Differentdrummer

Marketing World War III

With President Bush unable to  convince Americans that his Iraq policy  is working and Republicans up for re-election in the Senate and House of Representatives increasingly worried, Newt Gingrich has come to the rescue. The former congressman and architect of the Republican mid-90s ascent to power in the House hasn't come up with any new policies designed to solve America's foreign policy crises. But he's trying to do the next best thing ---a marketing strategy to keep Republicans in power.

His latest effort, admittedly clever, is to re-conceptualize the conflicts currently  going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, and India along with the tensions surrounding Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions as theatres of  one war, WWIII. The purpose of this spin is that it has the potential to inspire Americans to emulate the spirit of sactifice that WWII once did, paint Democrats and others critical of the Bush Administration as traitors who would have "cut and run" after Pearl Harbor, and slough off the debacle in Iraq and the growing troubles in Afghanistan as mere setbacks in a single front, akin to Dunkirk, on the road to a protracted but inevitable victory.

Democrats are aiming to nationalize the November 2006 mid-term elections as a referendum on Bush and Republican control of Congress. Republicans prefer voters ignore how Congress works in terms of majority Party dictatorship--- prioritizing items in a national agenda--- and focus entirely on whether one's local representative is a good deliverer of funding for strictly local projects.  In an analagous but inverted strategy, Gingrich wants to divert Americans' attention from the specific historical backgound and current realities of global "hotspots" and internationalize them by connecting dots that either have no business being connected ot have become connected only because of the Administration's policies.

Take the bombings in Mumbai. Was this a new theatre of WWIII or another in a long series of terrorist acts by Kashmiri insurgents who couldn't care less about a world-wide Islamist jihad, but have never reconciled themselves to the  details of  India's partition sixty years ago? Might the bombers, who happen to be Muslims mind getting aid from al Qaeda, or even identify with it in their quest? Of course not, but they'd be just as happy to get support from the American Jewish Congress,  Pat Robertson or the Gates Foundation. If they achieve their goals they'll stop bombing, not sign up to plant bombs in Grand Central Station.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is another endless struggle that has nothing to do with 9/11 and has been going on in various forms since before Osama was even born.  It is a struggle about turf, not ideology. Just because the same tactics (e.g., suicide bombings) can be found in a variety of guerilla wars doesn't mean the wars themselves have the same roots or that their respective insurgents have anything in common in the sense that Germany, Italy and Japan did,or, as during the Cold War, was true for almost all national Communist parties.

In much of the rest of the Mideast, the biggest conflicts have been between Shia and Sunnis.  We can see this unfolding in Iraq where the U.S. is increasingly a bystander in a civil war our invasion and post-war policies inadvertently brought about. By contrast, in Afghanistan, it is tribal and ethnic conflict that has torn that country apart for more than a generation. The Taliban became part of the al Qaeda connection because of Osama's aid, but their focus was basically on their own country not exporting their extremist views to Chicago.

The Muslim world, in truth, is divided everywhere by sectarian differences as well as harboring many who are secular. Sometimes the sectarians have little or no interest in politics and sometimes the secularists do (e.g., Fatah).  What most do want is to be left alone and there is a long-term resentment regarding Western attempts to control economic and poliitcal life in the Mideast. In fact, it is that resentment which accounts for whatever sympathy exists for Osama and al Qaeda, not the rigid theological ideology he would impose if his otherwise unpopular minions ever could take power in a Muslim society.

Then there is the case of Iran. It's clerical dictatorship is no doubt reprehensible, but is it really a threat to other countries? Even without nuclear weapons, it has a formidable military apparatus and weapons capable of wreaking havoc. But  why hasn't it used them to launch an attack on isreal, for example? Rhetoric is rhetoric; actions are actions. The fact is Iran has never invaded another country in the post-1979 era of islamic Revolution. The clerics mainly want to maintain their power and their anti-Israel stances are as much for domestic consumption as anything else. Their leaders understand that  launching a nuclear first-strike would be suidcial. But they also know that having nuclear weapons is the best insurance against an American invasion.

Finally, North Korea has perhaps the world's worst government, but how is it linked to WWIII? Only rhetorically. Their megalomaniacal leader is not a Muslim, not interested in territorial expansion, not even worrying South Koreans as much as U.S. sabre-rattling does (since North Korea threatens to annihilate the South only if the U.S. attacks them). What he wants is security, stroking,  money and no one threatening his personal macabre Disneyland.

