The Day That Divided the World

Tuesday is the 6th anniversary of the terrorist hijackings and attacks on New York and Washington. To this day, the way people think about how the U.S. should have responded has been shaped by the initial context in which they perceived the attacks. For some of us, 11 September was always about the Middle East and its problems. In this view, the issues raised by the attacks could not be resolved without also resolving the underlying issues in the Middle East. Not to address those underlying issues while warring on terror meant, in effect, to endorse the nation's complacent, biased policy toward the region. Because I could not do that, I couldn't support the invasion of Iraq -- and there were plenty more good reasons to oppose that venture. But other people saw 11 Sept. in a more narrow context. They're the people who think al Qaeda is waging a war of aggression against the West. They think like the state GOP chairman I heard recently say, straight-faced, that the U.S. was "minding its own business" before the attacks. All they know and want to know is that this country was attacked. They're not so much interested in vindicating American foreign policy as in maintaining their right not to think about it. In any event, they don't think we have to address larger issues, which is why many of them have grown frustrated with the Bushies' incompetent attempt at nation-building. They may have wearied of the Iraq war, but they haven't come around to a new view of the Middle East. They may even feel reconfirmed in their original circa-2001 impulse to see the whole region nuked. To them, the Middle East is an annoyance that simply needs to keep quiet.

So 11 September divided the nation into conscientious contextualizers and the self-righteously ignorant. It also left us divided between prudence and moralism. Prudence, in this context, is a form of modesty. Modesty, in this context, means avoiding provocation. In this context, if our country's policies provoke people into attacking us, we should reconsider those policies. That doesn't mean automatically reversing them or "giving in to terrorists," but it does mean calculating whether the benefits of those policies outweigh the potential costs. The moralizing viewpoint scorns such calculations. Rejecting the concept of provocation, the moralists are satisfied that the terrorists' own evil natures are the necessary and sufficient causes of terrorist acts. Acting on the assumption that terrorists bear all moral responsibility for refraining from terrorism, the moralists deny any obligation on our part to reconsider provocative policies. In short, they say we don't have to change our ways at all in order to prevent terrorism. In effect, their war on terror can only be a vindication of our foreign policy, because they refuse as a matter of defiance to consider a change.

These divisions persist and will persist as long as we let ideology and cheap moralizing obscure our true interests in the rest of the world. Until we learn to think clearly about our interests and their limits, without the sophistry of right and rights, we will be at war with ourselves as well as large parts of the planet, at a time when the world can least sustain such conflict. Other people will tell you to remember the dead and think of vengeance, so this is something else to think about. Figure it out for yourselves.