Sometimes a continuum comes full circle. In many ways the fascism of Hitler was a mirror image of Soviet Stalinist ideology. The ends were much the same and the means as well. So, in the current war on terror, which most Americans see as a righteous war, could we becoming like the enemy?
The recent released and somewhat sordid details of Al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confessions bring into light the eerie similarities between the two sides. If we can get beyond, for a moment, the confessions themselves and look at the means by which they were gotten and the underlying "principles" espoused by Mohammed, we see a merging of combatants.
It would appear, reports
Niall Ferguson in his LA Times column, that some forms of torture were used to get these confessions (which may taint their reliability to some degree). That we have accepted the idea that torture is acceptable says something about us, doesn't it? At the same time, Mohammed has claimed as his hero none other than our Founding Father, George Washington. If he is an enemy combatant, then surely George Washington, had he been captured by the British, would have been in much the same position. Don't you see the irony here? Our enemy sees himself as a revolutionary hero, while we choose the tactics of terrorists and torture our enemies.
THE OSMOSIS of this war is a reciprocal process. Consider what it reveals about Al Qaeda. It relied heavily on computers in preparing the 9/11 attacks. It has learned from Western warfare the importance of economic targets. It regards the manipulation of the media as an integral part of its terrorist mission. Its leaders speak English. And — most fascinating of all — its former military operational commander claims the greatest of America's founding fathers as his role model. I quote: "If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain. For sure … they would consider him enemy combatant."
You can imagine the assembled soldiery rolling their eyes heavenward. An Islamist Washington fighting for liberty against American redcoats? What could be more preposterous? Pace Mailer, in this war, it is far from obvious to the two sides that they are growing subtly alike.
Only in retrospect, as the historian leafs through the documents that survive redaction and classification, will it become apparent how the war on terror turned a part of us into our enemy — and a part of our enemy into ourselves.
Whether or not the aims of a war are honorable or not -- and that's another question -- when we choose to embrace the tactics of terror we have dishonored ourselves. This war in Iraq has at the very least stained our reputation in the eyes of the world and has inflamed the Islamic world. We proclaim the values of democracy and the rule of law and yet when we flout those values when they suit our purpose do we become any better than any of our enemies? And so we've taken on "a part of our enemy into ourselves" to our shame.
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