4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, March 19, 2004 OPINION 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 opinion. michigandaily.com tothedaily@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JORDAN SCHRADER Editor in Chief JASON Z. PESICK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE We need to keep them out of here." - J C. Fugate, the commissioner of Rhea County, which is asking the state of Tennessee to pass a law that will permit the county to charge homosexuals with crimes against nature, as reported yesterday by CNN. SAM BUTLER TiiE SOAPBOX \I .1 41 Can Z 9ef you anythin else? 'This is not Europe's 9/11' SHABINA S. KHATRI IT'S ALL GOOD IN THE HOOD 9 don't know Ali al- IM essery. The first time I ever heard of him was on Monday, in a New York Times article on the Madrid bombings. Yet I feel very connected to him. What could a 32- year-old Moroccan immi- grant and I possibly have in common? Well, fear, for one thing. Fear is "why, when Ali al-Messery stood before 1,000 worshippers at the M-30 mosque in central Madrid (last) Friday and prayed - for the victims of the terrorist attack, for the stability of Spain, for peace in the world - he also beseeched God for something else. 'The people who did this are ignoramuses who have stones for hearts,' he said. 'Please God, please God, let it not be Muslims!' " Wow, talk about dej& vu, and how that same prayer was murmured by so many lips in my community on Sept. 11. Well, Ali, welcome to the club, it looks like you're not going to get your wish. Of course, this wasn't exactly your Sept 11. or anything. Allow me to explain. I went to a media workshop last week at which someone asked, what is it that gives cer- tain stories so much attention in the news? Speculation plays a big factor in determining the life cycle of a story, the speaker answered. If someone kills his wife and then turns him- self in, there's nothing left to keep the tale alive. But an event like the Madrid bombings - that's pure gold, because who isn't interest- ed in such a juicy whodunit mystery? I admit, I certainly am, partly out of curiosity but more so to quell the dread that's been building inside of me since the whole tragedy happened. On Wednesday, Daily columnist Ari Paul blasted the American media for its one-sided$ coverage of the bombings. I respectfully dis- agree with his assessment. From the very get- go, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press pointed out that Spanish officials initially suspected ETA, a Basque group that has historically used terror to fight for its independence. So I wouldn't say last Thursday was a repeat of the mess we now refer to as the Oklahoma City bombings. Still, that doesn't mean we deserve to pat our- selves on the back for not being biased. Paul was right when he said the Spanish Socialist Party's rise to power is what has the United States in such a tizzy. It's no secret that Spain's incoming prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, plans on pulling his country's troops out of Iraq. In an op-ed to the Times, Adjunct Anthropology Prof. Scott Atran said that's what "the jihadists" want - for America to "try to go it alone." But that's not how it needs to go down, he added. Atran favors fighting "Islamic terror" (how did this guy get on our campus?) through "netwar," a "global spider web" of international coalitions that mimic "the swarming tactics of the enemy" as a way to defeat him. Or it, or them, or whatever. The problem with netwar, which Atran conceded to when I e-mailed him, is that many European countries simply don't define the global terrorism dilemma the same way our policymakers do. "We have always had a different definition of terrorism, in that we never call it a "war" on terrorism. We call it the fight or battle against terrorism, and we do think the distinction makes a difference," an anonymous European official in Washington told the Christian Science Moni- tor Wednesday. "Madrid will certainly lead to a more dynamic look at counterterrorism opera- tions and cooperation, but terrorism in Europe is not a new phenomenon, so this will not sudden- ly be seen as a war," the official added. "This is not Europe's 9/11." The man has a point. For us, Sept. 11 repre- sented the loss of our sense of security; it made us feel vulnerable with a magnitude that proba- bly hadn't been felt since Pearl Harbor. But for Europe, with its Irish Republican Army and ETA and a million other resistance groups, home-base attacks are nothing new. And what is it that Zapatero is saying? That it's possible to be anti-terrorism AND anti-war? Incredible. That definitely makes me feel a little better. Be it ETA or al Qaida, Spain won't overreact and follow the tried-and-true path of creating and demonizing an enemy for all to hate. That's the plan in theory, at least. In practice, things get a bit trickier. Take Iraq, for example, a bandwagon that Spain and many other countries are still will- ing to jump on, as long as the United Nations steps in and fixes the mess we made. While "terrorist networks cannot be defeated unless they are destroyed, hostile states can be defeated without being destroyed," Atran said in his e-mail. But is it possible to fight terror- ism in nations without painting all resistance in that area with a broad brush? In Iraq, any- one that rebels against American troops becomes an enemy, even if that person had initially been one of those poor oppressed folks we promised to fight for, not against. What's really going to happen in the after- math of the Spain bombings? Does discover- ing the culprit change our country's stance on terrorism or our commitment to "the war on terror?" I fear not. As pleased as I was to see our media hesitate to point fingers at al Qaida, I know our discourse on the subject is not even close to sophisticated. Not if we keep referring to this battle as one against "jihadists" bent on spreading "Islamic terror," as Atran so eloquently