Thank you Taro. Sometimes, when I talk to American liberals, I am truly disheartened by the complete lack of understanding of the true feelings and culture within the Middle East. Sometimes, I think enough of the pre-9/11 naivete still exists here in America, that people simply don't want to believe that evil DOES exist and that it cannot be negotiated with. I'm also disheartened by the anti-Americanism that is rampant within the U.S., as if everything that goes wrong in the world is the fault of Americans. The U.S. has made alot of mistakes, but it continues to be a country that has given more to the world in treasure, lives, and hope, than any other country. With all of our warts, we still inspire people to create something better in their own parts of the world. Now that inspiration comes with jealousy, thanks to Bush's inability to balance power with diplomacy, but we still inspire.
Another thing. Osama and his friends never told us want they want from us in order for them to their terror campaign. At first, they mentioned something about getting our troops out of Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that Saudi Arabia asked us to be there to protect them from Saddam. Then when we removed our troops, they said it was something about the Palestinian situation. They change their minds every day about what their cause is, but that doesn't fool some of us. Their cause is the destruction of the U.S. and our way of life, because it is a direct threat to their vision of a totalitarian theocratic state or the return of the Caliphate.
We can't negotiate with people like that. The only thing you can do with the Osamas of the world is fight and kill them. However, we can also try to improve our image through better policies in the ME. We can try to reach those other Muslims, that vast majority who have anti-American feelings, but haven't yet turned to violence. If we can reach them through opening their eyes to how good life can be outside of their cultural context. If we can push Democracy there and rattle the cages of the ruling elite to bolster reform agendas. Then maybe we can reach those Muslims before they turn into Osamas. But we are definitely losing that more important war right now, because of Bush's diplomatic incompetence and failure of imagination. He's more concerned with buying more bullets to pump into the ME, but he's ignoring the long term battle for the hearts and minds of the ME Muslims. The sooner we get to the end of his Presidency the better. |
