That is my grand sweeping statement for the day. That, and I believe the editors at The Times are beginning to read my mind.
This is, obviously, quite concerning. On the face of it, I have never been known to exactly agree with the majority of editorial comments I have read over the past few years. Partly, my annoyance at editorials tends to stem from what I see as a tendency towards media skepticism – the nay-saying anti-establishment voice (couched in terms of “political correctness”) that heralds any opportunity to criticise the establishment. Perhaps that is why I was so surprised at the argument of the main Times editorial, A Thwarted Plot, which was basically that we should be grateful to the intelligence and security services instead of heaping criticism on them.
But it was Gerard Baker’s column, The first step towards defeating the terrorists: stop blaming ourselves, that really had me nodding along.
“There’s a familiar ritual each time an operation to thwart a putative terrorist incident dominates the news. After the public’s initial expressions of relief and shuddering contemplation of what might have been, a rising chorus of sceptics takes over, with a string of questions and hypotheses…”
Baker goes on to talk about the “terror plots,” such as this summer’s plan to blow up buildings in Chicago, that were revealed to be flimsy at best, and which resulted in ridicule of the “overzealous authorities.”
“You can guarantee that every incident now, whatever the evidence, will be treated with such derisive doubt. If the police had got to the 9/11 hijackers or the 7/7 bombers in time, a sizeable chunk of respectable opinion would have dismissed them as idealistic young men with no real capacity or intent to cause harm.”
But the truth is that this skepticism—this tendency we seem to have to dismiss what doesn’t happen and point fingers when it does—is at heart political:
“How convenient, click the doubters, with rolled eyes and theatrical sarcasm, just as the Government’s got some new bonfire of civil liberties planned; or just as President Bush’s poll numbers are collapsing; or just as Israel is stepping up its ground attacks in southern Lebanon”
He rightly points out that this is “a neatly comprehensive schema of cynicism” that takes into account every eventual outcome: if a terror plot is foiled, then it wasn’t really a terror plot to start with. If a terror plot goes ahead, then, of course, we are the ones to blame – intelligence wasn’t good enough; security wasn’t tight enough; the government didn’t act fast enough.
It reminds me of the intense political backlash after Hurricane Katrina. Yes, there were horrendous flaws in the government’s response. But people wanted someone to point fingers at. The picture that began to form was of a government out to kill its people—only the poor black ones, of course.
But this is more fundamental. The threat we face isn’t natural and democratic; it is hateful and destructive, suicidal and wilfully murderous.
“the consistent theme is denial – denial of the reality of the mortal threat we face, denial of the reasons we face it. The villain for these people is not the jihadist, with his agenda of destroying our very way of life. It is, as it has always been, that malign continuum of institutions of our very own authority that begins with the aggressive police officer and goes all the way up via the credulous media and craven officials to No 10 and the White House.”
Baker points out that 9/11 wasn’t an Islamic response to American action. In fact, he says, it occurred at a time when the US was making a real effort in the Middle East. While we have unfortunately provided bait in our responses since 2001, these people need no more reason than our very existence and the freedoms we (should) cherish to hate us.
Baker’s argument boils down to our personal responsibility, as individuals and as a nation and as a world, to understand that we do face a new kind of enemy and to be committed to eradicating that enemy. Old-world diplomacy won’t work against extremism; we are in a modern global era that is still finding its footing when it comes to dealing with these threats. We need to unite not around an apologetic isolationism, but around a pride in what we are so lucky to have.
“Events such as yesterday’s near-miss should remind us that September 11, 2001, gave birth to a radical and dangerous new world. It required the US – an imperfect country to be sure, but the only one with the power and the will to defend the basic freedoms we too easily take for granted – with its allies to remake the international system.”
One thing that continually strikes me is this: we have forgotten what freedom and liberty and all those grand ideas that support our countries really mean to us. We take for granted the freedoms we live with every day, that protect and support us. We roll our eyes when President Bush yet again harps on with that characteristically languid drawl about the right of all people to freedom and the commitment of the United States to promoting that freedom. The founders of the United States would be rolling in their graves to hear the blasé attitude so many of us assume when it comes to the rights they fought for.
Like Baker, I’m not saying that it is wrong to criticise what he refers to as the ‘blunders’ in Iraq; I’m certainly not arguing that we should refrain from highlighting wrongful actions when they occur at our own countries’ hands. However:
“we should not, in our frustration, confuse the real enemies here. We should not mistake the unlooked for dangers caused by blunders and arrogance in Washington for the targeted threats posed by nihilism and hatred in much of the Middle East and in some of our own cities.”
Political correctness has gone to the other extreme, so much so that we blame our own countries—our institutions and governments—before turning to the obvious source of the problem.
So to Gerard Baker I say: Finally someone actually addresses the rather pathetically apologetic nature of such narrow-minded scepticism that characterises much of our public opinion. It's about time we credited 'freedom', 'liberty' and 'democracy' not just as catchphrases of President Bush or rhetoric of a Western campaign, but as real principles that we have a responsibility to stand up for and to protect, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, British or American.
And to the rest of you I say: I now step down from my soapbox (with my sincerest apologies if you have made it this far).
