Comparison of the Persian Gulf War of 1991 and The Iraq War of 2003 - Essay Example

Compare and Contrast the Persian Gulf War of 1991 with The Iraq War of 2003, with Special Reference to the Rhetoric Used War and reports of warhave been a reality of our life, more so in recent times. After 9/11, the threat of war had been looming large, especially with the President George Bush coming out with knee-jerk jingoistic reactions, which was pardonable considering the shock and dismay generated by the incident. Then came the actual war in 2003. The question of the political expediency of the War of 2003 was drowned in a collective American fear of threats to security. George Bush's speeches were also engineered to keep the morale of the people high, in the tradition of past war leaders of the world (Churchill, for instance) In this war rhetoric, the image of the American soldier was glorified. The soldier was a savior and a friend. In the First Gulf War of 1991, George Bush, Sr. had done the same thing. He depicted through his speeches, the perfect image of an American soldier. Our soldiers, he said, are "some of the finest men and women of the United State of America" who "leave their spouses and their children, to serve on the front line halfway around the world. They remind us who keeps America strong: they do." (Bush). He continues, "in the face of danger, they are brave; they are well-trained, and dedicated" (Bush) He mentions that they are willing to sacrifice their lives and their time to be with their families to fight for peace for the whole world (!) There is deceptiveness, conscious or unconscious, in a speech of this nature. It is implied that peace is brought about through war - a debatable statement. There is also an implication that those who fight are there, by their own free will. "There was an American soldier who said to an Iraqi soldier: 'it's okay, you are all right, you are all right'. . . Let us always be caring and good and generous in all we do" (Bush) The image is sought to be created as if the American soldiers have gone to have a party in Iraq. It needs a vigilant media to talk of an Abu-Ghraib or a Guantanamo Bay. Bush's American soldier is the perfect gentleman (something like the British image of their 'bobby'- the gentle policeman - who nevertheless shot an innocent Brazilian immigrant on mere suspicion that he was responsible for the London train station bombings!) Bush's speeches are cleverly done, and achieve the purpose they want. In that sense they are masterpieces of their own genre of political writing. However, they seem to fall on the border of fact and fiction. Coming to Swofford's Jarhead- the irony is that this is 'fiction', but it gives a more real picture of war than do Bush's speeches! Swofford talks of the war from a soldier's perspective. There is no attempt to romanticize it. He talks of the dirt and the dust, and the rape, pillage and arson that taint war. He brings home to us that there is never a clean war or a good war. All war is terrible and dehumanizing. Swofford himself fought as a young marine in the Gulf War of the 1990's. He had written his memoirs then, and he uses this to liberally create the atmosphere of his story. He writes of writing to loved ones, " I was in the desert, sending out messages worldwide, claiming for love with my pen, and with each letter I wrote and sealed part of me escaped the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. At time I thought I might write myself away" (Swofford, 37). Swofford's book is a powerful book about the truth of war. As a matter of fact, we must remember that throughout history, there have been many who have fought wars and have come back convinced that peace is the only solution for bringing about lasting comfort to all humanity. Swofford tells what we all perhaps instinctively know, that the real reasons for war are "the old white fuckers and others who have billions of dollars to gain or lose in the oil fields, the deep, rich, flowing oil fields of the kingdom of Saud" (Swofford, 11). Solyan's article, What Bodies talks about the attempt by the US government to hide truth from the people. He talks about the Gulf War thus, "Not until 2000, during a television broadcast, would estimates of Iraqi losses in the tens of thousands" be made known. "The only precise estimate came from Cheney. In a formal report to Congress, Cheney said US soldiers found only 457 Iraqi bodies on the battlefield" (Solyan). Solyan is true to himself, and reports what he actually experiences, and not what is politically correct. He writes of "More than 150 reporters who participated in the Pentagon pool system" failing "to produce a single eyewitness account of the clash between 300,000 allied troops and an estimated 300,000 Iraqi troops"(! Solyan). Solyan gives the exact statistics of the numbers dead in the war. He feels that the American people have a right to know what exactly is happening out there. Athough Jarhead and What Bodies are very different genres of writing - one is fiction, and the other media reporting, there are many similarities between the two. Both writings have a purpose - that of informing the American people what happens during war. Their methods are similar - they write from personal experience. The literary forms used are different. But the message of both these works is the same. It is as if two persons are traveling in two types of vehicles - one a fire engine perhaps, one a sports car. But both carry supplies for the soul. An abundant supply of truth to inform, entertain and educate the American public, each in its own way. A Switch in Time: A New Strategy for America is written from a very different perspective, when compared to Solyan's writing or the fictional Jarhead. This book's language is measured. In other words there is no fire and spit, no rhetoric, as this is a 'serious' study. This is deceptive, because the serious tone of the paper conveys the impression that it is unbiased and consists of the truth, and nothing but the truth. But one very obvious question it ignores is the raison d'etre for