The U.S. by its actions is converting us all into fundamentalists. What Osama is saying goes to the heart of our religion. We are liberal-minded people, but when the West behaves like this, we will stand with him.

--Mohamad Ali Saban, Pakistani student

As I write this, U.S. and British military forces are bombing Afghanistan. America, it seems, has embarked upon a path of no return. For whatever Americans do in the next few weeks, or months, or years, some in the Islamic world will see Sunday's strikes as the beginning of a war against Muslim people.

America has long been hated by many in the Middle East, who abhor, among other things, its support of Israel and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But now, instead of a despised accomplice, America will be seen as the chief perpetrator of violence--the country that rained death upon an impoverished Muslim country, where millions of poor are starving, and the average life expectancy is only forty-six years.

It is true that U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have both declared their commitment to keeping civilian casualties at a minimum. It is true that the United States is dropping off tens of thousands of humanitarian food aid packages every day, in an effort to convince the Afghan people of its good intentions. But these days there is little opportunity for explanation--and few people willing to listen--in the increasingly polarized Muslim world. While the governments of Muslim countries like Pakistan have come out in support of the U.S.-British military action, there is little reason to think their citizens will do the same. People may instead choose to heed the words of a charismatic killer like Osama bin Laden, who on Sunday made this declaration: "I swear by God the Great, America will never dream nor those who live in America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land and in Palestine."

This is in no way a call to excuse the individuals responsible for the September 11 attacks. Those acts of terror showed the depravity that human beings are capable of, in the name of twisted notions of justice: They have no justification. To stop similar atrocities from happening in the future, however, the hate that propels these acts must clearly be understood, and dealt with.

The bombing has only intensified the hate. Twenty civilians died on the first day of the U.S.-British strikes, the Taliban claimed. No matter that the number pales in comparison to the deaths on American soil--it has surely provided once ambivalent Muslims with twenty more reasons to support bin Laden. Consider the words of Mohamad Ali Saban, a student of Peshawar University in Pakistan. "The U.S. by its actions is converting us all into fundamentalists," he told the Christian Science Monitor, as he and twenty of his fellow students protested the attacks on Afghanistan earlier this week. "What Osama is saying goes to the heart of our religion. We are liberal-minded people, but when the West behaves like this, we will stand with him." If educated, "liberal-minded" young people in Pakistan can feel this way about a mass murderer, then the prospects look grim indeed for security and safety in the United States.

By attacking Afghanistan, the United States has begun what government leaders are calling a "war on terrorism." But if this is war, it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as a cold war, much like the one that occupied the United States and the Soviet Union for half a century. That will be the kind of war that Americans will know in the coming months and years: a war without end, a war of constant fear and uncertainty. The specter of communist Russia cast a shadow over American society for decades; the dread of terrorism may do the same. Much like those who lived during the McCarthy years, Americans may soon find themselves looking over their shoulders, watching for the hidden enemy, ever wary of each other.

In this new war, there will be no possibility of victory in a conventional sense. Hostile governments--Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union--surrender, or fall apart. America will undoubtedly crush the Taliban; a military with only fifteen Soviet-era fighter-bomber aircraft has little hope against the world's sole superpower. But terrorists do not give up. They die, and their brothers or sons take up the fight, with the implacable hatred of avengers.

And so this war against terrorism will not be won with Tomahawk cruise missiles, or Special Forces soldiers. It will be won, or lost, in the conflict of competing ideas, policies, and notions of morality. In the Middle East, America is hated for its arrogance of power, for its support of corrupt, repressive regimes, and for the brutality it abets or perpetrates in places like Palestine (where U.S.-made weapons do much of the killing) and Iraq (where U.S.-imposed sanctions starve millions of innocent people, and bombings continue without end). America's only option is to neutralize the hate, and to clearly show itself to be morally superior to bin Laden and his followers. Rather than relying on cruise missiles to change attitudes, America should be rethinking its foreign policy and proving to a suspicious Middle Eastern populace that it is concerned with more than just its own citizens' well-being and freedoms.

At home, an equally important battle for hearts and minds will also be waged. Americans will have to decide what kind of Americans they will be. They can let fear turn their patriotism into paranoia, and their love of country into jingoism. Or they can honor their country by honoring the principles it stands for--by finding the courage to maintain their liberties, and their humanity, within a climate of terror. Patriotism in these uncertain days will often be a matter of loyal dissent, as Americans use their freedom to question government policies that do not stand true to their country's ideals, and to speak out against racist scapegoating and xenophobia in their own communities.

A month after September 11, we have entered a war that may become many more wars, spanning our children's and grandchildren's lives. America may soon find itself like Israel, an eternally besieged nation, firing upon enemies that never seem to die--that always rise up again, ever more hateful, ever more vicious.

This, sadly enough, may be what the terrorists wanted. "America will never dream," bin Laden threatened on Sunday. It is up to Americans to salvage their Dream, by showing the world they truly believe in it.

Victor Tan Chen
Editor, Inthefray.com
Boston

Postscript: The Editor's Notebook--and the Editor--return this month, after a long hiatus due to serious illness. My heartfelt thanks to the Inthefray.com staff for keeping the magazine going while I recovered.

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This month's featured post

War hits home

September 25. Two nights ago, I watched Apocalypse Now at an indie theater here in Minneapolis. The carnage of the Vietnam War, despite the Hollywood liberties, came to life. I know we have made significant advances from the hand-to-hand combat depicted in that movie, but we certainly are establishing grounds troops in the Middle East. That film was scary and disturbing.

Even more disturbing was the phone call I received about five minutes after leaving the theater: My mom letting me know that my two brothers--intelligence specialists in the Marines--were being shipped to the Gulf.

My baby brothers, twenty-two-year-old twins, are Arabic, French, Japanese and Hebrew linguists with some skills that are probably pretty valuable now.

So, all these newspapers are whipping up patriotism and support for a war with editorials and nonstop photos of Old Glory. I'm an American, I support this country, but I think some media organizations have been too quick to advocate for what will likely be a long, deadly, and economically crippling war. Bring out the Full Metal Jackets, the Platoons, the Hamburger Hills, and all the other war classics and see if you can imagine your brothers (and sisters) being blown to bits in a faraway country while on a mission to kill civilians who are essentially powerless and innocent in a despot-run nation.

Is that justice for those killed in the attacks last week? What would they think?

Hannah
[Posted to the Forum]

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Out of key

September 4. I believe that the purpose of "Songs in the key of life" (ITF, August 2001) was to proclaim the 911 system "a joke"; however, Molly Hennessy-Fiske came across as somewhat of a joke herself. Domestic abuse is not a problem for the police to respond to after the fact; it's a societal scourge which must be addressed by the community proactively. It's sad that Ms. Hennessy-Fiske heard this drama of human abuse carrying on and was moved only by her belief that a cat was being injured. How can she blame the police for "not doing anything" when her first, second, and third instincts upon witnessing abuse were to just roll over and go to sleep? Until she saw blood, she was willing to put in the earplugs and turn the other way.

Like other tax-supported institutions, the police are part of our community and thus must answer to a community standard. If the residents of the community are willing to tolerate a little woman-battering (but certainly not animal abuse, right?), then the police should do no better.

Get involved with the other tenants of your apartment building and write to the landlord and to your police commissioner to explain why you believe that those who are responsible are not in control of this situation. I'll give you a hint too--you ought to have something better to say about why a woman being beaten is unacceptable in your eyes, besides losing your beauty sleep. Remember, this is a community standard, and Ms. Hennessy-Fiske, if the police have failed, then you have failed.

Rebecca Ingber
West Bloomfield, Michigan

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'America will never dream'

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