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BOOK REVIEW
September
11 and the American journo
Longitudes and Attitudes. Exploring
the World After September 11 by Thomas Friedman
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
 The
problem with multiple Pulitzer prizewinner and foreign affairs
columnist of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, is not his
lack of articulation, but the fact that he wears far too much
patriotism on his sleeve, and boasts about it. His views
intersect (sometimes even presage) the American establishment's
own thinking, a fact well illustrated by journalist Robert
Fisk's comment that the lay observer need not ache for
top-secret intelligence on whether and when America will start
war in Iraq, because reading the New York Times is enough to
know what the Bush team is planning.
Friedman is a "liberal" in the American sense of the word, but
an old-fashioned "conservative" in the European sense. He gloats
that America is the "Michael Jordan of geopolitics", the Middle
Kingdom, and the most valuable player whose status and hegemony
must be preserved for the good of the world. A fortiori,
he champions globalization as a force for good since it is the
mechanism through which American products, technologies, values,
ideas, movies and foods are distributed, and American dominance
perpetuated. His disdain for "anti-Americanism" is intense,
occasionally veering so much to the right that the tag "liberal"
does not always fit him.
It is owing to such attributes that Friedman makes important
reading. He represents the hard core of Americanism and its
much-hyped virtues. One may disagree with him, but it is
important to see what the resident foreign policy pundit of the
most important newspaper of the most powerful country in the
world has to say. September 11 is to Friedman "a supremely
American moment" and the advent of "World War III" (p295). Can
there be a better lens to look at its ramifications for American
policymakers than from the eyes of the leading opinion-making
journalist? Friedman's favorite tune is the George W Bush song -
how utterly evil and despicable Saddam Hussein is and how the
Iraqi people must be "liberated". He even writes open letters on
behalf of "President Bush" to the Arab League, Ariel Sharon,
Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden. He has to be read.
In the prologue, Friedman threshes out his "super story", the
canvas and generic background upon which September 11 unveiled
to him. He calls it the "new international system of
globalization". For all its benefits to America, it has been
proven by September 11 that globalization "can be an incredible
force-multiplier for individuals unmediated by a state". (p5)
Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atta, Zacarias Moussaoui and many
others who plotted the terrorist strikes are "super-empowered
angry men" who utilized satellite phones, encrypted e-mails and
the Internet to maximize the material and psychological impact
of their horrific acts. New Age technology gives them the
leverage to reach around the world and wreak havoc thousands of
miles away.
The first part of the book is a compilation of Friedman's
pre-September 11 columns in the New York Times, starting from
January 2001. His preoccupation is with the Arab-Israeli
conflict, especially as he considers himself an "orthodox Jew".
He bemoans the one-point agenda of "who rules Palestine" and
asks Arab countries to launch intifadas for education,
free press and democracy. Indeed, as the recent United Nations
Development Program report on Arab human development has
highlighted, corrupt and authoritarian Arab rulers have used
Palestine as a propaganda deviation from their domestic economic
and social maladies. Friedman's number-one hate figure is Yasser
Arafat, whom he accuses of radicalizing Palestinians with guns
when what they need most is global investment and jobs. Arafat
is held responsible for the failure of the "Clinton peace plan"
that promised Palestinians 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza,
besides condominium in Jerusalem city. Oddly, he does not
consider the plight of the 3 million Palestinian refugees, who
have a right to return, and due to whom Arafat turned down that
plan as incomplete.
One interesting realist trait that Friedman's pre-September 11
columns show is his impatience at the nanny image that the US
projects. FBI hounds and American marines "retreated" in June
2001 from Yemen, Jordan and Bahrain on warnings of terror
attacks, sending a message of softness to terrorists. Friedman
asks rhetorically, "Is this a superpower"? American "weakness"
after the Beirut bombings of 1985 and the Khobar tower attacks
in Saudi Arabia (1996) are further assurances to terrorists of a
soft American underbelly, according to Friedman. He advises
"Rummy" (Donald Rumsfeld) not to waste time building missile
defense shields. Instead, the US must show "real deterrence" and
overwhelming military might without getting cowed down by
terrorist threats.
The post-September 11 columns are devoted mostly to a critique
of Muslim states and leaders who failed to openly condemn
suicide terrorism and support a "fascist dictator" called Saddam
Hussein. Friedman employs classic Cold War jargon by asking Bush
to "strengthen the good guys" (read Pakistan, Jordan etc) in the
war against terrorism, but not spare the "bad guys" like Saudi
Arabia, Iraq and Egypt which are refusing to do any
self-introspection and laying all the blame on Jewish
conspiracies in the belief that America is controlled by Jews.
