Cheyenne
Ms. Smarty Pantsless
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2000
- Posts
- 59,553
Hama Rules
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/opinion/21FRIE.html
In February 1982 the secular Syrian government of
President Hafez al-Assad faced a mortal threat from
Islamic extremists, who sought to topple the Assad
regime. How did it respond? President Assad
identified the rebellion as emanating from Syria's
fourth-largest city Hama and he literally leveled it,
pounding the fundamentalist neighborhoods with
artillery for days. Once the guns fell silent, he plowed
up the rubble and bulldozed it flat, into vast parking
lots. Amnesty International estimated that 10,000 to
25,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in the
merciless crackdown. Syria has not had a Muslim
extremist problem since.
I visited Hama a few months after it was leveled. The
regime actually wanted Syrians to go see it, to
contemplate Hama's silence and to reflect on its
meaning. I wrote afterward, "The whole town looked
as though a tornado had swept back and forth over it
for a week but this was not the work of mother
nature."
This was "Hama Rules" the real rules of Middle East
politics and Hama Rules are no rules at all. I tell this
story not to suggest this should be America's
approach. We can't go around leveling cities. We
need to be much more focused, selective and smart in
uprooting the terrorists.
No, I tell this story because it's important that we
understand that Syria, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia
have all faced Islamist threats and crushed them
without mercy or Miranda rights. Part of the
problem America now faces is actually the fallout
from these crackdowns. Three things happened:
First, once the fundamentalists were crushed by the
Arab states they fled to the last wild, uncontrolled
places in the region Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and
Afghanistan or to the freedom of America and
Europe.
Second, some Arab regimes, most of which are
corrupt dictatorships afraid of their own people,
made a devil's pact with the fundamentalists. They
allowed the Islamists' domestic supporters to continue
raising money, ostensibly for Muslim welfare groups,
and to funnel it to the Osama bin Ladens on the
condition that the Islamic extremists not attack these
regimes. The Saudis in particular struck that bargain.
Third, these Arab regimes, feeling defensive about
their Islamic crackdowns, allowed their own press
and intellectuals total freedom to attack America and
Israel, as a way of deflecting criticism from
themselves.
As a result, a generation of Muslims and Arabs have
been raised on such distorted views of America that
despite the fact that America gives Egypt $2 billion a
year, despite the fact that America fought for the
freedom of Muslims in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo,
and despite the fact that Bill Clinton met with Yasir
Arafat more than with any other foreign leader,
America has been vilified as the biggest enemy of
Islam. And that is one reason that many people in the
Arab-Muslim world today have either applauded the
attack on America or will tell you with a straight face
that it was all a C.I.A.-Mossad plot to embarrass the
Muslim world.
We need the moderate Arab states as our partners
but we don't need only their intelligence. We need
them to be intelligent. I don't expect them to order
their press to say nice things about America or Israel.
They are entitled to their views on both, and both at
times deserve criticism. But what they have never
encouraged at all is for anyone to consistently present
an alternative, positive view of America even though
they were sending their kids here to be educated.
Anyone who did would be immediately branded a
C.I.A. agent.
And while the Arab states have crushed their Islamic
terrorists, they have never confronted them
ideologically and delegitimized their behavior as
un-Islamic. Arab and Muslim Americans are not part
of this problem. But they could be an important part
of the solution by engaging in the debate back in the
Arab world, and presenting another vision of
America.
So America's standing in the Arab-Muslim world is
now very low partly because we have not told our
story well, partly because of policies we have adopted
and partly because inept, barely legitimate Arab
leaders have deliberately deflected domestic criticism
of themselves onto us. The result: We must now fight
a war against terrorists who are crazy and evil but
who, it grieves me to say, reflect the mood in their
home countries more than we might think.
-- -----------------------------------------
Maybe I focused on the wrong issue in this article, but it actually made me feel a bit better. The terrorists can be defeated and forced to run, and eventually will run out of places to hide if we all stick together.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/opinion/21FRIE.html
In February 1982 the secular Syrian government of
President Hafez al-Assad faced a mortal threat from
Islamic extremists, who sought to topple the Assad
regime. How did it respond? President Assad
identified the rebellion as emanating from Syria's
fourth-largest city Hama and he literally leveled it,
pounding the fundamentalist neighborhoods with
artillery for days. Once the guns fell silent, he plowed
up the rubble and bulldozed it flat, into vast parking
lots. Amnesty International estimated that 10,000 to
25,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in the
merciless crackdown. Syria has not had a Muslim
extremist problem since.
I visited Hama a few months after it was leveled. The
regime actually wanted Syrians to go see it, to
contemplate Hama's silence and to reflect on its
meaning. I wrote afterward, "The whole town looked
as though a tornado had swept back and forth over it
for a week but this was not the work of mother
nature."
This was "Hama Rules" the real rules of Middle East
politics and Hama Rules are no rules at all. I tell this
story not to suggest this should be America's
approach. We can't go around leveling cities. We
need to be much more focused, selective and smart in
uprooting the terrorists.
No, I tell this story because it's important that we
understand that Syria, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia
have all faced Islamist threats and crushed them
without mercy or Miranda rights. Part of the
problem America now faces is actually the fallout
from these crackdowns. Three things happened:
First, once the fundamentalists were crushed by the
Arab states they fled to the last wild, uncontrolled
places in the region Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and
Afghanistan or to the freedom of America and
Europe.
Second, some Arab regimes, most of which are
corrupt dictatorships afraid of their own people,
made a devil's pact with the fundamentalists. They
allowed the Islamists' domestic supporters to continue
raising money, ostensibly for Muslim welfare groups,
and to funnel it to the Osama bin Ladens on the
condition that the Islamic extremists not attack these
regimes. The Saudis in particular struck that bargain.
Third, these Arab regimes, feeling defensive about
their Islamic crackdowns, allowed their own press
and intellectuals total freedom to attack America and
Israel, as a way of deflecting criticism from
themselves.
As a result, a generation of Muslims and Arabs have
been raised on such distorted views of America that
despite the fact that America gives Egypt $2 billion a
year, despite the fact that America fought for the
freedom of Muslims in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo,
and despite the fact that Bill Clinton met with Yasir
Arafat more than with any other foreign leader,
America has been vilified as the biggest enemy of
Islam. And that is one reason that many people in the
Arab-Muslim world today have either applauded the
attack on America or will tell you with a straight face
that it was all a C.I.A.-Mossad plot to embarrass the
Muslim world.
We need the moderate Arab states as our partners
but we don't need only their intelligence. We need
them to be intelligent. I don't expect them to order
their press to say nice things about America or Israel.
They are entitled to their views on both, and both at
times deserve criticism. But what they have never
encouraged at all is for anyone to consistently present
an alternative, positive view of America even though
they were sending their kids here to be educated.
Anyone who did would be immediately branded a
C.I.A. agent.
And while the Arab states have crushed their Islamic
terrorists, they have never confronted them
ideologically and delegitimized their behavior as
un-Islamic. Arab and Muslim Americans are not part
of this problem. But they could be an important part
of the solution by engaging in the debate back in the
Arab world, and presenting another vision of
America.
So America's standing in the Arab-Muslim world is
now very low partly because we have not told our
story well, partly because of policies we have adopted
and partly because inept, barely legitimate Arab
leaders have deliberately deflected domestic criticism
of themselves onto us. The result: We must now fight
a war against terrorists who are crazy and evil but
who, it grieves me to say, reflect the mood in their
home countries more than we might think.
-- -----------------------------------------
Maybe I focused on the wrong issue in this article, but it actually made me feel a bit better. The terrorists can be defeated and forced to run, and eventually will run out of places to hide if we all stick together.
