IP: They can't see why they are hated

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff () iconia com>
> To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
>
> They can't see why they are hated
>
> Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad
>
> Seumas Milne
> Thursday September 13, 2001
> The Guardian
>
> Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in
> New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans
> simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the
> message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and
> democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as
> someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible.
>
> Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition
> of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities,
> sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is
> hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but
> across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is
> too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from
> the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what
> has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large
> parts of the world.
>
> But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be
> repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political
> leaders are doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance
> with self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose
> determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up
> the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will
> calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel
> Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the
> west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy.
>
> --SNIP--
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,551036,00.html



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