The coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday lacked the destructive potential of a nuclear weapon, but the effect was tantamount to one.

Americans, finding it hard to fathom the determined hatred that would drive anyone to carefully plan and execute such acts, are asking: Why us?

"The World Trade Center is a symbol of American capitalism and, from the point of view of probable terrorists, a symbol of American decadence," said Jim Hedtke, chairman of the history and political-science department at Cabrini College.

"The victims in the planes and the buildings were not the real targets of the attack. The intended victims were you and me."

Most speculation about the attacks concerned the Middle East, where disaffected Arab groups have long blamed the United States for their plight. In the case of Palestinian extremists, America is the prime support for the state of Israel. In the case of Iraq, the United States led the coalition that drove President Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait and which daily enforces punishing sanctions. Coalition bombing missions have killed civilians in Iraq in recent days.

"America bears responsibility for its actions and clear support of aggressive nations like Israel," said Asem Mussafar, a psychology graduate student in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "I hope America will understand this message today."

The message goes beyond the obvious political ones. More-traditional cultures are deeply threatened by the rapid worldwide spread of American culture, which includes everything from cinema, television, clothing and fast food to basic values such as democracy, individual freedom, personal rights and a strictly secular state.

"To some extent, America is being made a victim of its own success," said Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi National Congress, an organization of Iraqi expatriates opposed to Saddam's regime.

Chalabi believes that the threat America poses to more-traditional cultures strikes in their homes.

"America has a huge appeal to young people all over the world," he said. "They want more and more freedom. They want to dress like Americans, talk like Americans. And societies that lack a credible, equally attractive alternative feel like their world is being undermined by this power they cannot stop."

So America becomes, as the late Ayatollah Khomeni called it, "the Great Satan."

"You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the roots of such hatred," said an Iranian graduate student who asked not to be identified. "I think the closest analogy is to a slave revolt. Slave revolts are always especially bloody, violent affairs because the slaves seek to exact retribution from their masters. For decades now, civilians in Arab countries are being killed all the time, and the world doesn't react with outrage. So a kind of primitive, biblical logic takes over. An eye for an eye."

That could explain the celebrations in some parts of the West Bank and Gaza on Tuesday.

"What's happening in America is a natural punishment for its continuous aggression on the weak and poor people in the world," said Abdullah Shami, a senior political leader for the Islamic Jihad in Gaza City. "The FBI, the CIA and all the military could not prevent what happened today."

"What is being attacked is our democracy and our way of life," said George Joulwon, a retired U.S. Army general and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, who saw the hijacked commercial plane crash into the Pentagon on Tuesday. "I spent 22 years of my career living outside of this country, so I see it maybe better than most. Our way of life doesn't exist in most parts of the world, and that fosters admiration, but it also fosters resentment and anger."

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wayne Downing, who served as commander in chief of the Special Operations Command, said Tuesday's attacks "had not gone unpredicted."

"No one could have foreseen the precise tactics employed, but those of us in the special-operations community have been warning about this growing threat for years," he said. "A lot of solutions have been proposed, too, but they were all rejected, dismissed as too extreme or too dangerous. So what we end up with is something 10 times as bad as Pearl Harbor."

"We've been very fortunate in the U.S. to have avoided such an attack up until now, considering how easy it is to access our civilian infrastructure, which is not protected in a democratic, free society," said Steve Cimbala, a professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University. "There are a lot of targets, and it would be impossible to protect them all."

So such a highly visible attack succeeds by making all of America feel vulnerable.

"It is that sense of vulnerability, powerlessness and anger that the terrorists are hoping to instill," the Iranian student said. "They are saying, 'This is how we feel.' "

"They are expecting side effects like fear, panic and national paralysis to set in," Cimbala said.

Complete Title: The Roots of Hatred: Some Regard American Culture as Menace

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Author: Mark Bowden, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Published: September 13, 2001
Copyright: 2001 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: opinion@seatimes.com
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

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