BobD
08-06-2006, 08:41 AM
Deluding Ourselves into Defeat
USAMolly McCarroll
August 5, 2006
For nearly 100 years, the United States has been a world leader in fields from science to politics. Innovations first realized in American labs have revolutionized lifestyles and economies around the globe. Political institutions first established in the United States have infiltrated the dark corners of history in remote corners of faraway continents. After the long uncertainty of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower and while the rest of the world is reorganizing to present a challenge to that dominance, American preeminence still stands fast.
But for a nation of innovators, home of the world’s largest economy and best trained military, the land of creativity and marketing and Hollywood, where the education system may have its flaws but is still able to turn out world-changing scientists, ethicists, and writers, America is still plagued by an historic blind spot that has periodically threatened our security, safety, and even our very existence as we know it. As a result of life in a country that values honesty, openness, and forthrightness, even when such qualities are sorely lacking, it is too often difficult for us to recognize the extent and presence of evil, even when it confronts us squarely and unequivocally.
As a result, we make excuses for those people who will not see such generosity as a sign of our goodness, but rather as evidence of our weakness that should be exploited. Fidel Castro, even as he lies sick in Cuba, has long known the benefits of America’s willful blindness, a knowledge he has passed on to his Venezuelan acolyte, Hugo Chavez. Both have years of experience in getting the American left, from members of the media to Jimmy Carter himself, to dance to their own, self-aggrandizing tunes, expertly using a few well-choreographed photo ops and interviews to confirm the Americans’ pre-existing beliefs to eliminate suspicion and make their own lives a bit easier. When the United States has satisfied its curiosity, they are then able to invite terrorists into the heart of the Western hemisphere or infiltrate America’s intelligence community, meeting only reduced resistance along the way.
Hezbollah is also now exploiting America’s tendency toward decency to obscure its own objectives and tactics. Reports from Lebanon focus on dead civilians and destroyed infrastructure, but a few journalists whose ambition has not outweighed their integrity, such as CNN’s Anderson Cooper, have offered the American people glimpses into the well-orchestrated spin machine that is Hezbollah, explaining how they are only allowed to film certain streets or buildings, while ambulances race by on staged missions for the journalists’ benefit. Hezbollah’s leaders are familiar with the West’s aversion to civilian casualties and know that America’s patience with dead children will eventually run thin, forcing Israel to abandon its campaign against its terrorist enemy. But to achieve this end, they will sacrifice the lives of innocents and involve themselves with the world’s worst regimes, secure in the knowledge that even their own complicity may be shuffled aside by a horrified American public.
America does many things well, but duplicity has never been the nation’s strength. Yet it is a favorite tool of our enemies throughout the world, who correctly understand that while they may not be able to defeat the American army, they can deceive the American people. The United States has at one point or another believed in either the essential harmlessness or the relative acceptability of men as diverse as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Saddam Hussein, only to see our hopes dashed before our very eyes. Whether we believed they were misunderstood, misrepresented, or merely engaged in temporary nastiness on the long path to legitimacy, we deceived ourselves as to their true nature and so increased the damage they could do to their own people and to the world.
It is still difficult for many Americans to accept the truth about our enemies around the world. Perhaps Hugo Chavez does just want the best for his people. Maybe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a right to internal repression and nuclear weapons. Look far enough back into Osama bin Laden’s past and perhaps you will find an abusive father or an absent mother. Unfortunately, however, generous and comforting such thoughts may be, they exist only in our heads and do nothing about the real intentions and capabilities of those that would do us harm. They create a comfortable fantasy in which we can pretend that no one really dislikes us or wishes our destruction, yet they do not alter reality. Until the United States, its government and its people, can accept the truth about these enemies, just like those of past generations, it can never be truly safe.
This article was first published in FamilySecurityMatters.org on August 4, 2006 and is reprinted with permission.
Molly McCarroll is the Editorial Director of FamilySecurityMatters.org (http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/) and holds an M.A. in National Security from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC.
