The idea of waging ideological warfare against Muslims to get the good ones to quash the influence of the bad ones has flickered again in US media after the resignation of Karen P. Hughes as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. Her resignation flushed out the head of a Near East think tank in Washington to explain how he believes what he calls the war of ideas can be won.
His recipe tells more than anything else about the predicament various American governments, essentially the present one, have maneuvered the United States into. His grand plan for the battle of ideas advocates the same old scheme for Americans to pull the strings behind the scenes, interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
Missing from the picture is the catastrophic background for any American eggheads to win the hearts and minds of men after American brawn has left us with pictures that will forever torment not only the victims and their families but will haunt every American who has a conscience. Some of those pictures are worth recalling against the backdrop of the call for ideological warfare.
Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes in The Washington Post:
"...our engagement with Muslim publics -- what we call "public diplomacy" -- should focus on identifying, nurturing and supporting anti-Islamist Muslims, from secular liberals to pious believers, who fear the encroachment of radical Islamists and are willing to make a stand."
In his article entitled "How to Win the War of Ideas," Robert Satloff then spits out exactly what he has in mind:
"This strategy would involve overt and covert ways to assist anti-Islamist political parties, nongovernmental organizations, trade unions, media outlets, women's groups, educational institutions and youth movements as they compete with the radicals."
Overtly and covertly? Right, gotcha. Enter the CIA and the other American thugs who circle like vultures over carrion when they sniff a think tank like the Washington institute where there are American Arabists who, say, learned to recite suras of the Koran during their studies in the Middle East and with their knowledge of Arabic made Arab friends whose friendship they can count on to help promote the ideas Robert Satloff outlines.
Washington Post Article
American eggheads, however, are going to be at a hell of loss when their Islamic opponents start showing the pictures of what America’s fighting heroes have done in Iraq. The Pentagon learned from the Vietnam War that independent journalists must be prevented at all costs from capturing on film actual scenes from Iraq that show the nitty-gritty of the dirty war and from transporting gut-wrenching pictures lickety-split via satellite back to viewers sitting on their couches in front of the TV set in the United States and others countries around the world, munching potato chips or the local equivalent. The Pentagon realized that TV viewers, as during the Vietnam War, might not be able to give what official Washington saw as a proper assessment to what they were seeing. Thus independent journalists had to be kept away while manipulable reporters were provided with acceptable venues and stooges to interview. From time to time, however, pictures have come out of Iraq giving glimpses of what Americans have been up to there. Some of the most disturbing images have mainly been the work of non-American journalists.
War Crimes
A French team once filmed American soldiers in Baghdad doing house to house searches, looking for suspects. One scene showed a house with Arab women frozen in fright and the American leader of the soldiers screaming to one of his men to tell those "whores" to stay out in the yard. And there those poor women then stood with their shaking little children scared out of their wits. But the grimmest pictures of the war show the civilian casualties, including dead and maimed children.
Civilian Casualties
One of the sacred cows of America is our brave troops. Who are those valiant, stalwart warriors, those paragons of American virtue, those heroes, as they’re widely portrayed in the United States?
First, the American volunteers are the long active arm of the US government, the ones who actually pull the trigger in Iraq. Second, they are a cross-section of US society, albeit unproportionately weighted downward toward the bilge since the United States does not have compulsory military service. Most of America’s precious non-expendable elite have better things to do than become cannon fodder.
Young Americans obviously volunteered for the US Armed Forces for a host of reasons, ranging from the frustration of those who saw no career opportunities for themselves at home and opted for the military, all the way up to the idealistic motives of offspring of families proud of their long military traditions in the service of the United States: Grandpa fought the Japs and the Krauts, Daddy fought the Gooks, Uncle Jack faced the Reds and Son is fighting the towelheads.
Islamic extremists countering US propaganda, who are by means dumb, will surely take a close look at the US brand of patriotism, which in some Americans’ mind is all wrapped up with God and what they apparently see as a decision by Him to put Americans above all other peoples. American soldiers have been shown kneeling on the battlefield and ostensibly praying to God for His Help, although it is difficult to imagine a god helping one group of his creatures to kill some other creatures of his, even if the God-That-Has-No-Name is reported to have done so in the Old Testament. As the country music singer and songwriter Jim Owen put it so aptly in his song, "I Saw Jesus Waving the Stars and Stripes." If Jesus, however, is indeed in the picture, then it’s time for some Americans to change gods and find a decent one that refuses to lead them in killing and maiming. The clip at the end of the following video seems to link what you have just seen with the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 – just another example of irresponsible manipulation.
I Saw Jesus...
What’s the solution? If Americans do actually have moral values, then they’re going to have to live them. Telling people abroad like children, "Don’t do as I do, but do as I tell you to do," isn’t going to work. A politician who pointed the way to winning the hearts and minds of people abroad was the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and German chancellor Willy Brandt who fell on his knees in Poland in 1970 at the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto. The picture went around the world and was seen as a moving gesture by the German head of government symbolizing his country’s values and contrition for its crimes. Americans who truly believe in their country and its lofty ideals are going to have to elect an honest president and an honest congress to represent the values they hold sacred.
A Grand Gesture