By Siraj Islam Mufti, Ph.D.
23/10/2001
When New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani returned a sincere donation by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, it showed that U.S. policymakers are fixated on preconceived notions and cannot tolerate listening to differing views. Earlier, when the Mayor took the Prince on a tour of Ground Zero, the Prince expressed his condemnation towards the terrorist attacks.
But, then, along with the donation, he stated: "However, at times like this, we must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack. I believe the government of the United States of America should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance towards the Palestinian cause. "Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek."
After the Mayor returned the donation, in an interview with Newsweek magazine, Al-Waleed repeated, "I recommend to the United States, as a friend, that it address the roots of the problem" It is going to happen again, God forbid, if we don't look at the roots of the problem. There is frustration because America is not acting well toward the Middle East. This blind backing of Israel is not right." Many Americans in the streets I talked to, echo this feeling.
Consider the following. According to some figures, 74% of the seven million American Muslims voted for George W. Bush, after the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC-PAC), a coalition of various American Muslim organizations, endorsed his candidacy. The percentage of the Muslim vote was even higher in Florida, which was crucial for Bush winning the presidency. Then on his election, the American Muslim Council (AMC), a national advocacy association, and the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), a Muslim/non-Muslim think tank, congratulated Bush in a letter, along with some major recommendations on U.S. foreign policy.
These policy recommendations were evolved by a panel of 25 Muslim and non-Muslim experts on the question of how relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world could be advanced. The Muslim world is important because it occupies a large geographic area composed of more than 55 countries, including such strategically important countries as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Islam is the second largest religion in the world and it is estimated that by 2010, it will become the second largest in America. Worldwide, there are 1.2 billion Muslims.
The letter succinctly and forthrightly described that while Muslims world over want to benefit from the technological and scientific achievements of the 20th century, they do not want to give up their own heritage and religion. It then emphatically stated that, "unfortunately, the Muslim peoples are increasingly alienated from their own governments, many of which are highly ineffective, corrupt, and authoritarian." And further that "if the Muslim World is to enter the 21st century with self-confidence, peace, and stability, governments in the Muslim world must find new modes of politics that operate on popular participation and consultation rather than coercion."
It then pointed out the cause of Muslims' problem with the U.S. as follows: "The problem is that in much of the Middle East, the U.S. is perceived as particularly close to and protective of some of the least democratic countries in the world." And then suggested a solution for it. "The U.S. should not allow authoritarian regimes to justify their repression of all opposition movements as a defense against 'fundamentalism' or 'extremism.'" Because "it is precisely dictatorship and authoritarianism that fuels extremism and radical change."
It warned that the change in the current state of affairs in Muslim countries is bound to come. But "it is in our American interest, as well as in the interest of peace and stability in the world, that this change be gradual rather than abrupt, peaceful rather than violent." And that "to achieve this, the U.S. needs to be a persistent advocate of political and economic liberalization, including a greater allowance for civil society." This, because "there is only one long-term solution: making governments more accountable to their citizens through the rule of law, guaranteed freedoms, and free and fair elections."
The letter then goes on to say that the building of good relations requires nurturing more respect towards Islam and Muslim civilization and cultures. U.S. policymakers must be better informed about it, as it is, and will remain, a powerful force in the 21st century. And that, therefore, U.S. policy towards the Middle East and the Muslim world needs to be reorganized in order to bring greater understanding and a realistic appraisal from a diversity of viewpoints. For this reason also, a civilizational dialog with the Muslim people needs to be taken up and encouraged.
Among its specific recommendations were Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, an end to illegal settlements, a shared Jerusalem and a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. In addition, a new policy towards Iraq, which meets U.S. security needs, but lifts sanctions that have a devastating effect on its people, must be implemented. Also, help in resolving the future of Kashmir through negotiations between India, Pakistan and Kashmiri leaders, and in stabilizing the territorial integrity of Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan. Needless to say, these recommendations were given little consideration.
Big capital and special interest groups guide U.S. policies at home while, momentarily, a strong Jewish lobby, which also runs the media and has aligned itself with U.S. hegemonistic goals, controls its foreign policies. The recommendations were an attempt to change this in favor of Muslims in the larger interest of the U.S. - not an easy task in view of entrenched competing antagonistic forces.
