I recently met an influential American who wanted to find out how people felt toward his government in this part of the world.
“What exactly is it that you want me to tell you?” I asked jadedly thinking in part that the whole session may have been more fruitful had he handed me a Hollywood script punctuated with enthusiasm for the spread of democracy and a litany of praise for his country’s selfless liberation of the region from the various despots that they had installed to serve their self-interest.
“Your thoughts about what’s going on, I guess,” he replied.
“Firstly,” I said quite emphatically, “although I appreciate your coming here and taking the time to do this, I know for a fact that whatever I say will be disregarded because no matter how much we talk, rant, rave or bleed to death, we feel that we may as well be mute because you never listen to us. That’s the biggest irony. You so earnestly ask our opinion but discard it unless it coincides with yours.”
He smarted a bit but as I was already in my element I continued unabated.
“With all due respect, I would like to cut the chase and get to the point. We just don’t know what it is that you want from us anymore. We really don’t.”
He nodded pensively and began taking notes.
“You assume that we have the collective intelligence of a flock of sheep and continue to delude yourselves into thinking that we so readily and gratefully accept all the garbage that you insist on shoving down our throats. That we are just fine and dandy with the entire Middle East becoming your playground experiment and our people your guinea pigs.
“But it may come as a surprise to you that although we are not as civilized as you or advanced, we are not entirely stupid either. Yes, we had very real problems before you started meddling and interfering in our region, but rather than actually help us solve them, with a combination of arrogance and incompetence, you increased them exponentially.”
“Do you think that people here share your view?” he questioned suppressing a smile.
“I cant speak for everyone,” I began, “although I know that amongst ordinary people like myself, there is an enormous sense of anger, resentment and betrayal at the atrocities that have been committed as a result of your distorted and inherently unjust foreign policy.”
“How so?” he asked.
“We don’t have amnesia, sir. But perhaps you do? We remember how your country declared war on Iraq based on the spurious premise that it was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Saddam must have hidden them so damn well that you have yet to find them! And then you were back after the commercial break with an entirely new excuse. Let’s bring democracy to the Middle East. Hallelujah! What a wonderfully lofty ideal that was supplemented by the displacement of a dictator who had become too big for his own US-made boots — the fact that your very own Rumsfeld had shared a Kodak moment and a cup of tea with him while Kurds were being gassed to death in northern Iraq, notwithstanding!
“But what you didn’t tell us at the time were the small-print caveats in the “Middle East democratic process” dossier lying on the president’s desk. We thought quite presumptuously that when you wanted democracy in our countries we would get to choose our own governments. We didn’t realize that voting would be restricted to US citizens. Furthermore, you actively undermined the so-called democratically elected government of Hamas because they didn’t further your agenda. You brushed aside the democratic victory of Jaafari’s coalition in Iraq and replaced him with your stooge Maliki. And you were even nice enough to supplant Saddam’s dreadful torture sessions with some newly created improvisations of your own in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Variety is, after all, the spice of life!”
“But don’t you think that Americans were genuinely trying to help?” he asked sincerely.
“If you were genuinely trying to help then perhaps that concern would equally be extended to the people of Darfur if it was, as you allege, based on purely philanthropic sentiments!”
“Do you think that Americans wanted this to happen?” he continued.
“Let’s make the distinction between your people and your government. Your people? I am sure that they had the best of intentions but were unwittingly led into this mess and their sons subsequently sacrificed upon the altar of a war that last year alone cost the lives of over 35,000 innocent civilians. Your government? Do you honestly expect me to believe that the most advanced country in the world endowed with some of the greatest minds and intellects didn’t know what it was doing? And if that is the case, as you so casually surmise, should we continue to allow it to tell us what to do?”
“Could you explain what you mean?” he probed evidently looking for specifics.
“What I mean, sir, is that you have screwed up.”
“Screwed up?” he repeated, shocked.
“Screwed up royally. That’s what I mean.”
“What do you think we should do?”
I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly. “The point is that we never pretended to have the answers in the first place. Instead of imposing what you think we want upon us, try asking us what we want. Use that as the basis of your foreign policy, not the recommendations of your half-witted warmongering neocon hawks.
“What gives them the right to dictate to us from the comfort zone of their ivory towers on Capitol Hill when they have never even set foot in the region? Have they ever bothered to ask an Iraqi taxi driver who is scraping a living or a Lebanese child orphaned as a result of his parents forming a bit of collateral damage in the war what they want?”
He remained silent and I had my answer.
Amidst all the mayhem and carnage it seems that Uncle Sam’s war machine is poised to add an Iranian feather to its cap. The definition of insanity is repeating the same course of action in anticipation of a different result every time. Need I say more?
