“Why do they hate us?” they asked.
“Because you are free,” they were told.
Unfortunately, for many Americans, that answer was good enough to satisfy their curiosity on the subject. It was enough to convince them to allow their leaders to go on a rampage in central and West Asia, killing thousands of their own children in the process, not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the region. It was enough, ironically, to convince them to give up some of those freedoms in the interest of security.
After seven years of utter disaster in foreign policy the leaders can claim, despite all the crime, death, misery, and destruction they caused around the world, despite having polarized the entire planet, despite all the new hatred that they created, that they have kept the United States and her citizens safe from any further attacks. They can claim, with as much or as little honesty as they please, that under their leadership 5 or 10 or 1,000 attacks were thwarted, all thanks to their security measures and their foresight and their amber, magenta, and turquoise alerts.
“Who’s gonna know?” they may say to themselves. “We done good!” they say to everyone else.
Three years after it all started, the regime was re-elected. Apparently, the masses (or just over half of them) still hadn’t awakened from their terror-induced stupor. Two years after that, it seemed that enough of them had opened their eyes to make some changes in the mid-term elections. And now, seven years after that fateful day (fateful for all 6.5 billion of us), we still see the hateful, lying, murderous snake called fear rear its head and strike into the hearts of the American public. Its latest incarnation: a mass-produced, widely distributed, fear- and hatred-inspiring DVD that was delivered to newspaper readers all over the country, primarily in presidential election swing states.
Fear and hatred go hand in hand. And no Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il or Nasrallah can compete with the fear-inspiring hatred spewed forth by the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. For a real taste of good old fashioned down-home Confederate-style right-wing hatred, you need look no further than one of their daily radio shows. After listening to a snippet or two, you could be forgiven for thinking that these men, with their racist, narrow-minded, hate-filled, and sometimes downright evil message, cannot possibly have a substantial following in educated, liberal, freedom-loving America. But you’d be wrong. Their shows are syndicated across the country, from Maine to California, Washington to Florida, and Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They have huge fan bases (Limbaugh has over 20 million listeners daily!), to which they preach hatred and fear on a daily basis. We know the fans listen, because the advertising dollars keep coming and their contracts are extended with larger and larger sums of money. These are just two of the big ones. There are countless others on radio and TV, in churches and synagogues, in print and on the Internet.
As the 2008 presidential election approaches, I, along with the rest of the world, wait with baited breath to see who will be the victor. It is sad that all of us non-Americans care so much about who their president will be. It is sad that we, all of humankind, will be profoundly affected by the outcome of this election, and yet we are powerless to influence it.
If Obama wins, they will say that the terrorists have won. That term is so overused, so mishandled, so abused.
The League of Nations, in 1937, defined terrorism as:
All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public.
In keeping with the trend of using the word in any and all possible situations to further one's agenda, if McCain wins, I will say that the terrorists have won. To avoid ambiguity and be as clear as possible, I do not mean that I think the American people are terrorists. The terrorists I'm referring to are those within the American socio-political sphere that, to use the definition above, commit "acts directed against a State [the United States]...intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public [the American people]." You may have noticed that I left the word 'criminal' out. These acts, by virtue of their own definition, are criminal.
(Side note: Maybe I give Obama too much credit. He may end up being a big flop. But I hope he wins and I hope he puts his words into action. A big flop is preferable to 4 or 8 more years of insanity any day of the week. If McCain wins, I foresee a war with Iran that will have disastrous global repercussions.)
What the American public needs to ask itself is: Do we prefer that the terrorists (real or imagined) conduct their business (real or imagined) in a far-off mystical land called Asia, or do we prefer that they conduct their business right here at home in the halls and offices of our executive, legislative, and judicial buildings?
Terrorism on its own is not an end. It is a means to an end. Americans have for years been force-fed the end (real or imagined) that the terrorists (real or imagined) are striving towards. But what 'end' are their local terrorists striving towards? The answer to that, I think, is far more terrifying, both for America and the world at large.
