By Anonymous
Los Angeles Times
July 2, 2004
On the one hand, Americans are told daily by the media, newsmakers and
government officials that the West is winning the war that began on Sept. 11;
that we've taken the fight to the terrorists and rolled back their networks, and
that the majority of Al Qaeda's leadership has been captured or killed.
But if you listen closely, you can also hear sharp disconnects. The
directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI warn periodically that
Al Qaeda is as dangerous now as it was in 2001. And, if you dig even deeper
into the newspaper, you'll find stories claiming these gentlemen are incorrect
— Al Qaeda actually is more dangerous today than it was before what
Osama bin Laden calls the "blessed attacks" of 11 September.
Periodically, the Department of Homeland Security has raised the threat-warning
indicator from yellow to amber — or is it amber to yellow? — on a
tacky traffic-light-looking device. Adjusting the streetlight-of-death is meant
to portray the DHS jud gment that the threat to U.S. interests from someone,
somewhere in the world has increased. The warnings are then complemented by
advice urging citizens to quickly buy a "disaster supply kit," which includes
duct tape and plastic sheeting to make their homes airtight, WMD-proof
fortresses.
To say the least, Americans are getting mixed and
confusing messages from their leaders. Are we headed toward a victory parade,
Cold War bomb shelters or simply straight to the graveyard? Do repeated
warnings of an Al Qaeda-produced disaster mark a genuine threat, or have federal
bureaucrats learned to cover their butts so they will not have another
"failed-to-warn" à la 9/11? Are Bin Laden-related dangers downplayed to
nurse the on-again, off-again economic recovery and the presidential prospects
of both U.S. political parties? Are we to reach for champagne or a
rosary?
I believe the answer lies in the way we see and interpret people
and events outside North America, which is heavily clouded by arroga nce and
self-centeredness amounting to what I called "imperial hubris." This is not a
genetic flaw in Americans that has been present since the Pilgrims splashed
ashore at Plymouth Rock, but rather a way of thinking that America's elites
acquired after the end of World War II. It is a process of interpreting the
world so it makes sense to us, a process yielding a world in which few events
seem alien because we Americanize their components.
"When confronted by
a culturally exotic enemy," Lee Harris explained in the August/September 2002
issue of Policy Review, "our first instinct is to understand such conduct in
terms that are familiar to us." Thus, for example, Bin Laden is a criminal
whose activities are fueled by money — as opposed to a devout Muslim
soldier fueled by faith — because Americans know how to beat well-heeled
gangsters. We assume, moreover, that Bin Laden and the Islamists hate us for
our liberty, freedoms and democracy, not because they and many millions of
Muslims believe U.S. foreign policy is an attack on Islam or because the U.S.
military now has a more-than-10-year record of smashing people and things in the
Islamic world.
Our political leaders contend that America's astoundingly
low approval ratings in polls taken in major Islamic countries do not reflect
our unquestioning support of Israel and, as such, its "targeted killings" and
other lethal high jinks. Nor, they say, are the ratings due to our relentless
support for tyrannical and corrupt Islamic regimes that are systematically
dissipating the Islamic world's energy resources for family fun and profit,
while imprisoning, torturing and executing domestic dissenters. The low
approval ratings, we are confident, have nothing to do with our refusal to apply
nuclear nonproliferation rules with anything close to an even hand; a situation
that makes Israeli and Indian nuclear weapons acceptable — each is a
democracy, after all — while Pakistan's weapons are intolerable, perhaps
because they are held by Mus lims. And surely, if we can just drive and manage
an Islamic Reformation that makes Muslims secular like us, all this unfortunate
talk about religious war will end.
Thus, because of the pervasive
imperial hubris that dominates the minds of our political, academic, social,
media and military elites, America is able and content to believe that the
Islamic world fails to understand the benign intent of U.S. foreign policy.
This mind-set holds that America does not need to reevaluate its policies, let
alone change them; it merely needs to better explain the wholesomeness of its
views and the purity of its purposes to the uncomprehending Islamic world. What
could be more American in the early 21st century, after all, then to re-identify
a casus belli as a communication problem, and then call on Madison Avenue
to package and hawk a remedy called
"Democracy-Secularism-and-Capitalism-are-good-for-Muslims" to an Islamic world
that has, to date, violently refused to purchase?
This is meant neith er
to ridicule my countrymen's intellectual abilities nor to be supportive of Bin
Laden and his interpretation of Islam, but to say that most of the world outside
North America is not, does not want to be and probably will never be just like
us. And let me be clear, I am not talking about America's political freedoms,
personal liberties or respect for education and human rights; the same polls
showing that Muslims hate Americans for their actions find broad support for the
ideas and beliefs that make us who we are. Pew Trust polls in 2003, for
instance, found that although Muslims believed it "necessary to believe in God
to be moral," they also favored what were termed "democratic values."
I'm saying that when Americans — the leaders and the led — process
incoming information to make it intelligible in American terms, many not only
fail to clearly understand what is going on abroad but, more ominous, fail to
accurately gauge the severity of the danger that these foreign events,
organizati ons, attitudes and personalities pose to U.S. national security and
our society's welfare and lifestyle.
In order to make the decisions
and allocate the resources needed to ensure U.S. security, Americans must
understand the world as it is, not as we want — or worse yet, hope —
it will be.
I have long experience analyzing and attacking Bin Laden
and Islamists. I believe they are a growing threat to the United States —
there is no greater threat — and that we are being defeated not because
the evidence of the threat is unavailable but because we refuse to accept it at
face value and without Americanizing the data. This must change, or our way of
life will be unrecognizably altered.
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