- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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 as possible 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.
-
- Imagine hating a country so much that you were 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.
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- Foreigners aren't quite real to Americans, and most Americans
are unaware of how profoundly their government antagonizes much of the
human race. We are easy-going people who generally have no idea how 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 imagine 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 Renoir 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 a 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 to be loved at the same
time. Why do we? <end ___
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- Joe Sobran is a nationally-syndicated columnist.
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