The dots Newt Gingrich wants to connect are almost entirely made up of long-standing local conflcts that need not be internationalized because they have no common ideology and their protagonists no common goal. However, there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy . If the Bush Administration and its media allies (already the WWIII mantra is being hyped by  Fox and Friends) as well as opportunists on all sides (e.g., the Israeli government and al Qaeda) persist in seeing and acting as if there is some underlying unity where none need exist, an extraordinarily watered-down version of WWIII might come to pass. The new version, WWIIII-lite, would not involve nearly  as many countries, would involve a fraction of the world's population compared to its immediate predecessor, and would not have several million-man armies confronting each other not to mention tens of millions of dead. It wouild still be tragic and unnecessary.

Apart from the news media--ever hungry for a new "controversy" for talking heads on which to pontificate ("Is it really WWIII or not?")---and Republican operatives who hope this becomes the Swift Boat bonanza of 2004 redux ("Are the Democrats using Neville Chamberlain's playbook?") there is no reason for anyone else to buy into the marketing of WWIII. Iraq has made Americans understandably leery of crusades, but our sound-bite politics and news media ill-equip us to treat complex issues with the thoughtfulness they deserve.

John Mark Karr: Accidental Educator

It hardly came as a surprise when DNA analysis ruled out John Mark Karr  as a suspect in the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey.  When even Nancy Grace  expresses skepticism about the evidence against  a pedophile arrested for the most notorious unsolved murder in the United States since the Black Dahlia case in the late 40s, there's not much more to say for the prosecution.

While it is  worrisome for the rest of the country that Jon Benet's killer is likely still at-large the Karr episode does have the potential to educate the public about more than simply the perils of rushing to judgment in criminal cases. 

When, for example, critical questions began to be raised about  whether Karr's  apparent confession should be taken at face value, the media, while continuing to demonize him,  eventually began to  do  solid investigative reporting. So many  inconsistencies turned up that the  DNA-based exoneration was anti-climactic.  The silver lining  in this bi-polar performance by the media  is that  the public may now  have burned in its consciousness that false confessions are not only possible but more common than might be imagined.

In one study of a single Illinois county's murder trials covering a decade, for example,  247 confessions were ultimately disregarded by jurors. False confessions are more likely to occur in high-profile cases, but also when the accused are interrogated for a long time (with implied rewards for  confessing such as leniency or even being allowed to go home), have low IQs, are delusional, suffer from anxiety disorders,  have compliant personalities. or are disturbed attention-seekers.

In addition to sensitizing citizens (and potential jurors) to the possibility that  confessing to a crime should  not be sufficient evidence for conviction in either the court of public opinion or a court of law the Karr  fiasco  might also have educational value in re-framing the public's understanding of pedophilia. Unfortunately the media passed up this opportunity, possibly fearing that it might be perceived as "defending" pedophiles.

John Mark Karr is undoubtedly a pedophile insofar as he has sexual fantasies involving children. He is certainly a deeply strange and troubled man.  But  he also  was a married man who fathered several children. Moreover, to date, although he worked with very young children in a number of capacities---teaching and providing a home-based day care service---there is no evidence he molested any of them. His only arrest involves possessing child pornography, a misdemeanor.

Asssuming his portrait is accurate, and the media has not left many stones unturned in this case,  Karr's history  undermines two  widely held beliefs about pedophiles: 1) those drawn to very young children are incapable of having sexual feelings or performing with other adults and 2) pedophiles, unlike normal adults, invariably act on their fantasies by carrying out  deviant sexual  behavior.

Karr ,at the very least, engaged in sexual relations with an adult woman when he was married. Researchers not only maintain this is not unusual but the consensus seems to be that  what is rare or non-existent is a pedophile who can have sex only with young children. This is important because it is far easier to rehabilitate people who can respond sexually to more age-appropriate persons than someone who has no ability to get aroused with adults. In fact, a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics  study published in 2003 found that only 3.3 percent of child molesters  released after a prison term were re-arrested within the following three years for another sex crime directed against a child. 

Sex offenders can  learn to control their behavior and that, not their fantasies, is what society should be concerned with. Yet, both the public and justice system typically assume pedophiles are a singular sub-species of human who cannot sexually fantasize without acting upon what is imagined.  But is there any compelling evidence in support of this view?  Do all those who possess adult pornography involving violence or who have rape fantasies (including some women) actually try to act on the fantasies? Some perhaps, but  very few as a proportion of those exposed to such material.  Why should pedophiles be any different?  Most likely  they are either content to or accept the necessity to restrain their conduct because, if for no other reason, fear of the consequences of  being apprehended.

In fact, distasteful as the idea of kiddie porn may be to the overwhelming majority, including me, it may be that its availability might actually serve to reduce sexual crimes against children. Rather than being a spur to sex crimes, child pornography, like its adult variant, might reduce the consumer's sexual arousal by channeling it into harmless acts such as masturbation.

John Mark Karr  will eventually take his place as an answer in Trivial  Pursuit or a crossword puzzle. His fifteen minutes of fame might ordinarily have been taken by the annual August shark attack headlines. He deserves no more, but  though  we didn''t learn from him the truth about who killed JonBenet Ramsey,  Karr may have inadvertently  given us the opportunity to learn more important things.

Postscript:

Less than a week after John Mark Karr was exonerated in the Ramsey murder case a 29 year old Fairfield, Connecticut  man stabbed to death a 58 year old neighbor who the killer believed had molested his two year old daughter. The allegation was apparently made by the daughter to her mother who then informed her husband. Immediately thereafter  the father took a kitchen knife, broke into the neighbor's home, and stabbed him repeatedly.

Although many details of this case are unknown at this time residents familiar with the victim claim that he was frequently drunk, crashed his car into his own home while under the influence of alcohol,  yelled obscenities at children in his vicinity and had a history of  either deliberately or inadvertently exposing himself.

There seems little doubt  the murdered man was a danger to his community  because of  his  drinking behavior.  One might well believe the world was better off without him. Public opinion may well  be sympathetic to his killer and  make either the filing of a first degree murder charge, a conviction on it, or a typical penalty, if found guilty, unlikely.  However, I would argue it would be a grave injustice  to  ignore the seriousness of this crime.

First,  we have a justice system in this society that, despite occasional lapses,  does convict  and punish  the guilty.  Because of this there is no reason for vigilantism, and for those who take the law into their own hands, especially when it involves taking a life, being excused or given a slap on the wrist . 

Second, the only evidence we have that the murder victim molested the perpetrator's child was an alleged claim by a two year old that he did so.  Even assuming the child's mother accurately transmitted her daughter's report verbatim, the credibility of  a child  that age cannot be taken for granted.  Two year olds do tell the truth, but they also make things up, not to be malicious, but as a part of their playfulness.  The assumption that children must always be believed when making accusations of sexual molestation led to  miscarriages of justice during the child sexual abuse witch-hunts of the 1980s, such as the infamous McMartin day care trials in Califronia and the Little Rascals case in North Carolina.

Finally,  even if  the murder victim did touch the two year old there is no evidence thus far that she suffered physical injury in the encounter and at her age it is quite unlikely she will even remember the incident  in the future.  It is rare when events occurring prior to age three, even traumatic ones, can be recalled years later. Moreover, evidence from clinical research shows that the overwhelming majority  of young children who have been molested either exhibit no psychological ill-effects or do so for a relatively short time. The popular notion that non-violent molestation, by far the most common---about 99 percent---  has permanent psychological effects on victims,  has  not been supported by the most thorough research to date.

It is important to distinguish between very unpleasant experiences and those producing long term harm. Being molested is far more apt to be the former than the latter as has been reported in research in  several studies in which adults who had such experiences as children were asked whether they believed the incidents had long-term effects upon them. Unless the perpetrator was a close relative and/or the encounter was violent this rarely was the case.  Given the above evidence the murder of an alleged molester, even if  his guilt  could be established, is  punishment wildly disproportionate to the nature of  the offense. The killer's daughter's life will be undoubtedly affected far more by her father's reckless act  than  by anything  done to her by  the man who might have molested her.

Christiane Amanpour's Osama Problem and Ours

Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent, is one of the few American broadcast journalists who is respected outside of the confines of the United States. Besides fearlessly putting herself in harm's way in the world's battle zones, her reportage is typically crisp, well-informed, and above all, devoid of the excessive jingoism and intellectual superficiality that marks so much of mainstream media.

Amanpour's stature made me particularly interested in viewing  her heavily-promoted two hour special ,"In the Footseps of Osama Bin Laden," broadcast August 23 on CNN. Amanpour, along with co-producer and so-called "terrorist expert" Peter Bergen who in 1997 interviewed Bin Laden, do manage to avoid many of the usual pitfalls of Osama coverage. First, they eschew the use of common epithets---evil, monster--that typically find themselves in any  discussion of the world's most  famous Islamist jihadist and producer of 9/11. Second, they resist the temptation to psychoanalyze their subject or to attribute his actions to some personality disorder rooted in the dynamics of his family of orgin or some hitherto undisclosed childhood truma. Finally, they present him as a person who does not seem to have many of the characteristics of earth-shaking bad-guys: Osama, though quite wealthy, has lived modestly for decades, has not been involved in personal scandals and, while having sharp political disagreements with former associates, does not seem to have followed the path of Stalin, Hitler and Mao in feeling the need to have them physically eliminated.

