现在的战争不好

In response to the arguments put forth by my various poli sci colleagues, some of whom have gone so far as to say that "I am a Westerner, I support Israel":

When, I ask, will staunch supporters of Israel understand that bludgeoning a neutral country full of civilians simply does not work as a counter-terrorist strategy?

When will Israel and its detractors realize that a spiral of violence is just that — a spiral of violence that does nothing but feed terrorist ideologies, empower Israel's right-wing, and march leagues in the opposite direction of the fragile peace process that until a short while ago seemed to be finally arriving at the gates of Arcadia?

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Bill Clinton speak at the Halifax Metro Centre. He gave his opinion on many subjects, a lot of them following the "common-sense" line put forth by moderate liberal politicians in both Canada and the U.S. You know, the "we must work together," "individuals can do great things," and "what sort of world do we want to leave our children?" fare. Much of it was not new, but almost all of it was very well said.

Of the various topics and opinions covered that evening, one struck me as being particularly relevant and, from Clinton's purview, well-informed: the matter of Israeli aggression. Clinton, above perhaps all other Presidents, took great pains to push the Israel-Lebanon-Palestine area toward a concrete and lasting peace. Although he quipped about Arafat's poor timing, it was obvious that Clinton took great pride in his push for a stable Middle East. Equal to this, it seemed, was his dissapointment with the current Israeli-Lebanon spiral into self-fulfilling violence.

Clinton's speech underlined a truth that those on the right often fail to recognize: that the terrorist ideologies fueling the militant elements of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran do not exist in a vaccum. They exist in opposition to an Other. Israel. And while we may never be rid Islamic fundamentalism, massive, disproportionate bombing campaigns hardly do anything but ensure that fanaticism will continue to thrive on the dead bodies and shelled-out cities we create.

This cause-effect thinking is not difficult to imagine. Do you think that, if a citizen of Lebanon has just had his house bombed, his family killed, and his life shattered, he is going to be more open to a pacifist approach to Israel? Do you that there is a chance for peace when Israel's counter-terrorist actions are percieved by almost all Lebanese as nothing more than brutish attacks on a crippled nation? Do you think there is a chance for peace when Israeli bombing runs are ruining the Lebanese economy, inspiring unemployment, poverty, and the worst international business phobia north of Liberia?

And what will this Lebanese victim do when he is homeless, poor, and unemployed, his family murdered by an incoming American-made bomb? Try to help negotiate a peace process full of powersuits, politicians and Westerners? Or pick up an AK-47?

Terrorists are bad, but they were — are — also people. It's that simple.

* * *

These views are not meant to be apologetic to terrorists, as detractors of the left often like to assert. They are instead grounded in pragmatism. To succeed in a 'war against terror', a full-hearted campaign against fanaticism is required. This takes guns, guts, and sound intelligence; crippling the ability of terrorist groups to organize and produce "terror" is, to be sure, a must.

But there is second front to any war on terrorism — that which is fought against the "ism." Terrorism is an ideology. It has prophets, philosophers, and policies. And like any fanaticism — imperialism, communism, fascism, nazism, racism, materialism — it is wholly consuming. It casts itself and the Other in stark black and white, precluding any grey areas in which rationality is the norm. To the jihadist, recruitment is a war of perception. If potential recruits percieve the world in only blacks and whites, and not greys, the war is won. And we, as the targets of this fanatacism, must seek out these organizations and remove their ability to dictate perceptions.

And, as Clinton underlined in his speech, we must also practice some greyness ourselves. We must look to education, state policies, and the individual as the root causes of fanatical thought, and work to change them. To do this, we will have to cooperate to some extent with states like Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran, under their current governments or the next, and push reform on Middle Eastern politics so that the fanatical few are not the mouthpieces of the moderate many. There are two ways to do this: we can invade these nations and install our own moderate governments, hoping for the best, or we can approach them diplomatically, using economic carrots and sticks to inspire gradual political and social reform. The greatest single source of Islamic fundamentalism in the world is, after all, a major client of the U.S. Wahhabist Saudi Arabia. It is the purpose of talks like Clinton's to make us ask: Where are the soldiers in this front of the 'War of Terror'?

* * *

My father was in Beirut, Lebanon just a few months ago. He came home ripe with visions of a nation that was just now throwing off the coattails of a terrible civil war and was now ready for investment, growth, and opportunity. A 'diamond in the rough,' as they say. When I broke the news to him that Beirut was being bombed by the Israeli military, and that the airport he flew out of had been airstriked, he became immediately frustrated. "When will Israel learn that violence only breeds violence?" he asked. "Hezbollah started it," I responded — and nations have since the days of Athens and Sparta had the right to defend themselves.

Still, I understood his frustration; his thoughts echoed why I shifted my focus in politics from the Middle East to East Asia — unending frustration. Frustration with cyclical violence, with cyclical recrimination, and with cyclical, unmovable, and unchangable ideological fanaticism. A sickness. A psychological fascism turned into one-part terrorism and one-part foreign policy.

The dove is no more alien to any place on earth than it is to the Middle East. But this extra-terrestriality is not instrinsic to the region's soil, monuments, or nations. It is the product only of people and their decisions to kill other people. And it is that simple.


再见。