A Question of Terrorism and Moral Courage
The attack on the World Trade Center was unequivocally a heinous act of
terrorism levied against the US by bin Laden and his Islamic extremist
organization, al Qaeda. These people are the quintessential embodiment of terrorism. They are international criminals who have damaged
the soul of America, discredited the Arab world,
poisoned Afghanistan, and otherwise inflict death and suffering wherever they
are allowed to lodge themselves. There is virtually no other recourse but to deal
with them with such extreme prejudice as necessary to bring them down.
Nevertheless, America cannot afford to be so infected by rage about the World Trade
Center that it blindly specifies the enemy without ever taking its true measure.
Rashness of viewpoint is operative even more then a year after 9-11, and it
stands to motivate collateral damage that the America and the World can ill
afford. If we are to be truly successful in defeating the terrorist
monster, then the struggle against it must be waged against all significant forms that it takes, even
within the ranks of American citizens and US allies.
To define terrorism as suicide bombings against innocent civilians is simply far too narrow. Would the destruction of the World Trade Center have been any less heinous if it had been accomplished with guided missiles? Would it have been any less heinous if al Qaeda operatives had successfully smuggled in a nuclear bomb and then safely evacuated themselves before it detonated? In order for America to see the measure of the enemy, it must think outside of the conceptual box, beyond the mental rut created by the now all too popular notion of the suicide bomber. Such narrowness of thinking is clouding our understanding of world events, as if no other act of inhumanity were even relevant.
What if terrorism were more inclusively defined as "any act of draconian inhumanity perpetrated by one nation or group against another"? Suicide bombers and the el Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center would, of course, fall decisively within that definition. However, Iraq's attempted annexation of Kuwaiti and leaving Kuwaiti's oil fields in flames when driven out, would also be included. It would also include the inhumanity of the Taliban regime toward the Afghan people. It would also include the kind of "ethnic cleansing" that went on in Bosnia and Croatia, for which Milosevic and others now stand trial before the World Court. But shouldn't it also include Israel's draconian eviction of the Palestinians from their lands and homes in order to make room for Jewish settlers? Israel has been inflicting this kind of terror and inhumanity upon the Palestinians for decades. Why does that indelible fact capture so little attention when rhetoric about Palestinian terrorism is bandied about in the American media? Is it the case that such acts of inhumanity are simply not colorful enough in their "moral repugnancy" to satisfy the media's taste? This gridlock fixation on suicide bombers is warping America's sense of moral justice.
Bin Laden has compared his "Jihad" against America to the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation. The brutal truth, however, is that bin Laden doesn't give a fig about the oppression and suffering of the Palestinian people. That is, not beyond their usefulness as political pawns to steer the Arab-Islamic world into a full-scale war against Israel and the West. In fact, bin Laden has done more to hurt the Palestinian cause in the eyes of America than anyone else in the history of the conflict. Do America, Washington, and the present administration really want to beat el Qaeda terrorism to a pulp? Do we really want to gain the trust and support of the Arab and European community and foster a climate of international justice, the kind of climate that terrorist organizations cannot use as breading ground for their maniacal ends? If so, then there is one single decisive move in the middle east which would be both strategically sound and morally correct. America must lean on Israel as punitively as is necessary to make them back down permanently from their colonialist agenda and accept defined boarders between themselves and Palestine. This will mean taking a hard hand against a so-called ally, but it is precisely the act of moral courage that America must perform to truly have a chance of winning the war on terrorism and thereby protect its own safety and future.
Just the other night I turned the TV to a station that was broadcasting a convention of Islamic Scientists who met in observance of the anniversary of the World Trade center terrorist attacks. I was on the way out the door at the time and consequently only listened to the remarks of the opening speaker. He said in so many words, that the most ugly emotion in the world is "hatred". I was troubled by that statement, not because it wasn't the truth, but rather because it was only partially the truth. Indeed, hatred is an ugly emotion, but so is anger and they are both very real things in the realm of human experience. As ugly an emotion as anger itself can be, it is sometimes equally as genuine and justified as it is sometimes inevitable. Still, there is another ugly emotion and it is called greed. Why should greed not be classified in its own right as sharing the thrown of the most ugly along with hatred? This is what particularly troubled me about the speakers remarks. As the conflict between Israel and Palestine grinds on into its sixth decade, the Israelite regime now declares that there will be no Palestine west of the Jordan. On the other hand, they insist that all suicide bombings and other acts of "terrorism" against Israel must completely cease before they will give the issue of Palestine independence any respect at all. I truly wish that someone would ask Ariel Sharon, the rest of the "righteous" Israeli regime, and particularly their Zionist collaborators in Washington, just how many settlements is Israel willing to relinquish as a token of good faith that Palestinian acts of "terrorism" will eventually come to an end.
For More short essays on the conflict in the Middle East