"Barely legitimate Arab leaders have deliberately deflected
domestic criticism of themselves onto us." (p.57) If a 10th
grade textbook taught in Saudi public schools says, "it is
compulsory for the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to
consider the infidels their enemies", the House of Saud is "not
really on our side". (p.90)
Friedman wants Muslim rulers to acknowledge that the hijackers
of September 11 are their "own creations" and move out of the
"blame-others mode forever". He is appalled during travels to
Pakistan where everyone asks for "proof" that Osama bin Laden
masterminded the terrorist attacks, noting gravely wall posters
in Peshawar reading: "Call this phone number if you want to join
the jihad against America." (p.100) "Bin Ladenism" is
flourishing thanks to the failure of Muslim societies to look
inwards at the problems festering in their own backyards. Large
Muslim communities in Indonesia or India are not as dangerous
threats to America since they are "messy but loud democracies"
that provide political voice and re-examine Koranic texts in
modern contexts. Arab dictatorships, on the other hand, are
recipes for jihad." (p.101)
On the domestic front, Friedman exults in a wave of nationalism
that followed September 11. "What a great country," he marvels
at his motherland, and proclaims that "Americans will fight for
their country and they will die for their country". (p.61)
Hearing the American national anthem is a "moving and soothing
experience" to him ever since the terrorist attacks. He
reiterates that terrorists did not know the animating vision of
America in the world, which is "promotion of freedom - freedom
of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of markets and freedom
of politics". (p.70) He laments the lack of world support for
American actions: "My fellow Americans, except for the good old
Brits, we are all alone." (p.86) On world media concern for
civilian casualties in the Afghan war, he has nothing but
contempt. All that questions American militarism is "nonsense".
The careful liberal also defends Attorney General John
Ashcroft's military courts and Draconian surveillance laws as
"not completely crazy". (p.119)
To round up the encomiums, Friedman avers, "I have nothing but
respect for the way President Bush has conducted this war." Bush
is credited with showing "steely resolve, imagination,
leadership and creativity" (a highly questionable tribute, as
Bob Woodward's new book Bush at War spills the beans). If
the United Nations is against war in Iraq, it should not matter
to the president, as "we should start by planning to do it
alone". (p.135) Friedman wants more displays of "incredible
power" that America showcased in Afghanistan as a deterrent to
future terrorism. On the axis of evil speech, Friedman confesses
that for all its demerits, "I'm still glad President Bush said
what he said" because "we have to be as crazy as some of our
enemies" to win the war. (p.178)
The author frets about the growing
"cultural-political-psychological chasm between us and the
Muslim world". (p.161) America is projected as a crass,
materialistic country lacking morals by Arab satellite and radio
stations. The US must make a big investment in "public
diplomacy" in the Muslim world to vigorously challenge the
bigoted views of the West circulated by mullahs. Tabloid Arab
media, which show one-sided telecasts of Israelis brutalizing
Palestinians, have to be countered to prevent anti-American rage
from consolidating. There is also an obvious defect in Islamic
radicalism, compared to other forms of fundamentalism. "Why is
it that only Muslims react to our bad policies with suicidal
terrorism, not Mexicans or Chinese?" (p.197) A lot of people in
this world are desperate, "yet they have not gone around
strapping dynamite to themselves". Friedman finds an antidote to
Wahhabi Islamism in Iranian reformists, who have now captured
world attention through Hashem Aghajeri. Even Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei is no longer opposed to Iran having diplomatic
relations with America, seeing how young Iranians "react against
an anti-American theocracy" and rebuke mullahs for imposing
dress codes and conservative lifestyles on them. Iranian
officials complain to Friedman that Bush is rewarding them with
hostility for all the help they rendered in the Afghan war
against the Taliban and despite the fact that "Iran has the most
democracy and the freest press of any Muslim country". (p.283)
Iran's climate of Islamic reformation that seeks to separate
mosque from state has to be nourished, no matter how deeply the
Iranian state and intelligence are involved in aiding al-Qaeda
activities. Saudi Arabia, the most important Muslim country, is
"essential to the solution", and Friedman suggests that Prince
Abdullah should follow the reform model of his biggest strategic
rival, Iran.
The third part of the book is an unpublished travel diary that
Friedman maintained on several visits to the Islamic world since
September 11. Just after the mega-terror events, he is in
Jerusalem reflecting "the America I had grown up in would never
quite be the same for my two daughters". (p.298) He takes pot
shots at the culture of denial of responsibility and conspiracy
theories that have weakened the social fabric of Muslim
societies. No progress can be attained by a people "who want to
blame others for all their troubles because they cannot face
looking at themselves". (p.311) Friedman narrates the story of a
Pakistani friend whose infant son is reprimanded in class for
challenging the canard that 4,000 Jews were warned not to go to
work in the World Trade Center on September 11. Not a single
American flight to Afghanistan flies today which is not shot by
tracer bullets from inside Pakistan by jihadis. Will the
friend's son one day join those snipers?
Longitudes and Attitudes is informative in parts,
especially the view that dark corners in Islamic societies
require lighting through self initiative. But Friedman's biases
and intense Americanism combine to bypass the same degree of
self-reflection on America's own foreign policy. He is "liberal"
enough to accept that "we do bad things and prop up bad
dictators", but never once in the book does he elucidate on
that.
If you are looking for a celebration of all things American or a
crash course in eloquent op-ed writing, don't look beyond Thomas
Friedman. But don't expect to read any honest analysis of
American shenanigans.
Longitudes and Attitudes. Exploring the World After September
11 by Thomas Friedman, Farrar, Straus Giroux, New York,
2002. ISBN: 0-374-19066-6. Price US$26, 383 pages.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact[email protected]
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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