Why History Is Relevant Shouldn't we understand our enemies in order to combat them?
By Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17680 Sept.16 '04 - AUSTIN, Texas -- You open the paper and read the news from Iraq these days, and all you can say is, "Damn, damn, damn." I'm flat out of ideas about how we can fix this, but I maybe see a couple of wrong roads we should give a miss. I was much struck by a column last week by David Brooks in The New York Times written in an understandable rage against the perpetrators of the school massacre at Beslan, Russia. Condemning the perpetrators of Beslan with all the vigor at his command -- hyperbole is impossible -- leads Brooks to an unfortunate conclusion. Brooks particularly blames the American media, which he argues are "averting their eyes" and being "quick to divert their attention away from the core horror of this act" by paying attention to what he regards as irrelevant: the grievance that served as a justification or pretext for these terrorists' act of evil. In other words, he is so exercised at the utter, unmitigated evil of the terrorists, he thinks history is irrelevant. History does not excuse terrorism, but it sure as hell is relevant, if for no other reason than you have to understand an enemy in order to combat him. Of course we should pay attention to what shaped the Chechen terrorists -- since when is learning about terrorists or trying to understand what motivates them the same as condoning them or their actions? In the case of Chechnya, the history is so grim it draws dramatic attention to precisely how a cult of death can start. Chechnya has a long, bitter history of fighting Russia going back at least two centuries. Those of you who have been paying attention know that after World War II, Stalin deported almost the entire nation of Chechnya to Siberia and dumped most of them off in frozen fields with nothing. So most adult Chechens were born in Siberia. Because of the Chechens' desire for independence, two hideous wars followed, one under President Yeltsin and one under President Putin. Most of us remember the mind-numbingly desolate photos of Grozny, the capital, after the surrender -- beyond Dresden. That's how Chechen terrorism was born. Desire for independence is not something this country normally condemns. Brooks blames the terrorism on the "death cult thriving at the fringes of the Muslim world." At least in the case of the Chechens, that's akin to blaming Catholicism for the IRA. On a larger plane, Brooks thinks we refuse to recognize the absolute evil of the Beslan terrorists because it "undermines our faith in the essential goodness of human beings." Speak for yourself, Brooks. Seems to me the one thing that does not change through history is human nature. Theologians and philosophers will continue to debate human nature. I've always liked an observation about politics made by an old West Texas rancher: "I feel like I'm about equal parts good and bad. There's just not many people appealin' to the good in me." I think we're all capable of evil under extreme circumstances. I do know that most humans are kinder and better people when they are healthy, well-fed, raised by loving people in a secure environment and taught it is wrong to kill. But that doesn't change human nature. One trouble with defining terrorism as absolute evil is, as the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Second, we appear to be stuck -- permanently stuck -- with war of unequal forces, since no country is dumb enough to declare war on the United States. So we need to learn every thing we can about how to fight these people effectively. Third, defining "terrorist" or any "other" as an absolute, irrational evil gives us a spurious and intoxicating sense of self-righteousness. We become the simon-pure contrast, thus missing any chance to consider if correcting or just changing our own conduct would be effective. One of the things I know about human nature is that in order to kill strangers face to face -- or, God forbid, their children -- you have to either be very afraid or convince yourself that your enemy is completely evil, other, non- human. People seem far more capable of killing other people if they can't see them, which is probably why war has gotten nastier as the technology has gotten better. We have killed an estimated 12,000-14,000 Iraqis since "mission accomplished" and are bombing Fallujah today. For all I know, in some future I cannot envision, this will turn out to be the right thing to have done. Peace and democracy will flourish in Iraq, and we will all bow down to the great wisdom of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. But so far, no good. According to both opinion polls in Iraq and in the larger Arab world, our invasion of Iraq has increased hatred of the United States and fanned terrorism. Ignorance and condemnation are not a strategy for dealing with that. [Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Who Let the Dogs In?] portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news, discussion and debate service of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left. To subscribe: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside *** Incident on Haifa Street Quotes of the Week: "When the Americans fire back, they don't hit the people who are attacking them, only the civilians," said Osama Ali, a 24-year-old Iraqi who witnessed the attack [in Baghdad]. "This is why Iraqis hate the Americans so much. This is why we love the mujahedeen." (Dexter Filkins, Raising the Pressure in Iraq, the New York Times, Sept. 14) "The United States military seemed set to press ahead with more attacks in Falluja. In areas just outside the city, American forces spoke through loudspeakers and called for a local militant, Omar Hadeed, to ‘come out and fight,' witnesses said Monday." (Sabrina Tavernise, U.S. Attacks Rebel Base in Falluja; 20 Are Killed, the New York Times, Sept. 14) "Every step of