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A Response to a Righty named Peters

 

Note: The shame of this piece is I have no idea whose quote I’m replying to, other than to say it’s someone named Peters.  I recall reading this somewhere, but I honestly have no clue.  My apologies to Mr. Peters for not being able to properly credit you here.

 

“ISLAMIC terrorism isn't a problem that can be isolated from its welcoming environment. By default, we have become the wardens of a strategic madhouse, the decayed domains of Middle Eastern Islam. The terror that we face isn't merely the product of a few misguided souls, but of a miscreant civilization. Of course, our enemies insist, as madmen will, that we, not they, are criminally insane.”

 

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While it is true that terrorists are—indeed—criminally insane, that statement and the article it came from are a perversion of history, and an incitement to the kind of naive thinking that allowed us ignore the warning signs of terrorism prior to 9/11.

 

There's no question that Islam has been taken hostage by a variety of extremists, and also no question that--at this point--the United States has become the symbolic target of what these extremists despise.  But it's a blatant oversimplification to suggest that American freedoms, or American power, are what these people are at war with.  Americans didn't simply become the “wardens of a strategic madhouse.”  9/11 didn’t just fall out of the sky.  We committed acts that were considered offensive by the cultures that breed terrorism, and it is to these acts—at least indirectly—that the terrorists responded. 

 

To most people, it’s unfathomable to suggest the United States had any role in breeding the terrorism that we now face.  Even as I write this I fear the reprisals—the simplistic, mindless accusation that I am not a true American, and that I—simply for believing what I do—am maligning the necessary defense of an innocent nation.  Such accusations are not completely without merit, because it is true that a vast majority of anti-war protesters are dangerously misinformed.  Mr. Peters is correct that our “gotcha” culture is turning against the war on terror and—more specifically—the war in Iraq because it has failed to be completed by the fall television season.  It’s a common problem in a media-saturated culture.  We want to make reality fit into a confined space—to reduce the trials and tribulations of life into twenty-six hour-long episodes.  We want to skip ahead in this history book we’re writing to find the last page, so we know when it will be over.  People can accept an endless war against terrorism, but they can’t except a single episode—like Iraq—failing to conform to the time constraints we’ve set for it.

 

But more distressing is the criminal oversimplification of our peril on both sides of the issue—among both those for and against the war on terror.  In the last two years, I’ve been equally horrified by the rhetoric on both sides.  This is not the time for bluster.  This is a time for deep contemplation and hard-fought understanding.  The decisions we make now will permanently affect the course of history.  We can’t screw this up.  We have to get it right.  We have to sit down and figure out what’s going on so that the decisions we make won’t have unforeseen repercussions.  Yet despite the fantastic demands of our time, the national debate on issues of Islam and terror have devolved back into their usual political nonsense: Pick a side, embolden your supporters with mindless rhetoric, and blatantly disregard the counter-arguments of those who oppose you.  Everybody’s doing this, and everybody will lose if we keep it up.

 

We have to stop being afraid of the big questions.  We can’t simply dismiss questions like “Did the United States do anything to provoke the 9/11 attacks?”  We can’t accuse Islam of being an insane and criminal culture and go merrily on our way.  9/11 was the price we paid for failing to understand the nature of Islamic terrorism.  Why are we making the same mistake again?  If you want to defeat an enemy, you have to understand it.  You have to figure out not just how it works by why it works.  Understanding what roll our actions have on the cultures that breed terrorism isn’t unpatriotic—it’s essential to our defense.  To dismiss Islamic culture as criminally insane is to ignore a vitally important aspect of the global landscape—it is, in essence, to enter the field of battle with blinders on.

 

As I said, there are some serious problems within Islamic cultures, and no matter our roll in global affairs, no one deserves to die in a terrorist attack.  No one deserved 9/11.  It was not and could never be a justifiable act, even if it were found that the United States had entirely provoked it on its own (which it did not).  But these facts should not allow us to ignore the depth of our roll, and we cannot use them to summarily reject any suggestion that our course in Iraq or elsewhere is misguided.  Absolutism is the death of knowledge.  Societies that blindly follow the rhetoric of their leaders forfeit their right to correct courses of action before they bring about disaster.

 

Our post 9/11 culture has devolved into two camps—those who blindly follow the flag-waving, bomb dropping rhetoric of the right, and those who side with the ignorant pacifism of the left.  These are two political steamrollers on a collision course with disaster.  I find it impossible to trust either side with the long-term security of our nation, because neither camp has shown a willingness to fully examine and understand the situation.  It is not for me—alone—to say what is right, but it’s impossible for me to believe that either of the two perspectives on the table can—in and of themselves—be the answer.  Life just isn’t that simple.