Now there is some realization that there is perhaps something wrong with current U.S. policy. Some faint stirring of this realization is developing in the news media. Whether it is just a passing phase or would lead to substantial readjustment is yet to be seen. For example, in its October 15th issue, Newsweek recounts the dismal state of regimes in the Middle East, pointing out that rather than adjusting to their failures, they "calcified into dictatorships," squashing dissent and strangling civil society and are the world's most oppressive. They are "tired, corrupt kleptocracies, deeply unpopular and thoroughly illegitimate."
Further, that "while the Arab world has long felt betrayed by Europe's colonial powers, its disillusionment with America begins most importantly with the creation of Israel in 1948. "The anger deepened in the wake of America's support for Israel during the wars of 1967 and 1973, and ever since in its relations with the Palestinians. The daily exposure to Israel's iron-fisted rule over the occupied territories has turned into the great cause of the Arab - and indeed the broader Islamic - world." And that U.S. foreign policy is cynically "geared to America's oil interests, supporting thugs and tyrants without any hesitation."
In its October 22nd issue, letters from abroad (mostly from Europeans) are even more revealing, carrying the heading that overseas readers don't always see eye to eye with Americans concerning the events of September 11. They talk of biased U.S. support of Israel, the humiliation and frustration of the Palestinians and a feeling of discrimination by the Muslim world, and that there is no way to halt terrorism unless its causes are tackled, that "many Americans are ignorant about what policies their government pursues outside of their country", and that "the show of brute military force will ultimately achieve little more than the restoration of America's hurt pride."
Although the magazine highlights the last two sentences even more than I have, it fails to admit that it is American media (including Newsweek) that is responsible for Americans' ignorance - and it becomes so very obvious to those who travel abroad with open minds.
John Esposito, Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, in an article on IslamOnline states: "As we puzzle about 'Why do they hate us?' it is time to also realize that they see more than we see. Anti-Americanism is driven not by blind hatred or religious zealotry of extremists, but also by a frustration and anger with U.S. policy among the mainstream in the Muslim world." And that "the American administration's soft-glove treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's heavy-handed policies in the West Bank and Gaza and America's record of relatively uncritical U.S. support of Israel - witnessed in its levels of aid to Israel, the U.S. voting record in the United Nations, and official statements by the administration and State Department - have proved to be a lightening rod."
It is so very evident that while the West espouses self-determination, democracy and human rights, it follows a hypocritical double standard in its policies, such as seen in the impact of sanctions on more than a million Iraqi children and the permissive neglect of Russian brutalities on Chechens and Indian army atrocities on Kashmiris. And now, while all - Muslims and non-Muslims alike - agree that there is a need to bring the terrorists to account for the attacks on September 11, the evidence that establishes direct involvement must balance it without jeopardizing the lives of innocents in Afghanistan.
Otherwise, it may be seen as another example of a superpower placing itself above international law to humiliate yet another Muslim country, poor and starving now, but that once stood by it to bring down the Soviet empire. If it remains as such, U.S. foreign policy will continue to work to generate more radicalism and give rise to more extremist elements. Therefore, it is critical to revamp and reconstruct U.S. foreign policy that is based not on myth and/or colonial enslavement, but on realism, mutual respect and an understanding of Muslims, who constitute a large, strategically important and resource-rich segment of the world's population, whom are bound to influence the future course of world events.(IslamOnline)
Giuliani: Cutting Off His Nose to Spite His Face
By Dilshad D. Ali
17/10/2001
A person can do a world of good; but when he or she does something wrong, it is upon that which people invariably tend to dwell. It's an age-old adage that rings true today, especially with the case of New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Here is a man with a complicated political psyche forced to handle a very difficult and sad situation forever etched in the minds of Americans.
In the past month, Giuliani has gained a lot of support and respect because of his dignified and empathetic management of the terrible tragedy that fell upon New York. Some would even say he transcended his old reputation as the "mean" and "visceral" mayor of New York.
But just as New York was getting used to the "new" Giuliani, he took a big, deliberate step back into the "old" Giuliani with one swift, decisive and foolishly impulsive move.
Last week, Giuliani took Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud - a nephew of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and one of the world's richest men - on a tour of Ground Zero where the World Trade Center once stood. After the somber tour, Talal gave the mayor a check for $10 million for the Twin Towers Fund, a charity set up by Giuliani for the families of uniformed workers who died in the attacks, some of whom are Muslim and/or Arab.
