INSIGHT Weekly commentary
September 23 , 2006
“Muslim Rage”: A Problem, Not a War
We are now witnessing the reckless inflation of a relatively minor problem of global politics—the anger and infrequent violence associated with Muslim extremists—into the clash of civilizations, World War IV, and who-knows-what-other “twilight struggle” metaphor. Political violence against the industrialized Western democracies is a pesky, if serious, matter. But to raise it into such a dramatic confrontation is a mistake. Let me explain why.
In the crudest terms, if one were to add up all the fatalities from this political violence—terrorism—it amounts to a few thousand dead. This total, certainly sad for the victims’ families, is nonetheless far fewer than the toll of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey (40,000 dead since 1980) or the pogroms against indigenous peoples in Guatemala in the 1980s and ‘90s (150,000 or more), both of which involved allies of the United States who were committing gross human-rights violations and never earned rebuke or punishment. It pales before the three million killed in Congo in recent years or the killing fields of the Sudan today, neither of which raises much concern in Washington.
Some who fashion themselves realists would say these conflicts don’t threaten the United States and are thereby uninteresting. That is debatable. The civil wars of Central America have produced gangs in Los Angeles, a drug economy, and illegal human trafficking. Sudan is a venue once used by Osama bin Laden and it remains a potential terrorist state. Turkey and its Kurdish restiveness are nettlesome for Iraq’s stability and are also now producing new repression internally. These are not trivial, and they matter to our security.
The political violence we see, among other places, in Lebanon, Kashmir, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and (rarely) in Europe, and even less so here, is no more or less threatening to us than these longstanding conflicts, insurgencies, rogue states, and globalized criminality. To answer the obvious objection, I suggest we are very unlikely to suffer anything remotely as traumatic as the 9/11 attacks again. There is no domestic terror organizations (at least none aligned with al Qaeda or other jihadis), and our capacity to catch outsiders coming in to do us harm is much better than in pre-9/11 days.
That’s not to say that all has been done, and done competently, to protect the United States. There are plenty of critics of this or that vulnerability. Ships and ports unsecured, security personnel unvetted, nuclear materials not accounted for, and so on. For all its self-congratulatory rhetoric and the enormous sums spent on homeland security—approaching $500 billion in public and private spending, excluding military ventures—the United States is far from well protected against terrorist mischief. But, as the last five years have shown, there isn’t much mischief trying to be made in America.
And that’s the point. An actual war on Western civilization would occasion more than the pinprick attacks of train bombings that we’ve seen in London and Madrid. Despite Bush’s claims, there is no verified case of an attempt to attack the U.S. So where’s the war?
There is a war, of course, and it was one we started in Iraq and one that is creating enormous civilian casualties. If one is looking for the stimulants to Muslim rage, look no further than Iraq. Actual bombers in Europe and the suicide bombers in the Middle East cite Iraq as a reason for their martyrdom and violence.
Or consider the arming and other support of Israel’s overreaction to Hezbollah’s attacks in July. The supply of weapons and the standing by while apartment blocks were leveled in Beirut is not lost on the Arab world. That such things have been going on for decades in occupied Palestine is not forgotten either.
These observations are not original, nor do they imply that Islamic extremists are correct in seeing U.S. actions in such a thoroughly negative light. But American foibles in the region must be reckoned with when considering why demonstrators spontaneously (sometimes) take to the streets to protest Danish cartoons or the Pope’s comments. These are occasions to send a signal back to the West that they are fed up with occupation, wars, arming dictators, and the endlessly hostile rhetoric coming from political and opinion leaders in the United States particularly.
Effigy burning and “Death to America” signs are not the stuff of wars between civilizations. (The same thing was happening in the streets of Berlin, London, Rome, and Smalltown U.S.A. during the Vietnam War and the nuclear-arms race—did those protests signal a war of civilizations?) Violence is more serious, of course, but compared with the enormous carnage in Iraq, to cite the most obvious example, the threats from jihadi groups is minor.
Inflating these threats, and raising their progenitors to the status of warriors able to shake the foundations of Western civilization is ludicrous, and possibly dangerous. It is laughable to see web sites selling “I will not submit” in Arabic, unless of course you’re an Arab-American, in which case it’s a taunt. But, more dangerously, the relentless cable news alarms about how we’re in the midst of a World War with Islamofascists actually encourages the small bands of violent young men in the world. If you feel that important, you’re more likely to act on the expectations of martyrdom. After all, your acts are being noticed in the halls of power. There could be no greater validation of their aims.
To the right wing, then, a clear and moral message: stop this nonsense. Look for a responsible issue to run a campaign. Stop endangering the world with your own fantasies, whether in Iraq, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, or the paranoid blogosphere. We have bigger problems—poverty, ecocide, ignorance—to address.
-- John Tirman
This article appears in a shortened form in the Star Ledger (Newark, N.J.)
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