Via Salon comes word of a scathing report (warning: long pdf) by a Pentagon advisory task force on strategic communication. Acccording to the Salon article, the Task Force, which was convened by the Department of Defense, “had unfettered access, denied to journalists, to the inner workings of the national security apparatus, and interviewed scores of officials. The mission was not to find fault, but to suggest constructive improvements. There was no intent to contribute to public debate, much less political controversy; the report was written only for internal consumption.” They also had access to a lot of data on public opinion in the Middle East.
Strategic communication is, basically, how we get our message out to the world, specifically (for this report) the Islamic world. This topic is obviously important: if we want to fight terrorism, we need to undercut sympathy for terrorist groups in the Islamic world, both in order to deny those groups recruits and to minimize the number of people who are willing to support them or turn a blind eye to their activities. To the extent that we convey a clear and attractive message to the Islamic world, we undercut support for terrorist groups that aim to harm us; to the extent that we are hated, we provide support for them. The report is very critical of administration efforts to communicate its message to the Islamic world, not only because they have been ineffective but because they lack “sustained Presidential direction, effective interagency coordination, optimal private sector partnerships, and adequate resources. Tactical message coordination does not equate with strategic planning and evaluation. Personal commitment by top leaders has not been matched by needed changes in the organizations they lead or in a dysfunctional interagency process.”
The report also argues that our problems in getting our message across to the Islamic world “are consequences of factors other than failure to implement communications strategies. Interests collide. Leadership counts. Policies matter. Mistakes dismay our friends and provide enemies with unintentional assistance.” This is an obvious, though important, point: while people sometimes talk as though it’s possible to spin anything, public relations are always made much easier when you are actually doing good and valuable things for your target audience, or at least not harming or humiliating them in obvious and visible ways.
In particular, the report’s authors argue that a large part of the problem is that we have too often thought of the war on terror as though it were a new Cold War.
“But this is no Cold War. We call it a war on terrorism ― but Muslims in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration. This is not simply a religious revival, however, but also a renewal of the Muslim World itself. And it has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents ― of which radical fighters are only a small part. Moreover, these movements for restoration also represent, in their variant visions, the reality of multiple identities within Islam. If there is one overarching goal they share, it is the overthrow of what Islamists call the “apostate” regimes: the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states. They are the main target of the broader Islamist movement, as well as the actual fighter groups. The United States finds itself in the strategically awkward — and potentially dangerous — situation of being the longstanding prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the U.S. these regimes could not survive. Thus the U.S. has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle that is both broadly cast for all Muslims and country-specific. This is the larger strategic context, and it is acutely uncomfortable: U.S. policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself. Three recent polls of Muslims show an overwhelming conviction that the U.S. seeks to “dominate” and “weaken” the Muslim World. Not only is every American initiative and commitment in the Muslim World enmeshed in the larger dynamic of intra-Islamic hostilities — but Americans have inserted themselves into this intra-Islamic struggle in ways that have made us an enemy to most Muslims. Therefore, in stark contrast to the Cold War, the United States today is not seeking to contain a threatening state/empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within Islamic civilization to accept the value structure of Western Modernity — an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a “War on Terrorism.”
But if the strategic situation is wholly unlike the Cold War, our response nonetheless has tended to imitate the routines and bureaucratic responses and mindset that so characterized that era. In terms of strategic communication especially, the Cold War emphasized:
• Dissemination of information to “huddled masses yearning to be free.” Today we reflexively compare Muslim “masses” to those oppressed under Soviet rule. This is a strategic mistake. There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies — except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends.
• An enduringly stable propaganda environment. The Cold War was a status quo setting that emphasized routine message-packaging — and whose essential objective was the most efficient enactment of the routine. In contrast the situation in Islam today is highly dynamic, and likely to move decisively in one direction or another. The U.S. urgently needs to think in terms of promoting actual positive change.
• An acceptance of authoritarian regimes as long as they were anti-communist. This could be glossed over in our message of freedom and democracy because it was the main adversary only that truly mattered. Today, however, the perception of intimate U.S. support of tyrannies in the Muslim World is perhaps the critical vulnerability in American strategy. It strongly undercuts our message, while strongly promoting that of the enemy.”
Moreover …
Our efforts to win over hearts and minds have not just been ineffective; according to this task force, they may “have achieved the opposite of what they intended”:
“American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.
• Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.
• Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that “freedom is the future of the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World — but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.
• Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.
• Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack — to broad public support.
• What was a marginal network is now an Ummah-wide movement of fighting groups. Not only has there been a proliferation of “terrorist” groups: the unifying context of a shared cause creates a sense of affiliation across the many cultural and sectarian boundaries that divide Islam.
• Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic — namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is — for Americans — really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves.
Thus the critical problem in American public diplomacy directed toward the Muslim World is not one of “dissemination of information,” or even one of crafting and delivering the “right” message. Rather, it is a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none — the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam. Inevitably therefore, whatever Americans do and say only serves the party that has both the message and the “loud and clear” channel: the enemy.”
Of the various reasons advanced for our invasion of Iraq, the only one that is still standing seems to be the idea of promoting democracy, thereby hastening the transformation of the Middle East into a world where governments are open, people are free and have genuine opportunities available to them, and as a result the pool of unemployed young men with no hopes and no future outside jihad dwindles. Had I believed that the invasion of Iraq would in fact have achieved this, I might well have supported it. We didn’t just fail to achieve this result, however; we made things immeasurably worse. And while some of the ways in which we did so were inherent in the invasion, others resulted from the near-total lack of planning for the occupation. And this, of course, makes Iraqis more miserable, the Middle East more enraged, and the rest of us less safe than we would otherwise have been.
One might hope, however, that a report like this might still prove useful to the Pentagon officials who requested it. Apparently not, however: according to Salon, “Almost three months ago, the Defense Science Board delivered its report to the White House. But a source on the board told me it has received no word back at all. The report has been studiously, willfully ignored by those in the White House to whom its recommendations are directed.”
I have two questions, hilzoy. My first question is with the state-controlled media in much of the Muslim world and the local equivalent of Baghdad Bob giving the local government’s position on things 24/7 how do we get any other message through?
My second question is about U. S. policies. Other than aid to Israel what U. S. policies are in question here? My own position is that we should be more critical in our support of Israel. But the reality is that even an only slightly friendly face looks a lot friendlier in a tough neighborhood and the Middle East is a very tough neighborhood.
It seems to me that any notion that we should prefer less-friendly regimes to more-friendly regimes is hard to figure out.
Typically when I ask this second question someone brings up Mossadegh. I deeply regret the U. S. involvement in brining down his regime. I was much too young to have done anything about it. And would the Iranians have been better off as part of the Soviet Empire than they were under the Shah? My reading is that that’s what the Eisenhower Administration saw as the alternatives.
So what else?
Dave: and the local equivalent of Baghdad Bob giving the local government’s position on things 24/7 how do we get any other message through?
Well, oddly enough, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, if it had been competently carried out for the reasons that Bush & Co claimed for it (leave aside the lies about WMD) – that is, if the intent had been to establish a free democracy, to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq, and to improve the lives of Iraqis with effective humanitarian assistance programs – that would be a message that could hardly have failed to get out.
But Bush & Co were not interested in actually doing any of the above: and that message got out, no problem.
Of the various reasons advanced for our invasion of Iraq, the only one that is still standing seems to be the idea of promoting democracy, thereby hastening the transformation of the Middle East into a world where governments are open, people are free and have genuine opportunities available to them
From the NYT:
OK…so now we are down to exactly 0 reasons left for the invasion of Iraq.
And would the Iranians have been better off as part of the Soviet Empire than they were under the Shah? My reading is that that’s what the Eisenhower Administration saw as the alternatives.
The alternatives were a Nationalized Oil Compay & great loss of profit for BP & the US companies that came in after the coup.
IOW, what we had in 1953 was Colonialism.
Your interpretation and mine are not mutually exclusive, DQ.
And, Jes, I didn’t support the invasion of Iraq so I don’t much care at this point why we invaded it. We’re there now and need to make the best of things. And your response doesn’t appear relevant to me unless I’m missing something?
