DISPATCHES FROM
AMERICA Joe McCarthy would
understand By Andrew J Bacevich
First came the hullaballoo over the
"Mosque at Ground Zero". Then there was Pastor
Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida, grabbing
headlines as he promoted "International
Burn-a-Koran Day". Most recently, we have an
American posting a slanderous anti-Muslim video on
the Internet with all the ensuing turmoil.
Throughout, the official US position has
remained fixed: the United States government
condemns Islamophobia. Americans respect Islam as
a religion of peace. Incidents suggesting
otherwise are the work of a tiny minority -
whackos, hatemongers, and publicity-seekers. Among
Muslims from Benghazi to Islamabad, the argument
has proven to be a tough sell.
And not
without reason: although it might be comforting to
dismiss anti-Islamic outbursts in the US as the
work of a few
fanatics, the picture is
actually far more complicated. Those complications
in turn help explain why religion, once considered
a foreign policy asset, has in recent years become
a net liability.
Let's begin with a brief
history lesson. From the late 1940s to the late
1980s, when communism provided the overarching
ideological rationale for American globalism,
religion figured prominently as a theme of US
foreign policy. Communist antipathy toward
religion helped invest the Cold War foreign policy
consensus with its remarkable durability. That
communists were godless sufficed to place them
beyond the pale. For many Americans, the Cold War
derived its moral clarity from the conviction that
here was a contest pitting the God-fearing against
the God-denying. Since we were on God's side, it
appeared axiomatic that God should repay the
compliment.
From time to time during the
decades when anti-communism provided so much of
the animating spirit of US policy, Judeo-Christian
strategists in Washington (not necessarily
believers themselves), drawing on the
theologically correct proposition that Christians,
Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God, sought
to enlist Muslims, sometimes of fundamentalist
persuasions, in the cause of opposing the godless.
One especially notable example was the
Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989. To inflict pain on
the Soviet occupiers, the United States threw its
weight behind the Afghan resistance, styled in
Washington as "freedom fighters", and funneled aid
(via the Saudis and the Pakistanis) to the most
religiously extreme among them. When this effort
resulted in a Soviet defeat, the United States
celebrated its support for the Afghan Mujahedeen
as evidence of strategic genius. It was almost as
if God had rendered a verdict.
Yet not so
many years after the Soviets withdrew in defeat,
the freedom fighters morphed into the fiercely
anti-Western Taliban, providing sanctuary to
al-Qaeda as it plotted - successfully - to attack
the United States. Clearly, this was a monkey
wrench thrown into God's plan.
With the
launching of the Global War on Terrorism, Islamism
succeeded communism as the body of beliefs that,
if left unchecked, threatened to sweep across the
globe with dire consequences for freedom. Those
who Washington had armed as "freedom fighters" now
became America's most dangerous enemies. So at
least members of the national security
establishment believed or purported to believe,
thereby curtailing any further discussion of
whether militarized globalism actually represented
the best approach to promoting liberal values
globally or even served US interests.
Yet
as a rallying cry, a war against Islamism
presented difficulties right from the outset. As
much as policymakers struggled to prevent Islamism
from merging in the popular mind with Islam
itself, significant numbers of Americans - whether
genuinely fearful or mischief-minded - saw this as
a distinction without a difference. Efforts by the
George W Bush administration to work around this
problem by framing the post-9/11 threat under the
rubric of "terrorism" ultimately failed because
that generic term offered no explanation for
motive. However the administration twisted and
turned, motive in this instance seemed bound up
with matters of religion.
Where exactly to
situate God in post-9/11 US policy posed a genuine
challenge for policymakers, not least of all for
George W Bush, who believed, no doubt sincerely,
that God had chosen him to defend America in its
time of maximum danger. Unlike the communists, far
from denying God's existence, Islamists embrace
God with startling ferocity. Indeed, in their
vitriolic denunciations of the United States and
in perpetrating acts of anti-American violence,
they audaciously present themselves as nothing
less than God's avenging agents. In confronting
the Great Satan, they claim to be doing God's
will.
