An American Burqa
I recently came across a justification for the burqa which many Afghani women-even post Taliban -feel compelled to wear, the head to toe garment which they were required to wear whenever outside the home, “Inside it you feel free”, claimed the writer.
What?! Not free of the fear that you'll be beaten if it should slip and reveal so much as an inch of skin Not free to travel unescorted. Not free to pursue a career. And certainly not free to participate in the governing of your society. Does the writer of this justification truly believe that any clear thinking American will accept such an obvious reversal of the truth?
But still, what a clever bit of doublespeak! I’ll have to send that one to President Bush. I’m sure he’ll be as indignant as any American woman that someone would try, by twisting a few clever words, to dupe the American people into believing that a heinous and repressive edict should be viewed as liberating to women.
“Inside the burqa you feel free”! That’s like saying that black is white or evil is good. Like saying we won’t release the names of over 1000 uncharged 9-11 detainees for their own protection. Like saying that we delayed releasing a bin Laden video in order not to re-traumatize the families of 9-11 victims. Like admonishing as unpatriotic any Congressman who insisted on reading the anti-terrorism bill before voting on it. Like pressuring the major networks not to televise bin Laden speeches because in them he might be signaling his minion to conduct new acts of terrorism. Like the founder of a major television network declaring it his patriotic duty to censor the news when asked to by the president.
Like telling us that terrorists attacked us because they’re jealous of our freedoms. Or even like telling Americans to go on about their business as usual in order to show the terrorists that they can’t impinge upon our liberty-- even as President Bush, John Ashcroft, Ari Fleischer, and Donald Rumsfeld sieze the opportunity to strip away so many of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.
Like saying this is a war of good versus evil. There’s plenty of evil to go around. Like condemning as barbaric their attack which results in the deaths of our innocent civilians, and then declaring unfortunate but necessary the deaths of their innocent civilians when our missiles go astray. Like then secretary of state Madelaine Albright's response to Leslie Stahl when asked if the embargo of Iraq was worth the estimated one million Iraqi children who’ve perished under it. "Yes", Albright answered, "Yes, we think so".
Like a new president's popularity rating rising from 50 to 90% just because he happened to be in office when we were attacked. Like even saying that Bush even is our democratically elected president.
Just because a member of the governing elite says it is so, doesn’t make it so. Like former New York mayor David Dinkins saying, "I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law." Only a politician could come up with such a line and say it with a straight face. Politicians like making distinctions between terrorist murder by bombing and our murders by embargo. Which isn't to say that we haven’t dropped our share of bombs. Like saying that the 2000 pound bombs we dropped onto unsuspecting Lebanese neighborhoods in 1983 were not provocation for the bombing of the US barracks in Beirut which killed 284 American soldiers.
Like saying that wars only start when bombs are dropped. "War,” said von Clausewitz in his oft-quoted aphorism, “is the continuation of politics by other means.” Yet we insist that the Carter/Reagan declaration to protect Saudi Arabia from all enemies, foreign and domestic was not provocation for Saudi dissidents to view America as their enemy. Like saying that the embargo of Iraq was not an act of war. Like saying we're punishing Saddam Hussein with the embargo.
Like focusing completely on the innocent victims in New York and never mentioning the other, clearly military target of the Pentagon. Like announcing a payout of up to 3.5 million dollars for the richest victims of 9-11 and only a tenth of that for lower socioeconomic victims.
The Bush administration is carrying on in the grand tradition of doublespeak. Not only do they contradict themselves-that is a time honored political convention -but they twist their words to convey the opposite meaning. John Ashcroft not only urges Congress to quickly pass the anti-terrorism act without debate, but he admonished them so that their desire to debate the issues is seen by the American public as unpatriotic. The final vote of 96 to 1 in the senate signals neither patriotism nor bi-partisanship only fear. Fear that they’ll lose their Congressional seats.
Even more devious was Ashcroft’s excuse for not releasing the names of 9-11 detainees. He said it was for the protection of the detainees reputations. Where is the precedent? More than any other group in recent memory, the Bush administration is about smoke and mirrors-- well, maybe not. I remember a president who said he could balance the budget by cutting taxes while increasing military spending and starting a star wars program-- resulting in the largest deficits in history. I remember his successor saying, "Read my lips: NO NEW TAXES-- and then raising them. I remember the successor's son signing a tax cut weighted heavily toward the rich based upon a projected surplus which turned into deficit before the ink had even dried. And let's not forget the one in between, who convinced Congress that sex isn't sex unless he says so.
But I digress. Like forecasting a quick end to the recession and
a sharp upturn in the U.S. economy even as unemployment rises uncontrollably.
Like writing a corporate welfare check to IBM for 1.4 billion dollars months
after the computer giant declared a 7 billion dollar profit. Like
a group of opportunists, using an American tragedy to not only divert attention
from their underhanded dealings but to justify them. Law enforcement
agencies have long wished for expanded surveillance powers, curtailment
of search and seizure restrictions, and foreshortening of due process.
Only after 9-11, in an atmosphere of panic and paranoia were they able
to pass their agenda. The Republicans have long wanted to end the
alternative minimum tax on corporations. The 9-11 fairy may even
now be granting their wish.
Like Rumsfeld’s early proclamation that “some Al Qaida leaders have been killed” but we don’t know which. When it is convenient, we hear that bin Laden “may already be dead”. If he is, my prediction is that we won’t be told for years. The U.S. needs “evil” black hearted enemies. The military-industrial complex made zillions keeping us in terror of the “communist menace”. When the cold war ended, we invented the Ayatollah Koumeni and then Saddam Hussein to feed our bloodlust. Curiously, Hussein was allowed to remain in power after the gulf war. Was this to buy/sell more smart bombs? Having left bin Laden alive to hate, we can probably afford to bait Hussein into some act which will give us an excuse to wipe him out and install a government more hospitable to Shell, Exxon and Standard Oil.
I have every confidence that the Bush brain trust is astute enough to be cultivating a few more public enemies and evil ones around the globe. Let us not forget that Hussein, bin Laden, Agosto Pinochet, Ferdinand Marcos, Manuel Noriega, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Jonas Savimbi and many other “evil ones” were all at one time U.S. clients. Why does the government need enemies? To distract us from looking too closely at their actions. So we won’t question corporate welfare disguised as economic stimulus. So we’ll accept censorship and being spied on. They’ve wanted these new search and spy powers for years but without a national catastrophy, they’ve never been able to put together the momentum to get them through Congress. Now thanks to 9-11, we’re paranoid enough to accept their doubletalk and give our rights away. Like a long, thick, formless, blue burqa, we envelop ourselves in their doublespeak. But hey, “Inside it you feel free”.