Among the many effects of the terrorism attacks of September 11, 2001, was the ideological shift they provoked among those on the left. Many left-leaning commentators were so disconcerted by some of their fellow travelers’ responses to the attacks, they jumped straight into bed with the neocon war party. Journalists like Christopher Hitchens, Paul Berman, Ron Rosenbaum, Greil Marcus and Dan… return to article
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Reader Comments (24)Page 1 of 1 pagesNow we have a huge amont of anti arab racism to deal with. Racism is totally rooted in fear. Fear that has been kept simmering by the Bush administration to maintain support for this assinine attack. If americans live with these feelings of fear, the terrorists are achieving their goals. Refuse to be afraid. Chose to respect and understand. This is the key to defeating terrorism. Respect and understanding make for boring T.V. however.
Posted by Mike on May 10, 2003 at 4:27 PM “The Onion” had a funny bit in the run-up to Iraq. A fictitious pedestrian said “Has anyone explained to the [reticient] Germans that Iraqis are semites?” I ask… Has anyone explained to all the Jews voting hawkishly, that Iraqis, Arabs, and Islamic culture is Semitic? It is perhaps absurd to say that militantly anti-Arab sentiment amongst Jews and in Israel is anti-semitic. But when people who are not Jewish are anti-Arab, call a spade a spade, it’s anti-semitism. I hope some litigators out there are smart (and committed) enough to use laws against anti-semitism, against the genocidal-sounding Anti-Arab rhetoric being spewed in the media and on the streets. I’m all for freed speech, but as long as it’s being restricted it should be restricted fairly. The best defense against totalitarian legislation is showing how it can hurt both sides of any issue.
Posted by Joseph Howell on May 12, 2003 at 6:04 PM “The United States has thwarted democracy, inserted puppet dictators, smothered human rights, and stifled freedom in many countries in the Middle East.”
Gee, has any of this been true since most of the hijacker-terrorists were born?
To accuse the US of “thwarting democracy” in the Middle East is patently absurd. We support the existing democracy in the Middle East, Israel. This same writer would have the US reject Israel infavor of the PLO, run by the dictator Arafat for 30 years.
Posted by Nus on May 12, 2003 at 8:23 PM We need to do a better job at identifying who has supported despots and tyrants—not the United States, but some agents of the United States government. It’s an important distinction, especially as we’re trying to earn support from people who are justifiably proud of being an American but are open to learning about the atrocities that some of the men in high government positions have committed with our tax money. The vast majority of the American electorate is horrified by the thought that our money and military is used, usually secretly, to support the worst thugs and murderers in the developing world. But we lose people when we blame ‘us’ or ‘the United States’ for these crimes, instead of the true perpetrators—men in powerful government positions who lie about their secret missions. We don’t blame America for creating a backlash against the United States—we blame the government officials who secretly bomb and kill innocents in far-off lands with neither our permission nor our knowledge. We, the majority of Americans, leftist, centrist and conservative, are united against the foolish and dangeous crimes committed by a few at the highest levels of our government. That langauge is less likely to alienate and more likely to earn support, and I think Mr. Muwakkil’s well-reasoned argument would reach a larger audience with more tactical framing of the enemy.
Posted by Dan Johnson-Weinberger on May 12, 2003 at 9:16 PM I do not mean to imply in any way that Bush is actually making the important decisions in his administration, but it scares me that he is the most arrogantly ignorant president we have ever had. We have had arrogant presidents; we have had ignorant presidents. Bush’s combination of the two allows the worst elements in the Rep. party to take us where none of us want to go.
Posted by Bob Schneider on May 12, 2003 at 10:34 PM Salim Muwakkil is right, in my view, but rather than expanding on how right he his, let me ask a politically contrary question: When he refers to history’s slaveholders and colonizers, does he include the Islamic empire? Does it dumbfound him that some American ancestors of those Africans taken into slavery have run from one slaving religion, Christianity, to another, Islam? Does he mention in his social circles that Islamic traders were at the heart of the slave trade? Or that Islamic armies colonized and stamped their world view on a great swath of the globe? Seeing how miserable most of the people inside the Islamic Empire are, it’s hard to think their Arab conquerers did them any great service. (Well, they get to go to heaven, of course.)