Dave: re. relevance – I meant that genuine, large, good actions are a message that will get out. (You asked “how do we get the message out” and that would be how.)
We’re there now and need to make the best of things.
Well, as I see it, there is no longer any way to “make the best of things” in Iraq.
If Bush had lost the election, there would have been some cause for optimism: first, that a new administration would have been able to make a fresh start: second, that at least we could believe that Kerry would not lead the US into any new disasters, and that he would at least make the attempt to fix the mistakes made by the previous administration. We’ve lost that hope. We’ve lost any hope for Iraq over the next four years.
Jes,
“But Bush & Co were not interested in actually doing any of the above: and that message got out, no problem.”
Great assessment! Good thing we don’t have soldiers over there dieing so that these people can hold free elections in January.
Condensed version of 03:04 PM post: If you want to get the a positive message out about the US in Middle East, the US has to actually do things that have a positive impact on the Middle East. Failure to do this, or actively doing things that have a negative impact (such as invading a country that is no threat, lying about why you did it, taking hostages and torturing suspects, allowing foreign corporations to profiteer from the invasion/occupation…) will ensure that no positive message can get out, because there is no positive message to send.
wwc: If you’re concerned for US soldiers dying, why not be enraged that the Bush administration refused to have free elections in Iraq in January 2004, or even earlier – before so many soldiers died. The ration rolls which are being used as electoral rolls for the January 2005 elections were available then as now: the insurrection was not so widespread, so most likely most Iraqis would have been able to vote. A democratically-elected government of Iraq could have been in place nearly a year ago.
Of course, there’s no guarantees that a non-puppet government would have been supportive of George W. Bush, let alone prepared to make electoral speeches in the US on Bush’s behalf.
I meant that genuine, large, good actions are a message that will get out.
Okay, now I understand your point, Jes, and I respectfully disagree. There is no action so pure or good that its motives cannot be called into question. And when there’s a constant barrage of propaganda coming from the state-controlled media it’s probably impossible for actions to speak louder than words.
Jes,
“why not be enraged that the Bush administration refused to have free elections in Iraq in January 2004”
Because I am not the one trying to simplify a complex problem. I am not the one making baseless accusations about the intentions of the U.S. gov’t
In more good news, Global Nuclear Inquiry Stalls.
Dave: Okay, now I understand your point, Jes, and I respectfully disagree. There is no action so pure or good that its motives cannot be called into question.
True, but it’s a good point to start from. Indeed, it’s an essential point to start from.
And when there’s a constant barrage of propaganda coming from the state-controlled media it’s probably impossible for actions to speak louder than words.
Well, but this is the advantage of having an independent broadcasting company like Al-Jazeera in the Middle East. Actions can speak louder than words when the state-controlled propaganda says one thing, but an Al-Jazeera camera is recording the opposite and broadcasting it to the Arabic-speaking world.
Wwc: I am not the one making baseless accusations about the intentions of the U.S. gov’t
Hardly baseless. Iraqi elections could have been held in January 2004: but they weren’t.
Does anyone know the status of the 14 or whatever permanent bases we’re supposedly building in Iraq? That seems to me to be a stumbling block in pushing the “We’re getting out” scenario.
Re the War on Ideas, and why it is not going well:
It has less to do with a Cold War mentality issue, and the larger issue that ideas are generally not the point of the Bush administration. They are the least suited to lead a war of ideas for hearts and minds.
As for bringing democracy to Iraq, it is very significant that elections on any level have been suppressed for a very long time (early local elections with some real local power would have been critical early, and suppressing it was yet another collosal blunder). I have yet to see any legitimate policy rationale for that behavior other than a desire to manipulate an alleged democratic process, since there has always been a real fear that democracy would result in a government less than friendly to US interests. Hope administration supporters like the alternative we now have.
For over a year, we were told by the Bush adminitration that elections were not possible because of security concerns. Now we are told that elections must go forward even though security concerns are at their worst since the invasion.
Elections of some form probably have to forward now even though their legitimacy is going to be a big problem. Having set the date and delayed elections for so long, there is no meaningful alternative.
But expect another round of phony Administration propoganda on the meaning of this — kind of like the Afghan elections which were basically about electing the mayor of Kabul, who goes by the nominal title of president of Afghanistan. Except in reality he is not. In that country, we have allowed control to slide into the hands of opium growing warlords, while pretending that we are bringing democracy. Sorry, but the larger US policy of tolerating the next generation of narco-terrorists is more than incompatible with nuturing democracy.
There also needs to be more discussion about what is being voted on in Iraq. The larger Shia parties have already reached a deal on the slate of delegates that they will collectively send, which are certain to be a majority of the new government. Therefore, no matter who an Iraqi votes for (and they are only voting for parties — not candidates), the same group is going to dominate the government. I have yet to see any discussion of the policy goals of this group — a rather strange kind of election.
Let’s not delude ourselves. This is what our guys are dying for in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Communications Breakdown
From the Defense Science Board’s report (pdf) on Strategic Communications, pp. 24-5:
Putting the “public” back into public relations
A US Defense Science Board report criticises America’s “winning hearts and minds” policy in the Muslim world today, rightly saying it relies too much on Cold War thinking.
Jes,
They could also have never be held. So by your logic, 2004 vs. January 2005 is infinitely better than never under Hussien.
Thank goodness. Finally we can both agree that having the vote in January 2005 is far better than what could have happened. Your support and agreement is comforting.
dmbeater,
“elections on any level have been suppressed for a very long time”
True, but we aren’t talking about Hussein’s reign of terror.
Invaded 2003
Elections in 2004 vs. 2005
2005 vs. Never.
Is 2005 not a much better option than never?
Must we be so unrealistic? Anyone know when Germany or Japan held their first elections?
For that matter anyone know the last time Iraq held free elections?
Must we be so unrealistic? Anyone know when Germany or Japan held their first elections?
For the Japanese, it was on April 10, 1946 – 7 months after their surrender. There is no a priori reason to assume that a short timeline should have been ruled out. One could argue that the security situation a year ago was too poor to allow elections, but the situation is worse now and there is no reason to assume at this point that it will get better in the near future.
Must we be so unrealistic? Anyone know when Germany or Japan held their first elections?
Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 and elections were held on April 10, 1946.
For Germany, they surrendered on May 7, 1945 and elections were held on Aug. 14, 1949.
Japan regained sovereignty in April 1952, Germany in May 1955.
I leave it to the reader to determine who is or was being unrealistic.
While I’m getting a free education on post-war Japan – were the elections free, legitimate, national, etc.? Were they contested? I seem to recall one-party-rule ending only fairly recently. And I vaguely recall we weren’t so fussy about clearing out the old regime (besides hanging some of the leaders). And weren’t there more of the underpinnings of democracy in Japan even in 1945 than in Iraq in 2003?
Anyway, I think it was extremely dumb not to have held at least local elections in Iraq (to the extent possible) long ago.
were the elections free, legitimate, national, etc.?
They were national elections for the Diet. No idea how legitimate they were although a quick search turns up nothing that says they were not.
Were they contested?
363 political parties were represented. 75% of the seats were won by 4 of the parties, with the other 25% scattered among minor parties.
And I vaguely recall we weren’t so fussy about clearing out the old regime (besides hanging some of the leaders)
The purges of nationalists by the US involved 1.5 million people, including businessmen and intellectuals as well as, of course, the armed forces and conservative members of the government.
And weren’t there more of the underpinnings of democracy in Japan even in 1945 than in Iraq in 2003?
Sure. Note that Japan did, in 1946, extend the right to vote to women and lowered the voting age to 20 from 25. Many women won seats in the Diet in the elections as well as being able to vote for the first time. Note also that the US made major changes to some of Japan’s institutions including relieving the Emperor of sovereignty, massive land reform, the expansion of civil and religious liberties, and the advocacy of labor unions. It is remarkable how little resistance there was among the Japanese to these changes.
Oh, I am so sorry about the trackback. What a disaster.
