Sobran Column -- The Unknown Enemy

Sat Sep 15 15:50:42 PDT 2001

The Unknown Enemy (Sample column)
September 11, 2001 

by Joe Sobran

     It was predictable. For years I've been writing that 
the U.S. Government has been making more enemies than 
Americans really need, all over the globe, and that one 
of these days some of them would have a nasty surprise 
for us. 

     In fact it nearly happened a few years ago, when 
Islamic radicals tried to blow up the World Trade Center. 
But of course they made a botch of it and got caught. 

     This time, though, someone pulled off what must have 
been an extremely cunning conspiracy, a criminal feat for 
the ages. They managed to execute a secret plan calling 
for four simultaneous hijackings of airplanes. Those who 
committed these coordinated deeds -- in spite of all 
security measures -- also had the determination to die in 
hitting their targets. 

     This wasn't "terrorism." This was war. It wasn't a 
random attempt to scare people with an arbitrary 
atrocity, like the bombing of a pizza joint; it was a 
serious attempt to kill as many people and do as much 
material damage as possible at two strategic targets, the 
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 

     But, as I write, hours after the attacks, we don't 
know who is at war with us. We may never know. Who has 
reason to hate this country? Only a few hundred million 
people -- Arabs, Muslims, Serbs, and numerous others 
whose countries have been hit by U.S. bombers. 

     Imagine hating a country so much that you were 
willing to cross an ocean and carry out an elaborate 
revenge against its people, killing yourself in the 
process. This is something far more than the sort of 
ideological anti-Americanism that leads student mobs to 
throw stones at U.S. embassies abroad; that's kid stuff. 
This is an obsessive, fanatical, soul-consuming hatred. 

     Foreigners aren't quite real to Americans, and most 
Americans are unaware of how profoundly their government 
antagonizes much of the human race. We are easy-going 
people who generally have no idea how bullying we seem to 
foreigners. Until now, we have had no experience of what 
the U.S. Government has so often inflicted on others. 
Now, at least, we have an inkling of what it feels like. 

     Government spokesmen have responded with their usual 
cant of "cowardly attacks" by "terrorists" who "hate 
democracy and freedom." Rubbish. A fanatic who is ready 
to die is the opposite of a coward, and nobody can "hate" 
such abstractions as "democracy and freedom" with that 
kind of intensity. 

     It's dangerous to belittle your enemy, especially 
when his courage and cunning have already proved as 
formidable as his hatred and cruelty. The first question 
you should ask about your enemy is why he is your enemy 
in the first place. 

     You may be deluding and flattering yourself if you 
assume he hates you for your virtues. But our "leaders" 
assure us that our enemies are unnaturally evil people 
who hate us only because we are so wonderful. And they 
manage to utter this nonsense with an air of tough-minded 
realism. 

     True realism, on the other hand, doesn't mean 
blaming Americans for bringing these horrifying and truly 
evil acts on themselves. It does mean trying to imagine 
alien perspectives from which our government's conduct 
might appear so intolerable that some people might be 
driven to take atrocious revenge. 

     "To understand all is to forgive all," says the 
French aphorism. Not true. But understanding all can at 
least teach you how to avoid making enemies, and avoiding 
making enemies is the best defense -- better than a $300 
billion "defense" budget that didn't defend the World 
Trade Center. 

     The great director Jean Renoir was once asked why 
there were no villains in his films. He answered simply: 
"Everyone has his reasons." Your bitterest enemy may have 
his reasons for hating your guts. You may not think they 
are good or sufficient reasons, but you'd better take 
them into account. If he has any brains, he may find a 
way to hurt you. 

     The United States is now a global empire that wants 
to think of itself as a universal benefactor, and is 
nonplussed when foreigners don't see it that way. None of 
the earlier empires of this world, as far as I know, 
shared this delusion; the Romans, the Mongols, the 
British, the Russians and Soviets didn't expect to rule 
and to be loved at the same time. Why do we?

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