Globally Rational

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This is another in my set of “Sunday Rewinds”, where I re-post one of my favorite articles that I wrote back when nobody was reading. FYI, the status of North Korea has changed a little bit since I first wrote the article.

Wikipedia defines “terrorism” as “violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear.” Here are some examples of accepted terrorist organizations:

• —Al-Qaeda, for obvious reasons.
• —The Irish Republican Army (IRA), which conducts violent attacks in an attempt to promote the independence of Northern Ireland from the UK.
• —Hamas, a political party that is said to sponsor violence against Israel.
• —Khmer Rouge, a violent Communist group that controlled Cambodia for part of the 1970s.
• —The Ku Klux Klan, which is responsible for ethnic/racial violence in the US.

Anyway, you get the point. But what about state-sponsored terrorism? We spent a lot of time, resources, and money fighting many of the small groups: for instance, we fought al-Qaeda and the Khmer Rouge directly (with heavy casualties) and we fought Hamas by supplying money and weapons to their targets. Meanwhile, we ignore state-sponsored issues:

• —China’s atrocities against Tibetans speak for themselves, but China is still hosting the Olympics and is still one of our biggest trading partners. They also don’t let the local media tell their residents about the violence, while the Great Firewall of China prevents any Chinese residents from accessing international news.
• —North Korea is as dangerous as ever and, unlike al-Qaeda and Iraq, they have weapons of mass destruction. We seem to just ignore them.
• —Israel still continues to kill far more Palestinian civilians than vice versa. Why do we continue to pay for them to do it?
• —We ignore state-sponsored terrorism in countries like Rwanda and Ethiopia/Eritrea, but we are all over it every time it touches Yugoslavia. My guess is that it’s because it’s much easier for white America to be sympathetic with white Yugoslavia. It’s also interesting that the news never mentions that the terrorism in Yugoslavia was primarily non-Muslims killing Muslims, but they always mention religion when Muslims kill non-Muslims. The same thing happens in Israel… it’s never “Jews killing Muslims”, but you hear a lot about “Muslims killing Jews/Israelis”, even though the former is much more common than the latter.
• —And, of course, there are the allegations of US sponsorship of terrorism, which seem to be irrefutable. Take a look at the link.

It’s hard to make a conclusion with such a small data set… but it’s good food for thought. This tells you a lot about how the US, as a nation, feels about various groups. We tend to ignore all evidence that is contrary to whatever issue it is that we want to support. We want to support China, so the Tibetans are irrelevant and the Olympics will continue. We want to support Yugoslavia, so we make Rwanda less important (the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was very efficient and took care of the issues… the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, on the other hand, has accomplished almost nothing). I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t help Israel or Yugoslavia… but I think we should find a way to help Tibet and Rwanda at the same time instead of discriminating heavily in favor of one or the other.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think about this one. There are many possible explanations and conclusions, and I think we’d all like to see different opinions.

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I called in to NPR’s Talk of the Nation today to discuss my opinion on America’s negative image overseas.  I think that the guest, Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins, hit the point perfectly… instead of boring you with an article, I’ll link you to the story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91812972

If you click “listen now” and forward to about 5-6 minutes into the conversation, you’ll hear a caller named “Shan from Missouri”… that’s me.

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We hear a lot of propaganda aimed at convincing the American people that Arabs are evil, the war is justified, and America is the best thing that ever happened to the world. Some people believe it all, and some people (i.e. the people who are probably reading this) believe none of it… but did you ever think that just some of it might be true?

All other things aside, the slogans “Land of the Free” and “Land of Opportunity” really do describe two of America’s very unique traits. We often take these facts for granted, but the amount of freedom and opportunity available to the American population is unmatched in the rest of the world. Here, we can speak out for what we believe in (although recently, we’re been losing that privilege). Here, you can be whatever you want to be if you set your mind to it. After you hear those things a million times, you tend to take them for granted… but this is the only country where it’s true.

In most countries (even in Europe), the average person does not believe they can be anything they want to be. If you’re born under a tin roof in Indonesia, you’ll probably die under a tin roof in Indonesia. If you speak out against the King in the Middle East, you’ll be detained. If you openly practice Buddhism in Tibet, you’ll be suppressed by the Chinese. If you try to leave your poor village in Pakistan to go to college, you’ll starve before anybody gives you a scholarship/loan. And that’s why the US became the world’s foremost economic and scientific power (I mentioned yesterday how we became the world’s foremost military power).

Recently, more countries have started granting more liberties and have attempted to produce more opportunities. In the process, Germany and Japan have risen as intellectual powers, while London’s financial sector is bringing economic prowess to the UK. Although the US is still leading the world, the rest of these countries are taking our strengths - our belief in freedom and our endearment of the old rags-to-riches story - and implementing them into their own policy. They’ll slowly start to chip away at our status as the world’s best country for scientific discovery and economic advancement… but it will make the world a better place.

