Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 40, May 31, 2004

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by John Nordin
The mirror of a great nation
I was off for one week due to travel, and another due to computer upgrade issues.

Ernesto Galli Della Loggia commented in centrist, top-circulation Corriere della Sera (5/13, Italy): “There were no torturers among the American soldiers who on June 4, 1944...entered Rome.... The forces that liberated us sixty years ago impressed us with their kindness...and for their numerous cultural offerings like films, books, newspapers.... But we didn’t even see a glimmer of this in Iraq.... We’re under the impression that the forces engaged in Iraq are different from the ones we used to know: it looks like an army that was solely made to fight, to win the war and nothing more; that it has given up being, or no longer knows how to be, the mirror of its great nation.”

What a profoundly moving comment. Sixty years ago, the conscript army was a mirror of the nation, being drawn from every group and every walk of life. It's actions reflected the national will and that will was about more than just killing and 'securing' an area. Now all was 'solely made to fight' and in being so made has lost touch with what is impressive about America: our ideals and our service.

Columnist Ahmed Settati noted in socialist USFP Arabic daily Al Ittihad Al Ishtiraki (5/13, Morocco): " Iraq has gained no investments, no reconstruction, no food, no development, no freedom and no democracy.... However, one can only salute with gratitude the kindness of the American people, who after learning about the scandalous deeds carried out in cold blood by its army, raised their voices in anger and protest on the streets, in the media and in representative institutions to call for sanctioning the perpetrators.... It is our duty to shake hands with the U.S. people for their courage in condemning the hypocrisy and lies of their leaders, as they did during the Vietnam war, Watergate and other scandals.... Many Arab peoples are still unable to bring their leaders back to righteousness in the absence of a genuine democracy that can hold leaders accountable and punish wrongdoing."

And here we have the irony. We thought people would admire our power, our will, the way we swept all before us. Shock would lead to awe. But that is not what people are awed with, rather they are in awe of democracy. They are impressed in seeing the divisions in our government. The administration suggests that it is weaking and almost disloyal to have a commission investigating 9/11 "while the war is still going on." But it is this very self-investigation that is our strongest weapon. Make no mistake, we are not more secure because we have an army "solely made to fight."

It will never happen, but I know what the new president should do after he takes power in 2004. He should go to Iraq, get down on his knees and beg forgiveness. Say 'we were wrong' and renounce all designs on Iraq. Pledge we will refuse to keep any bases there, refuse to force open their economy to multinationals. Blow up that prison, but for god's sake, not build a new, shinny one! Ask for the Arab world to launch a truth commission and declassify all the rubbish about how we made our decision to go to war. Promise that, since the United States twice made the mistake in one lifetime, we will not, a third time, launch a war of conquest pretending to be a war of liberation. We can all say Vietnam was because we didn't understand; what is our excuse now?

"Indeed, Rumsfeld concluded, the jihad probably had more recruits than it did before, thanks in large part to the invasion of Iraq" Le Monde Diplomatiqe, April, 2004 referencing a USA Today story of 16 October 2003.
That is the consequence of a foreign policy solely based on fighting. There is an alternative.
Soft power
Thomas Friedman: "We would take all the money the Bush team has wasted on P.R. campaigns directed at the Arab-Muslim world and put it into three programs: a huge expansion of U.S. embassy libraries around the world, which have been cut in recent years ... a huge expansion of scholarships for foreign students to study in America, and a huge expansion of our immigration service so it can quickly figure out who should get visas to study or work in America and who shouldn't." New York Times, May 27, p. A31.

The concept is sometimes called "soft power." I call it democracy. It is the idea that we gain strength from showing our system in action, from exposing people to ordinary Americans, from being generous.

I've seen those embassy libraries at work. In Kenya it was a godsend for Kenyans who couldn't find information anywhere else. Their weekly rebroadcast of a summary of the evening news had more Kenyans than Americans in attendance. Their cultural programs were popular. And it was probably all undone by the visa processing officer I saw screaming - literally screaming at the top of his lungs - at a poor, befuddled Kenyan, who, probably, was trying to cheat on a visa application.

I've been in Ethiopia when the communists ran it, in Malawi when the dictator ran it, El Salvador in the civil war and in Greece at the height of its anti-American phase in the 1980s. From all that, I think there is no substitute for one-on-one American foreign aid. Peace corps volunteers are worth many divisions in keeping us secure. Retired U.S. professors, medical aid workers, visitors on serious tours, even missionaries, do more to keep us secure and undermine radical anti-American movements than all our carriers posted around the world.

And the reverse is true: we should be inviting foreigners here by the millions to study in our universities, do internships, attend a year of high school, live with typical American families. If we'd done that for twenty years with the Arab world, we wouldn't be in this mess. We'd understand more of the way the Arab world is different from our own, we'd have more respect for the divesity of Islam and we'd know how to talk to and how to influence them.

A nation that did all that would be a great nation and all those who went abroad in its name would mirror that.
Good News: Muslim cabbies of New York

The New York Times had a story (p. A20, May 28) about the lengths to which Muslim cab drivers in New York go to be able to fulfill their obligations to pray 5 times a day. They find odd corners of the airport, pray by the side of the road, keep prayer rugs in their trunk. Muslims are to wash before prayer and that adds difficulty as well.

Few Christians would even consider keeping this sort of public ritual.
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