the US being in Iraq at all, its locus standi there. The ethical angle is completely ignored in the paper. It takes for granted that it is the duty of the US to control and guide the destiny of Iraq. There is a sinister MacArthurian zeal to bring 'democratic' values as understood from a Western perspective, to Iraq. We are reminded of how in 1947, General MacArthur's intervention brought about sweeping political changes in Japan by his insistence on drafting a new constitution. Yes, the new constitution in Japan did give power to the people. But was it necessary for the US to have drafted that constitution "The United States must approach 2006 as a make or break year in Iraq" says the book in its executive summary. It talks of establishing a climate of security so that the people of Iraq have no need to live in fear of outside agencies (terrorists). While this is a commendable thought, it is the underlying assumption that is reprehensible, apart from the irony of the fact that internal violence in Iraq has escalated after the war, and because of it. It is the casual assumption that the US has a right to "make or break" another country that is unacceptable. It is this assumption nurtured over two centuries, that has turned a part of the peoples of the world against the U.S. today. It must not be forgotten that every action has a reaction, and 9/11 is a horrible reminder of how memories of earlier slights can have a horrible backlash. Ultimately, the US has to do some soul-searching. The world, especially areas far away from home, cannot be made the theatre of war. A uniform American Pepsi-MacDonald's culture cannot be superimposed on the rest of the world. It will protest! A War in the Gulf: A Chronology is just that - a bland chronology of the events of the Desert Storm action of the war in the Middle East in 1991. It does not take any sides, does not also assume that the US has the right to fight wars or control the destinies of other nations. This is just a record of events - it records the problem of the Oil Crisis, and how Saddam Hussein brought pressure on the other countries of the OPEC to increase oil prices, the attack on Kuwait, and the subsequent attacks on Israel, and the role of the UN in the war. Statistics of how many sorties were made, definition of a sortie and so on are given! The target audience of all this data is, presumably, our information gathering bespectacled reader sitting safely in his insulated home, munching absentmindedly on potato chips (!) There is not even a pretence at giving an opinion or of taking a stance, even if one of supporting the war. In the anaesthetized words of this book, the horror of war do not come out. One writing which I find interesting and balanced is Fasching's essay presented at a symposium on security in 2002. Fasching along with Dechant had earlier brought out their book, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach (Fasching and Dechant 2001) in which they examined from an ethical perspective, what motivates people to consider themselves different from other cultures. And how they justify to themselves, killing, maiming and genocide in the name of loyalty to what is sacred to them - be it either a religious symbol or an emotional-political one ('Motherland!'). In the 2001 book, these two authors had taken a theoretical look at this question, without balking, however, from examining it from an ethical standpoint as well. The 2002 paper is admirably written - almost perfect. The language is balanced. The paper is both emotional and analytical. It does take a stance - that war and terrorism is not conducive to the well-being of the human race. The whole question of security is considered in a holistic manner, without taking sides. It does not talk of America winning. It talks of everyone winning - what we could call a 'Win-Win or No Deal' situation. There is an examination of Gandhian philosophy of non-violence, of non-retaliation in the face of offence. A detailed discussion of Gandhi's Doctrine of Civil Disobedience is done. There is also a discussion of Osama bin-Laden's 'philosophy', an attempt to seriously analyze bin-Laden's anti-West sentiments. Fasching clarifies that even in 1991, Laden had felt that Islam had been desecrated because the sites sacred to the religion (eg Mecca and Medina) in Saudi Arabia had been violated when non-believers (American soldiers) had entered Saudi. Fasching states that religion has a strong bearing on how people feel about a particular issue, and the Western 'enlightened' approach of removing the emotion and discussing political realities from the point of view of liberal democracy alone does not cut ice with all cultures. Fasching is not saying that the US should also start doing this. But he draws our attention to the fact that religion and sacred symbols do play an important part in influencing the emotions of people. He explains the popularity of people like Hitler and Osama in the context of their manipulative use of religion to secure unholy ends. The surprise here is that Gandhi's basis (we may add the names of leaders like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela to this list) for influencing people was the same as that of Hitler and Osama! Gandhi used the powerful twin symbols of religion and cultural identity. But the methods he advocated, and therefore the ends he achieved were diametrically opposing to those adopted by Osama or Hitler. Fasching's article ends with a suggestion to the country that the only way out of the impasse that America finds itself after 9/11, is to introspect into its own responsibility for having over the years, precipitated a situation of the 9/11 type, and many of the unfortunate events that followed, globally. The article has been written before the Iraq war of 2003. But it could well have been written about it, because it talks of issues that are linked to this war, of issues that caused it. And of course, it mentions the War of 1990. Of the various writings dealing with American wars in the Arabian Gulf, and the causes for such wars happening, this is perhaps