Posted by Robert Temple on May 13, 2003 at 10:58 AM Hitchens has been drifing right for along time. He is not just anticlerical or he would be upset with the neocons for their alliance with the fundies in support of the settlers on the west bank. I think Hitchens IS a neocon. So is Dennis Miller. They were both supportive of the Clinton dick hunt, which was a religious right, clerical neocon, inspired movement. Furthermore, the anticlerical thing makes sense in Afghanistan, it doesn’t make sense in Iraq and Hitchens knows it. He is being completely dishonest with the Iraq venture. Even worse he is being someone his hero Orwell couldn’t stomach. He has been doing paid speeches for Scaife funded David Horowitz ran “Center for Popular Culture” for years now. He is obviously taking lessons in abusing public ignorance from his buddy Horowitz.
I can’t say about the others. I was personally taken aback in the Afghanistan(yes I supported that part because Al Qaeda were there. I don’t support the Iraqi phase) phase to have people bringing up what El Salvadore and Suarto in Indonesia. so far as I know those places are not middle eastern, even though what we did there was no doubt bad. That was spitting out venom to bring up things that probably don’t make middle easterners angry. There is still no excuse for going neocon as these elements of the left were fairly marginalized to begin with, but I don’t think that is Dennis Miller and Hitchens’s motivation anyway. They were tracking there long before this.
Posted by Jennifer on May 13, 2003 at 4:56 PM Well reasoned, profoundly needed commentary. Wish Mr. Muwakkil were a regular on CNN.
Posted by Eva Knapp on May 13, 2003 at 9:16 PM Oooh. Heresy. Someone who dares to point out the pro-Israeli people in the Bush administration (what about press guy Ari Fleischer. Nothing like flaunting your country-of-choice….).
Muwakkil makes what appear to me to be some very excellent points…about a bunch of politicians who are scarier than H….
I guess I’m still trying to digest the US imperialism and its implications.
Posted by Diane on May 14, 2003 at 6:32 AM great to use to compare left in right today vs Berlin 1920’s
Posted by me on May 14, 2003 at 8:46 PM The U.S. gov’t opposes state sponsored terrorism but the covert
division of the CIA has carried out
more state sponsored acts of terror
around the world for the last 50 years than any terrorist organization.
Posted by joe on May 17, 2003 at 4:56 AM No answers to my questions?
Joe, you wouldn’t be able to quantify your assertion would you? It appears to be merely a bald assertion with no factual basis.
Posted by Nus on May 19, 2003 at 8:24 PM Nus,
I read with much interest your comments above, especially this part: Gee, has any of this been true since most of the hijacker-terrorists were born?
I’d be only too happy to answer your question. Let’s use a hijacker age 30, which gives us a starting pt. of 1973, the year in which the CIA backed a military coup to overthrow a democratically elected socialist government in Chile, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 people, after Kissinger deems the people of Chile too ‘irresponsible’ to decide who runs their own country. Note: the keywords here are not ‘socialist govt.’ but ‘democratically elected.’ You remember what we all purport to stand for?
1975: Ford and Kissinger visit Indonesia and give Gen. Suharto permission to use American arms to invade East Timor (which he does the DAY AFTER they leave), killing 200,000 of a population of 700,000.
1980’s: Eh, the whole Contras thing. You know, supporting dictator Somoza, waging war on the people of Nicaragua for almost a decade?
1983: US invades Grenada (pop. 110,000). Maybe they were hiding WMD.
1989: US bombs a Panamanian ghetto after Noriega is no longer ‘our kind of guy’. Reported casualties between 500 -3,000. Frankly, one is too many.
If I tried to list all of US interventions I would be here all night (seventysomething different countries in as many decades). The US sponsors (see: supports, trains, installs) dictatorships all over the world, waging war on them when they outlive their usefulness. Supported Saddam for how long? Decades; only getting rid of the genocidal maniac when he misinterprets Washington’s permission granted him to ‘modify’ the Kuwaiti border (itself a dictatorship).
USG does not care about what repressive regimes do to other nations. As we can see from the Saddam example, the only crime they care about is disobedience.
But feel free to cheer them on if you like. The rest of the planet is wise to them. You never know, six billion people could be wrong…
Posted by O. on May 23, 2003 at 11:51 PM Mr O. you are absolutely insane. Sure it was our foreign policy mishaps (note:sarcasm) that caused 9/11. I agree that Kissinger did a lot bad things but it wasn’t his fault that this happened.
