Perspectives

They'll follow us here? We guarantee it

by Ron Waters, NNPA Columnist

One of the things both we and our political leaders must do is seriously examine the various myths that have under-girded the Bush administration’s pursuit of the Iraq War.
Like the fallacious "domino theory" that was hatched in the Pentagon during the Vietnam war, the myth that "if we don’t fight them there, they will follow us here" is one that sustains supporters of the Iraq war today.
To begin with, I think those who believe that we must fight radical Islamists in the Middle East or they will follow us here are a little late. They have followed us here and 9/11 is the proof of it; the bombing of the USS Cole is proof of it, the 1998 bombing of American embassies in East Africa was proof of it and the bombing of the New York Trade Center is proof of it.
In short, the opposition of various factions in the Middle East to the U. S. government has been expressed time and again – and the impetus was not direct U.S. involvement in war in that region, it was the treatment of the Palestinians through the proxy support of Israel.
In 1978, when Andrew Young was fired from his job as the U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations, I accompanied a delegation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to Lebanon on a mission of peace.
The point of the mission was to establish that African Americans, as tax-paying citizens of the United States, had a voice in Middle East foreign policy.
On that mission, we went into the refugee camps of Shatila and Sabre and visited with people who had been bombed out of their homes.
At one stop, I was asked a heart-wrenching question by an old woman, sitting on the floor, of whether, as an American, I had come to bomb them too.
The next day, we were taken out to the battle fields in Southern Lebanon to see the deployment of troops by the Palestine Liberation Organization along a route that we were told could be bombed at any minute.
When we stopped, after a great deal of travel on foot, I found exploded cluster bombs with U. S. military markings. In the talks with all sides, whether Lebanese officials, the PLO, Maranite Christian Amine Gemael, and other clerics, they were sensitive to the U.S. Israeli tie and deeply felt U.S. complicity in bombing.
We wanted to discuss these issues with Israeli officials, but were refused entry into the country.
Today, the American military operation in Iraq – whatever its purpose – has created a second generation of resentment with a cause to continue to take revenge for various actions we have taken there against their people.
What are we to do about those who have been detained and tortured at Guantanamo, many of whom are proven non-combatants; about the serious violations of human rights of prisoners under the Geneva Convention for dehumanizing actions in Abu Ghareb; about American troops, bursting into the homes of Iraqis in the middle of the night, frightening families, interrogating men, made to assume the embarrassing position faced down on the floor in front of their families?
Have we created in them the motivation to "follow us here?"
The collateral myth of sanitizing Iraq of Islamic militants in the center of the Middle East in an area of unlimited Islamic man and woman-power has proven to be an illusive goal.
Nevertheless, even if it were possible, there are serious questions with respect to how long it would hold, what the nature of American pressure would be to retain it and how many more thousands of dedicated enemies we would make in the process.

The mantra that if we don’t defeat them there they will follow here, raises many questions about the nature of the American campaign in Iraq and the unimaginable belief that the way we engage opposing forces there will have no effect on their attempts to defeat us in the future. Does it mean that we can cripple their will?
Does it mean that we can disorganize their forces and destroy their infrastructure? Does it mean that we can establish sufficient barriers somehow to prevent them from reaching strategic U. S. targets elsewhere? I am not sure what is meant exactly.
I do know there is a human thing operating in the hearts of people which causes them not to forget what they consider to be grave injustices of the past. So, the U. S. operation may also mean that by our presence and actions we are stimulating our opponents to "follow us here" rather than reducing that prospect.
I believe this to be a more reasonable proposition, supported by historical cases, than the persistent mouthing of a myth, like we’re making friends everyday.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director, African American Leadership Institute and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest books are: White Nationalism, Black Interests (Wayne State University Press); and Freedom Is Not Enough (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers)