Do You want to be a Muslim?

I think examining our failures is necessary, so long as we also focus on the progress we have made and the victories that we have won over slavery, totalitarianism, fascism, communism, and now terrorism. Reveling in the mistakes our ancestors may have made seems to be counter productive in its very nature. If I didn’t loath conspiracy theorists I might suggest that the obsession with our past mistakes is designed to distract attention from our present problem which is largely shaping up to be the fact that a good many lunatics want us dead. The pro longed discussion of any other topic seems infantile and petty when weighed against the consequences of loosing clarity in this new world where boeing planes are missiles. What has been made absolutely clear on 9/11 and in the days after was that terrorists were playing for keeps. Their goal was and remains to this day the absolute destruction of the western world. I think the problem with this goal is that somehow people can’t grasp it. That, in a way, says a good thing about our culture. We cannot comprehend why people would be that evil. We can’t wrap our heads around the idea that people slaughtered innocent civilians to meet virgins in Heaven. We couldn’t understand the intense hatred that would justify such a belief. It is an inhuman thought process that reaches such a conclusion and a completely disturbing rationale for what happened that day. Unfortunately our inability to conceive of this motive effectively sends us on our way searching for another. This is when the “Why do they hate us,” crowd begins to preach about Muslim fundamentalists having specific grievances about U.S. Mid East policy: They don’t like our support of Israel. They don’t like our troop presence in Saudi Arabia. They don’t like any American intervention in the Middle East of any kind. They seek, as characterized by President Bush, “America’s retreat from the world.” Well lets take a look at the specific grievances anyway just to make sure there not reasonable.
Osama’s biggest pet peeve is the American troop presence in Saudi Arabia, which is part and parcel of his abhorrence for the U.S. Saudi relationship. Osama, in his usual charming fashion, called for jihad to “expel the infidels from the holy land.” His belief that infidels, or his affectionate name for non fundamentalist Muslims, must not be permitted in the land of Mecca and Medina-Islam’s two holist sites- isn’t because he doesn’t like our tax policy. It’s because he believes the western world is the source of all evil in the world, and its association with the House of Saud, further illustrates its intention to corrupt Islamic regimes throughout the world. Well, what exactly is America corrupting in Saudi Arabia? Are we stealing the oil? Not by the looks of the Saudi palaces. It looks as if some members of Saudi society have been well compensated by America’s thirst for petroleum. Unfortunately the benefits have only been financial, and unevenly distributed. A great many Saudi’s live in poverty while a decadent class of royalty builds palaces. The impoverished public has become radicalized against America due to state sponsored religious education that blames the West for everything that doesn’t get blamed on Jews. Not surprisingly, the oppressed and angry Saudi Arabians, desperate to blame someone for their lot in life, find the West to be a fitting culprit. It’s the “Great Satan’s” fault. We have a troop presence in Japan and Germany, and have for years. Yet radical Japanese and German groups haven’t demanded we be expelled. This is an important distinction because it gets to the heart of whether there is anything specific American troops are doing in Saudi Arabia that bothers Bin Laden, or is it simply the fact that they are there. This can be seen in the larger context of “Do they hate us for who we are or because we are.” I’m afraid countless evidence points to the latter. Justification for Bin Ladens ‘objection to a U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia can only be offered by those who agree with his characterization of the U.S. as a whole. If the U.S. is indeed the source of the entire world’s evil, as the title “Great Satan” would suggest, than a troop presence would be a troublesome indication of ill intentioned political maneuvering. However to those infidels like me, who see Osama for what he is-Hitler with a turban; the opposition to the U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia, is indistinguishable from his other opinions about where geographically “infidels” should be permitted to go.