USAMolly McCarroll
August 5, 2006
For nearly 100 years, the United States has been a world leader in fields from science to politics. Innovations first realized in American labs have revolutionized lifestyles and economies around the globe. Political institutions first established in the United States have infiltrated the dark corners of history in remote corners of faraway continents. After the long uncertainty of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower and while the rest of the world is reorganizing to present a challenge to that dominance, American preeminence still stands fast.
But for a nation of innovators, home of the world’s largest economy and best trained military, the land of creativity and marketing and Hollywood, where the education system may have its flaws but is still able to turn out world-changing scientists, ethicists, and writers, America is still plagued by an historic blind spot that has periodically threatened our security, safety, and even our very existence as we know it. As a result of life in a country that values honesty, openness, and forthrightness, even when such qualities are sorely lacking, it is too often difficult for us to recognize the extent and presence of evil, even when it confronts us squarely and unequivocally.
As a result, we make excuses for those people who will not see such generosity as a sign of our goodness, but rather as evidence of our weakness that should be exploited. Fidel Castro, even as he lies sick in Cuba, has long known the benefits of America’s willful blindness, a knowledge he has passed on to his Venezuelan acolyte, Hugo Chavez. Both have years of experience in getting the American left, from members of the media to Jimmy Carter himself, to dance to their own, self-aggrandizing tunes, expertly using a few well-choreographed photo ops and interviews to confirm the Americans’ pre-existing beliefs to eliminate suspicion and make their own lives a bit easier. When the United States has satisfied its curiosity, they are then able to invite terrorists into the heart of the Western hemisphere or infiltrate America’s intelligence community, meeting only reduced resistance along the way.
Hezbollah is also now exploiting America’s tendency toward decency to obscure its own objectives and tactics. Reports from Lebanon focus on dead civilians and destroyed infrastructure, but a few journalists whose ambition has not outweighed their integrity, such as CNN’s Anderson Cooper, have offered the American people glimpses into the well-orchestrated spin machine that is Hezbollah, explaining how they are only allowed to film certain streets or buildings, while ambulances race by on staged missions for the journalists’ benefit. Hezbollah’s leaders are familiar with the West’s aversion to civilian casualties and know that America’s patience with dead children will eventually run thin, forcing Israel to abandon its campaign against its terrorist enemy. But to achieve this end, they will sacrifice the lives of innocents and involve themselves with the world’s worst regimes, secure in the knowledge that even their own complicity may be shuffled aside by a horrified American public.
America does many things well, but duplicity has never been the nation’s strength. Yet it is a favorite tool of our enemies throughout the world, who correctly understand that while they may not be able to defeat the American army, they can deceive the American people. The United States has at one point or another believed in either the essential harmlessness or the relative acceptability of men as diverse as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Saddam Hussein, only to see our hopes dashed before our very eyes. Whether we believed they were misunderstood, misrepresented, or merely engaged in temporary nastiness on the long path to legitimacy, we deceived ourselves as to their true nature and so increased the damage they could do to their own people and to the world.
It is still difficult for many Americans to accept the truth about our enemies around the world. Perhaps Hugo Chavez does just want the best for his people. Maybe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a right to internal repression and nuclear weapons. Look far enough back into Osama bin Laden’s past and perhaps you will find an abusive father or an absent mother. Unfortunately, however, generous and comforting such thoughts may be, they exist only in our heads and do nothing about the real intentions and capabilities of those that would do us harm. They create a comfortable fantasy in which we can pretend that no one really dislikes us or wishes our destruction, yet they do not alter reality. Until the United States, its government and its people, can accept the truth about these enemies, just like those of past generations, it can never be truly safe.
This article was first published in FamilySecurityMatters.org on August 4, 2006 and is reprinted with permission.
Molly McCarroll is the Editorial Director of FamilySecurityMatters.org (http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/) and holds an M.A. in National Security from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC.