April 11 2007

The Tora Bora of Fear

The fight against terror has succeeded in inducing and introducing fright in American life. This has been the thesis from no less a person than Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to former President Jimmy Carter.
Fear has been the salient feature of American life since September 11, 2001. The role of mass media has hyped the sense of panic and insecurity, which leads to security checks all over, suspicion of individuals with Muslim-sounding names, appearance, and attire, along with a proliferation of Islamophobic pseudo-experts on terror. It has made air travel troublesome for Muslims. Many US-based Muslims think twice about taking a trip to neighboring Canada because of fear of being harassed at the US border upon their return.
In its campaign against terror, the United States has loosely expended its moral capital and, by doing so, has forsaken its own strength. In its zeal, it too readily undercut itself. There is fear at home and fury abroad. The Bush Administration inadvertently may be fostering a craven culture which could be difficult to reverse and may leave lingering effects on the US psyche.
The so-called ‘war on terror’ has compromised the much-vaunted American values of openness, fairness, and due process of law. Just recently, a Pentagon lawyer, Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, who was designated to prosecute a Guantanamo Bay prisoner suspected of terrorism in connection with 9/11, risked his military career by refusing to proceed, on the grounds that the detainee’s confession had been extorted through torture (vide Wall Street Journal front-page story of March 31).
The Muslim world has turned into a vast conflict zone, and innocent Muslims have borne the brunt of what many perceive to be mala fide policies sparked by narrowly focused special interests. Conversely, the unrelenting reliance on brute force is emboldening opposing forces. More importantly, embedded within, the hidden casualty is the innate American sense of self-confidence.
So who is winning the so-called ‘war on terror’? Certainly, not America. Self-inflicted fear has spawned a “fear industry”, which is being encashed by the opportunistic and the unscrupulous, who continue to market scenarios of horror in media, academia, and in the entertainment industry. At the same time, little effort has been made to seriously and genuinely explore the roots of terror.
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah was refreshingly blunt during the Arab League Summit at Riyadh, where he castigated the Bush Administration for its occupation of Iraq and its embargo on Palestine. But, more significantly, taking a look inward, King Abdullah also held the Arab Establishment responsible for its failure of leadership.
The Bush philosophy of “my way or the highway” may no longer work. Muslim elites often use fright to justify their acquiescence in Bush Administration policies by claiming, in effect, that had they not done so, the US might have made a Tora Bora of them. To cite Zbigniew Brzezinski again, “The ‘war on terror’ has created a culture of fear in America. … the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror.” In other words, the Bush Administration has already succeeded in making a Tora Bora of the self-confidence of average Americans.