U.S. Still Beacon of Hope

Still in shock, we attempt to regroup and to find a way in which some good, somewhere, may come of the mass murders of Sept. 11. On an emotional level we have seen, poignantly, that all that matters to people about to die are the simplest words--”I love you.” But simple answers are not enough for politicians, who must draw a new map of the world. On Washington and its allies rests the fantastic burden of trying to punish the guilty without causing even greater suffering or unleashing even greater hatreds.

Outrage at the hijackings and attacks has reordered priorities for virtually every world leader. Some initial signs have been hopeful. The Algerian government has furnished Washington with a list of extremists it regards with suspicion. The Iranian government has moved closer to the West than at any time since 1979. There is a new fragile cease-fire in the Middle East. And, perhaps most courageously of all, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has aligned himself with Washington against the Taliban and his own Islamic hard-liners.

Living in Britain, I have seen Prime Minister Tony Blair’s response most closely. So far, he has had what the British call “a good war”--he has been unequivocal in his support for the United States, insisting we stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Washington. And for the most part, the British people stand alongside him. In his speech before Congress last week, President Bush praised Blair and the British as America’s closest friends.

The events have also brought out a darker side, though, of the British relationship with America. On Sept. 13, just two days in, BBC television’s weekly show “Question Time” was devoted to the attack, with former U.S. ambassador Philip Lader appearing as one of four panelists taking questions. In attempting to answer the hostile questions put to him, Lader was booed and nearly shouted down. Understandably, he was close to tears in face of the assault. It was a disgrace, and I am glad to say that almost 2,000 viewers rang the BBC to protest. The BBC apologized to Lader.

But the response of some of the “Question Time” audience reveals an awful truth: Anti-Americanism may be a minority sport, but it is a popular one. It is not just tolerated but often applauded throughout Europe. In the days since the terrorists’ mass murders, newspapers have carried commentary blasting Americans for their “slaughter of the innocents of Iraq” and their “unabashed national egotism and arrogance.” Like any other nation, the United States makes mistakes both at home and abroad. But the disdain with which its efforts, its failures and even its successes are greeted by some in Britain and elsewhere in Europe is deeply shocking.

In fact, the U.S. administration and the American people have behaved with impeccable restraint, courage and dignity in the face of this terrible mass murder. This gives grounds for hope that the inevitable response will be much better considered than former President Clinton’s rather dilettantish cruise-missile attack on a baby-food factory in Khartoum and some terrorist camps in Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden affiliates bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa. The administration appears convinced that Bin Laden was responsible for this horror as well. President Bush has said that he is wanted “dead or alive.” But Bin Laden will not be easy to run to ground either way. He lives in a series of caves in the Afghan mountains, one of the remotest parts of the world. His Taliban hosts have rejected Bush’s demand that they hand him over. Bush has said that those who harbor terrorists will now be treated just like the terrorists themselves. This weekend, a U.S. attack on Bin Laden and the Taliban appears imminent. In Afghanistan, there is almost nothing left to destroy--except people. Most towns have already been leveled, either during the war against the Russians in the 1980s or during the civil wars which followed Soviet withdrawal. Huge piles of rubble are almost the only sites in the capital, Kabul. Five million Afghans are now said to face starvation. They desperately need assistance alongside any military campaign. They must be given it.

Since the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, took Kabul in 1996, they have imposed a terrifying order of sorts. Girls cannot go to school; their mothers can appear in public only shrouded in heavy veils and tent-like dresses. Enemies of the regime are routinely destroyed. In 1998, in an underreported crime, the Taliban massacred up to 8,000 people in the town of Mazar-i-Sharif. They were killed because they were of the Hazara ethnicity. Some were shot in the streets or in their homes or in hospital beds; others were boiled or asphyxiated, crammed into metal containers and abandoned in the relentless August sun. The dead were left in the streets to be eaten by dogs.

It is when you consider regimes like the Taliban, or the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or the horribly anti-Semitic regime in Syria, that you are stunned by the casuistry and the fundamental dishonesty of those intellectuals who wear their hatred of America like a badge of honor.

Lader behaved with extraordinary dignity on “Question Time,” saying, with tears in his eyes, “I find it hurtful that you can suggest that a majority of the world despises the U.S.”

It seems to me that this is an appropriate time to assure Lader that the vast majority of the world does not hate America. The United States remains a beacon of hope for the world’s poor and dispossessed and for all those who believe in freedom of thought and of deed. It always has.

In my view, the United States is the most important democracy on Earth. It has also long been the most generous country on Earth. It is the anchor of what we call (properly) the free world. And while the free world is an imperfect world, it is far better than anything else on offer--as millions of migrants attempting to join it from other parts of the globe will testify.

In Britain, most people are very conscious that American wealth and American blood were essential to our victory of 1945. America is the vital center that held through the Cold War and enabled the world to defeat communism, the greatest terror of the 20th Century. Washington has made mistakes, some very serious. But American international engagement was essential to progress in the last century. Far from being the enemy of Islam, America can do more than any other nation to reduce existing tensions between the Islamic world and our own.

This new century’s enemies are incredibly dangerous, as last week’s murderous attacks demonstrated. The assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon reveal also how vulnerable the United States now is. But those who claim outrageously that the U.S. “had it coming to them” should realize that the attack on America is an assault on us all--and that we are all equally vulnerable.

The going will certainly be frightening as this gigantic crime finally forces world leaders to abandon appeasement or half-measures against international terrorism. Here in Britain, this must include an end to the policy of appeasing the Irish Republican Army. I hope that this outrage will also end the sentimental support that some Americans give the Irish terrorists.

The solidarity with the U.S expressed by members of the United Nations and in Europe last week will soon come under strain. Fundamentalist anti-Americanism will rear its head, as it did on the BBC’s “Question Time” and Blair will face great pressure from those on his party’s left. What we are embarking upon is perhaps better called a struggle than a war. It will be long and difficult and will involve political, financial and social carrots, as well as military sticks. But the overwhelming majority of Britons do stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the U.S. We are in this together. We are all Americans now.