Paul writes:
I did go to Turkey, and I had the misfortune to be there when the bombing started. It did make me a bit wary of looking too American, although I was still walking through Istanbul with my camera around my neck. We watched a lot of CNN when we were in our hotel room to try to figure out what was going on, and whether we were safe in Turkey. I wish one of us had understood Turkish. I would have liked to have understood what they were saying on the local news. Nobody gave us any grief in Turkey, but I kept looking over my shoulder to see if Osama was following me. The worst was when we visited the "covered market," a very touristy collection of shops that was clearly hurting for business. All the shopkeepers knew the instant they saw us we were American and approached us with the inexplicable greeting, "Yes, please." They weren't rude, or anything, just pushy. I hate shopping malls. I hate shopping for a new car. It's sort of a combination of the two. Plus, there I was in a Muslim country, watching CNN and seeing crowds in Pakistan chanting "Death to America." Every time I saw a covered woman (most of whom may have been Arabs, for all I know) or heard the call to prayer broadcast from a minaret, I felt a chill. Stacy insisted on getting a Pizza Hut pizza one night, having not been able to find a real pizza in Armenia, and I was halfway convinced we were going to be murdered while we were in the restaurant. The worst anti-American thing we heard while we were there, though, was from an American working on her PhD in Turkey. Apparently she was reading a book in a park and some jackass sitting on a park bench near her started saying, "Osama" intermittently while staring at her. She looked very American - tall, redhead. When she got fed up and left, he asked (in English), "Where are you going?" while laughing. 6,000 murdered. Very funny.
We didn't venture too far out of Istanbul. The highlight of the trip was a boat trip up the Bosphorus on the Hiawatha, the American consulate's yacht, which is available to consulate employees and local American businessmen for a small fee. We took a picnic, beer and wine (which are plentiful in Turkey), and joined Stacy's consulate friend and a bunch of his acquaintances on the boat. We were on this boat the day after the bombing started in Afghanistan. It was good to be with other Americans.
We did get out among the Turks a bit after the initial fright wore off. The most encouraging encounter we had in Turkey was on one of the Prince's islands, called Buyukada (with umlauts over the Us), in the sea of Marmara and accessible by ferry. When Stacy and I arrived on the island, we rapidly escaped the town, where there were dozens of idle (and smelly) horse carriages waiting for tourists, and walked to the highest point on the island, where we saw a lovely view of the sea. We ran into an old man, who must have been 80. It turned out he spoke pretty good English. He asked us the time, and asked us where we were from. After finding out we were American, he launched into a series of stories of his travels in the U.S. in the late 1940's! He was an aeronautical engineer, and got some training at Stanford. He invited us to his house, where his wife gave us drinks and cookies. He told us a story about a girl he met at a dance at Stanford. While they were dancing she asked him if he was a Muslim or a Mohommedan. When he asked why, she said her grandmother had told her Mahommedans were cannibals. We all laughed.
Will I be deployed? Not till I graduate, anyway, and then there is only a small chance, barring some horrible, but unfortunately not unimaginable, escalation. Nothing is unimaginable now. What happens if we trace the anthrax to Iraq?
My take on the "war" is: I'm for it, and I support the actions in Afghanistan. Sure killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan is wrong, but unlike our enemy, we largely avoid it. Sure public opinion will turn against us in Muslim countries, but we're not trying to win friends (with friends like these...). We cannot do nothing. They bomb American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and we fire token cruise missiles. They bomb the Cole, killing several sailors, and we do nothing. They murder 6,000 Americans on one sunny Tuesday, and we do what? I'm not arguing that we have to act for the sake of action. I honestly think we can fight terrorists like Osama. Part of that battle will be to destroy the governments that permit these crimes to occur, and indeed support them. From all I've heard, there is no difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. We must destroy both. This is as clear to me as was the imperative to destroy the Nazis. Is this the final answer? No. I think that what's going to have to happen for these anti-American attacks to stop is for Muslim societies to render unacceptable the belief that Americans are their enemy and deserve to die. I'm sure it is a minority belief, even in Palestine, but it is surprisingly mainstream and disturbingly widespread in the Muslim world. Antisemitism was widespread in Europe before World War 2, before the Nazis were destroyed, but is discredited (for the most part) today.
I also am disheartened to hear this crap about the U.S. creating the Taliban, training Osama, abandoning Afghanistan, or in any other way being responsible for the hatred directed towards us. I believe lousy conditions in Muslim countries feed the hatred, sure. I think Palestinians are unhappy because the Israelis have occupied their country. I think Saudis are unhappy because their country is mismanaged. I believe Pakistanis are unhappy because they are poor. I think Afghans are unhappy because they live in a country that's been a war zone for 20 years. But where does the anger turn? To the biggest, most visible, and most different, outsider. This phenomenon is built on hatred of outsiders. Face it. Sure the U.S. has meddled every now and then, and sure some of our decisions may have been bad in retrospect, but Muslims have mostly themselves to blame for their problems, not the U.S. A case in point - those "children dying in Iraq" because of U.S. sanctions are a fiction. Iraquis suffer because of Saddam Hussein, but the U.S. is blamed. And what is our crime against Saudi Arabia? Merely being there. Infidel soldiers on holy land and all that. The latter opinion may be held only by extremists like Osama, but did you ever ask yourself why non-Muslims aren't allowed to set foot in Mecca?
I also find the concept that the attack on the Pentagon, was in any sense acceptable, whereas the attack in New York was not, is ludicrous. Many of those murdered there may have been soldiers, but they were not soldiers fighting a war against any Muslim country, except perhaps Iraq. Admittedly, I am upset about that attack because it occured in my hometown, and because my brother recently worked there, and because I wear a uniform to work, but I want Americans to STOP apologising for the terrorists actions. Our enemy should be overseas.
I hope you forgive the diatribe. I own a U.S. flag now, and as you can probably tell from the three previous paragraphs, I wave it proudly.
Yours,
Paul
P.S., As an atheist, I suspect I am particularly the enemy of Osama. And he is my enemy. I found the bit in www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war.html about "Monotheistic religion has always brought out the best in us humans; thank you so much for the idea of a vengeful supernatural entity who rewards people in the afterlife! That shit makes a lot of sense!" to reaffirm my faith in God.
| Istanbul | 9/11 | War | Religion | Military |