Interesting note: the indices that measure democracy and freedom of the press both report that the US is no longer a leader in these two issues (we’ve been dropping quickly in the last few years). If we don’t fix this, we’ll destroy everything we stand for and, eventually, we’ll also lose our place as a leader in liberty and opportunity. The way to fix a declining democracy with fading freedoms is to be aware of the problem… if we know what’s going on and we follow these indices, we can prevent ourselves from slipping.

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And the answer is Nelson Mandela.  Apparently, the US was against the anti-Apartheid movement because the South African white supremacists were our friends.  After it became apparent that South Africa’s racist philosophies were bad, the world came to accept Mandela as a hero… but we still never got around to taking Mandela off the US terrorist list.  In fact, some people still think he’s a terrorist, even after the US gave him a Medal of Honor in 2003.

I think it’s interesting to consider how much things change over the years.  Sure, Mandela was a little violent during the 1960’s… but he wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the Apartheid government.  Years later, people unanimously hail him as a leader in the fight against racism and global harmony.  40 years from now, what will we be saying about some of the people who are seen as questionable today?

There are a lot of people who are generally very influential.  Some of them, such as Hitler and Milosevic, are obviously bad.  Others, such as Mandela and Jimmy Carter, are obviously good.  But what about the people who are still too fresh in our memories to make any solid conclusions (for instance, much of the current players in Pakistani politics)?  What will we think about them in the future?

I want to make a suggestion.  Before you decide that a person is evil (like we said about Mandela), think about what they do and why they do it.  It’ll tell you a lot about the person… for instance, some Pakistani politicians are motivated by greed and power struggles, while others are motivated by a true dedication to making the world a better place.  Similar things can be said about more violent figures (including people who are actually terrorists)… if we actually try to look at things from their perspective, even if we don’t agree with it, we can go much farther in our attempts to make peace.

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There’s a fact that I’ve always taken for granted; recently, I learned that it’s not common knowledge. It was always so obvious to me that I started to wonder why most people don’t know this.

Did you know that the Middle East is generally impressed with Western culture? People often think that the anti-American sentiment we always hear about implies an imminent culture clash in rapidly developing emirates like Dubai. In fact, a lot of the people in the developed part of the Middle East love the concept of our clothes, movies, and even cars (eek!). I can’t think of any logical reason why people in an oil-rich Sultanate would choose to drive a Ford/Shelby Mustang GT instead of the far-superior and equally-priced Nissan Skyline GT-R (or BMW M3 or Audi RS4) but for some reason, “American” is synonymous with “classy” there. Why don’t most Americans know this?

Don’t get confused… they hate our foreign policy and our Americocentrism. But Kuwait’s beachfront also has a popular restaurant called Big Al’s Steakhouse, right between the Applebee’s and the Ruby Tuesday (keep in mind that beachfront property is not cheap… there are much better Arab restaurants down the street, but they’re not nearly as popular). If you have an American passport or an American degree, you are a first-class citizen; my Pakistani passport, on the other hand, isn’t even good enough to get me a full-access visa despite the fact that I have connections there. How can they hate American foreign policy but like our culture?

Well, the answer is simple: most of the world is, unlike us, capable of distinguishing a country’s political policies from their individual people. In my birth country of Pakistan, for instance, most of the people resent the past British rule and India’s firmness with regard to Kashmir. Meanwhile, they have no problem moving to England or making friends with Indians. The reason is because we understand that our friends in India and England are not the ones who make those policies… and that those policies don’t directly affect us anyway.

So why is there growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the US? I have no qualms about hating Al-Qaeda or even Ahmadinejad. But why does the average American maintain a personal feud with the average Palestinian who wants nothing more than the right to go back home? Most Muslims are peaceful and don’t share the radical right-wing views. Most Arabs understand the difference between Bush’s failed policies and the average American’s blissful ignorance… why can’t most Americans understand the difference between Osama bin Laden’s belligerence and the average Arab’s benevolent neutrality?

Enter propaganda. If you can be convinced that all Arabs hate all Americans, it’s much easier to convince you to endorse a campaign against them.

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I saw a YouTube video today regarding the war in Iraq (created by a Ron Paul supporter):

The Jed Report correctly describes this video as potentially “brutal” and “devastating” to John McCain.  What I think is interesting is that, despite the fact that this information has all been in the public domain for months, it doesn’t become “brutal” until after somebody puts it on YouTube.  Did people not realize beforehand that McCain apparently believes that Baghdad is a safe place where anybody can walk around without any fear?  Did they think that he intends to withdraw troops from Iraq?

I think it’s about time that people start noticing these trends on their own instead of relying on a random YouTube user to tell us.  If you support the war and you think that it’s safe to walk around a ravaged city like Baghdad, then I understand why you wouldn’t care about his statements… but the vast majority of people (including intelligent and educated people) don’t even know about this.  I’ve met plenty of people who judge McCain based on the promises he made during the 2000 campaign, when the war and the economy were nonfactors.  It’s time for people to actually think before they vote.