“The purges of nationalists by the US involved 1.5 million people”
Wow, oops. Thanks for the info. History is interesting, don’t know why my eyes usually glaze over when I try to read the stuff in book form post-Thucydides.
Reports that begin with the conclusion that ‘they don’t hate our freedoms, they hate our policies’ are likely to be ignored by conservatives for two reasons.
First, that particular line dates back to post Sept. 11th “Why they hate us” discussions. Repeating it just associates the speaker with the opinions of Noam Chomsky and Robert Fisk and will cause them to be automatically tuned out. In the future, recommendations on the idea war should avoid implying that America is hated because it deserves to be hated.
Second, it is NOT clear that America’s policy of supporting Israel deserves to arouse the hatred of Muslims to the extent that it has. We’ve publicly stated our support for a peaceful two-state solution. If the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world would agree to live in peace side by side with Israel there would be no difference of opinion. Or at least, differing over what KIND of two-state solution should exist shouldn’t arouse the *degree* of hatred that we see. The intensity of the animosity suggests that the issue isn’t really just our “support” for Israel. The problem is that significant factions, I would say the politically dominant factions, in Arab society don’t want to live side by side with Israel. They want Israel wiped off the map. And even those who ARE willing to live in peace with Israel personally, will not politically support actions against militants who are attempting to eliminate Israel. They will not go out of their way to stop terrorism against Israel in order to ensure peace. We also know that anti-Semitism is rampant in Arab society where Jews are described as “the sons of apes and pigs”, and the “Protocols of the Elder’s of Zion” is regarded as a Jewish holy book. All this may be a product of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but it nevertheless indicates that the outright hatred of Israel, and by extension, America’s support of Israel, is not entirely grounded in honest, legitimate, grievances. It’s grounded in a feeling that Israel should not exist, and if possible, that it should cease to.
That said, I think the report is very insightful and dead on in several areas.
I would modify it slightly to say that anti-Americanism probably would have increased in the Arab world even without the invasion of Iraq. It was the attacks of Sept. 11th the set in motion the transition of this fringe element to an ummah-wide fighting movement. It made extreme anti-Americanism permissible, and brought them the romantic aura of success and victory. Al Jazeera was already running interviews on why the US deserved it long before the Iraq war started to get in gear. That interaction of bin Laden tapes and supportive Arab media coverage was likely to continue and to cause an upsurge of support for Islamist radicalism either way.
Also, by comparison to the effects of the attacks themselves, the invasion of Afghanistan was too mild a retaliation to negate the apparant “victory” that the movement gained on that day. I suspect that stopping there would have aroused the glee of the Islamist movement, that they could strike us in our mightiest cities, and all we could respond with was more or less bombing the desert harmlessly. There, too, would have been an impetus for the movement to gain steam.
Of course, the movement would have spread anyway, in part *because* the Bush administration would still be incompetent on strategic communication even without the invasion of Iraq. A more competent administration would find a way to counter them ideologically on the air waves that would undermine their support. And, if they did invade Iraq, do so for the right reasons, openly stated, and do a better job articulating those reasons.
felixrayman (a rather apt holiday handle, I would note) covers the bases quite well, but of interest is the so-called ‘reverse course’, where the US reinstated large numbers of those purged and strongly encouraged anti-communism efforts, turning its back on previous democraticization policies. Also, there was a 1955 merger of the Liberal and the Democratic party, which created the current LDP dinosaur we have today. The merger was also putatively responsible for the creation of ‘habatsu’, which translates as ‘factions’, which make Japanese politics so opaque.
Some links are
a detailed Chronology of the post war period
This article by Chalmers Johnson also has some grist for the mill
I find it particularly ironic that I’ve been saying broadly the same thing as the Pentagon report for the past twelve years, and almost exactly the same thing since 2002. Would’ve been nice to have been heeded while it would have made a difference.
Finally we can both agree that having the vote in January 2005 is far better than what could have happened.
Since the vote has not yet happened, it’s fundamentally flawed to positively compare it to an alternative counterfactual. It’s also mildly unreasonable to compare anything to “what could have happened” without further qualification, since you’re looking at a distribution with arbitrarily negative outcomes: no matter what actually happened, you can always envisage something worse.
Anarch: Would’ve been nice to have been heeded while it would have made a difference.
You said it.
Andromeda: Second, it is NOT clear that America’s policy of supporting Israel deserves to arouse the hatred of Muslims to the extent that it has. We’ve publicly stated our support for a peaceful two-state solution.
I think that this is a case where actions speak louder than words. The US can’t be perceived as an unbiased supporter of a peaceful two-state solution, when it’s actions show a clear bias towards Israel. Security Council vetos defending Israel against even just criticism for its actions are a matter of public record.
But I also think that this is a red herring. Yes, a peaceful two-state solution for Israel and Palestine would be a good thing in itself, and a good thing for the region, both short and long term. But blaming all Arab antipathy to the US on US support for Israel is kind of missing the point: Arab antipathy to the US is grounded in – as you say – “honest, legitimate, grievances”.
Americans tend to focus on US support for Israel as a reason for Arab antipathy, often either by saying “we should stop this” or “we can’t stop this” – and I think both responses are answering a non-problem. The US is seen as Israel’s supporter and broker in the Middle East. Very well: working towards a peaceful two-state solution may in the long run make this a non-problem, but it can’t be changed now – it has decades of history behind it. Perhaps there should be more US support for the EU as the potential superpower who can take the Palestinian side, and thus both sides can have a 800-lb gorilla in their corner, but this time two gorillas who have a more friendly history with each other.
But there are other, definite, legitimate grievances, that the US could acknowledge and work to remedy. The Bush administration won’t, of course: we know that already. And while in the history of the Middle East 4 years is just a breathing space, I’m feeling despair already at the thought that we can’t expect any progress till at least 2009, now.
Don’t have time for a lengthy response, but I want to note that I believe the Israel issue is an enormous red herring. We could personally go in and destroy Israel and hand it over to the Palestinians, and it would not improve our relations with the Arab world dramatically. We would just have a Palestinian state willing to support terrorism against the US. Europe is at least as pro-Palestinian as the US is pro-Israel, and terrorist groups thrive there more than in the US.
Furthermore, we ought not pretend that Arab hatred of both Jews and Israel are intimately tied to Palestinians and the ‘occupied territories’. Any basic review of history shows that the modern Arab world harbored enough antipathy against Israel to try to grind it into dust BEFORE the former Jordanian and Egyptian territories became the ‘occupied territories’.
Working towards a peaceful two-state solution does nothing to mitigate the real problem that the Arab world has with Israel–its existance.
If winning the war of ideas means doing enough against Israel to make the Arab world happy, you are promoting a reprise of the Shoah.
That is not hyperbole and I for one am not going along with it.
While I partially agree with your underlying point, the object of a peaceful 2-state solution is to essentially make both sides equally unhappy. I don’t believe anyone has advocated simply ‘making the Arab side happy’ and it’s unfair of you to claim that this is so.
I should make that clear and say ‘anyone here’
We could personally go in and destroy Israel and hand it over to the Palestinians, and it would not improve our relations with the Arab world dramatically.
Do you have any basis for this claim?
Sebastian, if you read my comment at 03:19 AM, you’ll find that I’m saying something rather similar, only from a different angle.
It is remarkable how little resistance there was among the Japanese to these changes.
Posted by: felixrayman
It’s only remarkable because most Americans are totally ignorant of the internal strife and pressures that had been going on in Japan prior to WWII.
Guess what, we helped stifle democratic impulses and Western leanings, by rattling the saber, threatening them with military actions and colonialism in the Pacific, and treating Japanese immigrants here like shit in the beginning of the 20th century.
This meant that their liberals went the way of ours, in the face of 9/11.
But there had been an intellectual rebel movement before the war, anti-militarist, anti-imperialist, anti-Status Quo.
And – if you’d read the memoir by one of those younger officers who survived the war, “Requiem for Yamato,” a powerful anti-war book which was banned for decades by the US, they *knew* their government was lying to them, and that it was unwinnable, and had no affection for the government that put them there.