The Mayor initially accepted the check with a letter from the Prince expressing his sorrow and condemning the terrorist attacks. The prince emphasized "Saudi Arabia's strong stance against these tragic and horrendous acts."
Later Giuliani read a press statement (attributed to the prince) that stated, in part, that the United States should reexamine its foreign policy:
However, at times like this one, we must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack. I believe the government of the United States of America should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance towards the Palestinian cause. … Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek.
Because of unabashed sentiments that are shared by so many other people - Muslims and non-Muslims the world over - Giuliani rejected the check, a check that surely could have done a world of good for the families of WTC victims.
Is this not a country that touts the freedom of speech? Are we not entitled to our own thoughts and opinions? Are foreign dignitaries not allowed to offer some advice and express opinions to our country? The answer to these questions, based on Giuliani's reaction, seems to be "no".
In addition to rejecting the check, Giuliani issued a response to the prince's statement. In it he said, "There is no moral equivalent for this act. The people who did it lost any right to ask for justification for it when they slaughtered 4,000 or 5,000 innocent people. And to suggest that there's a justification for it only invites this happening in the future. It is highly irresponsible and very, very dangerous."
Since when did a statement expressing an opinion on U.S. foreign policies become validation for the attack? When did "addressing some issues" turn into justification? Talk about twisting words around.
I know that most Americans don't want to think about the issues that most likely led to the attacks. They want to stay focused on the anger and rage born from the horrible deaths of some 5000 innocent civilians. They want revenge, justice, and compensation.
I'm an American also, as well as a New Yorker. I understand those feelings - I feel them myself. Those who committed these horrendous attacks should be held responsible.
But we can't live in a fishbowl. We can't keep thinking that the enemies of America are the "enemies of freedom," as stated by President George W. Bush in his September 20th address to the U.S. Congress. "Why do the terrorists hate us?" Bush asked. "They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other," he answered himself.
Are you kidding me? It isn't America's freedoms "they" - whoever "they" are - hate. We have to examine the events and feelings, which have been snowballing for years, that led up to this living nightmare - including reconsidering America's immense support of Israel. And to reject help from anyone who suggests we do just that is plain wrong. I'm not alone in saying this.
In a letter to the New York Times, Donald W. Fowle wrote, "The mayor's impulsive act sent a message to all Arabs not to bother trying to help the city, and to the Bush administration not to re-examine its foreign policy. … Shouldn't we constantly re-examine our foreign policy? Any responsible government does the latter."
Rich McDonough from Lexington, Massachusetts, wrote to the New York Post saying that to return the check was "another display of American arrogance and a complete failure to recognize why some Arab states hate America."
Why doesn't Giuliani get this? Examining issues and events that may have led to the attacks is not an "endorsement of the terrorists' principles," as stated by Chip Joyce in another letter to the New York Times. It's just too bad and too sad that New York's mayor doesn't understand this simple fact. Those families whose loved ones perished in the WTC attacks surely could have used the $10 million.
Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud said later that Jewish pressure caused Giuliani to reject his donation. We may never know all the private pressures placed on the mayor to make his decision.
It is interesting to note, however, that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon praised Giuliani for rejecting the check. But despite the snub, the prince still commended Giuliani, saying he did a "spectacular job" handling the aftermath of the attacks. And I agree. But Giuliani is not perfect. That seems to be quite obvious now. (IslamOnline)
Afghanistan bombing still not justified
By Vincent Browne
There is so much else to write about - the failure in Northern Ireland to resolve conclusively by far the most important issue: policing; the deepening poverty here and the widening of the inequality gap; the continuing nonsense of the Garda obsession with cannabis and their "triumph" with the "biggest ever haul"; the disappearance of the Celtic Tiger almost overnight; the impact of the recession on the media.
But how can we divert our horrified gaze from the awfulness of what is going on in Afghanistan? After nearly 24 days of bombardment you wonder what is there left to bomb in Afghanistan? They are dropping hundreds of bombs per day - say 300, each of about 2,000 lbs: that's 600 times per day what was detonated at Omagh and for each of 24 days. We know now they have twice bombed the warehouse of the International Committee of the Red Cross, they have bombed a mosque, a hospital, a village, wiped out a family: that's what is admitted. The Taliban says there were more than 1,000 civilians killed in the first week. We can discount that but are we to believe that only a handful have been killed by these "surgical strikes", when we know the strikes are not "surgical" and we know the explosives used are anything but "surgical"? I am referring particularly to the thousands of "cluster bombs" that are being dropped every day.
