The American right
strikes back
Jonathan
Freedland
March 19,
2004
Eleven million Spaniards rallied against terrorism.
That's not appeasement, says Jonathan Freedland.
Maybe they think it's payback time. In 2001, many
American conservatives were appalled by the reaction in
some European quarters to September 11, a reaction
crudely summarised as "America had it coming".
They insisted it was grossly insensitive to attack the
United States and its foreign policy while Ground Zero
still smouldered. They were right and I took their side,
urging people at least to pause awhile before adding
greater hurt to an already traumatised nation.
But look what's happening now. A matter of days after the
event branded Europe's September 11, and American
conservatives - including some of the very people who
were so outraged by the criticisms hurled at the US in
September 2001 - have started whacking not just Spanish
policy, but the Spanish people.
Witness David Brooks in Tuesday's New York Times,
outraged that the Madrid bombings prompted Spanish voters
to "throw out the old government and replace it with
one whose policies are more to al-Qaeda's liking. What is
the Spanish word for appeasement?" Right-wing blog
artist Andrew Sullivan also raided the 1930s lexicon for
the same, exhausted word: "It seems clear to me that
the trend in Europe is now either appeasement of terror
or active alliance with it. It is hard to view the
results in Spain as anything but a choice between Bush
and al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda won." Not to be outdone,
former Bush speech-writer David Frum, the man who coined
"axis of evil", sighed at the weakness of the
Spanish: "People are not always strong. Sometimes
they indulge false hopes that by lying low, truckling,
appeasing, they can avoid danger and strife ... And this
is what seems to have happened in Spain."
Perhaps this is how the Bushites hope to avenge what they
saw as European insensitivity two-and-a-half years ago,
by defaming the Spanish even as Madrid still weeps. But
this assault should not go unanswered if only because, if
allowed to settle in the public mind, it will widen yet
further the already yawning trans-Atlantic gulf of
misunderstanding.
Perhaps this is how the Bushites hope to avenge what they
saw as European insensitivity two-and-a-half years ago,
by defaming the Spanish even as Madrid still weeps.
Put aside the imprecision (and worse) that comes with the
abuse of the word "appeasement": the menace of
al-Qaeda is real and serious enough without making
hyperbolic comparisons to the Third Reich.
Focus instead on the two grave errors that underlie this
latest argument from the right. One is a misunderstanding
of democracy, the other is a failure to make crucial
distinctions.
The first mistake is the more surprising, for no word is
invoked more often in support of the "war on
terror" than democracy. Yet these insults hurled at
the Spanish show a sneaking contempt for the idea. For
surely the Spanish did nothing more on Sunday than
exercise their democratic right to change governments.
They elected the Socialist party; to suggest they voted
for al-Qaeda is a slur not only on the Spanish nation but
on the democratic process itself, implying that when
terrorists strike political choice must end.
It is a bid to reshape the political landscape, so that
parties of the right stand on one side and all the rest
are lumped in with al-Qaeda. The tactic is McCarthyite,
the natural extension of the bullying insistence that, in
President Bush's own words: "You are either with us
or you're with the terrorists." If that is the
choice, then there is no choice: it is a mandate for a
collection of one-party states.
But this is not the heart of the matter. The right's
greater error is its failure to distinguish between the
war against al-Qaeda and the war on Iraq. About 90 per
cent of the Spanish electorate were against the latter;
there is no evidence that they were, or are, soft on the
former.
On the contrary, there have been two mass demonstrations
of Spanish opinion in the past few days: let no one
forget that 36 hours before the election, about 11
million Spaniards took to the streets to swear their
revulsion at terrorism. It takes some cheek to accuse a
nation like that of weakness and appeasement.
The Spaniards showed they knew the difference between the
struggle against al-Qaeda and the conflict in Iraq. It is
hardly a shock that this distinction is lost on the likes
of Frum and company: the Bush Administration worked
tirelessly to conflate the two, constantly melding Saddam
and September 11 even though the President himself has
had to admit no evidence links the two.
The Spanish electorate were not voting for a cave-in to
al-Qaeda. On the contrary, many of those who opposed the
war in Iraq did so precisely because they feared it would
distract from the more urgent war against Islamist
fanaticism. (Witness the US military resources pulled off
the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan and diverted to
Baghdad.)
Nor was it appeasement to suggest that the US-led
invasion of an oil-rich Muslim country would make
al-Qaeda's recruitment mission that much easier.
Of course, this is not to argue that if only the war had
not happened then bin Laden and his henchmen would have
laid down their arms. Al-Qaeda's leaders are murderous,
guilty of the most wicked acts; nothing we can do will
reach them.
But that is not true of the many thousands, perhaps
millions, drawn to the message of extreme Islamism; the
people who would never plant bombs, but might cheer when
they go off. These are the hearts and minds that have to
be won over if the war on terror is ever to be won.
To assert that the conflict over Iraq made that task
harder is not a surrender; it is a statement of the
obvious.
It may be comforting, but this struggle cannot be won by
painting the world in black and white, with America as
the good guy and everyone else cast as terrorists or
their allies. It will require nimble, subtle thinking -
constantly making awkward but essential distinctions.
So, yes, it is quite true that al-Qaeda will be
chillingly gratified by the Spanish result but, no, that
does not mean that Spaniards voted for al-Qaeda.
Similarly, it is quite possible to be strongly opposed to
the Iraq adventure and militantly in favour of the war
against bin Laden - indeed the two sentiments can be
strongly linked.
There is a difference, too, between appeasing men of
violence and seeking to limit their appeal, just as the
leaders of global terror must be separated from those who
could become their followers. Islam is no monolith, nor
is the West, and all the fine gradations within these
categories matter enormously.
The world has never looked more like a complex knot, and
it will take precision and patience to untangle it.
Wrenching away at it in fury will only make the problem
harder - and our lives more dangerous.
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Jonathan Freedland is a columnist with The Guardian,
London.
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