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How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Sunday, March 25, 2007; Washington Post, B01
The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear
in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words
into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a
pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S.
standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our
ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from
fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
The damage these three words have done -- a classic
self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams
entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they
were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is
meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed
enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare --
political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
But the little secret here may be that the
vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated
by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish
one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear.
Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for
demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies
they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained
the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage
between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections
was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not
change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but
otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient
direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."
To justify the "war on terror," the administration
has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a
self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier
U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the
fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military
powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the
administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war
would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq,
Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.
The culture of fear is like a genie that has been
let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become
demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined
nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard
from its leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the
only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America
that waged the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge
that a real war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt
the death of 100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now
divided, uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the
event of another terrorist act in the United States itself.
That is the result of five years of almost
continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike
the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain,
Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered
painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq,
President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it
lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the
United States.
Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security
entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates
its own momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts
on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their
existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that it faces new
threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios
of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints
for their implementation.
That America has become insecure and more paranoid
is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress
identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for
would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year
the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to
77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000
items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple
and Pork Festival.
Just last week, here in Washington, on my way to
visit a journalistic office, I had to pass through one of the absurd
"security checks" that have proliferated in almost all the privately
owned office buildings in this capital -- and in New York City. A
uniformed guard required me to fill out a form, show an I.D. and in this
case explain in writing the purpose of my visit. Would a visiting
terrorist indicate in writing that the purpose is "to blow up the
building"? Would the guard be able to arrest such a self-confessing,
would-be suicide bomber? To make matters more absurd, large department
stores, with their crowds of shoppers, do not have any comparable
procedures. Nor do concert halls or movie theaters. Yet such "security"
procedures have become routine, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars
and further contributing to a siege mentality.
Government at every level has stimulated the
paranoia. Consider, for example, the electronic billboards over
interstate highways urging motorists to "Report Suspicious Activity"
(drivers in turbans?). Some mass media have made their own contribution.
The cable channels and some print media have found that horror scenarios
attract audiences, while terror "experts" as "consultants" provide
authenticity for the apocalyptic visions fed to the American public.
Hence the proliferation of programs with bearded "terrorists" as the
central villains. Their general effect is to reinforce the sense of the
unknown but lurking danger that is said to increasingly threaten the
lives of all Americans.
The entertainment industry has also jumped into the
act. Hence the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have
recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures,
that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial
stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been
rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic
campaigns. Lately, even some college student organizations have become
involved in such propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing
connection between the stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and
the unleashing of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.
The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has
encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally
loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in
point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans
recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not
be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.
Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim
air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly,
animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not
particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while
America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial
and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.
The record is even more troubling in the general
area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance,
suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that
undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty
has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens --
incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt
access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess
has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for
would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday
Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of
the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting
intolerance against the few.
In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely
damaged the United States internationally. For Muslims, the similarity
between the rough treatment of Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military and
of the Palestinians by the Israelis has prompted a widespread sense of
hostility toward the United States in general. It's not the "war on
terror" that angers Muslims watching the news on television, it's the
victimization of Arab civilians. And the resentment is not limited to
Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought
respondents' assessments of the role of states in international affairs
resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being rated (in that
order) as the states with "the most negative influence on the world."
Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil!
The events of 9/11 could have resulted in a truly
global solidarity against extremism and terrorism. A global alliance of
moderates, including Muslim ones, engaged in a deliberate campaign both
to extirpate the specific terrorist networks and to terminate the
political conflicts that spawn terrorism would have been more productive
than a demagogically proclaimed and largely solitary U.S. "war on
terror" against "Islamo-fascism." Only a confidently determined and
reasonable America can promote genuine international security which then
leaves no political space for terrorism.
Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of
this hysteria, stop this paranoia"? Even in the face of future terrorist
attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some
sense. Let us be true to our traditions.
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