Labour movements, suppressed by the rise of their hegemony, had also existed in the 20s.
The invincible ignorance of American insularity – is it any wonder that we can’t communicate nowdays, when we don’t even know the basics about our own past and our conquests, when so much of the information is there in libraries and has been for decades for free?
Do you have any basis for this claim?
Well, Sebastian did say, ‘That is not hyperbole and I for one am not going along with it.’–so I suppose that settles that.
Basically, Sebastian has once again told us there’s just no accommodation to be had with the Arab world; we might as well eradicate them ’cause if we don’t, they’ll kill us all.
Back to the subject (after a hot shower), how can we expect this appointed administration to have an effective strategic communication policy WRT the world when they can’t tell the truth to US citizens?
Well, I agree with Sebastian that US support for Israel as a reason why the Arab world is hostile towards the US is a red herring: many Middle Eastern countries, both their governments and their general population, have specific and legitimate grievances against the US that have nothing at all to do with Israel. The Bush administration has created a whole new set of grievances in its invasion/occupation of Iraq, and in the lies it told to justify the invasion/occupation, and in the atrocities committed by the US occupation.
many Middle Eastern countries, both their governments and their general population, have specific and legitimate grievances against the US that have nothing at all to do with Israel.
I don’t think that US annihilation of Israel (or, more realistically, a less pro-Israel policy) would be a panacaea in the Middle East by any means, for the reasons you’ve outlined. I am, however, curious as to the claim that it wouldn’t dramatically improve our relations, period.
I am, however, curious as to the claim that it wouldn’t dramatically improve our relations, period.
Where did I make that claim? Or do you mean someone else?
I don’t think that US annihilation of Israel (or, more realistically, a less pro-Israel policy) would be a panacaea in the Middle East by any means, for the reasons you’ve outlined.
Good grief. Who on earth was advocating “US annihilation of Israel”? Further, what I thought I was painstakingly saying was that the US has a pro-Israel foreign policy going back decades. At this point, you can’t reverse this – “make it didn’t happen”, and it’s a bit of a red herring to claim that this is the only reason why the US is hated by Arabs or by Muslims. Focus on other reasons.
many Middle Eastern countries, both their governments and their general population, have specific and legitimate grievances against the US that have nothing at all to do with Israel.
Obviously, certain ME countries have grievances such as Iran with the overthrow of Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah. There’s also the problem of the US propping up despotic ME regimes to gain oil-related favoritism. But wouldn’t you acknowledge the I-P issue is the long pole in the tent?
First, to Dave S: I inserted a ‘close blockquote’ tag into your first comment, to solve the trackback-reformatting-the-post issue. (Couldn’t do it by editing the post itself since the open tag came after it.) I didn’t realize until now that I had the capacity to edit comments, and I thought I should tell you that I had done it, even in (what I hope is) an innocuous way.
Second: the focus in the report wasn’t really the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, as far as I could tell. But for what it’s worth, I think that there are ways to make our policy seem less one-sided that have nothing to do with ‘advocating the annihilation of Israel’, etc. For instance, we could get serious about pressuring Israel to stop building more West Bank settlements, and/or “expanding” existing ones.
About the report itself: I thought it focussed on two main policy issues: our support for repressive regimes in the Middle East and our invasion of Iraq. The latter in particular has, it seems to me, been an obvious disaster in terms of Muslims’ perceptions of us. (Note that the report managed to reach its conclusions without so much as mentioning Abu Ghraib.)
Jesurgislac: Where did I make that claim? Or do you mean someone else?
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. The context of my responses was Sebastian’s 3:58am post, in which he said…
Sebastian: We could personally go in and destroy Israel and hand it over to the Palestinians, and it would not improve our relations with the Arab world dramatically.
All I meant in my response was that yes, I agreed with you, Jes, that the Arab world has many other legitimate grievances beyond I/P, but given its prominence I was curious as to Sebastian‘s contention cited above.
Thanks for the correction, hilzoy. I don’t proof-read as well as I should. I read the report. It’s interesting but not helpful for reasons I suggested in my first comment.
Can someone please explain how preferring regimes that are less friendly to us over regimes that are more friendly to us will improve the US image in the Middle East? Especially since it’s practically impossible for us to get a positive message about us through there?
Don’t we only really have three alternatives? We can support the current regimes, oppose the current regime, or leave them the hell alone.
We aren’t going to leave them alone. We’re going to trade with them, broadcast our lousy TV, and publish our lousy magazines and newspapers.
In the comments on this thread US policy has been attacked both for supporting repressive regimes and for bringing one down. Okay, I get it. You don’t like anything we do.
So provide some constructive criticism. Some reasonable alternatives. Give specifics.
After re-reading the entire comments thread I don’t see any other comments giving anything specific or positive.
In the comments on this thread US policy has been attacked both for supporting repressive regimes and for bringing one down. Okay, I get it. You don’t like anything we do.
The issue is consistency. If you wish to make the case the US should invade all repressive countries and bring them democracy and self-determination–fine, make that case. I strongly doubt you’ll get a majority of support in this country for such actions but you never know.
Dave — you didn’t make the formatting error; it seems to have come from a trackback. I just fixed it at the beginning of your comment since yours was first, and it was the only way I could think of. I just wanted to let you know, since I had tampered with your comment, though of course not with its text.
There are, of course, options other than supporting repressive regimes and invading.
“Basically, Sebastian has once again told us there’s just no accommodation to be had with the Arab world; we might as well eradicate them ’cause if we don’t, they’ll kill us all.”
No, I am suggesting that there is no resolution to the Israel/Palestinian conflict–up to and including the preferred Arab solution of the complete destruction of Israel–that would dramatically improve our relations with the Arab world (especially with respect to terrorism). I also suggest that evidence for that may be found in the willingness of terrorists to engage against European targets despite policies which are at least as pro-Palestinian as the US is pro-Israel.
The good news is that the issue is a red herring anyway.
RE: propping up repressive regimes the main culprits are Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia–
The main problem here is that the vast majority of Western propping up the regime involves the mere purchase of oil from Saudi Arabia. The kingdom then uses that money for various purposes which the Islamists find annoying. There seems little that we can do about that, though useful hints would be welcome.
Egypt–
We prop up the Egyptian regime through vast aid packages which were put in to place in response to Egypt’s peace with Israel. Frankly they may be one of the worst investments in Middle Eastern history. For our money Egypt doesn’t invade Israel (which it could not at this point anyway), they still support PLO terrorism, and the tightly controlled Egyptian media spouts vicious anti-American propaganda morning, noon and night. It seems to me that isn’t a good expenditure. Of course we can’t just cut it now, that would devastate the Egyptian economy and make things worse. But it would probably be good to work it out in a new way for the long run.
Fascinating post, hilzoy: many thanks for bring this to our attention: it is so rare and so useful to read a tough, but reasoned critique of US policies and strategies from a source that can’t be dismissed as biased or reflexively “anti-American”, or one with a “political agenda”.
However, the pessimist in me found the following excerpt perhaps the most depressing of all:
• Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic — namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is — for Americans — really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves.
All of which merely reinforces the notion I have held for quite a while now, that the chief war aim in Iraq, for the Bush Administration, was never the “threat” from Saddam Hussein’s regime, or any connection with “terrorism” (except extremely tangentially), still less idealistic notions of “democracy” and “freedom” – but ever and always a far more important goal: the re-election of George W. Bush as President (and Republicans in general) – and the securing of some sort of better “mandate” than they received in 2000.
Sad to say, though, Americans still only hear what they want to (even when being talked to by themselves), since loyalty to country still takes precedent over the
niceties of any particular policy or other: and the Bush Adminstration has proved adept (if at nothing else much) at harnessing the “support the troops” mentality to secure wide (if somewhat grudging) backing – or at least the appearance thereof – for its Iraq policy
There are, of course, options other than supporting repressive regimes and invading.
Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. Please list some. It would also be helpful to include some idea of the likely efficacy of the approaches in non-geological time particularly with reference to how the suggested approaches have worked in the past. Note to other commenters: observations like “it couldn’t be any worse” are just taking up space. Let’s try and do something positive here!
