I have been thinking about my previous blog and about why the things that are happening to Americans in the Middle East are happening, and now I am ready to say more about it.
The United States government, with the support of many of its citizens, is poking its nose into matters in a part of the world that we do not understand. Throughout recorded history, there has been conflict in the Middle East. That conflict has been based in religion, with each side believing that they are doing what is necessary in order to save their immortal souls. With so much at stake, it is easy to see why people are willing to fight for it so ferociously.
Much of this conflict has been between the Jewish people and the Arab people. It’s a little hard for me to understand why that needs to be when these two cultures are so closely related and when their religious beliefs stem from the same source, but there is no doubt that the differences far outweigh the similarities in the eyes of the participants in the dispute.
One of the key points of disagreement, at least in modern times, is about what the position of women should be. It is much different in Israel than it is in the Arab states. I think women in Israel are more “equal” than they are in the US. Golda Meir is a wonderful example. No American woman has achieved the position that she acheived in Israel. I know that the Arab states want to keep women subservient, although not all of the Arab states take that to the same degree. To me, it seems that they see women as possessions. In any case, their attitudes toward women and toward society as a whole are very different from the western world. I do not pretend to understand how they view life.
There are many other points of disagreement, including how governments ought to relate to their citizens and what the value of a “non-believer” is. By “non-believer”, I mean a person who has different religious and moral beliefs and because of that follows a different path. I am not specifically referring to either side. To a Muslim, a Christian may be a “non-believer”, so may a Jew, a Hindu, or a member of any other belief system. In turn, each of those groups may look at the others as “non-believers”.
In the current situation, a prime question is what the role of the United States should be. I am not sure it is the job of the US to police the world and I am not comfortable that we can change the Arab world by replacing their governments. Their culture is ingrained and isn’t going to change that easily. I am also
not sure we have the right to ask them to change. I have difficulty understanding why we can’t just accept and respect our differences. We are supposed to be modern and enlightened, but neither side really is, because neither side really respects the right of the other to determine their own destiny.
I hear people say that the war is really about who controls the oil supplies in the Middle East, and maybe to some extent that is right. Certainly people are motivated by wealth and power and under the current economic conditions, control of oil supplies means both.
Another argument is that the US needed to prevent Saddam Hussein’s government from using weapons of mass destruction. This remains a controversial issue. Some are eager to point out that no such weapons have been found in Iraq. Others say that they have to exist because they were given to Saddam Hussein by the US many years ago. I am not sure who is right on that one and I am even less sure that it really matters.
Some claim that Saddam Hussein supported and nurtured Al Qaeda, and that that gave us the right to remove him. If there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda, that did not give us the right to do what we did. I know that many will disagree with me. The funny thing is that some will disagree with the first part of the statement and some with the second.
Many argue the defense of “human rights” and the duty of the United States to intervene in the name of that cause. The former government of Iraq was accused of torturing its citizens. Americans find that abhorrent. While I think that that was happening, at least from the perspective of the Western world, I am not sure that it was a problem belonging to the US and appropriate for the US to try to solve. I also wonder why we felt the need to intercede for this cause in Iraq but not in the many other countries where it occurs.
From the perspective of many of the countries of the Middle East, and indeed of much of the world, one of the big issues is American Imperialism. I think that the objection that many people have to the the US spreading its culture throughout the world is justified. I personally find this to be intrusive and unacceptable. When I visit another country, I want to see what that country is like. I do not want to eat at McDonald’s or shop at the Gap, or even to see those places. I can see why other countries resent us when we seem to be trying to wipe their cultures out in favor of our own. When you add the belief of the Muslim world that it is their duty to spread their religious beliefs (which are synonymous with their culture) throughout the world and that this is necessary for their salvation, the spread of American culture must seem like a direct and very aggressive threat, although I do not believe that the American people mean it that way.
Another part of this issue is that the US supports Israel and that some Arab nations see that as an aggressive postition relative to them. I am in favor of the US continuing its alliance with Israel. Many of the founders of the modern Israeli state came from the US and we share many commonalities with that country. In view of the historic persecution of Jews, I think the support of the US is vital to the survival of Israel. However, we need to understand that the spread of our culture and our support of Israel combine to create a situation which radical Muslims can use to define a “holy war” – one which is necessary to stop what they perceive as an attack on their beliefs. I think the United States played right into Al Qaeda’a hands when we launched a military attack on Iraq. We proved to anyone who was inclined to support the radical element that they were right. We are the aggressors.
The US further complicated matters by being publicly disrespectful of prisoners of war. Once captured, these people could do us no harm. They deserved to be treated with human dignity – the human rights our government screams about. Instead, they were ridiculed, and that ridicule was recorded. It was probably never intended for that to become public, but it did, and the American participants in that debacle made all of us look like hypocrits. We claim to be freeing the Iraqi people from mistreatment, and yet we mistreated our prisoners. There is no excure and no justification for that.
With those actions, we proved our ignorance of the cultural differences between ourselves and the people of the Middle East. I am sure that the military personnel guarding the prisoners intended only disrespect, and that they did not think they were doing actual harm. They did not understand that the kind of humiliation to which they subjected the prisoners was worse in their culture than killing them. I fault our government for putting people in charge of POW’s without adequate training. The guards should have known what they were doing but they did not because we did not take the trouble to learn what we should have learned and to make sure that the guards were educated about the Muslim culture.
Unfortunately, Al Queda has learned about our culture and they know how to retaliate in ways that will hurt us. They know that torturing and killing our civilians in the Middle East is an appropriate retaliatory strike. They knew that when they flew airplanes into the World Trade Center. That was a massive strike which we interpreted as unprovoked and which outraged us because it was against a civilian target. We did not see then and still do not see how our actions appear aggressive to people of other nations, particularly to some Arab nations, and more specifically to Al Qaeda. We need to learn to recognize the ways in which our actions appear aggressive and to see how Al Qaeda and other fanatical groups can use these actions to win support for their cause.
It is not acceptable to me to hate and kill in the name of God, whatever you call God. I believe that there is just one God but that people experience God in different ways. I do not think God wants us to annihilate each other because of our differences. I do think the world can change, but I do not think military force is the way to achieve that change. I think it will happen far faster and far more effectively through positive interaction. I think it is important to remember that fanatic fringes like Al Qaeda do not represent mainstream groups and do not speak for them. Specifically, Muslim people are not our enemy.
The situation with Irag and with the rest of the Middle East is very complicated, with multiple causes and many shades of meaning. I do not know how we will get out of it. I think we have taken irrevocable steps and now we just have to figure out how to make the outcome as positive as possible. I do hope we learn from what has happened. I think it is possible that the majority of the citizens of Iraq may be grateful not to be under the rule of Saddam Hussein. I do not think we can interpret that to mean that they want massive change in their culture. We must let them determiine for themselves the direction they will take.
I think the whole thing boils down to respect, and that the solution to many of today’s world issues can be reached far better through respect than through military action. We need to respect each other as individuals. Countries need to respect each other. Cultures need to respect each other. We need to understand how our culture and our actions look to members of radically different cultures. Until that happens, we will have war, many wars, over and over again. We need to stop assigning values to differences. They do not need to be defined as good or bad. All we need to do is recognize the right of others to be different. Only then will the wars stop.
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