The Sassy Lawyer’s post regarding how Guantanamo Bay detentions violate international law produced some heated arguments with regards to America’s foreign policy, its war on terror, and some clearly white-supremacist remarks that preach how America is always right.
I’d like to share my response to that particular entry. It started out as a short comment but kinda got way too long to not post in my own blog:
As far as I know the war on terror is multi-faceted. It encompasses a vast set of social, economic and (unfortunately) religious issues that is rooted mainly on the culture being promoted by the West.
Bush can only think as far as defining the battlefield of terrorism in geographic terms. The war on terrorism cannot and will never be defined by known borders such as Iraq and Afghanistan, not even the Middle East, nor as the traditional definition of “theatre†in warfare such as “Europe†or “Asia Pacificâ€. Those definitions of “battlefield†are obsolete.
The true battlefield of the war on terrorism is the human mind. While Bush and conservative America seems to know this by enforcing such methods as torture or indefinite detention as a sort of psychological offensive, they continue to destroy the image of America as a genuinely humane, freedom-loving, and democratic society. They only manage to continue to anger the Islamic community around the world.
Even when conservative America and its supporters wish to believe that Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay are “necessary evils†to be able to properly wage the war on terror, they only serve to encourage the Muslim community to believe that they are indeed a Great Satan, and, ironically, convince them more to join organizations like Al Qaeda and Jemiah Islamiyaah.
How can America relieve itself of the label “Great Satan†if it tortures its Muslim prisoners?
America should look back at Vietnam and find out what went wrong, and only then can they start solving the puzzle of Iraq and find a viable way of winning the war on terror. I think they left the answer back there in the chaos of Saigon’s evacuation: a deep lack of understanding and true appreciation of the culture and beliefs of the people that they simultaneously claim to “try to help” and identify as enemies of freedom and democracy.
Only then can America start winning the war on terror, or the insurgency in Iraq, or any other war for that matter.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Sidney // Feb 23, 2006 at 6:23 pm
I am not so sure we should put the blame on the “average” American. Alas, like many other countries they have bad leaders!
2 Jon Limjap // Feb 24, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Ah, no, I’m not putting blame on the average american. I have several friends and relatives who are “average” Americans but believe in the same thing that I believe in.
If you would notice, I used the term “conservative America”, a term I deem politically correct for Republicans and everyone who agrees with Dubya’s line of thinking.
In fact, I go all out on saying that when I express my opinion against America, I mean to say its government, especially if my opinion is about America’s foreign policy.
I hope that clears things up.
3 cocoy // Feb 25, 2006 at 5:11 pm
aah yes the war on terror.
i do agree that the war on terror at least in the Philippine context is a war that must be fought in many strata— meaning socioeconomic and political as well as on the battlefield and in the shadows of intelligence.
but in a larger context of the global war, clearly that is not the case. how can i say this? if you read “seeds of terror” by maria ressa, clearly she says that a progressive country like singapore has terroriest cells. so our socioeconomic and political basis is entirely lost on that respect.
clearly, we do not know why terror is waged. why are these muslims so fundamentally angry?
i am no expert in the field but i do have a hypothesis— that this war on terror is waged by muslims because they see the west, and everybody else who is not muslim as anti-muslim. it goes back to generations of christians v. muslims. so it is a “religious” war in the sense that islam wants to be not only the largest religion on the planet but also to king of the world.
after years of being on top, Christianity faces a decline. and like all empires faces strife and challenge from forces that are getting stronger and better.
whether or not this is the end goal of this war is of course up there in the air.
from my understanding, counterterror forces are still figuring it out as well. and until the world figures out the whys and where they want to take all this, i fear this war will drag on and on.
just my two cents.
4 Jon Limjap // Feb 26, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Oh no no… I think you got me wrong when I said “socio-economic”. It is not specific to the lower classes. That’s the main irony — Osama Bin Laden is a member of the upper class. So I certainly do not believe that the urge to terrorize can be attributed in any way to socio-economic status.
However, the culture that the west promotes vis-a-vis socio-economic standing is one of the things that I suspect offends conservative-leaning Muslims.
I find it rather simplistic to term this as a purely religious war. Christianity is on the wane, not because other religions are eroding it but because the Christians themselves are slowly questioning the relevance of religion in their lives.
I think what really ticks is the West’s respect for the culture and beliefs of its perceived enemies. The West should stop first to think whether it is prudent to impose on their “enemies” the way things are done in their countries (e.g., democracy, majority-elected government, capitalism, free trade).
This is why I find it important to look at the lessons of Vietnam. Look at how Vietnam picked itself up from the ashes of the Vietnam war after the Americans left. What the Americans preached “wouldn’t work” seems to be working well for their economy.
At the same time it is important for the West to be sensitive to the needs of their “enemies.” In a documentary I recently watched in HBO, Robert McNamara (Secretary of State during the Vietnam War) told about his trip to Ho Chi Mihn City back in 1996, where he had dinner with the chairman of the communist party, a close aide of Ho Chi Mihn back in the war. McNamara posed him this question: “Why were you fighting against us? We were trying to help you. Why were you trying to stop us from letting you be overrun by communists?” The chairman shot back: “Trying to help us? No! You were trying to make slaves out of us. We were fighting for our freedom from white man’s dominance.”
I think what is happening now between America and the hard-line Muslim world is along the same lines of miscommunication. If only the West would learn to be sensitive, and would learn to listen.
5 mitch // Feb 28, 2006 at 1:34 am
kuya jon, miss na kita! I took the chance to read all the entries I have missed since the last time I visited here. grabe, as usual, my hats off to you. hehe.
hope everything’s well with you and your family. regards to cj! :0
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