Way upthread, rilkefan asked about the U.S. bases in Iraq. Global Security has some details.
Okay, there are other reasons why the US is disliked, but they aren’t any more deserving of the degree of hatred aroused in the Arab world than the Israeli issue.
The installation of the Shah was over 50 years ago, and that affected Persian Shiites, whom the Arabs aren’t particularly friendly with anyway.
What else have we got? US support for the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian regimes? Please, don’t give me “sanctions against Iraq” or the first Gulf War.
Our support for the Saudi regime amounts to buying their oil, which is not something we really have a choice about. They’re propped up by an alliance with the Wahabbi sect, not just us, and without them Saudi Arabia would be even MORE oppresive and undemocratic than it is (if that’s possible). Should this not be apparant to a reasonably intelligent Arab?
Similarly for Egypt, they control the Suez canel, which means we are pretty much forced to support them. And the Muslim Brotherhood taking over would, again, produce an even more oppressive undemocratic regime, which we are supressing, presumably because they would shut down the canel.
So what is the argument here? That they hate us because we thwart their desire to elect brutal anti-Western regimes, and thus prevent them from cutting off our oil supply or blocking the Suez canel? Aren’t we putting the cart before the horse here? If they wanted to elect a bunch of Arab nationalists who would persue anti-American policies (perhaps, say, in retaliation for Israel), that would seem to suggest that the anti-Americanism came *before* our support for despotic regimes, rather than after.
Likewise, if you want to bring up the first Gulf War, I see no rational reason why an Arab Muslim would find kicking Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait a particularly offensive act, that is, unless you presume that they had a pre-existing preference and support for despotic anti-American Arab nationalist dictators.
Likewise, you can hardly now call into question the sanctions regime considering the alternative we are now embarked on. That is, unless you think that most Arabs have a legitimate reason for wanting Saddam Hussein to resume his chemical and nuclear weapons programs.
You see, the answer is pretty obvious. They’ve always hated us. They’ve hated us for millenia. They hate us because we prevent them from doing what they really want to do, which is destroy Israel and attack the West. The goal of Arab nationalism was a unified Arab nation, why? In order to rival the power of the Christian “Crusader” Imperialistic West. In order to expell the infidel crusader zionist implant nation Israel from “their” territory. The only reason they are angry at our support for their regimes, is because they would prefer regimes that were MORE antagonistic toward us, not less.
You see, the answer is pretty obvious. They’ve always hated us. They’ve hated us for millenia.
Define “us”. Last I looked, the USA has not existed for millenia. And while you’re at it, define “they”.
Andromeda: “They’ve always hated us. They’ve hated us for millenia. They hate us because we prevent them from doing what they really want to do, which is destroy Israel and attack the West. The goal of Arab nationalism was a unified Arab nation, why? In order to rival the power of the Christian “Crusader” Imperialistic West.”
I’m sorry, but I think this is just wrong. First, the idea of a unified Arab nation antedates the Crusades; it dates from the first centuries after Muhammed. In those centuries, they did not hate us, though they did seek to convert the rest of the known world to Islam. The Arab nationalism version arose in part out of a desire to oppose the West, but that was at a time when European powers were explicitly colonial, and no more shows that Arab nationalists are inherently or primarily motivated by hatred of us than, say, Gandhi’s movement shows that Indians are primarily motivated by a hatred of Britain.
If you want to understand why they hate us, you have, I think, to start with the tremendous cultural humiliation of the Arab world by the West. When we encountered them during the Crusades, we were more or less evenly matched. Then our worlds did not intersect very much until the 19th Century (more or less), and in the intervening years we had become capable of doing things that they could not dream of doing via technology. And now we make things like cell phones, DVD recorders, cars, and so forth, which (when I was in the area during the 80s) were, to a lot of people I met, incomprehensible, as though they had been made by fairies or wizards, not by people like themselves. And in fact no Arab country could manufacture most of these things, and if they learned to do so it was not by invention but by copying. This was deeply humiliating to people who love their culture. And this humiliation was something they could not help seeing everywhere, both because they wanted these things very badly and because, in fact, these objects, and their reminder of the fact that we can do these things and the cannot, were everywhere.
I’ve always thought that while the Arab/Israeli conflict has many sources, one surely is this: Israel is sort of the physical embodiment of the Western intrusion into Arab culture. It therefore takes on all sorts of unacknowledged symbolic import, which is heightened by the fact that they quickly outpaced (economically) all the other Middle Eastern countries which, like ISrael, have no oil.
Moreover, we do prop up repressive regimes, not just in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but also in Pakistan, Jordan, the other Gulf States, and parts of North Africa. In many of these cases there are reasons why we do this other than wanting to oppress Arabs: reasons like really worrying about who would have Pakistan’s nuclear weapons if its government fell. Nonetheless, when you happen to be among the citizens those governments oppress, those reasons are not always foremost in your mind. It is, I think, the same mechanism that leads you to ascribe their hatred of us not to any plausible or even comprehensible motive, but just to blind hatred: when someone does something to harm you, assuming that they just hate you and delight in your being harmed is a natural response.
Moreover, for a long time people in the Middle East have tended to think that the US is not just very powerful, but virtually omnipotent. I have heard people (ordinary people, often in small villages) blame, for instance, earthquakes on the CIA. And if they think we have the power to produce earthquakes, they surely think we have the power to make their governments more responsive and less corrupt. — Often, when I travel to some place where there is real, horrible misery or injustice around, people ask: why doesn’t the US help? Do you want us to be this way? The honest answer is usually: people in the US are not thinking about you at all, for the most part; they have no views on the matter. But most people have a hard time believing this when they are the ones on the receiving end of the misery or injustice. They think it’s deliberate. Similarly, I think, here. We may have gone some way towards dislodging this view by demonstrating the limits of our power in Iraq, though that’s not the route I would have chosen.
But they don’t have some sort of atavistic inexplicable desire to attack the West per se, and I think the idea that they do is both simplistic and deeply unhelpful.
More on why some people might doubt that we really mean what we say when we talk about promoting democracy comes President Bush’s comments today, vie TAPPED:
I don’t know about you, but Pakistan has always struck me as a sterling example of democracy in action.
I agree that this is a major factor. Unfortunately it isn’t a factor that we can do anything about.
I think this is also a major factor. And unfortunately we can’t do much about that either.
I would guess (yes guess so please don’t ask for verified scientific reports which do not and probably cannot exist on the subject) that the first factor is at least 50% of the problem and the second factor is at least 20% of the problem. Which leaves us with 70ish % of the reason they don’t like us totally beyond our control.
And that is going to make things really difficult to deal with–especially since reason 1 can only be dealt with by abandoning our acheivements or forcing Arab cultures to progress, and reason 2 is completely disconnected from physical reality.
That is why I am highly skeptical of solutions that amount to pure policy changes about Israel or dealing with repressive governments. The main reasons much of the Arab world is angry at us have to do with irrational perceptions that aren’t really about policy.
I do however believe that encouraging reform in the influential (but government censored) Egyptian press could help quite a bit in the long run. But that is unfortunately a very long term solution.
Hilzoy,
Thank you, that was an intelligent, thoughtful, reply.
I don’t necessarily think that they just have a blind inexplicable hatred for us, it’s simply that the usual explanations for Arab animosity towards us are not very satisfactory. So its nice to see someone deliver an intelligent alternate explanation.
I hate to regard other people as being less educated, and it’s embarrassing in a way to have to explain these things by saying they think that cellphones are made by wizards or that the CIA causes earthquakes, but that makes a lot of sense.
When I was in high school, my sister had a friend who was from an Arab Muslim family. She was born and raised in Canada, and was western educated. Her father was a doctor married to an Irish Catholic who had converted to Islam. Yet, their entire faimily was adamant that the CIA had created the AIDs virus to kill blacks and Africans. They absolutely would not listen to a countervailing opinion on the subject.
