Colonial Imprints and Perceived Proselytizing in the Muslim World

The Wall Street Journal ran, what I thought was, a self-serving editorial entitled “Journalists and the Military” on May 17. In it they sanctimoniously chastised Newsweek for its explanation of what they called a “dubious Koran desecration story”. So I wrote them the following letter in response:

Why is it that conservative media outlets, such as yours, exhibit a “holier than thou” attitude when writing about the media in general? The “basic media mistrust of the military that goes back to Vietnam and has shown itself with a vengeance during the Iraq conflict and the war on terror” is a figment of your imagination. The reality is that the larger media is still smarting from being “led by the nose”, by the Bush Administration and its conservative media backers (you, again), during the build up to the Iraq war. I am inclined to believe that the larger media does not mistrust the military – it mistrusts those that led us into this war on false pretenses!

Needless to say, my contrarian viewpoint was not included among the seven largely supportive (of their editorial) letters that got published in today’s edition of the Journal under the headline, “Newsweek and the Story That Never Was”. Notwithstanding their rejection, I was placated by David Brooks’ column entitled “Bashing Newsweek” in today’s New York Times. By seeing the forest for the trees, this conservative columnist offered a rational analysis of the entire incident, including the subsequent hysteria that it generated.

Now, Anne Applebaum had also made some good points on the Newsweek story in her column entitled “Blaming the Messenger” in yesterday’s Washington Post. However, she had concluded her piece with the following statement:

And, yes, people whose military and diplomatic priorities include the defeat of Islamic fanaticism and the spread of democratic values in the Muslim world need to be very, very careful, not only about what they say but about what they do to the Muslims they hold in captivity.

In my mind, there is an inherent contradiction embedded in this statement and it is captured in the phrase “Islamic fanaticism”. When the western media qualifies the fanatical behavior of terrorists by associating it with the Islamic faith – that in of itself is a problem! Even if this association were true in the eyes of the western media, the war on terrorism can never be won until such a derogatory association between fanaticism and Islam is severed. If we are to win over the hearts and minds of the larger Muslim populace, the western world – which happens to be a largely Judeo-Christian world – has to “cease and desist” from linking terrorism with Islam. As long as the insurgents in Iraq are viewed as defenders of their faith by the larger Muslim populace, it will be almost impossible for us to rid Iraq of the insurgency. Similarly, Osama Bin Laden can never be captured as long as we continue to represent him as an “Islamic fundamentalist”. In fact, I have repeatedly made this point in my forthcoming book, “The Bush Diaries”, as illustrated in the sample below:

History has proven time and again that wars, which are based on religious differences, last for the longest time. Neither side is ever willing to concede that they are the “children of a lesser God”. The western world’s consistent references to “Islamic fundamentalism” only fuel the anger of the Muslim world. If the war on terrorism is ever to be won it has to be divested of its religious inferences.

This might sound simplistic, but it is the truth. Newsweek happened to touch a raw nerve, which had long been exposed by the serial bungling – as characterized by Ms. Applebaum in her column – of the Bush Administration in its prosecution of the war on terrorism. If we are to win this war, the western world’s policies must be consistent – not only “walking the walk” without any colonial imprints, but also “talking the talk” without any perceived proselytizing – throughout the Muslim world.