Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

They can't see why they are hated
The Guardian ^ | Thursday September 13, 2001 | Seumas Milne

Posted on 09/13/2001 6:33:57 AM PDT by getoffmylawn

Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible.

Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world.

But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy.

As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages.

If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a Churchillian response.

It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming.

It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed in his mouth.

But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world.

All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker asked yesterday.

Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 281-300301-320321-340 ... 361-379 next last
To: getoffmylawn
If nothing else, I give you credit for the guts to post this article here. We do indeed need to examine the way we treat other countries, and how that treatment permits us to pursue our relatively carefree lifestyles (although that has surely ended). Now may not be the time for this, though. No matter what our flaws, right now we need to be unified and we need to SEVERELY PUNISH whoever did this.
301 posted on 09/13/2001 3:04:49 PM PDT by independentmind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: big'ol_freeper
I agree. I lived in Germany for almost four years and the America-haters are a very small minority.

And almost always either the young idiots, or the Neo-nazis.

302 posted on 09/13/2001 3:09:35 PM PDT by lepton
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 98 | View Replies]

To: independentmind
I agree, but if my posting of this article prevents the assault on even one innocent Muslim in this country (but I doubt it will) it will be worth it.

Can you believe an American of Serbian heritage just posted that? Sheesh... I thought we were supposed to be the radical Muslim haters.

303 posted on 09/13/2001 3:22:16 PM PDT by getoffmylawn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 301 | View Replies]

To: Nonstatist
Please, monkeybrains, tell me what would you do about anything whatsoever.You apparently just like to whine and complain and nurse your litlle Anti -Semitisms and all your other little Anti's. So , enlighten us, jerkoff. Lead us toward the Perfect World.

See #257. Unlike you, I do actually make points not just insults. Your disgusting language is only exceeded by your pathetic ursurpation of the term nonstatist.

304 posted on 09/13/2001 3:33:34 PM PDT by Architect
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 299 | View Replies]

To: getoffmylawn
It's obvious people here are feeling and not thinking. I hear people calling for invasions of Afghanistan and for killing 1,000 Mulsims for every American. They are obviously not thinking what that would entail.

I'm sure glad Bush and not Clinton is the President. If Clinton were president he would have blamed Republicans for the bombing and he would have already bombed some innocent civilians in some Islamic country.

305 posted on 09/13/2001 3:34:31 PM PDT by Marduk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 303 | View Replies]

To: getoffmylawn
Pacifism is suicide.
306 posted on 09/13/2001 3:55:35 PM PDT by Terriergal ((not rabid but plenty willing to bite))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies]

Comment #307 Removed by Moderator

To: Terriergal
Apparently so is hegemony.
308 posted on 09/13/2001 4:02:46 PM PDT by getoffmylawn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 306 | View Replies]

Comment #309 Removed by Moderator

To: CatoRenasci
If you haven't the stomach for the coming war, then stand aside and let America get on with what's necessary.

A great reply on a sadly polluted thread.

310 posted on 09/13/2001 4:37:36 PM PDT by aculeus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 197 | View Replies]

To: getoffmylawn
Let's see now, getoffmylawn added to the list of seditious apologists for terrorists. Welcome comrade of AppyPappy, stuartrc, and DarthReagan.

When confronted with wild dogs and savages, the gelded socialist sociologists teach that it is best to put up a big fence, hide your belongings, cover your eyes, and try to understand them.

Not anymore. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

The islamic nations must go the way of Troy, Carthage, and Azteca.

311 posted on 09/13/2001 4:51:26 PM PDT by MrBambaLaMamba (cavaliers@dare_to_speak.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sedition
No one will condemn America for their retribution when meted out. BUT, let America punish the guilty and then analyse their policies and what factors led to this. IT IS NOT WEAKNESS to reexamine onself from a position of strength.

How true.

312 posted on 09/13/2001 5:01:59 PM PDT by getoffmylawn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 309 | View Replies]

To: MrBambaLaMamba
Let's see now, getoffmylawn added to the list of seditious apologists for terrorists.

I'm sorry, but you obviously have me mistaken for the United States of America and its KLA terrorist allies.

313 posted on 09/13/2001 5:04:39 PM PDT by getoffmylawn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 311 | View Replies]

To: MrBambaLaMamba
The islamic nations must go the way of Troy, Carthage, and Azteca.

Good plan. Are you suggesting selling the people into slavery too (as happened to these countries)? Or simply gassing them? Maybe a good time to pick up some stock in HotPoint.

314 posted on 09/13/2001 5:07:53 PM PDT by Architect
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 311 | View Replies]

To: Architect
Whatever it takes to remove the threat.
315 posted on 09/13/2001 5:11:59 PM PDT by MrBambaLaMamba (cavaliers@dare_to_speak.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 314 | View Replies]

To: getoffmylawn
Your comments are understandable and are the result of 50 years of leadership and indoctrination by the gelded socialist sociologists.

Do not get upset, but resistance is futile and you will be assimilated.
The touchy feely 'everyone's opinion and belief is OK' world has ended and we will have to deal with it.

316 posted on 09/13/2001 5:17:10 PM PDT by MrBambaLaMamba (cavaliers@dare_to_speak.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 313 | View Replies]

To: Architect
Another added to the list of seditious apologists for terrorism.
317 posted on 09/13/2001 5:18:33 PM PDT by MrBambaLaMamba (cavaliers@dare_to_speak.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 314 | View Replies]

To: MrBambaLaMamba
Another added to the list of seditious apologists for terrorism.

Gee, thanks. You just made my day. I still want to know. Should I build slave ships? Or ovens?

Oh, I have another idea. How about we have a two for one sale? Two Moslems for each victim in the WTC disaster. Maybe we could sell hunting licenses and make a profit that way. Then we could make, say, 40,000 martyrs and 100,000 kids just itching for revenge. When one of them finally does do the dirty deed, we could start all over. What fun.

318 posted on 09/13/2001 5:32:32 PM PDT by Architect
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 317 | View Replies]

To: getoffmylawn
If this is the kind of garbage you read, it's obvious that you are too much of an idiot to worry about thinking about anything. Do you ask the reasons why Son of Sam murdered people? No, you off the f*&%&r. End of story. Radical Islam is the Son of Sam of social movements. The people who are part of this religion, or supporter of it, are useful only as fertilizer for next year's crops.
319 posted on 09/13/2001 5:37:25 PM PDT by Scott from the Left Coast
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #320 Removed by Moderator


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 281-300301-320321-340 ... 361-379 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson