Not even a quarter century after the Cold War ends, the two great super-powers find themselves scratching their heads. In both cases the gruesomely attacked nations have had a deep history of exploiting and/or murdering the very groups of humans responsible. In entirely separate circumstances two groups of people managed to evolve from being collateral damage, over time in such a way, that the revenge they sought came to fruition in the form of cold-blooded mass murder generations later.
Our point of view as Americans or Russians, being that we are the victims here, are vastly skewed by a philosophical difference of opinion regarding the value of including our respective histories with each group in the discussion. Some folks in the political arena are exhibiting a sense of urgency in ensuring that the concept of motive is demonized and shunned as sick and unpatriotic. The respective governments involved are no doubt appreciative of such efforts. Though as the age of information is now upon us, it’s going to become a harder sell over time.
Of course the downfalls of giving credence to the notion of culpability based on past government actions are that morale will suffer, reparations will be sought, and the legacies of past leaders are skewed. Pride takes a hold of one political side, while accusations and vilification take hold of the other. Segments of the cultures will simply be in denial over it and remain that way for as long as it takes, perhaps straight through till death.
Look no further than to Vietnam veterans who continue to believe that their government used them to fight a just war. The same type of myths the machine is pumping out now regarding why all of this happened, is similar to what parts of the Vietnam generation bought in to. Is it that the leaders felt that we couldn’t handle the truth? That in spite of what it takes to survive with success in the world as it is, we haven’t the capacity for such scathing reality? What difference would the truth make in the political landscape? The dynamic that candor on the subject would lead to, is exactly what we have right now anyway in the United States, two sides in political opposition. The legitimacy of the discussion though would skyrocket, and accountability would creep its way back into the fold as public awareness would force the true ‘bottom line’ to come back in focus.
History lends itself as the truest compass known to humanity to those committed to approaching life’s challenges with wisdom and realism, in the face of politics and emotions. Someone once explained to me that while it was great to have a high IQ, having an equally high ‘EQ’ (emotional quotient) was just as, if not more important in achieving success success in the world. An inability to limit the negative effect emotions can have on your decision making, being it pride, anger or insecurity, most certainly impedes progress towards a clear resolution of any problem one faces in life. This universal truth sometimes takes even the best of us a lifetime to learn.
The Cold War provided several examples where pride-soaked emotions managed to convince leaders of both the Soviet Union and United States, that achieving supremacy justifiably trumped the value of human life. What made the situation, where it involved government, all that more worse is when you consider the net volume of emotions and intelligence all mixed together. The Vietnam War is our era’s most stunning instance where this dynamic clogged up the flow of rational thought, through a stubbornly drawn-out and needlessly deadly period of time. It’s clear in analyzing this piece of history, that many individuals put their own desire to forego having to admit mistakes in front of the stated goal. How does it happen?
‘Groupthink’ is a reality concerning collaboration amongst human beings, and how it can go wrong when it involves an unhealthy level of uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view. Politics and emotion are the most likely culprits when this takes place, and what we find happens is that the overall quality of the end product or decision is often not at all reflective of the individual capabilities of those involved, but is instead reflective of their ability to properly manage their emotions.
Aggressive, combatant personalities intimidate possible voices of dissention, and how in the role of government, the particular decision of the group comes off in the public’s eye often trumps what is proclaimed to be the true objective. In this dynamic there are a number of emotions at play such as fear, vanity, pride and gratification.
The histories of both the United States and Russia have been manipulated by the pitfalls of groupthink and the emotions that drive powerful men to consider a decision’s appearance to be more important than the impact it has on solving a specific problem. It’s within this scenario that I feel the historical policy decisions of both nations have directly facilitated both horrific attacks that have taken place within mere years of one another.
Now that it’s happened, is the goal at hand to provide mental comfort by assuring us it’s arbitrary whether or not the past has anything to do with it? What purpose does this serve? What’s so dangerous about puting the pieces together? Consider for a moment the possible existence of another group of people done wrong by us in the past with a similar axe to grind, perhaps it’s a situation where we have the chance to make amends before something erupts. With Timothy McVeigh there was no way to have known, but 9/11 was a chapter in a long story. Is the peace of mind provided by our denial of this really worth it?
During the Iran-Iraq war, both armies killed one another with weapons purchased from the United States. Saddam Hussein used chemical warheads supplied by us to gas the flesh off of the Iranians, and then the Shiites and Kurds alike. The Regan administration oversaw a society in which you were not allowed to drink until turning 21 years of age, yet considered it appropriate to arm the inhabitants of hostile regions on the other side of the globe with deadly weapons. That crack-cocaine suddenly appeared in abundance on the streets of America towards the end of the Cold War, destroying most unlucky enough to have crossed paths with it, provides an apt point of reference in what we actually did to these people with this morally disgraceful enterprise in the Middle East.
We then decided to arm and deploy a group of Saudi militants to combat the Soviets is Afghanistan. One of individuals to whom they issued money, weapons and a license to kill, was kin to the incredibly wealthy Bin Laden family. When these militants were no longer necessary, they were tossed out like garbage. The leader of this group, a man by the name of Osama Bin Laden, angered by this turn of events, returned home to find much less than gratitude. The benefits and influence between the Saudi royal family and that of the American Bush family proved to trump his own through all of this. A time came that all of these men realized they had been exploited, and from this the seed was planted.
The United States had armed the region, enabled a dictator in Iraq to facilitate mass murder on his own people, and chose to beguile the wrong group of mercenaries who later claimed their revenge on our nation’s largest and most notorious city. 14 of the 19 attackers were from Saudi Arabia.
The Chechens who killed more than 320 children in the Beslan school bombing were descendants of a Russian ethnic group, who after World War II, were taken by Josef Stalin up into the Siberian permafrost and left there to die. In the years that followed, they attempted to claim their independence from this nation that had committed genocide against them. Two bloody wars followed, and multitude of years that passed by managed to lend credence to the grim reality that the Russian government was never going to acknowledge or compensate them for the atrocities committed against their ancestors.
What’s baffling is that out of all the vast lands of Russia, some of which have not yet been explored, the government couldn’t spare any land for these people to call their own, yet they had sold Alaska straight up. Interestingly enough, the United States economy and government wasn’t the one out of the two that eventually crumbled. In our own history a great leader forced us to look in the mirror and realize that slavery was inhumane, and although the war which ensued claimed more American lives than any war has since, it was an essential step towards becoming as prosperous and celebrated a country as we did in the century that followed.
You’d think that for the Soviets at the time, the horrific actions of Stalin against the Chechens could have been empathized over and corrected with some goodwill, but the government’s policy of ‘amnesia-tic force’ prevailed. The moral authority within, naturally guiding each of us through our daily lives, was never allowed to make its way up that political ladder. When the leaders were trusted to act on behalf of their country’s interests, each action was personalized, with maintaining the appearance of supremacy trumping all else. Egos, groupthink and megalomania steered the plane directly into the mountain.
To save the United States from such a fate there is a much better system in place of course, but in terms of the tendencies of our leadership, often there are decisions made solely to maintain an appearance of supremacy. Fallujah provides us a perfect example of this, as throughout the Iraq war it was emphasized that we could not give in, or be prompted towards specific action, in response to the acts of the terrorist insurgency. It’s been repeated over and over again by our leaders that to do so only provides them more power and support. Within that city, four American civilians were brutally mutilated and paraded through the streets. When the images showed up on television sets, wisdom, strategy and more importantly, moral authority were thrown out the window.
In spite of so much talk about knowing what to do, emotions eclipsed the virtue of prior military lessons learned, pride was manipulated, and ultimately leaders on the ground were given orders from ‘up top’ to attack in response. US Marine General James T. Conway broke ranks merely days after relinquishing command of the unit charged to invade the city in saying that, “When we were told to attack Fallujah, I think we certainly increased the level of animosity that existed.” In the US version of the groupthink that launched us into war in the first place, cooler heads were not the ones calling the shots, and with this inability to separate oneself from the situation and consider the whole, hypocrisy prevailed.
Deep down all of these leaders know what they have to do, but only the great ones are ever able to stick to the basics and practice what they preach. The truly great leaders of this world have understood that to achieve true legitimacy, one must ensure that the lessons taught to a nation’s children growing up, are embodied in the actions of that nation. They understood that the fundamental behavior necessary for living an honerable life did not cease to matter when something attractive was waved in front of them. For as much as the world’s people differ, the overwhelming majority of all mankind longs to lead honorable lives themselves. It is this truth that has always made us more the same than we’ve ever been different than our fellow inhabitants of this great world.
While the donation of money and aid to people in need around the globe is noble, the need for moral clarity in our actions abroad cannot be bought at any price. Neither can the glory of our ideals be instilled at a monetary price within the hearts and minds of the people. Because when you break it all down to basic facets such as ‘being the bigger person’ and ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’, it is then that the one common language understood by humans everywhere comes in to play.
We tell our children that regardless of what good they do, it never gives them an excuse to get away with doing wrong. The true Samaritan doesn’t justify wrongdoing a little bit further up the road simply because they helped someone a mile back. The United States for decades has schemed to prove this theory wrong, and the evidence of its failure is plainly evident in the country of Iraq today. There is a strong contingent of citizens who believe in the fact that because of the nation’s good-will, there is absolutely nothing out of bounds, and will defend any action the government takes. We forego these lessons of humanity ourselves, and in turn bear a part of the burden for the actions of the leaders we elect.
It is not the responsibility of anyone but ourselves to draw a moral line in the sand when it comes to our participation in the world community. In the United States there exists a standard to which, ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse.’ The same holds true concerning the exploits of profit-driven leaders and their actions abroad. The notion of there being any nobility whatsoever in burying your head in the sand, or buying in to the absurdity that action does not prompt reaction is selfish and elitist to the core. Ignorance or apathy in the face of this monumental turn of events in our great nation’s history will only ensure further suffering, as well as perpetuate a higher level of misunderstanding between us and the rest of the world.
Right now we’re approaching life in the United States as if the entire galaxy revolves around us and only us. The line we use to deflect criticism of others is to say that, ‘they’re just jealous of us.’ It’s as if our persona has taken on that of a pop star over time. Regardless of what we appear to be now though, the future is upon us, and it’s up to us to make it right. Not one citizen is void of responsibility in ensuring that our leaders represent the nation in the way it deserves to be. Too much good has been squandered for treasure and preference, and on 9/11 the reaper swooped in and took some of it back. It happened for a reason, and not even a complicated one at that.
No matter what good our government or its people do, nothing will ever justify the type of behavior that took place during the Cold War. Both Russia and the United States shamelessly exploited whoever they could, used the world’s population like it was their own personal ant farm, and inevitably unleashed the reaper on nearly everything they touched for the sake of supremacy.
Millions of innocent people…Vietnamese, Chechens, Russian school children and New York residents to name a few, have paid the price for crimes committed on high levels that they had nothing to do with. Collateral damage from one indiscretion creates collateral damage in response, sparking our vanity, prompting us to repeat the cycle. Breaking this cycle is the key to our salvation, ensuring that our image in the world arena from this time forward honestly matches our rhetoric.
The true ‘challenge of this generation’ is to ensure that it is never allowed to happen again. The great burden of responsibility is not solely based on our hunting down terrorists, but to do better as human beings. It is our burden to get real about our history, look at ourselves in the mirror, and punish those among us who aim to further exploit our neighbors abroad. This is the crucial point in our existence where we need to get over ourselves and simply practice what we preach.