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Getting to know the unknown enemy
By Joseph Sobran
As
published in The Washington Times National Weekly edition, September
17-23, 2001 page 35
and transcribed manually — as it seems to be nowhere to be found on
the internet.
It was predictable. For
years I've been writing that the U.S. government has been making more
enemies than Americans really need, all over the globe, and that one of
these days some of them would have a nasty surprise for us.
In fact it nearly
happened a few years ago, when Islamic radicals tried to blow up the
World Trade Center. But of course they made a botch of it and got
caught.
This time, though,
someone pulled off what must have been an extremely cunning conspiracy,
a criminal feat for the ages. They managed to execute a secret plan
calling for four simultaneous hijackings of airplanes. Those who
committed these coordinated deeds — in spite of all security measures
— also had the determination to die in hitting their targets.
This wasn't
"terrorism." This was war.
It wasn't a random attempt to scare people with an arbitrary
atrocity, like the bombing of a pizza joint; it was a serious attempt to
kill as many people and do as much material damage at two strategic
targets, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
But, as I write, hours
after the attacks, we don't know who is at war with us. We may never
know. Who has reason to hate this country? Only a few hundred million
people — Arabs, Muslims, Serbs, and numerous others whose countries
have been hit by U S. bombers.
Image hating a country
so much that you are willing to cross an ocean and carry out an
elaborate revenge against its people, killing yourself in the process.
This is something far more than the sort of ideological anti-Americanism
that leads student mobs to throw stones at U.S. embassies abroad; that's
kid stuff. This is an obsessive, fanatical, soul-consuming hatred.
Foreigners aren't quite
real to Americans, and most Americans are unaware of how profoundly
antagonizes much of the human race. We are an easy-going people who
generally have no idea bullying we seem to foreigners. Until now, we
have had no experience of what the U.S. government has so often
inflicted on others.
Now, at least, we have
an inkling of what it feels like.
Government spokesmen
have responded with their usual cant of "cowardly attacks" by
"terrorists" who "hate democracy and freedom."
Rubbish. A fanatic who is ready to die is the opposite of a coward, and
nobody can "hate" such abstractions as "democracy and
freedom" with that kind of intensity.
It's dangerous to
belittle your enemy, especially when his courage and cunning have
already proved as formidable as his hatred and cruelty. The first
question you should ask about your enemy is why he is your enemy in the
first place.
You may be deluding and
flattering yourself if you assume he hates you for your virtues. But our
"leaders" assure us that our enemies are unnaturally evil
people who hate us only because we are so wonderful. And they manage to
utter this nonsense with an air of tough-minded realism.
True realism, on the
other hand, doesn't mean blaming Americans for bringing these horrifying
and truly evil acts on themselves. It does mean trying to image alien
perspectives from which our government's conduct might appear so
intolerable that some people might be driven to take atrocious revenge.
"To understand all
is to forgive all," says the French aphorism. Not true. But
understanding all can at least teach you how to avoid making enemies,
and avoiding making enemies is the best defense — better than a $300
billion "defense" budget that didn't defend the World Trade
Center.
The great director Jean
Renior was once asked why there were no villains in his films. He
answered simply: "Everyone has his reasons." Your bitterest
enemy may have his reasons for hating your guts. You may not think they
are good or sufficient reasons, but you'd better take them into account.
If he has any brains, he may find a way to hurt you.
The United States is
now the global empire that wants to think of itself as a universal
benefactor, and is nonplussed when foreigners don't see it that way.
None of the earlier empires of this world, as far as I know, shared this
delusion; the Romans, the Mongols, the British, the Russians and Soviets
didn't expect to rule and be loved at the same time. Why do we?
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09/22/01 |