These bombs were used extensively in the 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia two years ago. A House of Commons Defence Committee report, Lessons of Kosovo, commented on these cluster bombs: "Each of these weapons contains 147 bomblets, primarily firing a plasma-jet able to penetrate armour but having a secondary anti-personnel effect with over 2,000 sharpened pieces cutting into the casing." The report states that between eight and 12 per cent of these cluster bombs (i.e., between 42 and 64 bombs), each with 147 bomblets and 2,000 shrapnel pieces, failed to explode and therefore are lying around on the ground in Yugoslavia. It quotes a report which states that only 31 per cent of these cluster bombs hit their targets and a further 29 per cent cannot be accounted for.
So we can believe that about 70 per cent of these bombs, each with 147 bomblets and 2,000 shrapnel pieces, do not hit their target and that thousands of them have been dropped in the last 24 days? How could it be that thousands of civilians have not been maimed by these bombs? How could it be, even if the bombing stopped now, that thousands more civilians will not be maimed or killed by the unexploded "bomblets" that will lie around on the ground for years to come?
One of my correspondents (having got 330 emails after my column of two weeks ago I got over 400 to last week's column, this time most of them supportive of the anti-war stance) has challenged me on what my attitude would be if a loyalist gang had hijacked three Aer Lingus aircraft and flown them into office areas of Dublin, killing 5,000 people, and if this gang was harboured by a loyalist government in Northern Ireland, that the gang had gone on to call for a holy war to kill all Catholics, including all Catholics in the South, what would be my attitude then? Would I favour the kind of response to the Northern state that the Americans are making to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, assuming that the Dublin government had the military prowess to respond?
The answer is: I do not know how the emotional trauma of that event would colour my judgment but how should I respond? I believe it would be wrong to bomb Northern Ireland in the way that the Americans and British are bombing Afghanistan. I believe it would be wrong to use cluster bombs or any other kind of indiscriminate weapons. I believe that before anything was done militarily every effort should be made to secure the extradition of the culprits either to the Republic or to an agreed third state. And I think that would be the right response even if my own children were victims of the attack on Dublin (although, of course, in that event my judgment would be entirely overwhelmed by the catastrophe that had occurred).
But what is going on in Afghanistan is worse than just the killing and the maiming caused by the bombing. There is also the vast humanitarian crisis. More than six million people were "causing concern" to the aid agencies prior to the commencement of the bombing - "causing concern" is a nice way of saying on the verge of death from starvation. Surely thousands of these have died by the withdrawal of aid since October 7th, when the bombing started? And, as I have written before, what is the point of it all? John Ashcroft, the US Attorney General, said last week the attack on America of September 11th was planned in Germany. Most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and a few from Egypt. Some of these may have been in Afghanistan at some time, but so what? They could not have learnt any skills in Afghanistan relevant to what they did on September 11th. Their fundamentalism was engendered not in Afghanistan but in Saudi Arabia (the major centre for that kind of fanaticism but that can't be mentioned because of the oil) or Egypt or Germany.
Postscript: Those of us who regarded decommissioning as an irrelevance can hardly now claim it is historic. More importantly, the real issue is, and always was, policing and the focus on bringing republicans into a consensus on that seems to have been lost. That is far more important that decommissioning or the restoration of the Executive.
vbrowne@irish-times.
The New York Review of Books
November 15, 2001
America and the War
By Tony Judt
America is solidly organized egoism, it is evil made systematic and regular." Osama bin Laden? No, Pierre Buchez, a French socialist writing in the 1840s. Anti-Americanism goes back a long way. It was not born of American global domination-when Edmond de Goncourt wanted to express his horror at Baron Haussmann's new Paris he observed that "it makes me think of some American Babylon of the future." That was in 1860, when the US was still at best a regional power. Much has changed since then, though America is still seen in many quarters as the embodiment of rootlessness, disruption, cosmopolitanism: modernity, in short. But if the US is to make sense of its place in the world, if the present war is to have any beneficial long-term outcome, Americans need to make a sustained effort to understand what it is that so many millions of foreigners claim to dislike and fear about their country.