To say that 6 billion people were against this war is dumb statement. There is only 6 billion people in the world, and 75 percent of Americans were for the war. I don’t know what the popularity of the war was in India and China, but I’m pretty sure that you don’t either.
Don’t exaggerate, you made some good points but when you exagerate the points are kind of canceled out.
Posted by Brad on May 24, 2003 at 6:39 PM Dan:
When the US doesn’t get UN consent for a war that generally means the UN doesn’t want one, even with Tony Blair’s evidence of WMD that was cut-and-pasted from a Californian students’ thesis (a 10yr old one at that. At least he used American). Or the photo evidence that Colin Powell humiliated himself with in front of the council. Aznar supported it with the opposition of 90% of his people. England’s antiwar march was the biggest in the country for thirty years. Why do you think they had their war summits in the Azores (a remote island) and Northern Ireland (the most heavily policed state in Europe)? Because if Blair held one on his front door all those people would have shown up again with friends, I can guarantee you that. How many millions across the world have to march before you listen to them?
How many ladies have to get buttnaked in the Australian countryside and form the words NO WAR inside a giant heart?
Do you honestly expect the rest of the world to feel safer in the knowledge their brothers and sisters across the water are spending in excess of $300 million dollars a year on hardware designed with no other purpose in mind than killing people?Brad, I have enjoyed talking with you. When you say my good points are cancelled out by exaggeration I understand that. What cannot be cancelled out, however, are the deaths of those people in Chile and Panama and the other countries I mentioned as a direct result of American foreign policy.
When you talk of foreign policies mishaps are you referring to the $3 billion dollars funded to Osama bin Laden by the CIA? A mishap is when you break a vase. What do you say when you fund and train a man who kills and maims thousands of New Yorkers? Oops? Our bad?
Oh I know.
Sorry.
Posted by O. on May 25, 2003 at 11:29 PM O:
It’s interesting that you cite Nicaragua as an American policy travesty. Let’s see, when we supported Somoza, we were supporting a dictatorship against a domestic insurgency (the support was later withdrawn, but never mind). When we supported the Contras against the Sandinista dictatorship, we took the opposite position and, according to the Left, we were wrong again. This is despite the fact that the ouster of the Sandinista regime allowed freely contested elections in that country for the first time in memory, and the establishment of democracy. Did I miss something, or did you?
And getting back to the thesis of this particular article, the US has been guilty of less mischief in Arab countries than any other great power (Suez, anyone?). Why didn’t the islamofascists fly airliners into a Moscow building, for example?
Honestly, it doesn’t matter much what we do. Most of the Arab world is still convinced that 9/11 was a joint CIA-Mossad plot, a view shared in many parts of Europe (“l’Effroyable Imposture”). Many still think the Apollo moon landing was a hoax, that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a historical document, and any number of crackpot conspiracy theories. The beliefs of the Arab world are independent of the facts as they exist. No wonder they are the darlings of the Left.
Posted by Mitch on May 26, 2003 at 3:08 PM O. The CIA has screwed up a lot of things, I don’t know how to put it in any other way. But focusing on those mistakes doesn’t do anything, we have to look at it, and understand that we should only help out those who we’re absolutely sure are with us, that was the point of the Bush doctrine.
I was wondering if you felt that Kissinger should be placed on trial for war crimes. I personally don’t, but I know some lefties do.
Posted by Brad on May 26, 2003 at 8:37 PM Thankyou for voicing a sentiment that I have been carrying with me for some time.
Posted by cat on May 26, 2003 at 10:06 PM O,
The language I quoted from the article was as follows ““The United States has thwarted democracy, inserted puppet dictators, smothered human rights, and stifled freedom in many countries in the Middle East.”
I asked if any of this was true since most of the hijackers had been born.
You start with an inaccurate premise, “a hijacker age 30” - typically suicide terrorists are in their 20s. There is no reason to believe that those involved with Sept. 11 were any older.
You then respond with several stories about Central and South America and Indonesia. Is it your belief that the hijacker/terrorists were demonstrating their solidarity with Latino communists? Remember the article alleged this was done in the “Middle East”.
You also give no examples of the US government actually doing anything other than supporting the Chilean internal coup. Each of the actions you describe was taken by citizens/governments of the countries in question.
You also have your own point of view. Many view that in Nicaragua, it was the the Sandinistas who were waging war on the people. Do you believe the Sandinistas were nothing more than a non-violent progressive movemnet as opposed to an armed, insurrectionist guerrilla movement with many murders and acts of terrorism to their credit?