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Plenty of us have heard that over 60% of Americans aged 18-24 couldn’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East (yes, a map of the Middle East… not even a map of the world) in a 2006 survey (that’s three years after the start of the war). I just took a look at that survey and found a few other interesting facts:

• Only 50% think that map-reading skills are “absolutely essential”
• Despite that fact, 75% couldn’t find Iran or Israel on the same Middle East map.
• 65% couldn’t find the UK on a world map.
• 88% couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.
• Half of people couldn’t find India or Japan on the Asian map
• 70% couldn’t find North Korea, and only 37% knew that the North/South Korea border is more heavily fortified than the US/Mexico border and the China/Russia border (both of which are mostly barren).
• Only 35% knew about the huge earthquake in Pakistan, which had killed 70,000 people only a few months before the survey.
• 74% of people thought that English is a more common first language than Mandarin (which was picked by 18%).
• When asked to pick the country with a Muslim majority (between Indonesia, India, Armenia, and South Africa), 48% thought it was India (which is only 10% Muslim) and only 25% picked Indonesia (which is over 80% Muslim).
• More interestingly, people thought that the Mississippi’s flow had something to do with Hurricane Katrina.

Apparently, we don’t know anything about the world. This is why the rest of the world looks down on Americans… geography is no longer an important part of our school curricula. How do we expect to succeed through globalization if 90% of our youth don’t even know where Afghanistan is?

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It’s no secret that NATO countries seem to be above the law when it comes to UN resolutions and global initiatives.  But I think this is the first time that China and Russia have teamed up to complain.

Recently, Russia’s new President Dmitry Medvedev issued a joint statement with China’s Hu Jintao to speak out against the US plan for a global missile defense shield.  The shield will protect the US and its allied in Europe from any missile attacks around the world… essentially, we’re creating more weapons in an attempt to defend ourselves from other weapons that people technically aren’t allowed to build.  If any other country (with the notable exception of Israel) was building such a system, the US and the UN would be furious at the violation of global disarmament laws.

What kind of signal are we sending to the world if we continue to break our own laws?  We tell people not to build these sorts of weapons, but then we start to build our own huge weapon systems.  Around the world, people think that this is just part of a large US plot to gain military dominance… they think that the purpose is to make sure that we’re the only people with any weapons and, consequently, any power.  Is this really the message that we want to send?

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Many of you may have heard that President Bush recently stated that he has stopped playing golf in solidarity for the soldiers in Iraq. His rationale:

I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal… I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it anymore to do.

So apparently, he can’t play golf anymore because he feels bad for sending our young men to their deaths in Iraq. Is this the way to “be in solidarity as best I can with [the dead soldiers’ families]?” He says that this is the “best” way… well, I can think of plenty of better ways:

• Send your daughters to go fight in Iraq… that’s what the British Royal Family did (with Prince Harry), and they aren’t even the ones who started the war.
• Tell the families what exactly their children are dying for.
• Stop tearing apart your most loyal families with the Stop-Loss program.
• Send some psychiatrists to Iraq to take care of the suicide problem among the troops.
• Try to learn something about the rest of the world… it’s demoralizing to see a President who was planning a war in a country without even knowing the difference between the country’s major factions (and that’s assuming that there was actually some planning for the war).
• And, the biggest one: Don’t lie about giving up golf! Since the day that he claims to have played his last round of golf, he has been out on the course twice. We have also seen plenty of video footage of him fishing, mountain biking, and just hanging out on his ranch. That’s solidarity for you.

I’ve heard plenty of people say “leave him alone… he’s only human” or “he’s not perfect” or “don’t you ever make mistakes?” Well, I’ll admit that I am not the smartest, hardest-working, most capable person in America… but that’s also why I’m not the President. I expect the President to be one of the 100 smartest people in the country and one of the 100 most educated people in the country. Unlike Ron Paul, Howard Dean, Barack Obama, and both Clintons, who all hold advanced degrees, President Bush couldn’t even get into law school (also note: John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 students at the Naval Academy and, obviously, he also didn’t go to grad school).

When you vote in November, I hope that your first consideration is to elect a President who is intelligent and accomplished. We already made the mistake of electing a President who couldn’t name the leaders of Pakistan, India, and Chechnya (which were all political hotspots at the time)… please don’t make the mistake of electing a leader who thinks Iran is training Iraqi al-Qaeda members (which couldn’t be farther from the truth) and doesn’t know the difference between Sunnis and Shias.

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Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s main security adviser (and the man in charge of planning his trip to China for the Olympics), apparently doesn’t know the difference between Nepal and Tibet.  I recently wrote an article about this on Rational Outrage, an excellent webzine that you should bookmark; click here to see it.

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