Cipherdom (deprecated)

Just a Thought

We all know there's the likelihood of an Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. homeland before our election. Long before their success in influencing Spain's election last spring, I was predicting to friends and fellow paranoiacs that the evil doers would try to play a role in the U.S. presidential campaign by blowing up whatever Big Thing is handy and, incidentally, killing as many Amurcans as they can. See, they really can't lose. If the seemingly inevitable attack coincides with a Bush defeat, Al Qaeda can claim that we caved in to their pressure. If Bush wins despite or because of the hypothetical attack, that's in fact the best possible outcome for them. Can anyone doubt it's what they'd love more than anything? Bush is a terrorist's wet dream. The guy has, in his ejaculatory way, played right into Bin Laden's hands by proving that we'd rather declare war on the Arab world than try to understand it.

Most people would agree that destroying native cultures in, say, South America is wrong. It's easy to empathize with the benign aboriginal tribesmen with whom Sting posed compellingly for photographs. Those people are so disconnected from Western Civilization that they literally have no defense against the intrusions of commerce and technology. To me, all that distinguishes such cultures from the Islamic world is that Muslims have been exposed to modernism and, to varying degrees, have said, "No thank you, we'll hold on to our culture just the same." Sometimes in symbolic ways, and other times in more emphatic ways, where they turn the very instruments of our modernity against us.

I had a distinct sense, after the 9/11 attacks, that the Internet had played an unspoken role. I'm not talking about the ciphered messages that Al Qaeda operatives supposedly routinely ship across the Web. No, I think the rampant porn that America is spewing like so many cigarettes probably went a long way toward radicalizing certain Muslims who came in contact with it in the late '90s. What further proof is needed that America is a soulless instrument of evil? In that context, our excursion into Iraq may only be icing on the cake.

Are we so far gone that any attempt to understand an alien culture must be perceived as weakness? Is it naive to suggest this all wouldn't be so complicated if not for the Israel-Palestine problem? Absent the current Administration's rubber stamping of Ariel Sharon's every whim, our leaders might try demonstrating some respect for Islam and resisting the urge to bestow faux democracies upon them. That might undermine their radicals far more than flinging bombs, occupying countries, and propping up dictators.

But let's suppose it wouldn't have that effect. Resisting the urge to obliterate humans and their societies would still give us the unmistakable moral high ground, in comparison to zealots who think God grants them the right to decide who's worthy of living. Because quoting Bible verses does nothing to combat the quoters of Koranic verses, maybe we should try behaving more like Christians than like barbarians. Just a thought.

Posted by Vernam at August 9, 2004 12:16 AM | TrackBack