Your answer further discredits the claim made in the story.
Posted by Nus on May 27, 2003 at 8:27 PM Total agreement. Just one comment. Anger about our condition and our leaders can easily be the result of understanding this stuff, but it is counterproductive and unnecessary. No country in history has ever undertaken to see itself clearly. The great majority of citizens of all countries have historically seen themselves as good and others as misguided, deluded or evil. This is the work of the human ego. In the evolution of human consciousness, as the ego is reduced, we will come to a point when self examination will be assumed, but that is not yet. Meanwhile, don’t focus on the bad, progressives, focus on the good. 300 years ago dissent from government policy in times of war was a death sentence. A century ago it was permitted but hotly discouraged. Today, even the most reactionary government America has ever had must at least pay lip service to what they might call (for public consumption), the grand democratic tradition of dissent. Look at the positives. We may be equal parts philospher and hairy ape, but once we were all hairy ape. The philosopher part continues to gain.
Posted by Jagadeesan on May 28, 2003 at 2:15 AM Nus,
Thank you for your candid approach. Might I suggest you pass on the word to the hypothetical hijacker that his application to Al Qaeda has been respectfully refused (too old). If he was 29 then maybe, but such is the lot of a career terrorist.
You wrote: “You also give no examples of the US government actually doing anything other than supporting the Chilean internal coup. Each of the actions you describe was taken by citizens/governments of the countries in question.”
So the people of Grenada attacked themselves eh? The Panamanian ghettodwellers called in an airstrike on their own neighbourhood?
Please do me the courtesy of actually reading my letters before responding.
As for Nicaragua, I am going to side with the World Court on this one, which ruled that the US acted with an “unlawful use of force” and that the aid it provided to the mercenary forces attacking the country to help destroy the progressive social and economic programmes of the government was military and not humanitarian, as the USG claimed. How did the US respond? By dismissing the World Court as a “hostile forum,” escalating the war and forcing Nicaragua to withdraw their reparations claims.
My own point of view you say? That is how the World Court decided. Not me. The fact that you regard the Contra scandal as anything other than a blight on America’s fine reputation beggars belief.
Posted by O. on May 28, 2003 at 11:15 AM O:
Yes, I didn’t address your Granada and Panama examples. That was a mistake on my part, although you must agree that neither of these, along with none of your other exmples, support the contention made in the article concerning “many countries in the Middle East.”
Your comments on a job application with Al Queda? I have seen this theory of argument before - when confronted with a problem in your argument, just make fun and your response magically becomes accurate. It is an untenable position.
The Contra scandal? Where did I voice my opinion about this? I didn’t. How you can make the cap of your response a comment that my view “beggars belief” seems to me to be absurd and ill-thought since you don’t know my view and is in line with your “job application” comment.
In response to your allegation that the US had been “waging war on the people of Nicaragua for almost a decade?” I stated plainly that many believe that the Sandinistas were “an armed, insurrectionist guerrilla movement with many murders and acts of terrorism to their credit” IOW, the Sandinistas were waging war on thier fellow countrymen. Since this is in fact true, you resort to the misdirection ploy. Instead of responding by talking about the Sandinistas you ask “What about Iran/Contra?”
Posted by Nus on May 28, 2003 at 9:49 PM Mr/Ms O refers to the “$300mil” the USG spends on defense annually. Oh, if that was only the case!! That will buy you what - one, maybe two F-15s? The real truth is that the US spends more on defense in one year than the entire EU plus your pick of another handful of countries combined!! Folks, that may make us real cozy in the continental 48, but that fact alone breeds fear, which begets contempt and hostility, especially when the world at large perceives that the mightiest military force in recorded history seems to be running amuck.
The examples of the USG trampling headlong all over the world are relevant because they expose a pattern of behaviour. The nonsense about the age of the terrorists is laughable. Just because they may not have been alive for an act of USG foreign policy stupidity does NOT mean they are not affected by it! Hussein is a prime example; US support ended by the time the Gulf War started, but its ramifications are with us to this day.
And just what bug got under those Iranian’s skin back in the late 70s? They were obviously irritated by something! The core of the USG “Islamic problem” is a warped, nonsensical foreign policy that almost indiscriminantly props up this despot or another, and then picks its spots to “right the wrong.” Add in our blanket support for Israel and BINGO - two towers, part of the Pentagon and 3k+ incinerated.
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