The "blame America first" line of reasoning in the war on terror amazes me. In fact, blaming America at all seems ridiculous. Are there things we could have done before 9/11 that might have made the attack less effective, or not happen at all? Probably. Could we have handled things differently over the past few decades and not armed and trained our current enemies? Sure. But does that make it our fault? Do we blame a rape victim because she went to a party and drank the punch? Of course not. Just because you don't do everything that you can to prevent something does not mean you are to blame for it. Maybe a girl put herself in a position of vulnerability, but the rapist is still the one responsible for the crime, not the girl. America could and probably should have done things differently in dealing with the Middle East in the past, but that doesn't mean its our fault that we were attacked.
The thing that is most outrageous to me is everyone who is calling for diplomacy to end terrorism. Now, I'm not a war advocate. I hate war. I wish there was never an occasion where one human kills another for the rest of time. But I do believe that sometimes its necessary. However, lets put Iraq aside and just talk about the terrorists in general. I think this is justified because plenty of people were talking about diplomacy right after 9/11 before Iraq even came up. I will concede that diplomacy might have gotten us somewhere more in Iraq, although I don't think it would really have helped much. But anyway, lets put it aside. So, these terrorists, the line goes, have legitimate political and social grievances against the West and that's why they attack us, therefore if we listen to their grievances we can solve the problem peacefully. There are ways to go about peacefully voicing grievances. Bombing anything is not one of those ways. Killing civilians is even less one of those ways. The Taliban was a recognized government. If they had real diplomatic issues they wanted to solve they could have brought them before the UN. They could have approached the US diplomatically. But instead they blew stuff up.
Its no secret that the US and France don't always see eye to eye. Lets say that we want them to change their trade policy because we feel that it is unfair to us. So, we drop a MOAB on Chirac's house. Or order some A-10's to do a strafing run on downtown Paris. Or we nuke the Eiffel Tower. Whatever. I don't think that anyone in France would so much as blink an eye before demanding that Germany declare war on the US. And the UN would back them. When it came out that the reason we bombed them was because we had diplomatic grievances, do you think that the UN would say "Now France, you need to apologize. This attack was really your fault. You should have seen this coming and done something about it. Call off this silly war and give the US what they want. Your treatment of the US in the past years has really been shoddy, so you really can't expect anything more. You have no one to blame for this attack other than yourselves." I don't think so (although after a week of fighting France would probably cede us Alsace and Lorraine and give us another big statue and explain that they were wrong to begin with. 3 months later they would brag about how clever French diplomats tricked the ignorant US warmongers into ending the war). The idea that France should accept blame and deal with us diplomatically would be lunacy. And in that case we might actually stop fighting if they gave us what we want, the people we are fighting will not stop when we give them some diplomatic gifts.
This idea that we are dealing with any issue that can be fixed diplomatically, other than diplomatically putting ayatollahs in charge of the entire west, is ignorant and arrogant. It underestimates the people we are fighting. It assumes they are some backwards people that have no way to voice their grievances than to blow stuff up. That just isn't true. Many of these people are educated and well-off -- especially the Saudis who are involved. They have access to diplomatic channels that would allow peaceful resolution to their problems. The Wall Street Journal has a great article today entitled "The Educated Terrorist." I would link it, but you have to subscribe to read it. The bottom line is that we are dealing with intelligent people who have the means to communicate with us peacefully if they wanted to. The fact that they are instead blowing stuff up and killing people speaks volumes to their true intentions. We would be totally justified going to war just because they bombed us first. But I'm all for taking the moral high ground and seeking a peaceful resolution even though they attacked us. But there is no peaceful resolution to be had. These people have access to diplomatic communication with us and have made very little, and what they have made is not something we can really work with ("Pull all your assets out of the Middle East, even though the legitimate governments there aren't asking you to leave" etc). Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason to believe that their violence will stop even if their outrages demands are met, and every reason, from their rhetoric to their actions to their history, to believe that they will not. And even if the war were to end today, those responsible for killing so many civilians ought to be brought to justice. The bottom line is they attacked us when they could have communicated through peaceful channels, so it is ridiculous to say that it is our fault.
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3 comments:
StandingOutInTheCold:
“Do we blame a rape victim because she went to a party and drank the punch? Of course not.”
That is very true, except that it is totally irrelevant. You cannot be serious that you think that the U.S. is a pretty 110lb. girl who was taken advantage of! A better analogy would be that the 260lb. hard ass leader of a gang who continually encouraged other, smaller gang members to kill people was shot by one of them after years of tricking and betraying them. To cast us as helpless or naive and our enemy as heinous criminals is a complete mischaracterization of the relationship. Does that justify violent terrorism? No. Does it make a difference in terms of how we understand and deal with terrorism? Yes.