What’s worse, my sister is pretty far left wing on the political spectrum, and she believed it too, and she *encouraged* them to keep believing it. In a way, the fact that someone born here supported them in this beleif legitimized it.
Don’t you think it is also deeply unhelpful to be encouraging the spread of these theories around the Arab world? If these are people who see the CIA as practically omnipotent, for a Westerner to go on Arab TV and claim that the US invaded Afghanistan because they wanted to build a pipeline, validates all sorts of conspiracy theories that fuel hatred against us.
The thing is, they probably hate us more for things that they *think* we did, than for what we actually have done. They may have no idea what actual US foreign policies have been, or at least none that are actually recognizable to an American.
I do however believe that encouraging reform in the influential (but government censored) Egyptian press could help quite a bit in the long run. But that is unfortunately a very long term solution.
As I said above, “geological time”. We just don’t have the kind of timeframe. Any other suggestions?
Maybe what we need is a C-Span type call-in show on Al Hurra, where American officials answer questions from unfiltered callers. So anyone can call up and ask is the CIA can cause earthquakes or whatever. Something that would probably be filtered on other stations, and wouldn’t just have an agreeable ear on the other end to nod and confirm whatever they were saying.
Most of it would probably be dismissed as CIA propaganda. But maybe some of it would get through.
Wow. So, this is all caused by Arab shame? Rather an Orientalist view of things, don’cha think?
As for Israel being an aconomic success–no. Israel’s economy is pretty much a basket case despite receiving $1 out of every 5 the US spends on annual foreign aid.
When I was in high school, my sister had a friend who was from an Arab Muslim family. She was born and raised in Canada, and was western educated. Her father was a doctor married to an Irish Catholic who had converted to Islam. Yet, their entire faimily was adamant that the CIA had created the AIDs virus to kill blacks and Africans.
Anecdotes are wonderful, aren’t they? I know a man who is probably one of this nation’s leading authorities on aerodynamics who believes the Federal Reserve is a secret cabal of international financiers. He’s a Methodist.
Jadegold, care to take an educated guess on which set of views are more prevalent?
Well, the federal reserve does meet in secret, is composed of banking officials, has a strong effect on the international money trade, and has been legitimately criticized for it’s secrecy. Are you sure you’re not overstating his belief?
What’s your point anyway? That the CIA really did create the AIDs virus? That conspiracies are just as rampant in the US as in the Arab world?
I’m very late with this, but I should note the following
It is remarkable how little resistance there was among the Japanese to these changes.
Posted by: felixrayman
It’s only remarkable because most Americans are totally ignorant of the internal strife and pressures that had been going on in Japan prior to WWII.
I took felixrayman’s comment to be about postwar Japan, not pre-war. Pre-war Japanese political and social history exhibits all of the points bellatrys notes, which makes the post war quiesence more, not less remarkable. Note the 3 year difference in election timing.
While I do think that Western racism provided a significant boost to Japanese imperialism (newspapers in Japan termed the day that the Asian immigration act passed as “a day of National Humiliation”), I think claiming that it was Japan’s 9-11 is a bit much-Japan had other issues which fed into it, and other facts led to the fragmenting and submerging of liberals. In fact, modern colonialism/imperialism has always had two engines driving it. The first was the urge to rape and pillage (in an economic sense) and the second was the ‘mission’ to civilize. Japanese did very well with the first one, but never quite figured out the second, which is why Taiwanese and the Koreans have totally different views of the Japanese colonial enterprise.
What’s your point anyway? That the CIA really did create the AIDs virus? That conspiracies are just as rampant in the US as in the Arab world?
The latter. In fact, I’d offer conspiracy theories–or just plain nutjob theories–are far more prevalent in US society.
I challange you to come up with anything to match the 3000 missing Jews from the WTC, or the Mossad theory.
Sebastian, this is the second time you state that Europe is at least as pro-Palestinian as the US is pro-Israel.
I don’t know where your information about Europe comes from (though I often wonder). It differs from country to country, but on the whole I think it is reasonabel to state that Europe is less uncritically pro-Israel and has more sympathy and support for Palestinians than the US. There is growing frustration in Europe with Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. But your statement is absolute nonsense.
Andromeda: I challange you to come up with anything to match the 3000 missing Jews from the WTC, or the Mossad theory.
LOL. Talk about fishing in a barrel.
How about the theory that Saddam was responsible for 9/11? Or the theory that the sun revolves around the earth? Or the theory that making gay marriage legal would undermine heterosexual marriages? Or that there’s a gay agenda trying to turn every schoolchild into a raving faggot or dyke? Or the theory that speciation can’t be explained by natural selection? Or the theory that global warming isn’t real? Or the theory that “they [sic] hate us for our freedom?” Or the theory that more small business are closed because of excess taxation than embezzlement and fraud?
Heck Andromeda, I’d be shocked, shocked I tell you, if fewer than 20% of US citizens think the world is secretly run by Jews.
You can look all this stuff up for yourself you know…
p.s. Are you talking about the theory that Mossad knew about 9/11 in advance (almost certainly true), or that they were responsible (almost certainly false)?
I challange you to come up with anything to match the 3000 missing Jews from the WTC, or the Mossad theory.
You should Google ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘9/11’ sometime. There are some very, very creative and deluded US citizens out there.
Of course, who could forget Falwell and Robertson telling us 9/11 happened because of gays and feminists? Who knew?
You also must have slept through the tenure of our last democratically-elected President. He was accused of everything from the murder of hundreds of people to cocaine smuggling to being a Red Chinese secret agent. Regnery Books made a very good profit from this.
Jade,
And your response is relevant how?
I know… Attack! Attack! Attack!
radish,
“How about the theory that Saddam was responsible for 9/11? ”
Are you saying that someone in the Bush Administration claimed that?
The installation of the Shah was over 50 years ago, and that affected Persian Shiites, whom the Arabs aren’t particularly friendly with anyway.
The problem is that it doesn’t matter; despite their ethnic differences, the Persians and the Arabs are sufficiently like unto each other, and sufficiently unlike the US, that the Shah’s ouster grates against their nationalist sensibilities. And, unlike the US, most Middle Eastern countries have memories that stretch back a very long time; 50 years really isn’t that long, being well within the lifespan of the grandparents of the current generation.
[Actually, pretty much every country has a longer memory than the US. Our national ADD is a source of great strength, but it’s an even greater weakness.]
You see, the answer is pretty obvious. They’ve always hated us.
Patently untrue. Whoever “they” might be in the Middle East, there was no particular ill will (at least, not in the sense you’re talking about) between the US and “them” prior to 1890 at the earliest. I’d actually be willing to wager that you wouldn’t find much in the way of anti-Americanism until at least the 1940s and 1950s, although again it depends on who “they” and “us” are.
Difference: percentage of the population that actually believes these things.
Polls say somewhere around 80-90% of the Arab population (if I’m not understating it), believe that the 3000 jews were warned to avoid the building.
PS: You think Mossad knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance? Hmm, maybe you think they warned those Jews, too.
dutchmarbel – I suspect SH meant that relative to The One True Moral Line that Europe is as far or farther away (perhaps based on a weighing of emotionalism). Certainly my educated informed (Western) European friends (mostly Dutch, German, and Italian, plus I used to read Le Monde) have heard more about the Palestinian side of the arguments than the Israeli.
Rilkefan: Certainly my educated informed (Western) European friends (mostly Dutch, German, and Italian, plus I used to read Le Monde) have heard more about the Palestinian side of the arguments than the Israeli.
…whereas in the US, the most surprising people (that is, educated, informed, aware) have no idea that there is a Palestinian side to the argument: they’re convinced the whole thing is because “the Arabs are anti-Semitic” rather than because Israel was founded by a land-grab and made a majority-Jewish state by the forcible exile of several hundred thousand Palestinians.
Heh. I forgot about all the Clinton stuff! Thanks Jadegold.
wwc: Are you saying that someone in the Bush Administration claimed that?
[more laughter, muffled this time] Are you saying that it matters whether someone in the Bush administration claimed that? I think you should sue the Emir of Qatar in a US court for leading people to believe that Mossad was responsible for 9/11 and see how far you get.
On a more serious note (non-rhetorical question this time), where do you think people got the idea that Saddam was responsible for 9/11?
=====
Personally I think the similarities between the Japanese attack on the US and the US attack on Iraq don’t receive adequate mention.
Attackee interfering with availability of oil? check. Attacker allied with a nation widely reviled for mismanaging occupied territories? check. Military officers weakly attempt to explain that attack is a bad idea and will lead to near certain defeat? check. Said military officers overruled and called disloyal? check. Spectacular initial success and no initial resistance (almost as though attackee wanted it that way)? check.
Just a coincidence? I think not. No doubt the insurgents are already working on their equivalent of a Marshall plan.
“rather than because Israel was founded by a land-grab and made a majority-Jewish state by the forcible exile of several hundred thousand Palestinians.”
This simplistic view of things ignores a lot of history – but anyway I’m arguing SH‘s point here when I don’t really know what his point is or what metric to judge it by.
Certainly my educated informed (Western) European friends (mostly Dutch, German, and Italian, plus I used to read Le Monde) have heard more about the Palestinian side of the arguments than the Israeli.
Since I don’t know your friends I cannot judge what they know ;-), but even *if* they had heard more of the Palestinian side (which actually allready suprises me) that still does not make them “as pro-Palestinia as the US is pro-Israel” I assume.
I think this issue is a) discussed by the two sides sufficiently emotionally and inaccurately that people of good conscience exposed to one side are (esp.) likely to be biased and b) seems (in my limited, lived-in-Europe-for-4-years-but-mostly-talked-to-physicists and have-mostly-European-friends-but-they’re-physicists worldview) to be more mostly-Palestinian-view-exposed there than among people I know here who care (which would be mostly liberal Jews who take a less pro-Israel tack than say the US congress) have been mostly-Israeli-view-exposed. (E.g., the former group is more likely to say “yes, but” than the latter on an agreed fact or to have a predictable opinion.)
But it’s a small enough sample to be meaningless of course.
I should clarify my earlier post a bit, I think. About ‘made by fairies or wizards’: obviously, I didn’t mean that anyone thinks this, literally. But remember that we’re talking about a culture that had been essentially stagnant for several centuries. Within living memory most villages had no electricity, people made (for instance) their own soap and so forth, and there was very little that we’d call advanced technology. Then suddenly we arrive with all this incomprehensible stuff. Now: I don’t understand how a lot of the things I use actually work. I have some vague notions about e.g. computers and TVs (though I am apparently constitutionally unable to understand refrigeration), but as far as serious working knowledge of many of my gadgets, I’m not so sure I could get far beyond an explanation like, “somehow, it does work”, The difference is that I know that people basically like me, only with engineering training, came up with these ideas and do understand them, so I am never tempted to conclude that it’s e.g. my culture or ethnicity that accounts for my ignorance; also, these objects did not appear all at once. In the Middle East, they did, and again, for a long time most of these things not only were not made in any Arab country, they could not be made there. And this, combined with the fact that we (I mean, ‘we European/American types’) defeated them militarily and occupied their lands, was, I think, deeply threatening and humiliating to them.
I do not myself think of this as an uneducated response; it seems to me quite comprehensible. Nor (talking to Jadegold now) do I think it’s particularly Orientalist; at any rate, it’s a view I came to when I spent a lot of time, one way or another, with Arabs of a whole variety of different backgrounds, mostly listening. It struck me that most of the people I met fell into one of two groups (broadly speaking): there were people who embraced everything Western and rejected their own culture as backward (their word, not mine), and there were people who rejected Western things and embraced their own culture, but in a way that struck me as basically defensive. I wasn’t happy with either response, really: to the first group I wanted to say: there are wonderful things about your culture; I think you may be too quick to turn your back on them. Plus, something about members of the first group often struck me as rootless and — shallow isn’t the right word, more like having surgically excised something that would have been necessary for them to achieve the depth of response they were capable of. To the second I wanted to say: surely not everything Western has to be discarded, and there’s something wrong with the way you wrap yourself in your culture as though both you and it needed protection: that’s not, I think, the way either people or cultures grow.
The reaction I was looking for, I eventually thought, was: for someone to admit that they loved their culture and their background, and yet have the confidence to go exploring in Western culture, deciding what they liked about it and what they didn’t, and taking or leaving things accordingly. But, it seemed to me, that takes an extraordinary amount of assurance, under the circumstances. I did meet one person who did that — the ex-love of my life, actually — but he was a pretty extraordinary person (and it may be worth mentioning that he got a very hard time, in Israel, from all sides, and eventually left the country. Those of you who wonder where the reasonable moderate Arabs are, etc. etc., may be interested to learn of my ex, who condemned violence consistently, whoever perpetrated it, and who worked his heart out, in his own inimitable way, trying to find a way through that conflict, and is now living in Michigan.) — But the point is, it’s not lack of education; it’s (I think) a quite reasonable response under the circumstances. And it is a tremendous wound.
About blaming the CIA for earthquakes: here I think it helps a lot to think hard about what it’s like to live in most Middle Eastern countries. They are dictatorships and monarchies, for the most part, i which political power is just not available to ordinary people. In addition, they are in general economically corrupt, so that if you know the right people everything is open to you, and if not, you can work as hard as you like and it will get you nowhere. But both economically and politically, the game is totally rigged, and that is simply that. In my experience, living under tyranny brings out the side of people that likes conspiracy theories, since all most people can do is speculate about what’s “really” going on, being powerless to affect it. This is all the more true when it’s not just e.g. your workplace that’s tyrannical, but your entire society. So the basic cast of mind, I think, owes a lot to unjust political and economic institutions.
In addition, the CIA has, in fact, done a lot of stuff in that region, which we forget, since it’s far from home, but they do not. Just to pick one example: we have a very bad history with the Kurds, having essentially spent decades using one set of Kurds or another against different governments, promoting their rebellions to the point where they became serious irritants, but never to the point where they might actually succeed in anything. Whenever that seemed remotely likely, we pulled the plug, since we did not want them, for instance, to become independent. (Henry Kissinger is reported to have said, once: “We will fight to the last Kurd”, which I thought was rather cold.) Virtually no Americans know anything about this; virtually all Kurds do. And a lot of the things we did were bad, or (at best) possibly justified by large geopolitical considerations, but a raw deal to the people on the ground. The people on the ground, however, remember. So of course they blame us for things, including things we didn’t do. They don’t know everything we did do; they do know, however, that we did a lot of things, and that we are very powerful, and thus that for almost any value of X, the sentence “The CIA is responsible for X” might be true.
Andromeda: Difference: percentage of the population that actually believes these things.
Since you’re the one moving the goalposts, I think I’ll insist on some cites this time.
Andromeda: PS: You think Mossad knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance? Hmm, maybe you think they warned those Jews, too.
I think Mossad knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance–if not all the details then at least the general outline. If they didn’t they were falling down on the job in a rather uncharacteristic manner, since even the FBI knew something was happening. And what, you think Mossad has some obligation to call up everybody who has a big nose or locks or who celebrated Passover that year? They’re not a Jewish intelligence service, they’re an Israeli intelligence service. There is a slight difference. Do a little legwork, would ya?
Hilzoy, another intelligent thoughtful post, Thanks.
I wanted to go back and objecto something you said earlier, that Arab nationalism isn’t necessarily more hatful hateful of the West than Ghandi’s movement was of Britain. I think this is basically wrong.
Part of the problem, which you’ve mentioned, is that the Arab world encountered us in the Crusades centuries prior to the colonial period. That was not the case with India. Obviously that has to play a huge part in the dynamic of Arab nationalism.
The other thing is that the Hindu religion does not have a history of conquest. It’s also polytheistic and partially for that reason, tolerant of other faiths. It’s much less prone to interpretations that endorse killing unbelievers than Islam. Not only that but the Crusades make us Muslims’ historic religious enemy, not just any old invader.
