Nil by Mouth

Susan sent me this link:

Susan sent me this link:

They can’t see why they are hated

Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad

Seumas Milne

Thursday September 13, 2001

The Guardian

Notable Quatable: “Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world. ”

It is especially apropos as I was having an e-mail exchange with Steven in which I began another rant:

I am getting really incensed at the political speeches and media

coverage that seems to imply that Arabs and Muslims have some sort of

mutant gene that makes them suicidal terrorists. Obviously it goes without saying that flying populated passenger planes into full office buildings is completely intolerable, but it will never stop if we don’t understand the history and cause of their hate. People do things for reasons. Always. It would behove us to investigate the reasons of our “enemies” before throwing missiles at the first plausible target. From media coverage alone, one would think that all Arabs live in tents in the desert, and they really like being locked in poverty and totalitarianism; and not that it might have anything to do with short sighted colonialism of the early 20th century, or cold war residue, or the pervasive corruption fostered by foreign governments (especially the US).

—

On my flight to Paris I was reading a great issue of Harpers with the cover The New Rome. It was a brilliant start to life as an expat, and has resounded many times. By my first month away it had become crystal clear that America does not stand for “freedom”, “democracy”, and “possibility” in the rest of the world. Not in the least. I mentioned this casually in July. And when I try to picture the unimaginable: the rubble that lies where the World Trade Center used to be, I can only think of the ruins of “great” civilizations whose pictures and descriptions occupied a couple pages in my high school history texts.

When GW & Co calls the attacks, an attack against freedom and democracy, I don’t get it. I can be almost positive that the orchestrator(s) of these attacks hadn’t the governing system of the US, or any part of that, in my mind. They went after innocent citizens in a spectacular display of horror for one reason, to kill people. People living in the most powerful nation in the world. To attack democracy? What do they care about democracy? About “freedom”? Most anyone who watched the last presidential election, or more pointedly the death of campaign-finance reform, will surmise that we Americans are perfectly capable of whittling away freedom and democracy all by our-damn-selves.

I’m hardly a peace hippie, but in the same way that killing thousands of innocent citizens will do absolutely nothing for the cause of Palestinians in Israel, children in Iraq, or even anti-Americans the world over, hastily dropping bombs on suspected groups will do nothing to weaken the resolve of ruthless terrorists (and resolve is their deadliest weapon).

I don’t know what the answer should be. But I know it’s not an easy one. If any of this were easy, bloodshed around the world would have ceased centuries ago. All i do know is that I don’t trust GW to act with any more forethought than a teased bull. But we have been silent, and maybe he will surprise us. But if his last statement promising to “rid the world of evil” was any indication, we’re in for a several more rounds of bloodshed. And all of it in vain.

• Sep 15