The CNN special's "just the facts" approach, while being commended in several advance reviews of the program, did lead others, such as Virginia Heffernan, a television critic for the New York Times ( August 23, 2006) to complain that Amanpour verged on romanticizing Bin Laden. But as Amanpour herself noted in respopnse to this charge, her perspective is that to combat one's enemy one must understand him/her and demonization and pop psychology are counter-productive in this regard.

Despite Amanpour's commitment to objectivity, however, I feel viewers of the program have been short-changed in a number of respects which dramatically weaken the educational  and political value of the effort.

One area in which Amanpour fails is in an almost complete omission  of the larger historical context within which Bin Laden's political life developed. He is perceived largely as a man who embraced an extreme form of  Muslim theology because of his exposure to or association with several key Islamic thinkers.However, these influences were not primarily spiritual, but politicizing. Osama had came to develop a deep alienation from the political elites, the "near enemies" of his native Saudi Arabia and Egypt and, finally, the "far enemy", the United States, which in his view propped up these oppressive regimes and bankrolled Israel as its surrogate in maintaining western hegemony in the region.

Instead of this glossed-over perspective the audience should have been given a thirty minute overview of exactly how the west has helped create and sustain some of the unpopular Mideast regimes. To ignore this is to reinforce the belief, already almost universally held in the U.S., that Muslim anger is irrational and some sort of collective insanity. This worldview allows Americans and their political leaders to believe that we are hated because of our democratic freedoms and lifestyles and not our own "footsteps" in others' backyard. As Bin Laden has explicitly said, if his actions were designed to show his hatred for western culture and democracy he would have launched attacks against Sweden whose citizens embrace  far more secular, gender-bending, sexually permissive attitudes and lifestyles than do Americans.

Amanpour, in her attempt to learn about Osama the man, might have also discovered what Lawrence Wright in his deeply researched book on the origins and evolution of Al Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006), did: Bin Laden, misperceived as someone who eschews all modernity and wishes to re-invent the Middle ages, has one wife who is a Ph.D child psyhologist and another embraces American brand-name cosmetics and lingerie. Moreover, he allowed his young sons to play Nintendo, and had Al Qaeda trainees watch Arnold Schwarzenegger movies (albeit to learn combat tactics). But to note these surprise elements would be to muddy the narrative---the enemy from another planet.

A second shortcoming of "In the Footsteps of Osama Bin Laden" should be noted: the failure to address the critical role the U.S. played in promoting Bin Laden as well as others who would become Islamic jihadists. Bin Laden, Amanpour observes, got his first taste of Holy War in Afghanistan when he and others were ready and willing to be cannon fodder fighting the Soviet "infidels." The U.S.  clandestinely and gleefully lured the Soviets into Afghanistan as payback for their support of the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war.

Mahmood Mamdani's Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold war, and the Roots of Terror (2004) shows how the C.I.A. facilitated the recruitment of Islamists, the most extreme within the Muslim community, to fight a "proxy war" (i.e. no U.S. soldiers; no political fallout at home) to bloody the Russians. They even allowed one of Osama's eventual mentors, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called "blind Sheik", to come to the U.S. in 1990 as a reward for his work in the anti-Soviet jihad. Rahman was subsequently jailed for playing a role in the planning of terrorist attacks inside the U.S.  Amanpour discusses the Rahman-Bin Laden connection but never that between the Rahman and the C.I.A.

The omission of the C.I.A.- Al Qaeda connection in Amanpour's presentation is particularly surprising since her co-producer Peter Bergen's major work on Bin Laden dealt extensively with the Bin laden's rise to prominence in the Afghan campaign against the Soviets. To dwell on such ironies would once again depart from an ultimately simplistic story that teaches Amercans a bit more about Bin Laden without having to learn too much about ourselves---or at least our Administrations.

To understand Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization as it developed out of a specific set of historical circumstances is not to deny that Bin Laden and the groups that engage in actions inspired by him are dangerous and should be eliminated. But unless one comprehends the roots of the problem in the development of the economic, political and social realities of Muslim life in the societies in which they have lived, and how western and U.S. policies have helped make Al Qaeda more popular than the strictly religious prescriptions which Bin Laden also embraces ever would, little useful knowledge will be gained. And a little knowledge, we all should know, is a dangerous thing.