So I would have to argue that Arab nationalism has always been far more antagonistic towards the west than Ghandi’s anti-colonial movement could ever be. In addition, there are other societies who encountered western civilization from an even greater position of ignorance, and did not respond by feeling humiliated and becoming enraged by that humiliation. The response makes sense, but I think requires the existing culture to have had an ingrained sense of superiority over other cultures, especially ours, that would make it especially humiliating. A kind of cultural xenophobia and religious intolerance especially directed towards us, which is not particularly flattering or noble.
Another point I wanted to make is that I don’t think all of the reactions you describe are incompatible with the notion that there’s a pre-existing hatred there that is shaping perceptions. There are people in the US for instance, that I would make the same condemnation of. There are racist white men in the rural south who simply hate blacks because they are ignorant and have learned this from their society. What is unreasonable about postulating that similar psychology is at work among Arab Muslims? Are they immune from prejudice?
We know already about the extent of anti-Semitism there, which is just as virulent as the Nazi version, minus the death camps and plus suicide bombers. We know that it includes a lot of the same myths that were current in Nazi society. We know that similar myths about the US are also pervasive. Is this prejudice a product of Arab humiliation and dictatorial regimes? Probably yes, but it’s still a prejudice.
Furthermore, rural societies are generally more conservative, more religious, less tolerant of outsiders, and more ignorant of other cultures. That’s true in the rural “red states”, just as it’s true in bedouin areas in Saudi Arabia. We also know their culture is less urbanized and more tribalistic, which suggests that this psychology would be even more prevalent in Arab societies than ours. We’re willing to condemn rural Americans for being homophobic, racist, warmongers, but why are we not willing to apply the same standards to tribalistic Arabs who are equally homophobic (if not more so), hate non-Muslims to the same degree that the KKK hated blacks (up to and including the lynchings), preach jihad, and cheer on camoflage-clad Kalishikov-wielding muhajedeen?
Andromeda: I wasn’t clear enough about Gandhi. What I said: “The Arab nationalism version arose in part out of a desire to oppose the West, but that was at a time when European powers were explicitly colonial, and no more shows that Arab nationalists are inherently or primarily motivated by hatred of us than, say, Gandhi’s movement shows that Indians are primarily motivated by a hatred of Britain.”
What I meant: nationalist independence movements always oppose those who colonize them. Thus, Gandhi opposed the British, but that doesn’t show that he was possessed by hatred of them; only that he was fighting for independence, and they were the ones who governed India at the time. Likewise, Arab nationalists opposed the British and French, but that (by itself) doesn’t show that they were possessed by a hatred of the French and British, only that they were fighting for independence from the French and British.
You are, of course, right that Gandhi in fact had much less hatred, partly for the reasons you mentioned, partly because (in my view) he had the kind of assurance in the face of the West whose absence I was lamenting, and partly because, despite the odd personal flaw, he was (I think) arguably a saint of sorts, but unquestionably a completely exceptional person.
I also don’t think my explanation is incompatible with explaining things in terms of prejudice. I meant to be trying to explain why these (often prejudiced) attitudes exist. In the same way, one might ask: but why did people in the South cling to racism the way they did? and answer: in their case too there was a proud culture that was left with a deep sense of humiliation after the Civil War, and in their case too they were, according to them, defending that culture against a technologically superior adversary who somehow just should not have defeated them, but did. Of course the point of this is not to excuse, in either case, but just to try to understand what we’re dealing with.
The other thing is that the Hindu religion does not have a history of conquest.
That’s highly debatable…
“Dozens of photos appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees…”
But…
“Preliminary findings of a military inquiry suggest that some of the recently published photographs of Navy special forces capturing detainees in Iraq were taken for legitimate intelligence-gathering purposes and showed commandos using approved procedures, a Navy spokesman said Monday.”
I don’t know, Rilkefan, from what I saw there looked to be a good bit of beaming & gesticulating going on, kinda like seals at a circus. And was it a private camera that made its way into the wife’s hands, or did the serviceman inadvertently abscond with government property?
By the way, typically fine post & comment out-fleshing, Hilzoy. Americans, narcissistic? Nah, couldn’t be. Now where’s that mirror?
Rilkefan: This simplistic view of things ignores a lot of history
I once wrote a short, simple, unbiased summary of how Israel came to be in 1948, and as I recall it took me around 1000 words. There’s a lot of history going on there. (Must dig it up sometime.) My throwaway comment was not intended as an accurate summary of the history of the Israel/Palestine situation, but as an quick example of the kind of POV that comes from knowing considerably more than you will ever find out from the US mass media. But it was a fairly stupid thing to throw into the conversation at random, since I do know that a even a simple summary of the situation is far more complex than can be thrown into a single sentence.
Rilkefan: I think this issue is a) discussed by the two sides sufficiently emotionally and inaccurately that people of good conscience exposed to one side are (esp.) likely to be biased
yes, I agree.
and b) seems (in my limited, lived-in-Europe-for-4-years-but-mostly-talked-to-physicists and have-mostly-European-friends-but-they’re-physicists worldview) to be more mostly-Palestinian-view-exposed there than among people I know here who care (which would be mostly liberal Jews who take a less pro-Israel tack than say the US congress) have been mostly-Israeli-view-exposed. (E.g., the former group is more likely to say “yes, but” than the latter on an agreed fact or to have a predictable opinion.)
I think they might be more Palestinian-view-exposed, but that does not make them more mostly-Palestinian-view-exposed. And do you mean with the second half of your sentence that you liberal Jewish friends have seen more Palestinian views, since they are less “mostly-Israeli-view-exposed”?
But it’s a small enough sample to be meaningless of course.
But even from your small sample I do not get the impression that you think Sebastian is right when he says that Europe is “as pro-Palestinia as the US is pro-Israel”.
In my experience I am more pro-Palestinian than almost everybody I know, I know more about Palestinia and about as much about Israel as the others do, and I am most definately not as pro-Palestinia as the US is pro-Israel. I think I am more or less in line with Jes and Jade, and do not hold any side in high regard.
In real-life discussions (much easier, especially in English ;-)) you might get a “yes, but” about most debatable issues, so maybe that is culturally influenced 😉
. I wasn’t happy with either response, really: to the first group I wanted to say: there are wonderful things about your culture; I think you may be too quick to turn your back on them. Plus, something about members of the first group often struck me as rootless and — shallow isn’t the right word, more like having surgically excised something that would have been necessary for them to achieve the depth of response they were capable of. To the second I wanted to say: surely not everything Western has to be discarded, and there’s something wrong with the way you wrap yourself in your culture as though both you and it needed protection: that’s not, I think, the way either people or cultures grow.
Is this not a problem with all cultures?
Jes: “My throwaway comment was not intended as an accurate summary of the history of the Israel/Palestine situation” – fair enough.
dutchmarbel – I was posting at work and got tangled in my syntax and didn’t feel like taking the time to reorganize my argument, but I think that between the two groups “educated liberal Europeans I know” and “educated American Jews I know” the latter is more likely to be exposed to a broad range of views and to have something which might correlate with less bias: a less predictable attitude.
On “yes, but”: for whatever reasons one tends not to hear long clauses after the former in these sorts of conversations. My guess is that we all have a more similar view than we tend to express in this context, but my feeling is that I don’t often hear the agreeing part of the conversation from the group of posters you note. I don’t know if we could have a thread devoted to just condemning Palestinian terrorism. If there were a thread condemning the recent murder (see Anarch in False Choices on intentionality) by an Israeli captain in Gaza of a young girl, I would be perfectly happy to not “but” (though other posters might). In part my question elsewhere to Jes (can you write “settlements” without the “illegal”) referred (in my mind at least) to this.
Re hilzoy’s 3:03 pm post:
That quote is amazing, and right in sync with the theme of this post, which is why the US is so piss poor in the ideological war.
This remark was undoubtedly part of Musharraf’s visit, who as I recall is a military dictator. So who is the cynic here, if Bush cites him as the shining example of democracy for the Middle East?
Once again, the man demonstrates the intelligence of a stump.
Or maybe his idea of Iraqi democracy is to recreate the “Pakistani success.”