Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 43, June 21, 2004

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Another conversation with someone about Iraq. They are advocating massive response to the low-intensity war going on against the U.S. Bomb them. Blow up a city next time an American is killed. Because, they say, "after all, force is the only thing those people understand."

It's said because presumably, "those people" are terrorists, who kill innocent Americans and have refused to stop. It comes up when an American is publicly beheaded or when there is a suicide bombing in Israel.

It presumes a normal world interrupted by the act of terror. We were going along, living our lives, going to the mall, working, enjoying life, when, out of the blue, a totally irrational act of terror happened. Worse, it is the latest in a line of terrorist attacks that interrupt our normal life.

So what this saying involves is, first of all, a blindness to the acts of violence going the other way. It is likely that the American army in Iraq has killed more civilians than al Qaeda has, yet those deaths do not count, are invisible. Those deaths were, it is claimed, not intentional, just regrettable accidents. Perhaps many of them were even the victim's fault, the theory runs, they failed to get out of the way. The family of someone killed isn't likely to be more accepting of an accidental death - if the death was due to carelessness rather than intention that is almost more infuriating.

This blindness persists even there is an element of intentionality in the attacks on "those people." The Israeli army has killed more than twice as many Palestinian children as Israeli children murdered by suicide terrorist attacks and those killings were not entirely accidental either. Yet, I've heard these deaths just dismissed "that's not the point," said with the nose in the air and a dismissive contempt. We are not like "those people" we care about people. It is, as a comic said on the Daily Show, "the point isn't that we tortured people, the point is that we are people who wouldn't torture people."

In the specific case of terrorism and the definition of Arabs as "those people," it depends on seeing terrorism not only as evil but as irrational in a technical sense: unpredictable, arising spontaneously without cause and susceptible to no action other then total extermination. This is convenient for our leaders to have us believe, because it directs attention away from the factors that do lead to terrorism and the extent to which terrorism can, in fact, be predicted. Factors largely set by America's actions toward the Arab world in general and the actions of Israel in particular do directly affect the number and frequency of terrorist attacks. The number of suicide bombers in Israel has gone up and down over time in direct reaction to Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

In Iraq, there is a desperate attempt to see this insurgency as arising out of the evil nature of "those people" who, in stead of being grateful to us for "all we've done for them" are now, totally irrationally, attacking us. That they didn't want us to invade, object to our clueless and heavy handed occupation, resent being rousted out of their homes at midnight, and resent our slow handover of power are facts that cannot exist.

That one speaks of "those people" is also to group people. The terrorist element in Arab culture becomes definitional of the whole. The entire culture is viewed as breeding terror and hatred of America. The entire culture is seen as supporting and endorsing and participating in the terror. Then it becomes permissible to engage in group punishment. Destroy the house of people related to a terrorist. Destroy the village where a terrorist act took place. Punish the country of origin of terrorists.

Such logic is never allowed with one's own culture. The pedophiles are not thought characteristic of the Roman Catholic priesthood even when it becomes obvious that other members of the hierarchy conspired to keep them in the priesthood. The men who rape are not considered to be typical of all men - unless of course, you define men as "those people" and use them as your other group. You can have "those people" only when there is a group seen as "other" from yourself.

That it is thought that there is a specific group of people who "only respond to force" is to suggest that there is a group of people who are different from oneself. A group without hopes, dreams, pride or self-respect. A sort of sub-human group that reacts only to the lower forces of human nature. So it is a racist opinion.

In conversations with people who speak of "those people" I am regularly struck at how the belief in "those people" and their behavior is not only ignorant of the facts, but willfully and determinedly ignorant. That is, people who say these things are not interested in the facts, reject anything that would lead them to a deeper understanding of the situation and simply don't care to know more. Indeed, they seldom think a debate is needed at all, if you don't agree with their view, you are simply dangerously close to being one of "those people."

Not only have I found people who express this opinion to be unreachable by moral arguments, they are also largely unreachable by practical arguments. How is the war in Iraq going? How effective has that torture policy been? Maybe trying to deal with terror and random violence by engaging in more and more random violence in response would only create more violence by "those people." But that cycle is invisible. Our terror is "in reaction" to "teach them a lesson." Their terror is evil.

It leads people into all sorts of contradictions. We had to invade Iraq to free the Iraqi people - who are "those people" who are all terrorists. Saddam, a terrorist, was evil because he controlled his people and terrorized his nation - who are "those people," themselves terrorists. We wanted the affection of the Iraqi people and when they were so ungrateful as to object to our destructive and ineffective occupation, now they are terrorists. We are just one small step away from "we had to destroy the village in order to save it."

While people who express the opinion I am rejecting are not terrorists themselves, their logic and world view is dangerously parallel to the worldview of the terrorist and the terrorist supporter. Terrorists beheaded those two people and took pictures of it did so to "teach us a lesson" and certainly seem to be acting as if they felt we were people "who only respond to force." When you put that together with the closed world view and the rejection of rationality that is also part of the terrorist impulse, you have more parallels.

And finally, sinking to the level of advocating mass violence on the sub-humans who "only respond to force" is to totally abandon any pretense that America is more than the biggest bully on the block. I want more for my country: for it to be a shining beacon on a hill, a moral example of freedom and liberty, an attractive example of what happens when all people are able to live to their potential and desire. A country who believes that people - most people from all cultures - respond to opportunity, democracy, justice and respect people who live in obedience to moral limits.

That is not the country of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.