In the present mood, this subject elicits little serious discussion. Some on the left, whether in the US or Europe, have slipped comfortably back into familiar routines: peace vigils, teach-ins, and finger-pointing. The real problem, it sometimes seems, is not terrorists but the American government. "They" (George Bush, the Establishment) will use the crisis as an excuse to trample on our civil liberties-for Terry Eagleton, writing in the London Review of Books, the US is already "a one-party state." And as for the horror of September 11, some just can't help feeling that, as the historian Mary Beard put it, "however tactfully you dress it up, the United States had it coming." Professor Thomas Laqueur of Berkeley writes that "on the scale of evil the New York bombings are sadly not so extraordinary and our government has been responsible for many that are probably worse." Frederic Jameson of Duke University argues that "the Americans created bin Laden during the Cold War.... This is therefore a textbook example of dialectical reversal." We devised the world's problems-imperialism, exploitation, globalization-so we shouldn't be surprised at the backlash.[1]
There is an ugly hubris in these lofty self-condemnations—as though all the world's crimes and sins were just another American invention. In this view, if the US were not running amok in the world, projecting power and cruise missiles into Panama, the Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we would not now be suffering such terrible retribution. But American intervention in Kosovo, at least, saved the local (mostly Muslim) population from a catastrophe of genocidal proportions. In its foreign dealings, America typically does both harm and good.
But this nuance is lost on many domestic critics from the left; and as a result they are often at a loss to explain what has happened. As The Nation put it in a recent editorial, "Why the attacks took place is still unclear." This view of the world mirrors that of its opponents on the isolationist right. The attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center would never have happened, the logic runs, if we had minded our own business. What is wrong with (us) Americans? We're overpaid, overarmed...and over there.
Among conventional politicians of the bipartisan middle, consensus takes a different form. Here the attacks on New York and Washington merely illustrate America's distinctive virtues. "They" hate us not for what we do but for what we represent: pluralism, freedom, democracy, civilization. Even those who once argued for a more nuanced American engagement with the world—against the unilateralism of the Bush administration before September 11—now confine themselves to variations on a worn theme: realism.
The old realism insisted that the US put its "interests" first and last. The new realism demands that our foreign friends stand up and be counted—and willingly accepts for the time being that our enemies' enemies be included in the census. And so we assemble a heterogeneous and fissile posse of Russians, Pakistanis, Syrians, Saudis, Ta-jiks, Uzbeks, and the rest—most of whom have at some point in the recent past been the object of American ire and condemnation for their mistreatment of civilians or their active support of murderous terrorists.
But if the war goes according to plan and we dismantle the Taliban and capture bin Laden, what becomes of this international coalition? We are unlikely to solicit its views on what to do with bin Laden, if we have him. And while the Northern Alliance will be helpful in a ground war against remaining Taliban forces, and Uzbekistan, like Turkey, can provide logistical help, our military need for outside assistance is limited—we have not even called on the French. As the fight against terrorism goes on, what shall we make of the terrorizing proclivities of our friends? Shall we undertake nation-building in Afghanistan? With the Uzbeks and Tajiks of the Northern Alliance? With the exiled king? Or with the "moderate" Taliban representatives, as Pakistan (many of whose citizens are Pashtuns, like the Taliban themselves) would much prefer? Shall we further commit ourselves to stabilizing and securing Pakistan? And eventually Syria and Iraq? Or shall we walk away and concentrate on "homeland protection"? And what will the world say of us, in any event?
Anyone who has lived or traveled away from the US knows something of the shape of contemporary anti-American sentiment. In the first place, it is driven by humiliation, the feel-ing of worthlessness and hopelessness shared by hundreds of millions in the Islamic world and elsewhere. In a world of easy communications, the wretched of the earth see and feel their abjectness reflected in their encounters with the guardians of prosperity. In itself, however, this is not about America. What ties this widespread sentiment of wounded pride to a certain image of America in particular is American "arrogance."