one of the most balanced I have read. It touches our emotions, it appeals to our sense of fairness and it nudges us to think logically about security concerns, and the future of America and the world. Works Cited Blair, Arthur A War in the Gulf: A Chronology, College Station Texas, A& M University Press, 1992 Fasching, Darrell The Globalisation of Religion and Politics: Gandhi and Bin Laden Pollock, Kenneth & The Working Group of the Saban Centre for Mid East Policy: A Switch in Time: A New Strategy for America in Iraq: Analysis Paper Brookings Institution Press, 2006 The Globalization of Religion and Politics: Gandhi and bin Laden 2002 by Darrell J. Fasching, Professor of Religious Studies, University of South Florida Global Security - We Can Never Go Home Again As I was preparing for the symposium on global security being held today, on the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack of 2001, I came across the Charles Schultz' Peanuts column in the "comics" section of the Sunday paper and it seemed to offer a touching opening into our subject matter. Charlie Brown is sitting under a tree talking to "the red haired girl" who asks him: "What do you think security is, Chuck" His answer: "Security is sleeping the back seat of the car when you're a little kid, and you've been somewhere with you Mom and Dad, and its night, and you're riding home in the car, you can sleep in the back seat. You don't have to worry about anything . . . your Mom and Dad are in the front seat and they do all the worrying . . . they take care of everything." To which the red haired girl responds: "That's real neat!" and Charlie comments: "But it doesn't last! Suddenly, you're grown up, and it can never be that way again! Suddenly, it's over, and you'll never get to sleep in the back seat again! Never!" Now the little read haired girl asks: "Never" and Charlie says, "Absolutely never." To which she replies: "Hold my hand Chuck!!" Before September 11th 2001, many of us felt like Charlie Brown. Surely, here at home, we were secure, protected, things were taken care of. But now, after 9-11 we know that was an illusion. It's time to grow up: we can never go home again. People who feel secure don't talk about security. Now we not only talk about it, we have a new government department devoted to it - Homeland Security. But it will take more than the FBI, CIA and the military to make us feel more secure. They have work to do that will buy us time, but there are larger tasks. Like bin Laden and like Gandhi, we need to start thinking globally. And unlike bin Laden but like Gandhi, we need to start building bridges across religions and cultures, thinking and acting intelligently and with compassion. Religion and Politics "I can say," says Mahatma Gandhi, "without the slightest hesitation . . . that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means" (Mehta, p. 69). When I was an undergraduate in the 1960s it was a commonplace of the sociology of modernization that in an age of science the world was becoming more and more secular and that religion would soon disappear. In the meantime, religion had made its piece with modernity by agreeing to be domesticated. Religion was permissible in the home and our private lives but it did not belong in the public square. But Gandhi was right. We in academia did not understand religion and its role in politics. For since the 1970s there has been a global resurgence of religion - of religious movements intent upon the political transformation of society. We have seen Marxist and non-Marxist religious liberation movements in South America, Asia and Africa. In the United States we have seen the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Nation of Islam, as well as the movements of the religious right and the Moral Majority, and on the fringes the Christian Identity and Christian Militia movements. In Asia and the Middle East we have also seen the emergence of Radical Islam, and in Israel its parallel in various Jewish Ultra-Orthodox movements. In India, Hindu nationalism and Sikh terrorism, and in China and Japan, a host of new religious movements such as Aum Shunryu - the movement that gassed the subways in Tokyo in 1995. The Enlightenment culture upon which the modern university is founded does not prepare us to understand this world we are living in. According to the Enlightenment view, religion belongs to the ancient world of superstition that is being replaced by science and reason. Religion is basically an illusion that belongs to the childhood of the human race. It is best explained by explaining it away. Religion is always a dependent variable to be explained by some other independent variable. Religious behavior is best understood by appealing to other forms of explanation - psychological, economic, political, etc. Religion itself, is not supposed to be an independent variable, shaping civilization in the modern world. But the world moved on and left our theories in the dust. Gandhi is right. If you think religion and politics can be separated you do not understand what religion is. Every culture on the face of the earth has been held together and ordered by some sense of the sacred. There is great diversity in religions and cultures but all share one thing in common. What people hold sacred, everywhere on the face of this globe, is their way of life. Politics is the art of ordering and safeguarding that sacred way of life. Yes, often there are spirits and gods appealed to in religion, and always sacred ancestors. But they are appealed to in order to legitimate "our sacred way of life." The great sociologist, Emile Durkheim was right to see the sacred as the integrating factor in every society. In the history of religions and cultures there have been three major patterns of religion in relation to the political order. In the premodern world religion tended to dominate the social order, creating a total religious civilization such as we find in medieval Christendom, Islam, the caste system of ancient Hinduism, or the Confucian order of China. With the emergence of modernity in