Thursday, April 13, 2006
Middle East Policy
This is what you get when you’re a criminal.
Make no mistake, I’m not gloating. I’m not happy when an administration has sunk so low in the public eye that the vice president is booed vociferously when he throws out the first pitch at a baseball game.
It is clear that when members of the administration venture out of their bubble world the reception is not polite. America is not a fan of Dick Cheney, and they’re not too keen on his boss, either.
I’m familiar with some low-brow political pundits on the right who would gloat is the situation was reversed, and a democratic vice president was jeered at a baseball game. I recall their crowing from 2004, when “the people” had spoken, and as Rousseau said, Vox Populi is Vox Dei. We’re in the majority, thus we’re right. We “won.” “Get over it.”
Majorities change, and you certainly never “won.” We all lost. Our world is more dangerous, we are a poorer nation, and we are reviled around the world. That is the result of the Bush presidency. I don’t see many “winners.”
There is an amusing bumper sticker out there: “There are only two kinds of Bush supporters: millionaires and fools.” How true.
It is, unfortunately, becoming less and less true. Even the millionaires are living in a country and a world that is more dangerous than before. I’m not sure even they would say their tax cuts have been worth it.
The simple truth is that our world is becoming more dangerous, and we are becoming a more attractive target because of the foreign policy of this administration. Terrorist attacks in Iraq and around the world have increased steadily since 2000, as I have previously written. The US invasion of Iraq, the torture and indefinite detention of militants, and the bellicose foreign policy of the administration have enraged not only Arabs but even our traditional allies in Europe.
It is foolhardy to ignore the clear warning signs all around the world.
Neocons and their ill-informed offspring love to point out that 9/11 happened before we became so offensive. That’s true, and I fault Clinton and Bush for not seeing the danger signs before the attack. Clinton let CIA assets in Iraq dwindle down to next to nothing, an unforgivable lapse of intelligence strategy. Michael Scheuer and Paul Pillar, two famous former CIA analysts, have been quick to point this out, as has Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar. Bush ignored intelligence briefs on this subject, and he was not helped by an FBI that had clear intelligence on this matter but let it get lost in beaurocracy.
The problem since then has been that our foreign policy has exacerbated the problem. If you don’t think that rage on the Arab Street will lead to more terrorist attacks, you are delusional. London and Madrid have already suffered because of this myopic worldview.
This worldview is not based in reality, but instead on wishful thinking. By asserting that terrorists are going to attack us anyway, militants can justify horrible foreign policy.
An offshoot of this stupid thinking is the assertion that terrorists simply hate us for who we are. They hate our very existence. This is a very convenient worldview, as it justifies a foreign policy that takes no account of its negative impact on the rest of the world.
Viewing terrorism outside of its social and historical context is simply insanity. It’s true that poverty doesn’t cause crime, but it certainly is correlated with crime. Nations with a colonial foreign policy are victims of terrorism. When was the last time Norway was targeted by terrorists? How about Switzerland?
Terrorists don’t hate westerners for “who we are.” They, in fact, are happy to give their reasons for their hatred. Bin Laden cites US support for Israel and Arab autocratic governments like Saudi Arabia. He also cites the presence of US troops on Arab soil as evidence of US colonial ambitions.
How does one set of people hate another group with a murderous rage for no other reason than a licentious culture that is too permissive of things like nudity, capitalism, and vulgarity? Are there any American terrorist groups that are driven to a frothing rage at the thought of Amsterdam?
It doesn’t make any sense because it’s not true. Our foreign policy has made us a target, and it is making us a bigger target every day.
This is something that successive US governments have never cared about. For generations, our leaders just didn’t care about democracy or what people in the Middle East thought about our foreign policy. We overthrew the democratically-elected government of Iran in 1953 and then trained the Shah’s SAVAK secret police as they crushed dissent in Iran. We have maintained friendly relations with the corrupt monarchy in Saudi Arabia for generations, selling them arms in exchange for oil. We have pumped billions of dollars every year into Israel despite the fact that it is in violation of more UN resolutions than any government on Earth. We have made an ally of successive military governments in Turkey despite their human rights abuses and the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Kurds. We supported Saddam Hussein, too, even when the world knew he was a despot, until he became too aggressive and dangerous even for us. We continue to maintain friendly relations with smaller despotisms in the Middle East like the U.A.E., just as we have for years and years.
This has never changed, despite a variety of presidents in the White House. Even Jimmy Carter reserved his criticisms of the Shah for private meetings.
We have a responsibility to fundamentally change our foreign policy, not for the benefit of terrorists, but because it is the right thing to do. We have a long and ugly history of praising democracy at home and exporting imperialism abroad. I no longer have an interest in the justifications of supporting dictatorships for “stability,” as George H.W. Bush justified his support of Saddam Hussein right before the Gulf War. Let the despotisms be overthrown. When they have been overthrown, as in Nicaragua in 1980, what replaces them is always better. With help from the west these nascent governments will develop into decent central governments. More importantly, we won’t have blood on our hands.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 3:40 PM 
