Stop Thinking, and See What You're Told
By Steve Weissman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wedndesday 29 September 2004
Part I: Trucking with the Terrorist Devils
Did fear do it to us? Did the horrific attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center so scare the
American people that many of our fellow citizens can no longer see that the emperor has no clothes?
Only in part.
Naked in his eerie isolation, the resolute Mr. Bush clearly uses the great fear to blind us to his
"catastrophic success" in Iraq, a land destined to become at best Iran-Lite, if not our very own West
Bank and Gaza Strip. Watch it nightly on Arab TV: "Americans Kill Again. Blood at 6 and 11."
Mr. Bush sells himself with psychodrama, pushing us to relive the nightmare of 9/11 - and deny
today's reality. He plays the wartime leader on TV, and no one breaks out laughing, at least not in
public. Indeed, nearly half the country seems truly to believe that he has made them safer.
Beyond our borders, most of the world takes his "War on Terror" as American hyperbole. Europe, in
particular, has known waves of terrorist attack at least since the 1880s, and has finally learned to deal
with the problem without all the fanfare. European police agencies quietly warned our hapless CIA and
FBI of preparations for the 9/11 attacks in good time to intervene, and have continued to break up
Al-Qaeda cells with some success.
As for Mr. Bush himself, most European pundits and those who are polled tend to see him as a
dangerous lightweight who lied his way into war, blundered the occupation, and now hides his eyes
from the chaos he has created. Even the conservative Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal
of Europe, charged last week that Bush and his team "systematically refused to engage with what has
happened in Iraq."
In the FT's opinion, the administration made too many "mistakes" and "handed the initiative to jihadi
terrorists," giving them "a new base from which to challenge the west and moderate Islam."
Those who back Mr. Bush angrily reject this view as liberal rhetoric, disloyalty, or treason. They just
will not face the facts.
Fear alone cannot explain such hysterical blindness. Fear got Americans going, but never told us
how to view the terrorists who caused our fear. Someone had to fill in the blanks.
Who should we most fear - Osama or Saddam, Chirac or Sharon, radical rag-heads on their prayer
rugs or blue-eyed, born-again fundamentalists waving the Red-White-and-Blue?
Do we rush with rockets rattling to kill or capture every terrorist we can? Or do we fight them in ways
that do not encourage thousands more to join their ranks?
Do we tar Islam as the enemy, creating the clash of civilizations that Osama wants to provoke? Or do
we try to understand why hundreds of millions of Muslims, if we force them to choose, will side with the
terrorists rather than us?
To frame their answers, Team Bush drew heavily on conservative counter-terrorists and colonial
counter-insurgents, most of whom had honed their way of thinking years before 9/11 became even a
gleam in Osama's eye. Their worldview perfectly matched Mr. Bush's gut instincts - and extensive view
of the world:
Deal with terrorists primarily as a military threat, or at most a matter for the police and secret
services.
Don't take their political grievances seriously or change your own policies and practices. If you
do, the terrorists will see it as a sign of weakness, a political victory, and a vindication of their
terrorist methods.
As for their potential supporters, and our winning their hearts and minds, leave that to the
psychological warriors, communications specialists, and assorted shmear artists in what
Washington calls public diplomacy. ("We're here to liberate you," reads the psy-war leaflet. And
that's why we're bombing you and your brothers.)
To these simplistic precepts, Mr. Bush added a touch of genius. He further branded the terrorists as
pure evil, the spawn of Satan, which made them anathema to most God-fearing Americans. Sound
familiar? Have no truck with the devil, neither in the guise of Godless Communists, nor as Islamic
Terrorists.
Faith-based anti-terrorism, as Bush and his people package it, is now bidding to replace
anti-Communism as America's all-consuming political ideology. Focusing fear, it blinkers what terrified
Americans see - and what they do not see - when they look at Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel and Iran,
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, or at the threadbare Mr. Bush.
Caught up in a holy war against the ultimate evil, the pro-Bushies see no means too vile to defeat
their foe, from torture and sexual humiliation to bombing where people live.
Forbidden the weakness of human empathy, the pro-Bushies never understand that many Iraqis are
doing just what we would do if a foreign power occupied the United States - fighting for their country's
independence.
Embedded in a military mindset, the pro-Bushies never realize how their winning battles recruit far
more terrorists than they kill, while polarizing a huge portion of the world's Muslims against the United
States.
Blinded to political realities, the pro-Bushies honestly believe their fearless leader when he tells them
that our enemies hate us for who we are rather than for what we do, whether in supporting Saddam in
the 1980s, forsaking the Iraqi Shiites after the first Gulf War, backing Sharon against the Palestinians,
or propping up the oil-rich Saudi princes.
Anti-terrorist ideology such as this only helps the bin Ladens and Zarqawis. It also helps Mr. Bush.
Without it, clear-eyed voters - Republicans as well as Democrats - would run him out of office on a rail
and trash his scary, know-nothing approach to radical Islamic terror.
Next time, Part II: The Israeli Example |