European civilization, the Protestant Reformation splintered the unity of religion and society, leading to endless wars until the solution of the privatization of religion within a secular state was hit upon as modeled in the U.S. Constitution. This solution worked for the "modern" period, in America and Europe, but now, in what some are calling the emergence of post-modernity, with global religious resurgence, the modern solution is being challenged. It is being replaced with an experiment in pluralistic coalitions that cut across religions and cultures and are intent upon politically reshaping society. The movements of Gandhi and later Martin Luther King, Jr. are good examples of this option. In point of fact, all three models (premodern, modern and postmodern) are being advocated today and global conflict is being defined largely in terms of them. The real conflict today is not between Islam and the West, nor is it between Islam and Christianity, or Islam and Judaism. The real conflict today is between alternative visions of the future within each religion and culture. In each case, respectively, our worst enemies are not in the other's camp but in our own. The assassination of Gandhi (1948) was carried out because he sought to build bridges between Muslims and Hindus in a unified India, and it was carried out not by a Muslim but by Hindu nationalist. Likewise, the assassination of Anwar Sadat in Egypt (1981) was carried out by radical Muslims who rejected his making peace with Israel. And the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (1995) was carried out by a Jewish, ultra-Orthodox radical, angry at Rabin because of his attempts to make peace with the Palestinians. The Globalization of Religion and Politics Through the Media Global religious resurgence has provoked a global conflict in which modernity's solution for the relation between religion and politics, privatization, is being rejected by both religious fundamentalists who wish to return to a premodern totalism and by religious postmodernists who struggle to create pluralistic coalitions for the political transformation of society. Osama bin Laden represents the first and Gandhi represents the second. Today virtually every religion and society contains movements in both directions. It has been said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who say there are two kinds of people and those who don't. Osama bin Laden represents those who divide the world into two kinds (believers and unbelievers or dar al Islam and dar al harb) and Gandhi represents the other, those who champion the unity of the human race. The first kind seeks to enter world history through conquest, the second through mutual understanding. The contest between their visions of our future is the global struggle we are engaged in today. This conflict is powerfully amplified by the fact that the contest is being played out through the mass media. The the medium of print played a powerful role in the 16th century, at the beginning of the modern period, when Luther was able to utilize the newly invented printing press to mass produce a German translation of the Bible, an act credited with helping to create a German national consciousness. He also used the press to mass produce pamphlets against the Papacy which drew popular support among his German readers, making it impossible for Rome (the Papacy) to extradite him to stand trial for heresy. Early in the 20th century, Gandhi was able to tap those advances in technology which had created international media (radio, telegraph and the press) to garner international support for his campaign against British Colonialism. Finally, Osama bin Laden depends on the new international medium of cable television (e.g., CNN) to engage in global terrorism against what he perceives as Western domination and the profanation of Islamic lands. Global terrorism is largely defined in terms of its mass media environment. Muslim radicals, like radicals in other religions around the world, tend to experience the post-colonial dominance of the West as, above all, a media-driven invasion (films, television, cable TV, etc.) And their response is media-driven as well. The success of global terrorism depends on using the Western media against themselves. The essence of terrorism is psychological and is fueled by symbolic action and communication. The World Trade Center and the Pentagon became targets because of their symbolic significance as the embodiment of the Western, and especially American, way of life. One does not have to topple the enemy, one only has to show over CNN that the god-like power has clay feet and is vulnerable, and you have already achieved a decisive victory. It is hard to imagine global political action existing without the mass media. Moreover, the terrorists have become masters of using Western technology and morality against itself. They utilize our prizing of democratic freedom to gain access to our country; they utilize our own mass transportation (commercial jets) as weapons of destruction; and most importantly they utilize our journalistic commitment to a "free press" and the "public's right to know" to bring the terror into every American living room. And the media gave them the "maximum bang for the buck," so to speak, for although they could fly these planes into the World Trade Center towers and into the Pentagon only once, the media hypnotically repeated these images again and again in the days that followed until every person in America had been traumatized (terrorized) not once but a hundred (or hundreds of) times. The terrorists couldn't have afforded that kind of coverage if they had to pay for it, but we gave it to them for free. The media did so in part due the constraints placed on us by the ethical obligation to inform, but also in part because of the innate commercial competition among the media. (Was it really necessary to repeat endlessly the images of the planes striking the towers in order to inform us What purposes did this really serve beside those of the terrorists) So the terrorists used both our best