Well, duh!

An article in the Saturday edition of the Canberra (Australia) Times says that a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute concludes that

Australia needs to start taking terrorists at their word when they say they attack us for our support of United States foreign policies....

The report's author, analyst Aldo Borgu, said a popular myth propagated by many governments, including Australia's, was that terrorists targeted Western countries because of their culture, rather than their policies. This was a convenient argument to get them off the hook for taking responsibility for their actions. ...

"... With respect to Australia we need to start taking the terrorists at their word, and not just selectively. If they say that our policies in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq are the reason for the attacks, then there's no reason not to believe them."

This would seem to be just common sense. In fact, it is common sense. So why does it take a special report by some leading Australian think tank to say it? Why does it have to be said at all?

Borgu makes the point that the myths such as "they hate our freedom" serve to insulate governments from the consequences of their actions. But it goes deeper - or, more accurately, spreads wider. It's not just the governments, it's the people, the public, the rest of us. We have to swallow those same myths in order for them to function.

And they do go down easily, don't they? It's easy, it's comforting, to believe them. They relieve us of the necessity as citizens to reconsider ourselves, to pass judgment on ourselves, to question ourselves. To admit that terrorist attacks could arise from our policies is to admit that it's at least possible that those policies could produce injustices, that others could have legitimate grievances against us. And that might require changing those policies. And that might affect us.

To maintain instead that the source of violence is actually unreasoning hatred of something like "freedom" or "modernism" is to say that the perpetrators can't be reasoned with - and more importantly, neither do their arguments require any rebuttal nor do their actions require any change in policy, since they are irrelevant to the cause.

A member of the Shrub team got blasted recently for saying that Resident Bushleague thinks of us like 10-year old children, to be looked after and protected. But the truth is, in many ways we as a people are not even that mature; we are more like a 4-year old who snatches another child's toy and who, when that other child reacts by hitting them, will cry that they were hit "for no reason at all." We remain, that is, seemingly incapable of connecting our actions with others' reactions.

Continuing to cling to the myth that terrorism is not about articulable policies but rather about mist-laden values that actually proclaim our innocence and purity allows us to continue to live as children, without the need to question ourselves or face the terrifying prospect of responsibility and change.

Borgu's report makes clear that the US is not the only nation so afflicted. That is not good news.

Footnote: Borgu also said that terrorism campaigns are often ones of attrition, spread over 20 to 30 years.

"Patience and perseverance are the most important qualities to retain in order to effectively combat terrorism. The aim of most terrorists is to provoke an over-reaction from the target government in order to further estrange them from the target population," he said.

Afghanistan, anyone? Iraq, anyone? Duh.