“The Taliban was a recognized government. If they had real diplomatic issues they wanted to solve they could have brought them before the UN. They could have approached the US diplomatically. But instead they blew stuff up.”
Well, I am not sure what you mean when you say the “blew stuff up,” but that certainly doesn’t include the World Trade Center. Look, we need to make a distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda as well as the grievances that the Taliban had against the United States and the grievances that Al Qaeda has against the United States. While the Taliban was sympathetic to Al Qaeda, it was not the same thing. Neither were its grievances. All of that presumes, by the way that, that non-Western governments are bound to accept Western diplomacy or Western diplomatic fora. Does that justify violent terrorism? No. Does it require us to be very careful about the connections we assume? Yes.
“Its no secret that the US and France don't always see eye to eye.”
Osama Bin Laden doesn’t hate America because he and we “don’t always see eye to eye,” but because we have manipulated the course and fate of his society beyond repair for our own ends with complete disregard for theirs for 50 years. This is not an issue of steel tariffs; this is about orchestrated cultural annihilation by the West. Does that justify violent terrorism? No. Is that different than our slightly cool relationship with France? Yes.
“...the people we are fighting will not stop when we give them some diplomatic gifts.”
Who says? There is absolutely no way of knowing that. You are either assuming that they are terrorists because they like killing Westerners for the hell of it or that their ambition is to conquer not defend. I don’t know what to tell you except that they aren’t anywhere near conquering anything. If it gets to that point, we will reassess, but for now, there is absolutely no way of knowing. To write diplomacy off because we think we know something about our adversary that we don’t is dangerous. Does that justify violent terrorism? No. Does it change our perception of Al Qaeda and our strategy to defeat them? Yes.
“The bottom line is that we are dealing with intelligent people who have the means to communicate with us peacefully if they wanted to. The fact that they are instead blowing stuff up and killing people speaks volumes to their true intentions.”
The same could be said of the United States. Apart from that, however, is a point that you have not proven: why should they “communicate with us peacefully?” If we aren’t the naive rape victim, but the hardened manipulator, why in God’s name would anyone submit to diplomatic solutions (especially those that are completely counter-cultural for them and on our terms)? It doesn’t make sense. Does that justify violent terrorism? No. Does it matter in terms of how we view our current conflict and the means to win? Yes.
Part II:
Now, I say all that, not because I necessarily disagree with you, but to make the point that this is far more complicated than your post suggested. I agree that we (the United States) are not morally culpable for the terrorism we and our allies have experienced. I also think, however, that we are morally culpable for our repeated and destructive interventions in the Arab/Muslim world. I do not think that those interventions were simply careless of us, but that they were morally reprobate actions. When we write about this conflict, we have to be very careful all around. We have to understand that the water is very murky and that the bottom of the pond is nearly completely obscured. That, in turns, requires caution and, above all else, supreme clarity when observing what is visible.
I didn't mean to imply that the US is as nieve as a girl at a party may be, but rather to establish the principle that just because you did stupid things that make an attack more likely or possible does not mean that you share the blame. It may make people less sympathetic to your case, but blame still lies with the offending party.
By "blew stuff up" I was referencing attacks like that on the USS Cole and other pre-9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda when it was sponsored by the Taliban.
With the France analogy again I did not mean for it to be a direct parallel but rather to establish the principle that attacking someone to voice grivances is unacceptable, especially when other means of communication are available.
My assumption that the attacks will not end when appeased comes from the rhetoric of the leaders and especially operatives in the attacks. They say they fight for Jihad against the west, the establishment of a new muslim empire in Europe, and/or revenge for past transgressions by the west. None of those seems like something that is going to be solved by diplomacy. Unless you can convince the leaders that they shouldn't want to kill us anymore, and then they can convince their followers that this whole "kill 'em all" thing is called off, its not going to end. So, maybe we could convince OBL and others that they shouldn't hate us by giving them some things they ask for, but it doesn't seem likely or reasonable based on what the common man among the enemy says they are fighting for.
Other countries in the region have used diplomatic means to gain standing and political/social/economic benefits from the US. Pakistan, Lebanon, and Libya stand out as a few. Egypt and Sudan to a lesser extent. I agree that they are not exactly on equal footing with us in negotiations, but they are still furthering their interests and building better relationships with the West without killing people.
All that said, I agree that there is far too much history and culture that none of us understands to say that this is a simple problem. The situation is incredibly complex. But no matter how complicated, one still cannot assert that we are to blame for 9/11 or any other terrorist attacks. And that is my main point here. I do agree with you though -- working with caution to rectify past wrongs in the region should be a primary concern of ours, even greater than the war. If we don't then we'll just have more wars to fight when this one is over.
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