the way in Iraq there have been pessimists and hand-wringers who said it can't be done. And every step of the way, the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people have proven them wrong because they are determined to have a free and peaceful future. People said that there couldn't be a transitional administration law, and there was one that was adopted by the Iraqi people. People said that there couldn't be a transfer of sovereignty by June 30th -- and it happened even before June 30th. So every step of the way, the Iraqi people are proving the hand-wringers and the douubters wrong." (White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Press Briefing, September 15.) Incident on Haifa Street Are there any statistics from Iraq in recent weeks which don't indicate trouble? Oil production, which Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz once swore would fund the reconstruction of a democratic Iraq, is now crippled and well below prewar levels, while attacks on oil pipelines and facilities have risen sharply; American deaths are on the rise (53 for just over half of September) as are the numbers of our wounded, as are attacks on American troops, which are now averaging more than 80 a day, "four times the number of one year ago and 25 percent higher than last spring"; while the strains on American Guard and Reserve units, being called up ever more frequently, grow greater by the week; Iraqi civilian casualties have soared in recent weeks; and on the rise are the killings of Iraqi policemen, targeted by the insurgency, but also of translators, cleaning women, clothes washers, carpenters, anyone in fact who works with the occupying forces; "no-go" areas for American troops have been increasing steadily as parts of Iraq simply blink off the American map; the kidnapping of foreigners has risen as evidently has the under-the-table payment of ransom demands; the number of car-bombings has gone up and they are being ever more carefully coordinated; estimates of the numbers! of insurgents and their supporters have been rising rapidly; more mortar shells are being dropped on U.S. bases; desertions from and the infiltration of the Iraqi battalions the American military has been training are high and possibly on the rise; the sophistication and deadliness of guerrilla attacks is on the rise; the number of CIA agents in the country has risen; American air strikes on heavily populated neighborhoods of Iraqi cities are on the rise; the fighting is still spreading (as the battles around Tal Afar, near the Turkish border, indicated last week); more schoolchildren are dropping out of school at ever earlier ages to help support their families; more highways are too d! angerous to drive; the number of countries supporting the "coalition" with even handfuls of troops has been falling as have the numbers of troops in allied contingents; the number of articles in leading American newspapers announcing that large swathes of Iraq have passed from American control is on a precipitous upward curve; the number of military experts ready to declare the war in Iraq in some fashion lost is also on a steep upward climb; while -- and nothing could be more devastating than this -- on advice from its new staff and ambassador in Baghdad, the Bush adminisstration has gone back to Congress to switch $3.4 billion in Congressionally mandated reconstruction funds from two of the most important areas of daily life -- the generation of electricity and the! purification of water supplies ("'Maku Karaba, Maku Amin' -- no electricity, no security -- is still the cry of Iraqis on the street") -- largely to "security"; that is, to the creatioon of Iraqi forces that will nominally fight under the banner of Iyad Allawi's regime but essentially under American command. (Does no one remember Richard Nixon's disastrous "Vietnamization" program?) The only number in this last month that seems not to have risen precipitously, but has remained doggedly at zero is the number of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological or chemical) in Saddam Hussein's possession before the invasion began. But let's turn from the large and statistical to a single incident that made the news repeatedly last week, an incident on Baghdad's Haifa Street, known locally as "Death Street" for the regular ambushes that take place there. The thoroughfare, part of a Sunni neighborhood in the capital that has been a hotbed of opposition to the Americans, lies across the Tigris river from, but only several hundred yards away from what's now being called the "International Zone" (as in neocolonial Shanghai) but is better known as the Green Zone, the highly fortified area where the U.S. embassy and the Allawi government have existed, until recently, in air-conditioned (relative) splendor. On Saturday night, September 11, unknown guerrillas began pounding the Green Zone with mortars. The area had certainly been mortared before, but on a distinctly hit and run basis. This time, there was evidently far more mortaring and far less running. The initial September 13 New York Times report (Sabrina Tavernise, "Scores Are Dead After Violence Spreads in Iraq") commented that "rarely has the bombardment [there] been so persistent and intense." When the intermittent mortaring hadn't stopped by morning, the Americans sent out troops to locate the guerrillas and undoubtedly fell into a planned ambush, one aspect of changing tactics as the insurgency grows ever stronger. ("Militants," reports Kim Housego of the Associated Press, "now follow up roadside bomb attacks with a deluge ! of rocket-propelled grenades instead of fleeing, or fire off mortar rounds to lure soldiers out of their base and into freshly laid mine fields, [U.S.] military commanders say.") Click here to read more of this dispatch. --- You are currently subscribed to tomdispatch as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. 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