and worst motivations against us. According to Peter Bergen who interviewed bin Laden for CNN, bin Laden's uniqueness lies in globalizing terrorism. Bin Laden may be original in his globalization of terrorism but the globalization of religion and politics preceded him by a generation with Gandhi's war against British colonialism. Gandhi's War Against Western Colonialism Gandhi represents the first wave of religious political resurgence; one that anticipates the resurgence of the 1970s by more than half a century. As a religious and organizational genius for the globalization of religion and politics Gandhi is the original; bin Laden a dark, mirror image (i.e., reverse image). Mohandas K Gandhi was born October 2, 1869, the son of a political administrator from a Vaishya merchant caste. His father was a man of political importance but modest means, serving as the political advisor and public administrator for the local ruling royal family. As a young man, Gandhi went off to London to get a degree in law in preparation for a career in public administration in India's vast British colonial bureaucracy. It was in London that the first step was taken leading to his profound religious and political transformation. Here he was encouraged by some British Theosophists and some of his vegetarian friends to read the Bhagavad Gita for the first time, and the seeds of anti- colonial revolution were planted. Another decisive moment came in South Africa when, after getting his law degree, Gandhi took a job representing a Muslim business man. He purchased a first class ticket on the train to Pretoria by mail. While on the journey a white South African entered his compartment and demanded that the conductor send Gandhi back to second class, since he was "colored." Gandhi refused and was thrown off the train at the next stop. Gandhi later said that experience of humiliation awakened something in him. It was the beginning of a profound transformation from the timid lawyer who fled from his first appearance in court in fright (his law clerk had to take over for him) to the fearless leader of a movement for non-violence that succeeded in forcing the British to quit India. Another defining moment in that transformation was his courageous service on the battle field in the ambulance corps during the Zulu uprising. His compassion for the treatment of the Zulu at the hands of the Afrikaners awakened in him a desire to serve all humanity. Gandhi's brief business journey to South Africa turned into a stay of more than twenty years. Approximately eighty years before bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan, Gandhi had developed such "training camps" in South Africa, Phoenix Farm near Durbin and later Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg. At these sites Gandhi formulated his insights into non-violence based on the Bhagavad Gita, developed the techniques of non-violent civil disobedience, trained others in these techniques, and also published a newspaper promoting the rights of minorities in British South Africa. It was in South Africa that he first successfully used civil disobedience to force changes in oppressive and unjust laws. Here, too, he developed the skill of using the international mass media to pressure the British into modifying its laws of racial discrimination. This media exposure, in turn, led to the attraction of an international following because of his bold stand against British colonialism. In 1915, at age 45, Gandhi returned to India to lead the movement for swaraj or "independence" from British colonial rule. The campaign took more than thirty years to succeed but victory was achieved when the British granted India its independence on August 15th, 1947. However, Gandhi considered this remarkable success his greatest failure, for he had struggled to create a united India of Hindus and Muslims. Instead Muslims and Hindus insisted on separation and Pakistan was born. A few months later Gandhi was dead, assassinated on January 30th 1948 by a fellow Hindu (who also claimed to be following the teachings of the Gita) who felt Gandhi had betrayed Hindu nationalism by seeking reconciliation with Muslims. Gandhi's assassin was one of those who said there are two kinds of people in the world. Gandhi denied that and affirmed what he believed was the core truth taught by Hinduism and especially the Bhagavad Gita - that all beings share the same self (Brahman) and therefore humanity is one - across all religions and cultures. While the literal story of the Bhagavad Gita is one that seems to advocate going to war against one's enemies, Gandhi insisted that, read in the light of the core truth of humanity's oneness, the Gita could not be taken literally. One cannot do violence against another without doing violence against oneself. Therefore, the Gita must be an allegory about the inner struggle or war between the forces of evil that would turn one human being against another and the forces of good that champion the ultimate truth of the indivisibility of humanity. One must, indeed, go to war against all injustice and evil but that war must be carried out non-violently, through civil disobedience, in order to respect one's unity even with one's enemy. For Gandhi, the truth of the oneness of all humanity requires that all political action be based on "soul force" rather than "body force". Among modernist's words like "soul" and "spiritual" mean something "inner" and non-political. But for Gandhi the distinction between body force and soul force is not between physical and non-physical but between using your body to harm another and using your body to engage in non-violent civil disobedience. One is as physical, public and political as the other. However, acutely aware of the power of religion and of human fallibility, Gandhi insisted that soul force was ethically superior to body force, for "if I do not obey the law and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul-force. It involves sacrifice of self [rather than of others] . . . . Moreover, if this kind of force is used in a case that is unjust, only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes." ( Gandhi 1970:5-6). Bin Laden's War Against Western Global Domination Approximately seventy five years after Gandhi first developed his training camps in South Africa in order to wage war against Western global domination, Osama bin Laden proclaimed his own "Jihad" on the West, in Afghanistan. Gandhi committed himself to non-violence and succeeded. In contrast, bin Laden has embraced the opposite strategy of violence and will, I predict, fail. Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1957, nine years after Gandhi's death and almost a century after his birth. Osama is the son of a corporate billionaire who began with a construction business serving the Saudi family in Arabia that grew into multinational firm, The Binladen Group. Osama bin Laden earned his university degree in public administration, with a focus in management and economics, in 1981. The degree was from King Abdullah Azziz University which promulgates the conservative Wahabi Islam of the Saudi family. While a student bin Laden seems to have experienced a kind of religious awakening as he came under the influence of the teachings of radical Islam, especially Dr. Muhammad Qutb, brother of Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid Qutb is known as the father of the militant Jihad tradition of radical Islam that emerged in Egypt under Nasr. As bin Laden was finishing his degree, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan began (in 1979), and inspired by Islamic radicalism, Osama was one of the many Muslims from diverse countries that voluntarily went to Afghanistan to fight a Jihad against Russia, a Jihad that American policy supported. The Jihad against Russia seems to mark the beginning of the globalization of radical Islam. Osama bin Laden's active role in this war gained him a reputation which, along with his wealth, put him in a position to assume a growing role of leadership in the global movement of radical Islam. After the Russians were turned back, Osama returned to Saudi Arabia and offered his services to the Saudi family to organize his Afghan fighters to defend Saudi Arabia from the threat of invasion by Iraq under Saddam Hussein in August of 1990. A turning point in Osama bin Laden's radicalization seems to have been the rebuff of his offer by the Saudi's who turned, instead, to U.S. troops to protect the country against invasion. This was apparently the final insult. Muslim leaders refusing the protection of Muslim warriors in favor of protection by the troops of infidels. Relations between Osama bin Laden and the Saudis worsened after this and in 1994 his citizenship was revoked. Bin Laden, who had fled to the Sudan in the early nineties to begin organizing his global movement in earnest, eventually was forced to leave and returned to Afghanistan where in 1996 he linked up the newly dominant Taliban and declared holy war (Jihad) on America and the West. Peter Bergan, the journalist who interviewed Osama bin Laden for CNN says that bin Laden's movement represents the globalization of terrorism. "His followers enthusiastically embraced the artifacts of globalization. They communicated by American satellite phones and kept their plans on Japanese-made computers," in order to create a "truly global network." (Bergen, 20). Indeed, says Bergen, "it is fruitful to think of Al Qaeda as a sort of multinational holding company, headquartered in Afghanistan, under the chairmanship of bin Laden. The traditional structure of a holding company is a core management group controlling partial or complete interests in other companies" (Bergen, 30). New York Times editorial columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, describes Osama bin Laden as " a combination of Charles Manson [the cult murder] and Jack Welch [the world's most famous corporate CEO] - a truly evil, twisted personality, but with the organization skills of a top corporate manager . . ." (St Petersburg Times, May 20, 2002). Like Gandhi before him, bin Laden set up his training camps on foreign soil and trained an international following for the war against Western global domination. Most of these followers came from technical/professional fields such as engineering, medicine and business. Their activities were organized by an executive board whose directive were then funneled though various bureaucratic committees - committees for military affairs, business interests, a fatwa committee, a media committee, etc. Finally, the decisions were implemented by channeling them to various affiliated organizations in the countries where the targets for action had been selected. On the day the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began, a tape of Osama bin Laden was broadcast to the world which communicates his religious/political vision. For bin Laden, the world is divided into two camps, the sacred realm of Islam (dar al Islam) and the profane realm of unbelievers which is the realm of war (dar al harb). "These events have split the whole world into two camps," he said. "The camp of belief and the camp of disbelief. There is only one God, and I declare that there is no prophet but Muhammad." Bin Laden and the al Qaeda, according to a discovered terrorist manual, are clear about the goal - "overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime." This goal authorizes Muslims to kill Americans and all unbelievers. The killing of even innocent women and children is not only permitted but religiously required. At first bin Laden explained his actions as a response to the religious offense of American soldiers, whose very presence in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War profaned the land that harbors the most sacred places of Islam. In bin Laden's eyes, it seems, it was the most flagrant sign of the pollution of the sacred world of Islam by the secularity of modern Western civilization. As the conflict escalated, bin Laden widened the scope of his enemies list to embrace all nations who participate in the United Nations including "those who pretend they are