Waging war in Jesus's
name This debate over who actually
represents God's will is one that the successive
administrations of George W Bush and Barack Obama
have studiously sought to avoid. The United States
is not at war with Islam per se, US officials
insist. Still, among Muslims abroad, Washington's
repeated denials notwithstanding, suspicion
persists and not without reason.
Consider
the case of Lieutenant General William G ("Jerry")
Boykin. While on active duty in 2002, this highly
decorated Army officer spoke in uniform at a
series of some 30 church gatherings during which
he offered his own response to president Bush's
famous question: "Why do they hate us?" The
general's perspective differed markedly from his
commander-in-chief's: "The answer to that is
because we're a Christian nation. We are hated
because we are a nation of believers."
On
another such occasion, the general recalled his
encounter with a Somali warlord who claimed to
enjoy Allah's protection. The warlord was deluding
himself, Boykin declared, and was sure to get his
comeuppance: "I knew that my God was bigger than
his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was
an idol." As a Christian nation, Boykin insisted,
the United States would succeed in overcoming its
adversaries only if "we come against them in the
name of Jesus".
When Boykin's remarks
caught the attention of the mainstream press,
denunciations rained down from on high, as the
White House, the State Department, and the
Pentagon hastened to disassociate the government
from the general's views. Yet subsequent
indicators suggest that, however crudely, Boykin
was indeed expressing perspectives shared by more
than a few of his fellow citizens.
One
such indicator came immediately: despite the
furor, the general kept his important Pentagon job
as deputy undersecretary of defense for
intelligence, suggesting that the Bush
administration considered his transgression minor.
Perhaps Boykin had spoken out of turn, but his was
not a fireable offense. (One can only speculate
regarding the fate likely to befall a US
high-ranking officer daring to say of Israeli
Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, "My God is a real God
and his is an idol.")
A second indicator
came in the wake of Boykin's retirement from
active duty. In 2012, the influential Family
Research Council (FRC) in Washington hired the
general to serve as the organization's executive
vice-president. Devoted to "advancing faith,
family, and freedom", the council presents itself
as emphatically Christian in its outlook. FRC
events routinely attract Republican Party
heavyweights. The organization forms part of the
conservative mainstream, much as, say, the
American Civil Liberties Union forms part of the
left-liberal mainstream.
So for the FRC to
hire as its chief operating officer someone
espousing Boykin's pronounced views regarding
Islam qualifies as noteworthy. At a minimum, those
who recruited the former general apparently found
nothing especially objectionable in his worldview.
They saw nothing politically risky about
associating with Jerry Boykin. He's their kind of
guy. More likely, by hiring Boykin, the FRC
intended to send a signal: on matters where their
new COO claimed expertise - above all, war -
thumb-in-your eye political incorrectness was
becoming a virtue. Imagine the NAACP electing
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as its
national president, thereby endorsing his views on
race, and you get the idea.
What the FRC's
embrace of General Boykin makes clear is this: to
dismiss manifestations of Islamophobia simply as
the work of an insignificant American fringe is
mistaken. As with the supporters of Senator Joseph
McCarthy, who during the early days of the Cold
War saw communists under every State Department
desk, those engaging in these actions are daring
to express openly attitudes that others in far
greater numbers also quietly nurture. To put it
another way, what Americans in the 1950s knew as
McCarthyism has reappeared in the form of
Boykinism.
Historians differ passionately
over whether McCarthyism represented a perversion
of anti-communism or its truest expression. So,
too, present-day observers will disagree as to
whether Boykinism represents a merely fervent or
utterly demented response to the Islamist threat.
Yet this much is inarguable: just as the junior
senator from Wisconsin in his heyday embodied a
non-trivial strain of American politics, so, too,
does the former
special-ops-warrior-turned-"ordained minister with
a passion for spreading the Gospel of Jesus
Christ".
Notably, as Boykinism's leading
exponent, the former general's views bear a
striking resemblance to those favored by the late
senator. Like McCarthy, Boykin believes that,
while enemies beyond America's gates pose great
dangers, the enemy within poses a still greater
threat. "I've studied Marxist insurgency," he
declared in a 2010 video. "It was part of my
training. And the things I know that have been
done in every Marxist insurgency are being done in
America today."