This is the first of a number of themes masterfully exploited by Osama bin Laden in his televised interviews and speeches.[2] For the US, in its foreign dealings, is often arrogant: it asserts a preemptive right to be where it chooses, to do as it sees fit, with scant attention to the consequences for others. Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, was asked on television, on October 11, about bin Laden's reiterated obsession with the presence of US troops near Muslim holy places. Should we not pay attention to Muslim sensibilities in this matter? Armitage ignored the question-we're there, he asserted, to protect Persian Gulf oil sites against the threat from Iraq and we are staying. If you even raise this issue, he warned the (American) interviewer, you are playing in bin Laden's ballgame. His reply will doubtless be run and rerun on al-Jazeera television --it will make fine recruiting material for the next generation of terrorists.
All great powers are arrogant "it just so happens that America is the only one around. But America, as bin Laden and countless Arab (and European) editorials never tire of repeating, is also inconsistent" or, as they would say, hypocritical. Rhetorically committed to a moral universalism quite unlike the patronizing elitism of older imperial powers ("We hold these truths to be self-evident..."), the US cannot help but come across as saying one thing and doing another; and it is perhaps unfortunate to be the only great power at a time when anyone in the world can scrutinize its every word. America switches overseas allegiances with disconcerting ease: now India, now Pakistan; now Iraq, now Iran. We embrace countries and then abandon them. Picking (and then dropping) one's friends overseas for short-term advantage is the surest way to make enemies.
Even in the Muslim world, not everyone is a priori offended by American example and leadership. But they are wounded and scarred by Washington's shifting treatment of them, with wild swings from engagement to indifference. It is in this respect that hard-nosed "realism" is its own worst enemy. Today we are at war with "rogue states" and terrorists, and now is not the moment, we are told, to pay overmuch attention to the fine print. But what is a "rogue state"? One that allows terrorists to raise cash and buy guns on its soil? What is a terrorist? Is an armed Kurd a freedom fighter in Iraq but a terrorist in Turkey? Was Iraq a rogue state when the US backed it against Iran? Were volunteers in al-Qaeda terrorists when they joined the US-financed war in Afghanistan?
These are not fixed terms with agreed meanings that last for long (witness the careers of Menachem Begin and Gerry Adams, among many others). To assert otherwise, as American leaders now do, to claim that terrorism is a moral given and you are either for it or against it, is imprudent. It is particularly imprudent for a country like the US to adapt its moral categories to immediate requirements, however urgent. We need Russian cooperation, to be sure. But Putin needs us, too, for many reasons. It should not be beyond our ingenuity to secure his support without consigning the Chechens to oblivion, or"worse"relabeling them terrorists just to please him. The less we say now, the fewer hostages we shall offer to hostile fortune.
You have only to read or hear Osama bin Laden at some length to understand how fluidly he plays off these matters. His own motives, if we take them at face value, are to push the "infidel" out of the Arabian peninsula, to punish the "Crusaders and the Jews," and to wreak revenge on Americans for their domination of Islamic space.[3] He is not a spokesman for the downtrodden, much less those who seek just solutions to real dilemmas-he is cuttingly dismissive of the UN: "Muslims should not appeal to these atheist, temporal regimes." But he is adept in his appeal.
He makes much, for example, of the "feebleness and cowardice of the American soldier." Americans are "unmanly"-and so, therefore, are those (notably the ruling Saudi family) who align with them or accept their protection. This allusion to US reluctance to accept casualties and Washington's insistence on fighting wars from 15,000 feet up attracts a wide and sympathetic constituency, and not only among Arabs; for it tidily combines the themes of arrogance, hypocrisy, and pusillanimity while reminding his audience of terrorists' own willingness to die for their cause. I don't think Washington, or many American citizens, have taken the full measure of the propaganda price that America has paid for its manner of waging risk-free war.
And then there is Israel. It is disingenuous to suggest that the crisis in the Middle East is unconnected to bin Laden. In my reading of European and Near Eastern sentiment today, the Israel-Palestine conflict and America's association with Israel are the greatest single source of contemporary anti-US sentiment, crossing political, ideological, and national boundaries. Osama bin Laden may not care one way or the other for the Palestinians, and he is certainly not interested in an agreed solution to their predicament; but when he says (as he did in December 1998) that "we must consider Israel the real perpetrator of any attack on any state in the Islamic world," he strikes a deep chord.