leaders of the Arab world and remain members of the U.N.," an organization bin Laden condemns because it divided Palestine in 1947 and "gave the Muslim country to the Jews." Gandhi and bin Laden: Similarities Having briefly reviewed their contrasting stories we are now in a position to note some important similarities and even more critical differences between the two. We will first list the similarities and then the differences. Both were educated for bureaucratic public service careers. Bother experienced religious awakening during their college years. Both are fearless in the face of death because of their religious transformations. Both call for guerilla warfare against Western colonialism and Western global domination. Both reject the modernist privatization of religion and insist on the political importance of religion for transforming society. Each turned to his culture's ancient scriptures for insight to guide their respective revolutions. Both are rhetorically charismatic. Both are masters of social organization and political strategy. Both inspired an international following and created international movements. Both depend on global media strategies to achieve their objectives. Both are masters of using the opponent's system against itself. Gandhi and bin Laden: Differences Gandhi comes from a family of modest means, bin Laden from great wealth. Gandhi's education was cross-cultural, bin Laden's was not. Gandhi read widely in the scriptures of diverse religions, bin Laden, it appears, has not. Bin Laden's religious awakening embraces a sacral dualism, Gandhi's embraces the oneness of all humanity. For bin Laden, the West represents the realm of evil, the realm of the devil. The Quran comes from the sacred world and is threatened by the profane and demonic West. Western values are totally rejected. Gandhi rejects Western economic and political domination but he also appreciates the positive values of the West (freedom and dignity, justice and fairness for all, etc.) that protect and affirm the oneness of humanity. Gandhi discovered the power of the Bhagavad Gita and his own Hinduism not in India but in England. The possibility of this happening would be totally alien to the xenophobic bin Laden. Both deprivatize religion in relation to politics and draw on the narratives of war from their scriptures to guide their revolutions, but bin Laden literalizes war in terrorism (body force) while Gandhi spiritualizes it in non-violent civil disobedience (soul force). Gandhi uses the global impact of the media to awaken consciences to the oneness of humanity, bin Laden to evoke hatred and division. Gandhi teaches transforming society through one's own suffering, bin Laden through the suffering of others. Bin Laden apparently believes he infallibly knows the mind of God whose divine commands for Jihad absolve him from personal responsibility for the suffering and death he imposes on others. Gandhi is aware of his own fallibility and refuses to make other's suffer as a result of any mistakes he might make. Success for bin Laden means conquest of the other, or at least separation and removal of all who are profane from the sacred world of Islam. Success for Gandhi means creating cooperation and interdependence in a pluralistic world. Bowling Alone on Planet Earth: Global Security and U.S. Policy after 9-11 Not too long ago a book was published on the shift from community to individualism in American culture, entitled Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam (Simon and Schuster, 2001). Once people joined bowling leagues and engaged in bowling as a ritual of social cohesion but now it seems that is dying out and bowling is something people do alone. This strikes me as an apt metaphor for the unilateralism that has been introduced into foreign policy by the Bush administration. Having noted the similarities and differences between bin Laden and Gandhi we are in a unique position to appreciate some of the paradoxes of recent American policy. These paradoxes seem to be governed by two overarching myths: The Myth of the Lone Ranger and The Myth of Cosmic Dualism. The Lone Ranger: Foreign Policy Texas Style Many of us will recall from our youth the myth of the Lone Ranger. According to that story the Lone Ranger was a Texas Ranger who was the sole survivor of an ambush, who then put on a mask and set out on his own to bring all the bad guys to justice. We didn't think about it much at the time, but in doing this he really was an outlaw, that is, he acted outside the law. He just decided on his own to do this; to make himself the judge of who was good and who was bad. Now this didn't trouble us because he only went after the bad guys and he never made mistakes. We knew this because the bad guys wore black hats and the good guys white hats. Indeed, the Lone Ranger always wore a completely white outfit and rode a white horse (Silver). The only thing black was his mask (which probably should have made us stop and think). What is striking is that the Bush administration seems to have fully embraced this myth of the Lone Ranger and has set out to clean up the world through a Texas-style foreign policy of going it alone. This has been the pattern both before and after 9-11. One need only think of the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Treaty on global warming; the unilateral breaking of the U.S. nuclear arms treaty with the Russians; the U.S. rejection of the jurisdiction of the international criminal court. And most of all, proposing war against Iraq, where the Bush administration seems determined to go ahead without U.N. approval and even without congressional approval if necessary. On all but one of the above issues the administration has backpedaled from their initial stance a bit under public pressure, but no one is under any illusions that this represents any change of heart. This propensity for unilateral actions feeds the fear of both our allies and our enemies that globalization is just another name for American dominance. As the leader of the world's only remaining super power, President Bush's