemy of God.
We need to make Israel and the Palestinian Authority to divide land and establish a full-fledged Palestinian state with fixed borders, democratically elected leaders, and
economic viability.
We need to show that the US is friendly to Islam.
We need to press our Muslim allies, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to establish democratic reforms and give the people a voice in how they are governed.
We need to extend more aid to suffering people in the Muslim world.
We need to end the Iraqi embargo and find some other way to topple Saddam Hussein.
No, we did not. We did what we felt was in our best interests, and they hate our guts for it. This is not the same thing as “making them hate our guts.” They decided to do that on their own, based on past offenses both real and perceived. You may think this is mere semantics, but “making them do it” again implies that we are automatically to blame for feelings of animosity directed our way.
This, to me, is the crux of the problem – where the rubber hits the road. What if what we have to do to “win over the Muslim world” is simply asking too much? What must we do? Veil our women? Kick out the Jews? Embrace religion, despite the fact our country is based in large part on secularism? Disavow tolerance and diversity? Bin Laden dreams of the creation of a pan-eastern caliphate, in which his own pernicious brand of fundamentalism is not only the religion, but the political system as well. Do we sign off on that? How far do we go to make sure that radical fundamentalists are not mad at us? If they are, because they despise what we are and what we stand for, have we then “made them mad at us?” To many of them, America is the enemy of God. It stands for secularism; equality; capitalism; and materialism – and there is no way we are going to make them see that we are not evil and disreputable and continue to hold on to the values we hold dear. Shit, even our so-called allies – the Kuwaitis and the Saudis – don’t like us, and their disgruntled fundamentalist were among the terrorists as well. It’s not as if those planes were blown up by Afghanis. So let’s look at your suggestions, which I think are very good ones, just not terribly viable:
I agree, but I’m not sure how we do this, when neither party appears to me to be truly interested in it – especially the Israelis, who would have to cede both land and control to establish a neighbor they reasonably think would be both hostile and dangerous to them.
But we are NOT friendly to the most fundamentalist fringes of Islam, nor should we pretend to be or try to be. And they are the ones attacking us.
I’m not sure how we do this, either, and I’m not sure how I feel about the U.S. attempting to strong-arm Muslim nations into pro-democracy (pro-western) changes they might not be interested in making. Why would such unasked-for interference look like friendly help, as opposed to more western imperialism?
I agree with this as a moral matter, but it frankly irks me as a political one. The people who should be taking care of the suffering people in the Muslim world are the ones who govern them and who make their money off exploiting their labor and resources but still keep them in poverty. Why their righteous anger isn’t directed at their own governments instead of ours for a lack of assistance is beyond me.
I don’t disagree with this, but only because (a) I think it’s clear the embargo hasn’t worked and (b) there’s no way to know (and no reason to think) that he wouldn’t be replaced with someone much worse than he is.
I’m sorry, but no. The United States has most certainly NOT “made” anyone hate their guts. The hatred of the United States is the result of conscious decisions made by Muslim countries, made out of what they perceive to be their self-interest.
Let’s suppose hatred of Muslims were to suddenly explode in the United States; would anyone seriously suggest that the Muslim world MADE the United States hate them? We apply individual responsibility to ourselves; let’s apply it to the Muslim world, too, shall we?
Consider your suggestion here:
Let’s suppose for a moment the USA were to do this. Pick your specific tactic; one way or another America “presses” Egypt and SA to establish democratic reforms. Do you know what would happen? They’d hate the USA for it. There would be street demonstrations, overturned cars, and Presidents burned in effigy.
Since when did the citizens of a nation take kindly to other nations “pressing” them to do anything? Since never, I’d guess. The U.S. would be said to be “interfering” in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and leftists would demonstrate over the “imperialism” that “pressing for reforms” implies. If the U.S. took a soft approach they’d be criticized for doing nothing; if they go as far as sanctions they’ll be called bullies and comparisons will be made with Cuba and the noble freedom loving Fidel Castro. Egypt and Saudi Arabia would then use their press to whip up anti-American sentiment to divert attention from their own sins - which is, of course, what they do right now.
