RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the nation, then suffering through the great depression, that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, as he was inaugurated in 1933. After the attacks on 9/11, America became a far more security conscious nation. There were real enemies we had to fear, who could strike the homeland, as no one had successfully done since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 until the al-Qaida strikes that grim day. A new homeland security infrastructure was built, designed both to identify threats, and protect Americans in the event of future attacks.

But the U.S reaction was also to take the fight to those who had launched the attack, and those that the Administration believed posed a continuing threat. The war against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan commenced within a month, and the Iraq War, a year and a half later. The Iraq War proved far more controversial, of course, and costly (three times as many combat fatalities as in Afghanistan).

The military response was, in part, a result of a conclusion reached by the Bush administration that the weak U.S response to prior terror attacks may have encouraged the attacks that had occurred on 9/11. The first World Trade Center attack in 1993, the bombing of U.S military facilities in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the twin attacks on the U.S embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, were all largely ignored, other than for an unproductive one day of cruise missile operations after the embassy bombings. The U.S. military operations during the 1990s were limited to bombing campaigns against Slobodan Milosovic’s Serb forces in Bosnia and Kosovo, performed as part of NATO operations in both places, with no ground force involvement.

Now 10 years on from 9/11, the nation seems war weary, and much more focused on domestic issues. A few of the Republican contenders for the presidential nomination in 2012 seem to have adopted the isolationist strand which existed in the Republican Party decades back. Significant cutbacks in defense spending are guaranteed as a result of the recent deficit deal. President Obama campaigned in 2008 on a platform to end U.S involvement in Iraq, and focus more on the “good war” in Afghanistan. Now, after a surge of forces in Afghanistan, and the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, the president is starting to unwind U.S involvement there as well.

Obama has conducted a campaign of outreach to the Muslim world since he took office. He has never visited Israel as president, but in the first six months after his inauguration, he gave major speeches in Turkey and Egypt detailing his respect for the Islamic faith, and for the historic and current contributions of Muslim nations. Al-Qaida was the enemy, not Islam, and al-Qaida and its adherents were the few, the peaceful Muslim world were the many.

Obama’s approach, and his interpretation, have largely won the day in major institutions in America the last few years, among politicians, the military, journalists, and most notably, in universities. What we now have to fear is not terrorism, but economic insecurity on the homefront, and Islamophobia, and the rejection of “the other.” That this political correctness has carried over to the U.S. military was evidenced by the fact that a mass murderer of American soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas, in Nov. 2009, had been allowed to remain in a position of authority in the military for four years before his attack, despite widespread awareness of his connections to radical Islam, and terrorists abroad.

At major American universities, such as Harvard and DePaul, 9/11 has become a moment for students, and faculty to rid themselves of the scourge of Islamophobia. The president of DePaul, in an extraordinarily feckless message to all students, neglected to even mention the role of Todd Beamer, a DePaul alumnus on United flight 93, since someone who fought back might interfere with his message of inclusiveness.

“That horrific day challenged our acceptance of members of our community who dressed and worshipped differently. That day tested our commitment to forgiveness and giving others the benefit of the doubt. Yet somehow we reached back to our faith and principles and kept on talking and listening to each other, no matter how much 9/11 tempted us to be vengeful or suspicious. I have been proud of the DePaul community in the ways that it has continued to model a warm, welcoming community to all, and resisted fear and prejudice as unworthy of our Vincentian ideals. “For some, this will be the first time they are in class with a Muslim woman in a hijab or have a roommate of a different color … We have to reassure our newcomers and constantly remind ourselves that our diversity binds and strengthens us as a community of educated men and women.”

America is turning inward, and beginning to let down its guard. Our ability to influence events abroad seems to be declining (the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath in Egypt and Syria, Turkey’s anti-western and anti-Israel shift), and we seem less anxious to try to shape events. Ten years on from 9/11, an insidious message is forming that we don’t have enemies unless we create them, and so we are often our own worst enemy. “Let’s roll” back under the covers or better, give ourselves a big inclusive group hug.