Just Us...

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I usually refer to this quotation by
Martin Luther King, Jr. whenever people ask me about how the “issue with the Arabs” first arose,
or “why they hate us.”
I feel it terribly necessary to respond to another reader’s editorial that was recently printed in the local paper. In it, she wrongly suggests that the crises in the Middle East began in 1979 (this was in an attempt to absolve President Bush from blame for the current debacle there). Unfortunately, it did not start with the Iranian students’ attack on the American Embassy, because that was a reactionary measure to decades of US support of a corrupt and oppressive Shah (please read “All the Shah’s Men” by Stephen Kinzer for a complete and stunning retelling). Let me sketch out a little scenario for you: 1) US supports an oppressive leader in order to combat a “greater evil.” 2) The US supported leader uses US weapons and money to oppress the people of that country. 3) The oppressed people of that country retaliate in the only way they can (technically the taking of the Bastille—the start of the French Revolution—was a “terrorist act”). 4) The uniformed and largely ignorant populace of America responds with righteous outrage. 5) The US responds by either withdrawing support or diving into war in order to “smoke out” this new threat. 6) A new and worse threat steps in and says “SEE, I told you Americans are the devil!” (i.e., Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Osama Bin Laden, etc, take your pick) The truly brilliant thing is that because the populace at large in our country seems continually ready to take the egocentric worldview, this strategy is used over and over and over, yielding the same results.
The author of said article had a laundry list of terrorist attacks that killed possibly 1500 Americans. You can also go with the more recent State Departments figures that there are about 700 in 2003 that were killed due to terrorist attacks (about 200 attacks). In previous years it was much less (roughly 100-275). Compare this however with the more than 2000 civilians killed in Palestine alone in the past three years. Look also at the 4,300 civilian deaths in Iraq during the war last year. Consider too that with the exception of 9-11 and the previous attack on the Trade Center, nearly all of terrorist related deaths are of our service people.
The truth is that the Arab world sees that the United States time and time again supports their enemies in the face of humanitarian pleas and cries for mercy (please see the recent International Court of Justice decision concerning “The Wall” that has been erected in Israel. The US judge –Thomas Buergenthal—was the ONLY ONE out of 15 to rule in favor of Israel) I could site hundreds of such examples in which the US, of late, has painted itself as the moral judge in the world and then, in turn, acted out the exact immoral thing. How can we not expect retribution?
The author is correct in one, and only one, statement. This war didn’t just start. It was begun decades ago by ‘cowboy politicians’ who thought they could tame the dessert savages and get their hands on pieces of prime oil real estate. In whatever light we would like to cast the history of the Middle East, America and Western Europe are solely responsible for it. Every day that dawns the powers of the West resist the confession that is on our souls for what our fathers, and fathers’ fathers did to every person in those countries.
Can we seriously expect them to see us as liberators when in the first months of the “War of Liberation” we kill more than 2000 of their civilians? Could we, after the terrible attack in September of 2001 have accepted a “peace keeping force?” Of course not. Our fathers and sisters and bothers and mothers had died, and our anger was tangible and terrible—as is the anger of the people of Iraq.
The problem truly is that our readers may be as horrified as “every other American” when
lives are lost, but the painful truth is that we are not nearly horrified enough. Our actions prove to the world that American lives are worth inherently more than the lives of other nations.
The argument she uses is one that is born out of an ignorance of the issues. It pains me because as long as the issue of the Middle East has been raging (since 1948 or the Crusades, depending on how you like your history), mass America is just now touching the edges of the subject. Also, as far back as this historic reason goes, it does directly affect the upcoming election. The name America is stained with the smarmy smile of greed. Lady Liberty is tarnished, and her proud torch is all but extinguished in the face of a war that has gone grossly sour. We have hit the heart of the Arab world by demolishing their mother Bagdad, and our attitude is indignation for not being hailed in the streets with flowers meant for her funeral. We are shamed, because in our righteous anger, we lashed out in blind fury and have yet to make amends.
Until we do, we will never be at peace. Even if peace comes in name alone our souls will stir in the night with the shattered tears of a thousand Arab mothers crying out for their lost sons and daughters. And joined with them will be the wail of every American father and mother who questions the death of their son or daughter who went to fight for freedom and guarded oil wells instead.
America is a country of ideals. The American Spirit is one that strives and acts in hope and honor. The country is not divided. We all wish for hope. We all desire peace and a safe return for our troops. We are united in common wish: that help is on the way and that things will get better. Ignorance is America’s enemy. Laziness and blind faith block the true roadway to peace and prosperity. I will reiterate what has been said already: in November it is our responsibility to make informed, rational, educated decisions about who will lead this nation into peace in the next four years or who will drive us into a state of continued war and fear with no visible end in sight.