In my earlier article on
misjudging the American character, I argued that the world needs to give up
this notion of demanding that we become introspective about 9/11. They need to
stop trying to get us to ask "Why do they hate us?". It ain't gonna
happen. Americans, as history has shown, will do whatever it takes to
overcome an enemy. Whatever it takes. I pointed out that in 1945 the majority of
Americans, according to polls at the time, supported the elimination of the
Japanese as a people. I wasn't arguing that this was a good thing. I
merely pointed this out. My argument focused on trying to get people to start
looking at things realistically. The Middle East needs to worry more about the
"American Street". It needs to stop expecting that the west and the United
States in particular, live to a standard of behavior that they themselves seem
unable or incapable of living up to. It is the Islamic world that needs to stop
its terrorists. Not to help us. But to help themselves. Because if push comes to
shove and it's a choice between us and them, we'll choose us in a nanosecond.
The response to my article was predictable. It boiled down to two basic
responses: Either the standard "shoot the messenger" response in which I was the
bad guy for pointing out these facts or that my article was "proof" of how blood
thirsty Americans are.
Both responses show a certain...naiveté about the world and about its
history. Perhaps I should have renamed my article to this: "Americans are
humans". About 60 years ago the Europeans exterminated about 12 million of
its own citizens. Of course, ask a European and they'll blame the Germans. Ask a
German and they'll blame the Nazi's. Ask a former Nazi and they'll blame the SS.
And so on. But any student of history of World War II will tell you that
it was a team effort by many different people across many different European
countries.
Meanwhile Russia, China, Japan have also exterminated millions of other
people. Not in battle. Just good old fashion mass murder. Rwanda saw the
same thing not that long ago. In other words, no matter where you go,
people have amply demonstrated that large segments of a given population, for
reasons we don't understand, can commit genocide of various levels.
But apparently, this fact is lost on some people. You can almost imagine them
with their hands over their ears, eyes closed, yelling "La la la! I can't hear
you! La la la!". And for these people, they pretend that Americans are somehow
magically different. At the same time they say we're a bunch of blood thirsty
war mongers, they also fully expect that these same ignorant, blood thirsty,
simplistic, gun toting, death penalty loving, CO2 producing Saurons will always
show amazing restraint no matter the cause. Sure, good chunks of the
European countries might exterminate huge swaths of their own population based
on some racial theory and certainly the Japanese can't help but to think of
Koreans as sub-human and those who aren't Islamic really don't deserve to live
in the first place, but the Americans must take whatever is dished out to them.
Because they deserve it.
But Americans are human. Simply because, thus far, the US has shown a great
deal of restraint in its response to 9/11 (and if you don't think it has, you're
kidding yourself) doesn't mean that restraint is infinite. That was what I
was trying to get across in my previous article.
It is futile to try to argue that Americans somehow deserved 9/11. It does
more harm than good to shrilly yell "Ask yourselves why they hate you!". No
matter where in the world you go, people are people. And when one group of
humans feels threatened by another group, the response has always been the same
- eliminate or subjugate the other group.
The American people are a remarkably tolerant people who are slow to anger.
And like other democracies, its system is designed to blunt the rash passions of
the majority. But at the end of the day, the Americans are just as human as
anyone else. I suggest those who see the United States as the villain take
a fresher perspective. There are great masses of the Arab Islamic world
that are filled with murderous rage against the west and the United States in
particular. And some of those people endeavor to get weapons that could do the
American people great harm believing that they can somehow win. They can't.
Their best case scenario is peaceful co-existence with the west and the United
States. Their worst case scenario is their complete annihilation. Don't
pretend it couldn't happen because it's happened before thousands upon thousands
of times in history and it'll probably continue to happen thousands of times in
the future at various scales.
It is time for those who oppose American policies to become a little more
even handed in their thinking. They need to stop treating Islamic Arabs as
children and make those countries and those cultures live by the same civilized
standard that one expects of the United States and its friends. And they
need to pressure these countries to stop inciting violence against westerners.
Because if they don't, at some point they may prove that Americans are just as
human as anyone else and do what humans have always done throughout history when
they feel threatened.
Don't shoot the messenger.