 

Like it or not, we have to embrace history.  Prior to 1993, there were no terrorist attacks on American targets within the United States.  If it is, indeed, a criminally insane Islam that is targeting us merely out of a symbolic hatred, then why were we not periodically attacked in the decades prior to 1993?  America has been a global economic power for decades.  We’ve been a beacon of freedom for more than a century.  What changed?  Two things jump out: The 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the globalization of the economy.

 

Terrorists like Osama bin Laden saw the Gulf War as an imperialistic act, it’s goal to secure the oil reserves in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, nations with which we have friendly relations.  Few patriots see the war in this context, but it’s interesting to note that early on in the run-up to that war, the first Bush Administration actually came out and said that protecting Kuwait’s oil was vital to the success of our economy.  Either way, it’s clear that bin Laden’s targeting of the United States was not by default, but in response to acts committed by the United States.  Similarly, the overall evolution of anti-American and anti-globalization sentiment among Islamic people is directly related to American acts.  We can’t simply dismiss the significance of the history.  When Iraq was at war with Iran, we supported Saddam Hussein.  When Afghanistan was at war with Soviet Union, we supported bin Laden.  America has been dipping its hands into the Middle East for decades, and rightly or wrongly, we’ve upset a great number of people in the process.  Is it possible that these acts had something to do with 9/11?  Is it possible that the globalization of our economy—which ultimately aims to put a McDonalds on every street corner in every city of every nation on the planet—at least partially responsible for what befell us?

 

This is not anti-American, pacifist folly.  This is a serious question that needs to be properly answered not just by President Bush, but by every single American.  If, in fact, there is a link between our actions and the actions of the terrorists, then we need to fully understand what that link is before we can properly respond.  But at the moment, we don’t seem interested in fully understanding much of anything.  We want quick, simple answers: Drop bombs, round up the terrorists, and move on.  But to blindly ignore those who wonder if we are creating more terrorists than we are killing is to jeopardize our long-term security. 

 

I don’t know all the answers, but it may be possible that the simplest way to pacify terrorism is to leave the cultures that breed it alone.  It might be that what Islamic people really want is not the destruction of America, but for America to leave them be.  Of course by itself this is no great answer.  Even if our involvement in Middle East affairs is part of the problem, completely ignoring that region of the world is not likely a solution either.  But if the hatred is not simply against America, but more complexly against the influence of American might on the cultures from which terrorism arises, then we are remiss to dismiss the notion that applying even more American might to the situation will solve the problem.

 

But I fear we will err in our response, one way or the other.  What we want is simplicity and rhetoric, and that’s what we get.  It’s too simple to say that Iraq was a threat to the United States.  It’s too simple to dismiss our inability to find the weapons we sought to destroy, or to assume a link between Iraq and 9/11 on the basis of a few grainy satellite photos.  It’s a real, true, and important question: Were the weapons there or not?  The fact that some people in this country are jumping the gun on concluding that there weren’t does not invalidate the importance of the question. 

 

But by the same token, it’s too simple to assume that there were no weapons, and that Iraq was not a threat, and that the only solution to our unjust war is to pack up and leave.  Whether ultimately just or unjust, we took the action, and we’re now morally and ethically responsible for the consequences.  Iraq might be a mess, but anyone who supports washing our hands of it is advocating the kind of behavior that got us in trouble in the first place.

 

Whatever the answers, we need to do a better job of finding them.  But I fear that as the Presidential election heats up, were going to see a proliferation of advocates on both sides who support incomplete, oversimplified perspectives based on selected history and a few facts, some of which will have a limited basis in reality.  It’s impossible to neatly wrap these issues up with a bow, but don’t think people won’t try. 

 

“Despair,” writes Peters, “is the preferred narcotic of the intellectual classes. The rest of us must stand up for what we know in our hearts and souls to be right and true.”  But it is not despair, but questions, that are the basis of intellect.  To know anything, we must first accept that we know nothing.  No one disputes how little we knew prior to 9/11.  To assume now—only two years later—that we know what is “right and true” is to ignore sense.  As Montaigne said, “Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.” 

 

As much as we want to believe that “our efforts in this great, global war have been admirably successful,” we need to do stop accepting statements like that at face value.  It’s just not that easy.  When we saw that dust cloud rise over lower Manhattan, we should’ve known it wasn’t that easy.

 

“There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.”  -William James

 

 

 

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