puts it in his op-ed. Back to poor Ali - I feel your pain, homeboy. Let's just hope your country han- dles this tragedy better than mine. a 0 Khatri can be reached at khatris@umich.edu. You're safe now - and by you I mean me HUSSAIN RAHIM NARCOLEPTIC INSOMNIA Boy oh boy, do I wish the rest of the world could live where Bush lives. A year ago to this day, I was deeply absorbed into my own domino theories about the Iraq war and what it would entail. I had fantastical visions that involved a rainfall of nuclear and chemical weapons, global warfare, Armaged- don and me not making it to 25. I still haven't made it to 25, but thankful- ly Bush was wrong and Iraq turned out to be a paper tiger. Now bestowed with the always favored 20-20 hindsight vision, a bit of reflection on the past year in anticipation of the future year wouldn't be the worst idea. But let us start in the present. During a rally at the Fort Campbell, Ky. military base yes- terday, Bush ignored the world's realities as he issued a sequence of morale-boosting non sequiturs to veterans returned from Iraq. While the soldiers deserve all the credit imaginable for doing what I would never do, they also deserve more than empty words and blind direction. By telling the troops "their valor and sacri- fice had made the Middle East, and the world safer," I wonder exactly what Middle East and world Bush is talking about. Because if Iraq is still part of the Middle East and Spain is still part of the world, then things aren't really safer. Ask any of the victims of the recent hotel explosion, the dead missionaries, a mur- dered reporter or the Spanish train passengers. In fact, with so many resources diverted to the maintenance of Iraq it is impossible to give full attention to global terrorism. He also told the troops that they had "deliv- ered justice to many terrorists and you're keep- ing the rest of them on the run." They're running alright, but only after executing their last attack. Although tensions fluctuate here at home, I must say that in America we are safer than a year ago for no other reason than the fact that it's easier to direct attacks elsewhere: By drawing others into our singular mission, we opened the door for a March 11 as well as attacks on other foreign nations. These attacks will quickly erode whatever international support we were able to bully from the world and leave the United States in a more awkward position than before. Spain reacted to its personal tragedy with the prompt ousting of the Bush-assuaging govern- ment. Other countries won't even need their own attacks to change course; the Spanish incident will be enough for other European nations to realize that they want their governments to be a more accurate reflection of their beliefs. Despite the black-and-white color spectrum of Bush administration's view, gray shades still exist in this world. The ramifications of the Spanish reaction will be debated in political dis- course for generations to come. Was the ousting of pro-war Prime Minister Aznar's party a sign that terrorism works? Or did it show that when a leader drags its populace into a war with 90 per- cent disapproval that re-election hopes are slim? Their urge to withdraw from Iraq does create a bit of dilemma for the mission's stability. By creating such a divisively polarizing issue, with spurious evidence at its core, the United States has attracted only fair-weather friends. I cannot fault them for electing a government that represents their beliefs when the 2000 election showed that Americans can't even do that. However, Spain's recent election is being spun by many into an effort to skirt away from the responsibility of global terror. No victim of terrorism can have such naive hopes. But the "either you're with us or against us mentality" transforms a difficult and personal election for Spain into nothing more than an American issue. A year after the date of invasion and utter failure of Bush's championed cause to find any weapons, the president has admitted no fault nor gained any grasp of reality. Only recently, in ref- erence to a statement by John Kerry, Bush was unbelievably quoted as saying, "If you're going to make an accusation in the course of a presi- dential campaign, you've got to back it up with facts." But what was left out was, "If you're me, you can straight make shit up." Happy anniversary. Rahim can be reached at hrahim@umich.edu. -4 0 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Jewish voters are not ignorant, will vote to support Israel in 2004 TO THE DAILY: In Jason Z. Pesick's recent column (Jewish Voting Patterns: Tradition!, 03/18/04), he not only fails to take a cross-section of opinion from the 6,000 members of the campus Jewish com- munity, but also makes uninformed and mis- another, thankfully futile, attempt to destroy the Jews, Arab countries neighboring Israel attacked her the day after her independence to destroy her existence. They did the same in 1956, 1967, 1969 and 1973. In each of Israel's defensive wars, it prevailed and the safety of the Jewish homeland was preserved. In each of these wars, the United States stood by Israel and supported it. The Israeli-Palestinian situation today is similar, although instead of Jordanian tanks and Egyptian fighter jets, the Israelis are defending for thousands of years. Regardless of whether American Jews have a "sophisticated under- standing" of the conflict, they will vote for the candidate who displays the most promise for perpetuating the solid U.S.-Israel relation- ship. This will be an important issue, but will not be the deciding factor for most because American Jews are Americans and care just as much about the economy and education as they do their religious ties to a Jewish home- land in Israel. Will American Jews vote for Bush or Kerry? Will Bush carry the 45 per- ,-~ t,: .- - - - - - - -_1-- - ,,.. - 4 a V *V L I X .fi- .. _:_ : ,.. . ,:,,::. : .. : :. .. .. . . : .. ? :v . . . . . .. .. ..:: I VIA A.-