The second specific grievance the nihilists have is a widespread disapproval of U.S. support for Israel. They argue that the U.S. supplies Israel with weaponry and funding to commit acts of terrorism. The Israeli-Palestinian crisis has been the catalyst for thousands of Palestinian homicide bombers to blow themselves up in Israeli disco Tec’s on teen night. Israel has responded with, at times, devastating military force that has killed Palestinian civilians. Long sordid story short: the conflict is a mess in which America has tried to strike a balance, and hasn’t succeeded in doing that. And rightly so, we should support Israel; not in everything it does, but in its right to exist as a free nation. I’m waiting for the Palestinians to convince me that they recognize Israel’s right to exist. We have a historic responsibility to support democracy, and Israel-the only democracy in neighborhood that favors totalitarianism, is the recipient of not only our aid but also our opinion. President Bush is the first American president to call for a Palestinian state. He is vocal on Israeli actions that he feels might hurt the war on terror. In fact, Israel complains that we restrain them from fighting terrorism when we oppose massive military strikes or bulldozing settlements in the West Bank. Israel has lived with terrorism for a long time, and is a great example of what it means to “steel yourself” to terror. Essentially “steel yourself” means to toughen up. Israel has not been correct in every response to terrorism and at times has used excessive force, but they have also been experiencing daily attacks for years, and are tired of seeing their children die. It is a perplexing situation, especially when Israel is being confronted with a hatred so deeply imbedded in Muslim society. Saddam Hussein’s Baath party was started in Syria and inspired by some of Hitler’s most effective Nazi propaganda. Theatres in Egypt were going to show the Passion because it would inflame hatred against Jews. Saudi Arabian clerics have expressed (on state sponsored television) that the recent attacks in the kingdom are the result of “the Zionists,” and that Islam permits praying for the destruction of Christians and Jews. A myth that the Jews who had been working at the world trade center had been warned not to go into work that day was widely circulated in the Arab media. Some media outlets even went as far as to say that Israeli intelligence was responsible for the attack. So the Jews get the blame for 9/11, killing Christ, conspiring with the Great Satan to oppress Arabs, allowing women to drive and hold elected office, and generally exemplifying the qualities of an infidel. The hatred for America is partly because; the crazy Muslims like Bin Laden think that U.S. foreign policy is run by the Jews, and therefore is specifically designed to oppress Muslims. That’s not a grievance, that’s insanity. Anyone who subscribes to that idea that if America abandoned Israel: Al Qaeda would play nice, is worse than wrong, they’re stupid.
Al Qaeda’s specific grievances seem to be more of a non specific hatred of anything Western. They also might like us more if we cloaked our women, enforced a fundamental interpretation of the Koran by force, and renounced the evil of technology (meaning showers) -any takers? Their disagreements with U.S. policy grow out of a willful ignorance that is employed to mask the fact that people like Osama Bin Laden, a multi millionaire with a degree in economics-which he uses to mastermind terror attacks from a cave-are the real problem with the Middle East. Osama was a millionaire. It’s not about money. He had a degree in Economics. It’s not about education. His family was connected. He had opportunity. What motivated him to reject the luxurious life of a Saudi business man? What drove him to seek refuge in the darkest corners of the earth? What effectively turned him evil? What motivates countless young men and women with futures to sacrifice themselves for the cause of Islamic extremism? Liberals have gotten the war on terror wrong, for the same reason that they got the cold war wrong. This isn’t about better health care. This is much deeper. The phrases good and evil are attacked for geopolitical oversimplifications, but overcomplicating someone’s motives in attempts to understand them is dangerous.
This wasn’t a hunger strike to promote human rights. This was a vicious attack carried out by people who felt that they were doing God’s work. The terrorists didn’t come with a list of demands. As NY Times columnist Tom Freidman said, “Their act was their demand.” Their goal was not to foster an understanding of political injustice in the world. Their goal was to destroy symbols of American prosperity, thousands of lives, and send the rest of us cowering in fear. Not exactly the best way to prove a point, if indeed there was a point. What could they have hoped to achieve from 9/11 except America’s destruction? Want to make them happy? Keep up the Michael Moore crap about us starting this. They must love that.