3-22-02, Voice in the Crowd
Voice in the Crowd
By Pete Chaney
IPS Features
We’re the Good Guys, aren’t we?
There’s a famine in Ethiopia. America is there. A typhoon in the South Pacific and Americans are on the way. A child in Peru has a facial deformity and is flown expense free to the United States for plastic surgery. Wherever there is a catastrophe America answers the call. Pocketbooks are opened—public and private. Food. Medicine. Blankets. This country has a heart as big as all outdoors.
That makes us the good guys, right?
Maybe not.
Generosity doesn’t help when it comes to fanatics like
bin Laden or the bitter souls around the world who will bite the hand that feeds
them. No amount of foreign aid will
quench these fires of hatred.
It has been steadily growing, especially since the
creation of the Israeli state. No
ethnic group had suffered more from biblical times of the ancient pharaohs to
the death camps of Adolph Hitler. After
World War II, the United Nations carved off a piece of the land held by
Palestinians and set up the nation of Israel.
They have been surrounded by hostility since.
Through force of arm, they have occupied lands of the West Bank and moved
out the Palestinians. Flames of
hatred between Jews and Arabs grew. American
leadership sided with Israel from long time ties.
Bin Laden was crazy, but he wasn’t dumb.
He didn’t think suicide attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon
would make America surrender to terrorism.
His goal was to unite the Muslim world against all Christians and Jews.
He wanted to retard the world to the days of violence and warfare over
religious beliefs, concepts not seen since the crusaders fought for the Holy
Land.
This section of the world is holy to many religions, and
has seen more than it’s share of bloodshed.
There seems to be no end to it. Once
violence is turned loose it’s hard to contain it.
You can’t call back a bullet or a bomb once fired.
Americans are hated for the things we cherish most—our
freedom. Bin Laden wanted to take
that away from us. In a perverse
way, he has partially succeeded.
From being the open, trusting people we were before the
9-11 disaster, we are suspicious of all strangers now, especially those with
Arabic names or looks. We are
singling out students, watching strangers in an almost paranoid manner.
We see terrorists everywhere.
People have been arrested and held without due process
of law on unfounded suspicions. There
are plans for secret tribunals to prosecute those we suspect.
It brings back thoughts of Torquemada and the Spanish inquisitions in the
name of the church or the dungeon interrogations of the Gestapo.
In the name of security, we are destroying that same
freedom we so cherish.
Terrorists are still after us. No doubting that. How
to combat them is the problem.
We can’t build fences high enough to keep out everyone
dangerous. We can’t build enough
nuclear bombs or a sufficient Star Wars program to keep out one terrorist with a
suitcase that could bring down a skyscraper.
The solution lies in promoting peace, not war.
Palestine sends over a suicide bomber who blows up
himself and half a dozen Israelis. Israel
sends over a tank that destroys a community and a dozen Palestinians.
The escalation goes on and on, as if people have forgotten what peace is
and accepting violence as the ultimate goal.
Any poll will show the Muslim world on the side
philosophically of the likes of bin Laden.
And the Christian-Judo thinking is anti-Muslim.
Tolerance has been the victim.
Sure we need to carry a big stick, but now we need to
talk softly, very softly.
Until we can bring calm to the Middle East and replace
hatred and vengeance with good will, security will not be possible.
If someone could find a way to manufacture peace and make it as
profitable as selling munitions and bombs, we would have an end to violence.