Arabs and other Muslims from Rabat to Jakarta have watched Israel build settlements in occupied territory in defiance of UN resolutions and international law. They've been shown footage of the Israeli army destroying houses and land; they've heard Israeli leaders acknowledge state-sponsored assassination; they've noted the election of Ariel Sharon in spite of his shameful record in Lebanon; and they've seen the American president assure Israel of unwavering US support. When bin Laden claims that he is striking back for the Palestinians, too, he renders the Palestinian cause no service-but he doesn't lose friends, either.
Is there anything the US can do about anti-Americanism? Actually, quite a lot. If Osama bin Laden is taken alive (and we had better hope that he is), he should be tried by an international tribunal. There is not yet an International Criminal Court (thanks in some measure to Washington's refusal to countenance indictments against Americans...), but an ad hoc court for the purpose is one option. A trial in the US, however fair and open, would be imprudent. It would be widely perceived abroad as "victor's justice." Nuremberg was victors' justice too, and set important precedents as well as punishing major criminals. But we forget too readily that in the aftermath of Nuremberg many Germans privately dismissed the verdicts (and therefore the charges against the Nazis) as imposed on them by force.[4] It would be a catastrophic error were something comparable to flow from an American court's verdict on the terrorists of September 11.
The US must also take its political case to the constituency that matters. In recent weeks Tony Blair has been giving interviews to Arab-language TV stations in an effort to convince his audience not just that we have no quarrel with Islam (pace bin Laden's repeated claims), but that Osama bin Laden does not speak for anyone. What has the US done? Well, we complained to the Emir of Qatar that al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based television station that has carried many of bin Laden's statements and which has a huge popular audience in the Arab world, was providing terrorism with a platform and should be curtailed. The unelected Emir duly reminded the representatives of one of the world's oldest democracies that a free press is essential to democratic life.[5]
Finally, the US needs thoroughly to reassess its relationship to the rest of the world. Those who hate us for our "values" (which in any case are Western, not American) are vastly outnumbered by those who resent us for our foreign policy. Our efforts to eradicate terrorism will go for nothing if we keep uncritical company for tactical ends with rulers who practice at home the very crimes we claim to abhor. The same goes for the actions of our friends. The policy Israel has been pursuing is "worse than a crime, it is a blunder,"[6] and the US does neither itself nor Israel any favors by providing implicit cover for its policies toward the Palestinians. If Washington cannot prevent Israel from behaving in destructive and self-destructive ways, then it must at the very least distance itself from it. Sharon has doubtless helped this process along by his revealingly brutal outbursts since the atrocities of September 11.
The US should surely abandon the embarrassing practice of treating international agencies and agreements as foreign-policy "options" which it can cherrypick or neglect at its own convenience. The ingratiating alacrity with which Washington paid its back dues to the UN when it needed international help did not pass unnoticed overseas. Is this the beginning of a fresh approach, or just another hiccup in the history of America's inattention to international affairs? It depends on how the Bush administration understands the importance of the choice facing it. In view of its starting point last January, this is not a suitable government for such a purpose; but it is the only government we have.
Whether President Bush and his advisers can find it in themselves to look long and hard at America's past mistakes-at a time when, understandably enough, Americans are being exhorted to feel proudly patriotic-is not yet clear. Edward Said recently admonished Arabs for failing to denounce suicide missions and hiding instead behind the excuse of their own suffering; how many of us (he asked) have taken responsibility for the poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, and repression in our own societies, and the political manipulation of Islam, while complaining about Zionism and imperialism?[7] It is a timely question, and no doubt an uncomfortable one, too. But we in the US should be asking un-comfortable questions of our own. The American political concentration span is famously short; and despite the atrocities and the anxieties, less may have changed here than people say-there will be a deep collective urge to get back to normal once the crisis has passed. That would be a grave mistake.
-October 18, 2001
BIN LADEN'S OBSESSIONS
"Our brothers who fought in Somalia saw wonders about the weakness, feebleness, and cowardliness of the US soldier.... We believe that we are men, Muslim men who must have the honour of defending [Mecca]. We do not want American women soldiers defending [it].... The rulers in that region have been deprived of their manhood. And they think that the people are women. By God, Muslim women refuse to be defended by these American and Jewish prostitutes."
- Osama bin Laden, December 1998, from an interview with al-Jazeera television, reiterating bin Laden's characteristic obsessions: American fearfulness, Saudi betrayal, Islamic machismo, and Jews.