So it is with foreign aid. Any money sent to a dictatorship is far likelier to be used on guns and private villas for their leaders than on aid for the people. Send food, and it will be sold for guns and villas. The USA would then be blamed for cozying up to dictatorships (there ain’t many democratic Muslim nations); campus newspapers would talk about how the States gave $5 billion to the evil dictators of Tyrannistan, who coincidentally spent $5 billion on weapons last year, whaddya know? But any attempt to press Tyrannistan into democracy before giving aid will be perceived as imperialism; see previous paragraph.
IF the U.S. gets involved in stopping violence, they’re blamed for it. For instance: Kosovo, when the U.S. intervened to save a MUSLIM population from a CHRISTIAN army, not that the Muslim world seems to remember that. But if they do not get involved, they’re blamed for it; see Stephen Lewis’s report on Rwanada, wherein he says, presumably with a straight face, that Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright were DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for Rwanda (which literally means they were there personally hacking people to death with machetes, but Mr. Lewis’s illiteracy isn’t the subject here.) Of course, Kofi Annan knew all about the impending massacre before the USA did, but instead of getting blamed, he gets the Nobel Peace Prize.
Here is my honest opinion: There is no realistic foreign policy stance the United States could possibly take that would substantially reduce the number of people who hate it.
No matter what the USA does, they’ll be blamed for everything.
Jones’s Eleventh Law: No matter what happens, no matter where it happens, why or when it happens, or who does it, the United States will be blamed for it.
**First Corollary: **In the process of assigning blame, the CIA will be cited.
Second Corollary: In the process of assigning blame, Israel will also be cited.
No, obviously we are not automatically to blame, but we’re mot talking about a just world where we are being judged fairly, but in the world of realpolitik where appearances matter.
There’s nothing we can do to make the radical fundamentalists love us anymore than I can make Fred Phelps love me. Some hate is beyond cure. But, the crucial point to rmeeber is that many Muslims are not fundamentalists, but they are very angry at what they perceive as American tyranny. The rights and wrongs of the situation don’t matter, only fixing their ideas about us does. We have to win the propaganda war.
For one thing, we have to get the word out that we are NOT at war with Islam, but but with the murderers of 5000 innocent Americans.
We have to counter the lies of the Arab press (that Jews were the pilots of the planes that hit the WTC; that the Jews knew ahead of time about the attack and skedaddled before it hit; that Bush wants to destroy Islam). We need to get some respected Muslim clerics on our side and the remind the faithful that the Prophet (pbuh) absolutely forbade the terrorist campaign bin Laden and his droogs are conducting.
The biggest enemies we face are poverty and ignorance. The economies of Middle Eastern nations are stagnant and jobs are scarce. The dictatorships and monarchies encourage haterd of the US and Israel as safety valves to vent the fury that would otherwise be directed at them. most folks in places like Pakistan and Egypt are uneducated and are vulnerable to BS because they don’t know enough about the outside world to question what they are taught.
There are no short-term fixes, but we have to do something to defuse the hatred that killed so many people at the WTC and the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.
Ok, so what we did in our best interests is not necessarily in their best interests and we have to realize that we share some of the responsibility for the backlash where we operated in our best interests but not those of the people we were affecting most.
And to play Devil’s Advocate, Osama bin Laden is acting in what he sees as his best interests and we hate him for it. Please don’t get all mushy about the 6000 people who died, it was a tragedy, I’m aware that it was a great tragedy, I know a lot of people directly affected in New York. However let’s look at this from a purely intellectual point of view and not emotionally at all. Innocent people have died on both sides and then both sides hate the other for it.
Something I am seeing from the western perspective, and please correct me if I’m wrong, is that we are blaming the people over there for overwhelming ignorance. While I do believe this is so, it seems that many would see the light and embrace western influence were they not ignorant. This smacks of colonialism to me. I have been reading the James Clavell books* (Shogun, Gai-Jin, etc…) and one of the interesting things that it illustrates in those books is the way both sides viewed the others as Barbarians. Now it seems like we are doing that again, kind of like the British Empire referring to the Japanese and Chinese as Barbarians and the need to “educate” those cultures to a more “modern” way of thinking.
