Gottfried, Re: "Poll: Big majority of Bay Area residents backs military action....Reaction of nation's more liberal region mirrors rest of U.S."
The tv set shrinks our perception of the world, distorts the vastness of the world's area and population and, to the extent we all watch it on occasions like this, tends to paint our responses with the same brush. It simplifies the complexity of the world's many populations and politics. Here in the U.S. I suspect many of us are woefully ignorant of many of the "realities" of the world and particularly the third world.
The intellectual trait that has best served me in life is an intuition that nudges me when I know little. It's nudging me now. I know very little about the Islamic religion, I know very little about the ME because I didn't have to, and I know very little about the differences in political and spiritual beliefs among the various countries in the ME. I know very little about the logistics of traveling in, fighting in and gathering information in the various countries of the ME.
What I do know concerns me greatly. I know that there are tremendous religious, economic and moral differences between us and a hundreds of millions of people who live in places like Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in the ME, Asia, and Africa. I know that to many of those people Bin Laden is a symbol of resistance and heroism. I know that many of the actions of the U.S. in the ME oil producing countries over the last decades have NOT been motivated by respect for their religious beliefs, their standard of living, human rights, their right to choose their own political course or any other benevolent purposes. I know that we have supported regimes in the ME that perpetuated repression. It is clear to all of us, even those most approving of the actions of our country, that our policy in the ME has been primarily directed toward protecting our strategic interest in a plentiful and reasonably priced supply of oil.
In many instances that meant helping to install or maintain governments friendly to our interests, even when those governments were repugnant, repressive and at times even an affront to beliefs of many of the deeply religious citizens of those governments.
I believe a neutral observer hearing the complaints of both sides would find many things to condemn.
So where does that leave us? It leaves me in just about the same boat as Razorbak, KB, and Raymond; three people who may disagree politically but apparently do not disagree on the course of action we should follow in the short term. When our lives and way of life are threatened, it's not about right or wrong anymore, it's about survival. It's not about the past, it's about the future. Just as soldiers on the battlefield can intellectually debate the merits of the war but cannot realistically choose to refuse to fight when the bullets are flying, we cannot refuse to engage these terrorist enemies who have committed deadly acts of terrorism and who are undoubtedly committed to continued acts of terrorism.
We cannot make peace with those who have had an active hand in these acts. They have crossed a line which cannot be erased. We must, however, not delude ourselves with myoptic characterizations of good versus evil in order to villify those whose beliefs contributed to the birth of these terrorists and in order to assure ourselves of our own virtue.
The terrorists must be destroyed but the battle must be fought in a way which leaves open the doors to a future peace with the hundreds of millions of people on the face of the earth who are our potential enemies and who could fill the ranks of those terrorists we destroy much faster than we could empty them. Just as president Woodrow Wilson looked past anger, hatred and grief and tried to build the foundations of a world where we could all live in peace, we need leaders now who will address the fundamental issues of religion, economics, ignorance and justice to build a world which can reach a peacefull equilibrium.
In today's world where the technology of destruction has advanced to the point where it is available to almost any determined person, it is imperative that the beliefs and needs of the many who are poor and powerless be taken seriously. It is no longer true that might can make right; the price may well be too high. Ideas and beliefs do not fall to military operations. They do not die with the leaders who hold them. They grow best when those who hold them inspire others by their sacrifice.
Bin Laden and his immediate following are not the real threat, the real threat is in the millions of people that openly or secretly share his views of the U.S. and our policies and who have little to lose. We should evaluate what it is that we can do, if anything, to achieve some common ground with that group. We should examine their complaints from a moral perspective and ask whether we are in fact deserving of their criticism. I hope that a visionary leader exists or comes forward out of this mess.
As for the next weeks, months and possibly years, the world has seen us suffer casualties at the choosing of terrorists, the world will now see us choose to sacrifice the lives of our children in our efforts to find and punish those who wounded us so badly. The young men and women who will pay the heaviest price for these events and those who have already paid have my heartfelt sympathy. "To all things there is a season." Ed |