Explicitly comparing the
United States as governed by Barack Obama to
Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao Zedong's China, and
Fidel Castro's Cuba, Boykin charges that, under
the guise of health reform, the Obama
administration is secretly organizing a
"constabulary force that will control the
population in America". This new force is, he
claims, designed to be larger than the United
States military, and will function just as
Hitler's Brownshirts once did in Germany. All of
this is unfolding before our innocent and
unsuspecting eyes.
Boykinism: The new
McCarthyism How many Americans endorsed
McCarthy's conspiratorial view of national and
world politics? It's difficult to know for sure,
but enough in Wisconsin to win him reelection in
1952, by a comfortable 54% to 46% majority. Enough
to strike fear into the hearts of politicians who
quaked at the thought of McCarthy fingering them
for being "soft on Communism".
How many
Americans endorse Boykin's comparably incendiary
views? Again, it's difficult to tell. Enough to
persuade FRC's funders and supporters to hire him,
confident that doing so would burnish, not
tarnish, the organization's brand. Certainly,
Boykin has in no way damaged its ability to
attract powerhouses of the domestic right. FRC's
recent "Values Voter Summit" featured luminaries
such as Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul
Ryan, former Republican Senator and presidential
candidate Rick Santorum, House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor, and Representative Michele Bachmann -
along with Jerry Boykin himself, who lectured
attendees on "Israel, Iran, and the Future of
Western Civilization." (In early August, Mitt
Romney met privately with a group of "prominent
social conservatives", including Boykin.)
Does their appearance at the FRC podium
signify that Ryan, Santorum, Cantor, and Bachmann
all subscribe to Boykinism's essential tenets? Not
any more than those who exploited the McCarthyite
moment to their own political advantage - Richard
Nixon, for example - necessarily agreed with all
of McCarthy's reckless accusations. Yet the
presence of leading Republicans on an FRC program
featuring Boykin certainly suggests that they find
nothing especially objectionable or politically
damaging to them in his worldview.
Still,
comparisons between McCarthyism and Boykinism only
go so far. Senator McCarthy wreaked havoc mostly
on the home front, instigating witch-hunts,
destroying careers, and trampling on civil rights,
while imparting to American politics even more of
a circus atmosphere than usual. In terms of
foreign policy, the effect of McCarthyism, if
anything, was to reinforce an already existing
anti-communist consensus. McCarthy's antics didn't
create enemies abroad. McCarthyism merely
reaffirmed that communists were indeed the enemy,
while making the political price of thinking
otherwise too high to contemplate.
Boykinism, in contrast, makes its impact
felt abroad. Unlike McCarthyism, it doesn't strike
fear into the hearts of incumbents on the campaign
trail here. Attracting General Boykin's
endorsement or provoking his ire probably won't
determine the outcome of any election. Yet in its
various manifestations Boykinism provides the
kindling that helps sustain anti-American
sentiment in the Islamic world. It reinforces the
belief among Muslims that the Global War on Terror
really is a war against them.
Boykinism
confirms what many Muslims are already primed to
believe: that American values and Islamic values
are irreconcilable. American presidents and
secretaries of state stick to their talking
points, praising Islam as a great religious
tradition and touting past US military actions
(ostensibly) undertaken on behalf of Muslims. Yet
with their credibility among Iraqis, Afghans,
Pakistanis, and others in the Greater Middle East
about nil, they are pissing in the wind.
As long as substantial numbers of vocal
Americans do not buy the ideological argument
constructed to justify US intervention in the
Islamic world - that their conception of freedom
(including religious freedom) is ultimately
compatible with ours - then neither will Muslims.
In that sense, the supporters of Boykinism who
reject that proposition encourage Muslims to
follow suit. This ensures, by extension, that
further reliance on armed force as the preferred
instrument of US policy in the Islamic world will
compound the errors that produced and have defined
the post-9/11 era.
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