Hating us for our Hollywoods

I've been trying to articulate something along these lines after reading the transcript of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's statement/confession yesterday, but young Master Ezra gets it exactly right.

For all the efforts to paint al-Qaeda as a bunch of deranged religious zealots who hate us for our freedoms (and our married gays!), the organization is quite clear on its aims. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, for instance, compares Osama bin Laden to George Washington, demands the independence of the Middle East, and says his aim was always to stop "American foreign policy in our land." Now, that may not be something we're willing to do, but it's not an indecipherable aim. As Fareed Zakaria memorably put it, "Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall—and crazy."

Doing so allow those in power to utterly ignore the roots of any particular conflict and instead use moments of national chaos to advance their own ideological agenda. For instance: If Americans had really understood that the Middle East has radicalized against us in large part due to our history of meddling and coups, in addition to our perceived bias in the Israel/Palestine conflict, they may have decided that invading Iraq was something less than a wise response. Since they were never given the relevant information to make that judgment -- al-Qaeda hates us for our freedoms! -- that choice never became explicit. And this continues on today: Just about no serious observers believe that Iran wants a bomb to blow up Israel. Many believe they want one to protect themselves from America. But what's sold in the American media is a bullshit rationale of Iranian aggression, rather than a more sober examination of their actual motivations.

Don't misunderstand, this is not intended to play into the usual strawmen -- the "Blame America First" crowd that is always pointed at when someone suggests that our policies in the Middle East are, um, not helping much. And it is not intended to explain away, or as a rationale for not reacting angrily, when 3,000 of our fellow citizens are horribly murdered. If we can get past those rightwing reactions, then maybe we can have a meaningful discussion of how we can begin to figure out a way to disinflame the hatred felt for us by so many in the Middle East (and large swaths of Asia).

But meaningful discussions are not what the wingnuts are looking for (that's why we call them "wingnuts"), and the deeper the inquiries go into Republican Congressmen's craven corruption and the Administration's flat out impeachment-worthy offenses, the louder will be the call that Iran wants to destroy Israel and "they hate us for our anal sex."