Asia Buzz: Serves who right?

Thursday, October 4, 2001

"Som nam na." It's Thai for "serves you right." In the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington, that phrase has been heard often among the press and activist groups in this Southeast Asian kingdom. Just yesterday, nine young men and women representing the Students Federation of Thailand demonstrated in front of the United Nations' Bangkok headquarters, denouncing the United States for what they regard as international aggression.

The general argument of the demonstrators, pundits and self-styled do-gooders is that the attacks were spawned by arrogant, unjust U.S. foreign policy that is biased in favor of Israel and against Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and by extension all Third World peoples. Don't retaliate, they say. Rethink and reformulate your foreign policy. Examine what you have done that so many people hate you so much.

It's hard to argue with that sentiment. U.S. foreign policy, after all, is far from perfect. While America has stood behind democratic movements in many countries -- and at times given the lives of young American men and women to defend freedom in foreign lands -- too many times in our history we've sided with tyrants and thugs and undermined the legitimate aspirations of the oppressed.

Without a doubt, the U.S. should re-examine its foreign policy. The U.S. should always be questioning and analyzing where it stands, what actions it takes and why. The U.S. should be using its power and influence to seek greater justice for more people, including Palestinians.

But to say that the attacks in New York and Washington were a direct result of unjust U.S. foreign policy is just plain wrong.

If the mass murder carried out on September 11 was about Palestine, then one should ask why the planners and perpetrators were not Palestinian. By all accounts of Osama bin Laden's life, his hatred of the U.S. was spawned not by its support of Israel, but by the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia -- troops there at the request of the Saudi Arabian government. They have never trained their weapons on, much less killed, any Saudi. It wasn't until years later that bin Laden added Palestinian injustice to the raison d'être of his Al-Queda group.

It might just as well have been police brutality in Los Angeles, the stereotyping of Muslims by Hollywood or the lack of career advancement for illegal Arab immigrants at the Shakey's restaurant in Des Moines. Bin Laden and his cohorts are in the hate and killing business, plain and simple. If U.S. foreign policy were completely reversed, they would find another reason to hate America and the West. If it wasn't the U.S., it would be somebody else. Hatred and killing are their solutions. Hatred and killing are their reality.

The abyss between their reality and that of most of the rest of the world can easily be seen by talking with bin Laden's cadres. Earlier this week, reporters from the New York Times were allowed to interview graduates of bin Laden's terrorist training camps who were captured by the Afghan Northern Alliance. Among those interviewed were three Pakistanis of Burmese descent. They have vowed to liberate their homeland for Islam, though they acknowledge they have never set eyes on it. "I have a target," said one of them, Muhammad Sale Hayat, 25. "My target is freedom for Burma."

Burma, ruled by an iron-fisted military government, is a nation in need of freedom. And there have been numerous instances of violence -- military and communal -- against Muslims in that country. Then again, there have been numerous instances of violence -- military and communal -- against other ethnic groups and also against Buddhists advocating democracy.

But Burma as an Islamic state is an interesting proposition. According to the official Burmese census -- which, granted, is out of date and not entirely reliable -- Muslims make up less than 4% of the population. Predominantly Buddhist, even Christians and animists outnumber followers of Islam.

Nonetheless, bin Laden was willing to train these three, and perhaps more, in the methods and tactics of sabotage, terror and killing so that they could wreak death upon innocent Burmese for the purpose of turning Burma into an Islamic state against the wishes of at least 96% of its people.

Intolerance, violence and a perverted vision of the world -- not unjust U.S. foreign policy -- is the essence of what bin Laden and his followers are all about.