Optimism and Justice

In explaining to one of our daughters, who is going to school in Florida, what I wanted to write about this time, she told me that I am probably a delusional optimist.  I would agree, since if there is life, there is hope, or, hope springs eternal.  I suppose there are many other clichés out there regarding hope, but those are the only two that pop into my memory at the moment.  And since I intend writing about terrorism, I need hope.

Somewhere in between CE 1 and CE 2000, the Western nations, such as they were, initiated several Crusades to overrun the Middle Eastern Muslim countries, and to convert Muslims to Christianity.  These Crusades were bloody, and not particularly successful.  What they did accomplish was to leave a particularly bad set of memories in those living in the Middle Eastern countries toward the Western European nations.

Fast forward to the end of World War I when England and France, without input from the Arab countries, drew the boundaries of Middle Eastern countries without any input from those living there, any regard to existing tribal and religious considerations. England and France took those arbitrarily written boundaries to the then League of Nations, where the boundaries were ratified, with the assent of the United States, and the intent that the Western nations had the right to tell the Arab nations what they should do.  And many of these countries were outright colonies of European nations. 

From the end of WWI to the present, Western diplomacy did not dwell overly long on what the desires of the Arab countries might be, but heavily emphasized what would be in the best interests of the Western countries – primarily oil.  The oil corporations, with the aiding and abetting of the United States government, would put leaders in power that would do the bidding of what we wanted – not what was the best for the people in these arbitrarily created nations. 

And then we had 9/11.  19 hijackers killed some 3,000 people in the attack.  The attackers were from Saudi Arabia.  In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Saudi businessmen, diplomats and their families were allowed to fly out of the US back to Saudi Arabia.  26 days after 9/11, the US began bombing Afghanistan, who actually had nothing to do with 9/11.  Then, as the Bush administration had been planning on doing anyway, the invasion of Iraq began 3/19/2003.  Since that time, it is estimated that nearly 4,000 American military were killed, 21,000 Afghan civilians, and nearly 100,000 Iraqis were killed, and that number is still growing with the ISIS uprising, and with our own drone attacks that kill hundreds of innocent Iraqi civilians whose only crime is to be in the vicinity of someone we have deemed an enemy.

The Western nations, and in particular the United States, has not acted in a just manner in the Middle East.  We have treated the people of that region as much less human as we are; we have plundered their natural resources – primarily oil – for our benefit, not theirs, and, in general, have been pretty rotten neighbors.

I do not believe that our actions in any way condone the rise of jihadist terrorism, nor do I believe that these terrorists are living the tenets of the Muslim religion.  They claim they are, but anyone can claim anything without making it so.   But reverse these actions we have taken against the Middle East.  Make it the United States that has had all of these actions taken against us.  Imagine Middle Eastern countries coming over here and redrawing the boundaries of our states without ever asking our opinions.  Imagine being invaded on spurious made up charges against our leaders when actually what they want is our copious natural resources.  Imagine being at a wedding reception with crazy Uncle Ralph who spouts all sorts of anti-Middle Eastern rhetoric, and having the reception being hit with a drone explosive with many killed along with crazy Uncle Ralph.  What would the reaction of our people be? 

It will take several generations to erase the agony in the hearts of Middle Easterners, but we need to start somewhere with a foreign policy based on justice, not oil.  Western nations need to realize that the Middle Easterners are just as capable of making their own decisions as we are.  Instead of sending more and more violence, we should start sending food, medical supplies, educational supplies, and any other humanitarian item we can think of.  As is cited in the Old Testament, “The sins of the fathers are visited unto the sixth and seventh generation.” 

I guess I am the perennial optimist, but we have to start somewhere.  Confucius has reportedly said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  It is time we started that thousand miles by walking in their shoes, carrying justice in our arms.