message is unambiguous: either our way or no way. Cosmic Dualism: Foreign Policy bin Laden Style There was a brief period of time after September 11th, 2001 when the Bush administration seemed to be really engaged in a turn around. The President and his cabinet seemed to bend over backward to build an international coalition before attacking Afghanistan. The multilateralism of those early days was impressive, even inspiring. Then one day we all woke up to hear President Bush tell us that what we were really facing is a "global axis of evil" of which the chief members were North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Curiously, Saudi Arabia, the one country from which virtually all the terrorists on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was not included in this list. What we all experienced was a sudden shift from a Gandhian rhetoric of interdependence (I did not expect the rhetoric of non-violence of course but found reason for hope in the early rhetoric of interdependence) to a rhetoric that echoed bin Laden; namely; there are two kinds of people in the world and the wrong kind have to be eliminated. Either you are with us or against us. It is this rhetoric of the "global axis of evil" that set the stage for shifting the focus from bin Laden (who seemed to disappear from view) to somebody we could find and punish - Saddam Hussein. More and more, President Bush is sounding as intractable and as dualistic as bin Laden, and seems to be willing to act as arbitrarily and capriciously as Saddam Hussein. Global Policy: bin Laden's Dualism or Gandhi's Interdependence After 9-11, New York Times editorial writer Thomas Friedman writes, "there are no walls for us to hide behind anymore, . .. everything is connected to everything else and . .. we cannot win a global war against terrorism without global allies. . . . Bush has repeatedly said to the world: If your not with us, your against us. He needs to remember this: The rest of the world is saying the same thing to us" (St. Petersburg Times, March 19, 2002). The only way to make the U.S. safer, Friedman argues, is to make the whole world "greener cleaner and safer." The United States cannot afford to be seen in the global arena as a three hundred pound gorilla throwing its weight around to get what its wants because it is bigger than everyone else. That kind of unilateral policy will only fan the flames of terrorism and leave us isolated without allies. The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, speaks for much of the international community when he says that what is needed is a "more productive, compassionate and caring globalization" (St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 21, 2001). It must be a globalization that benefits more than the West. "There must be more winners and many fewer losers." And the Mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, on the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, put the issue pointedly. We the people of the world, he said, have a right to demand "no annihilation without representation." The U.S. Must Choose: Will We Be Global Terrorists or Global Partners Two days after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the New York Times took a poll that showed that 85% of those surveyed said we should respond with military violence. Of these 75% said, even if innocent civilians are killed, and of these 85% said even if thousands of innocent civilians are killed. At that moment some Americans showed that they too were willing to become terrorists. We have a fundamental policy choice to make after 9-11. We can declare, like Osama bin Laden, that there are two kinds of people in the world and seek to unilaterally divide the world or we can declare, like Gandhi, that there is only one kind and seek a multilateral partnership with the rest of the world. After 9-11 we Americans had to absorb two relatively new experiences: (1) being victims of hatred and prejudice and (2) being the recipient of the world's compassion. Many minorities in America know what it is like to be the victim of irrational hatred and prejudice, but not until 9-11 did Americans as a whole internalize such an awareness. At the same time, we also were the recipient of an outpouring of compassion not only from the governments, but more importantly from the people of many countries around the world. Far from globally dividing us, one from another, September 11th, 2001 demonstrated that compassion for victims can transcend international political and religious boundaries. Knowing what it is like to be the victims of hatred and prejudice and also what it is like to be the recipients of compassion should awaken in us a compassion for victims everywhere in the world. September 11th should move us to engage in those personal, community and public actions and policies that will build international bonds of compassion between nations and peoples. Only a multilateral coalition and commitment to the well being of the globe as a whole can choke out the fires of hatred that fuel terrorism. A unilateral arrogance, on the other hand, will fan the flames of resentment and hatred. Like Charlie Brown, we can never go back to the security of our childhood. But there is an alternative. We can learn to hold hands across religions and cultures and work together to turn back the political and religious extremists in every religion and culture who would deny the essential oneness of humanity and would drag us down the path that leads to mutual annihilation. References Bergen, Peter L. 2001 Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden New York: The Free Press. Esposito, John 2002 Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fasching, Darrell & deChant, Dell 2001 Comparative Religious Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Gandhi, Mohandas K. 1970 The Science of Satyagraha. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Distributed by Greenleaf Books, Weare, N.H. Mehta, Ved1976 Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles. New Haven: Yale University Press. Read More