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It Matters Now. It Matters Later. Blackwater Makes It Too Easy to Hate UsBy Rick Horowitz The guy I'm most afraid of in the Middle East hasn't even been born yet. I don't find that thought especially comforting. Not when we're already giving him -- unborn, unnamed -- a lifetime supply of bedtime stories. Stories he won't find comforting. "Who cares what they think?" "Who cares whether they like us or not?" I hear that every now and again from the local branch of the "Turn them into a parking lot" caucus. I hear it whenever there's another incident -- in Iraq, or anywhere else -- that's got the local population in an uproar against the United States. "We're the most powerful country on the planet," the caucus insists. "We can do whatever we want." "Whatever we want" can be Blackwater USA killing a bunch of civilians in Baghdad. Or our soldiers kicking down the door to somebody's apartment in the middle of the night. Or Guantanamo, or Abu Ghraib. Or torture. "Who cares whether they like us or not?" It's a fair question. After all, we're not out there -- wherever "there" is -- to win popularity contests, are we? We're there to protect our interests. American interests. And if we've got to break a few eggs to make our omelets -- well, that's the way it goes. They'll get over it. Except that they don't. And they won't. And that puts our interests in jeopardy. That puts our own people in danger. I understand: An occupying army is always going to rub people the wrong way; it goes with the territory. Some mistakes are unavoidable. War has never been a tidy business, and that goes double for counterinsurgencies. But doing things -- needless things, heedless things -- to make even more people even angrier -- How is that helpful to us? Why do we think it's a good idea to turn even more young Muslim men against us? And not just turn them against us in a "wish you weren't here, wish you'd go home" kind of way, but turn them from merely resenting us to actively hating us, and vowing revenge on us? Have you noticed? The Middle East is not a place that forgets things quickly. I mean, they're still killing each other about things that happened 1300 years ago! Why do we think they're simply going to look at some of the things we've done over there and say, "Oh, never mind." "Time to move forward." "Bygones are bygones." It won't happen. They'll want to settle the score. And that's dangerous. To us. See, that guy I'm most afraid of in the Middle East? The one who hasn't even been born yet? Someday -- maybe not all that long from now -- he will be born. He'll have a name, a home, a neighborhood, a family. And as he grows up, he'll hear all these stories about the way his father was mistreated, or his mother. His grandfather. His uncle. And he'll swear on everything holy that if it takes him the rest of his life -- even if it costs him his life -- he'll have justice. And the more people who feel that way -- if instead of ten America-haters vowing vengeance, it's ten thousand -- the more likely it is that one of them will get through all our careful security checks with a bomb in his bag. It's simple mathematics -- and human nature. That's why we should care what they think. That's why we should care whether they like us or not. It's not about us being nice. It's about us being safe. Posted 9/30/07. For
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Rick Horowitz