I agree with this, but I would point out that it is not the “many Muslims” who are blowing us up; it is the radical fundamentalists whom we can only change in the very long term – ie, by raising a next generation of young men who have not been indoctrinated into radical fundamentalism, and hoping the present generation dies out. That will take, what? thirty years? I am not disagreeing with you, however.
I think we are doing this, and I think we have been pretty effective in doing this. Not 100% effective, but pretty effective. Some of them will never believe us anyway (see the above radical fundamentalists).
I agree, and it infuriates me, because these are of course our “allies” – the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia whose fundamentalist faith, combined with supreme exploitation of their own people, bred the terrorists they now half-heartedly “assist” us in hunting down.
I agree, but I’m not sure how we do it, as I have said.
Why? Why are we obligated to act in the best interests of citizens other than our own, when their own countries do not? Boys are raised in poverty and resentment in places like Yemen and Saudi Arabia, trained in schools to unthinkingly embrace fringe fundamentalism, and this is somehow our fault? I don’t think so. We are in Saudi Arabia because we were invited to be there and because the Saudi Royal family wants us there. We buy their oil because it is in our best interests, but they keep and fritter away the money (billions of dollars) instead of using it to improve the lot of their citizens. And this becomes our fault how? Every country pursues its own interests; it does not deserve to be attacked simply for doing so.
My sister was raped many years ago. It was a terrible experience, but she long-since got over it. My friend’s son was killed in the WTC. There’s no comparison between a single rape and the murder of 6000 people.
Interesting article in today’s NY Times from Latin-American economic expert Hernando De Soto. Since the article will disappear tomorrow, I’m quoting part of it here. The section before the cut is relevent to this thread. The remainder is included to explain De Sotos’s POV.
Again, this to me merely begs the question of how we could possibly get involved in the politics and economics of developing countries at the micro-economic/you should all be capitalist democracies level and not be guilty of the very type of global cultural imperialism and aggression we are already being accused of.
It’s a knotty problem. In the Taliban, we have a regime that oppresses its own people to the point that it is a human rights and humanitarian tragedy, but we have done nothing about it until their “guest” brought the war to us. What is our obligation to get involved in the affairs of other nations? What is our obligation to stay out of them?
Why? Why are we obligated to act in the best interests of citizens other than our own, when their own countries do not? Boys are raised in poverty and resentment in places like Yemen and Saudi Arabia, trained in schools to unthinkingly embrace fringe fundamentalism, and this is somehow our fault? I don’t think so. We are in Saudi Arabia because we were invited to be there and because the Saudi Royal family wants us there. We buy their oil because it is in our best interests, but they keep and fritter away the money (billions of dollars) instead of using it to improve the lot of their citizens. And this becomes our fault how? Every country pursues its own interests; it does not deserve to be attacked simply for doing so.
{/quote]
Well, you do raise a good point. However I think it HAS become in our interests to require a certain level of human rights from the people we do business with. We have the economic clout that they are not going to say “We don’t want your business.” if we started putting that sort of pressure on them. Don’t put pressure on their government to change itself completely, put pressure on the oppressive regimes that we support. While no, it’s not necessarily our responsibility, we are taking the flak for it, and I do think there is something that we can do about that flak. I think it is our responsibility to look out for their interests, because those people cannot. Or maybe we should put watchdog groups out on the companies that we DO do business with instead of the governments themselves. REQUIRE companies to pay their workers enough that they do not have to work massive workweeks or we will put higher tariffs on them with the money going to aid agencies such as unicef. Stop giving American companies carte blanche in third world nations with no one to answer to as it’s out of our jurisdiction. It IS in our jurisdiction because we are recieving the benefit here. Another reason to take responsibility is because we are operating in THEIR home not ours. When and if they come and work in our homeland, then you can guarantee that they are working in our best interests or we start to nail them.