Welcome, Instapundit Readers!
I have rarely, if ever, encountered a document so filled with hatred, bile, and distortion as "'Some People Push Back' On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," by Ward Churchill. I discovered him via the Wall Street Journal's Taste page, where an editorial details Hamilton College's invitation to Churchill to appear on a panel on "Limits of Dissent?" next week. Churchill, who teaches ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, claims in his essay that the terrorists of 9/11 weren't terrorists but, in fact, humanitarians; that those who died got what they deserved; that the war with Islam, going back to the Crusades, explains and justifies these actions; and that we've been visited by some "reality therapy" so that we'll know how it feels to be bombed.
The Journal links to the piece, and I've taken the time to read it. I can assure you that it's actually much worse than the Taste page editorial implies. It runs to some 5,600 words; here are some excerpts:
When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of "chickens coming home to roost."
On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.
Yes, dead Iraqi children -- not Osama bin Laden, not Al Qaeda. Even if we make allowances for this particular portion of his ignorance by assuming that not everyone knew bin Laden was responsible from the beginning, somehow Churchill leapt to the conclusion that -- what? -- Saddam was behind the acts?
But his main point, of course, isn't to herald any particular radical Muslim leader for killing his countrymen in such numbers (and, by the end, he's credited virtually the entire planet for stricking back at us). Rather, he aims to express his hatred for his country, its inhabitants, and its liberties. After launching into an incoherent rant attempting to draw a moral equivalency between the Germans of the 1940s, the Holocaust, the First Gulf War, and the American people (yes, it's as convoluted as it sounds), Churchill writes:
Of the men who came, there are a few things demanding to be said in the face of the unending torrent of disinformational drivel unleashed by George Junior and the corporate "news" media immediately following their successful operation on September 11.
They did not, for starters, "initiate" a war with the US, much less commit "the first acts of war of the new millennium."
A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants has been waged more-or-less continuously by the "Christian West" – now proudly emblematized by the United States – against the "Islamic East" since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago. More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first lent significant support to Israel's dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered "Desert Shield" in 1990, or at any of several points in between. Any way you slice it, however, if what the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war – and they can – then the same is true of every US "overflight' of Iraqi territory since day one [emphasis added]. The first acts of war during the current millennium thus occurred on its very first day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting under orders from their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course. That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.[emphasis added]
And then:
They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."
There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. . . . If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.
Never let it be said that he directs all of his seemingly bottomless reservoir of hatred toward Republicans alone:
Evil – for those inclined to embrace the banality of such a concept – was perfectly incarnated in that malignant toad known as Madeline Albright, squatting in her studio chair like Jaba the Hutt, blandly spewing the news that she'd imposed a collective death sentence upon the unoffending youth of Iraq. Evil was to be heard in that great American hero "Stormin' Norman" Schwartzkopf's utterly dehumanizing dismissal of their systematic torture and annihilation as mere "collateral damage."
He implies that Timothy McVeigh was fighting for the same team when he killed innocents in Oklahoma City, and that McVeigh's actions were laudable. Under the heading "On Matters of Proportion and Intent," he writes:
As things stand, including the 1993 detonation at the WTC, "Arab terrorists" have responded to the massive and sustained American terror bombing of Iraq with a total of four assaults by explosives inside the US. That's about 1% of the 50,000 bombs the Pentagon announced were rained on Baghdad alone during the Gulf War (add in Oklahoma City and you'll get something nearer an actual 1%). They've managed in the process to kill about 5,000 Americans, or roughly 1% of the dead Iraqi children (the percentage is far smaller if you factor in the killing of adult Iraqi civilians, not to mention troops butchered as/after they'd surrendered and/or after the "war-ending" ceasefire had been announced).
Under the heading "The Makings of a Humanitarian Strategy" he writes:
In sum one can discern a certain optimism – it might even be call humanitarianism – imbedded in the thinking of those who presided over the very limited actions conducted on September 11.
Their logic seems to have devolved upon the notion that the American people have condoned what has been/is being done in their name – indeed, are to a significant extent actively complicit in it – mainly because they have no idea what it feels like to be on the receiving end.
Now they do.
That was the "medicinal" aspect of the attacks.
To all appearances, the idea is now to give the tonic a little time to take effect, jolting Americans into the realization that the sort of pain they're now experiencing first-hand is no different from – or the least bit more excruciating than – that which they've been so cavalier in causing others, and thus to respond appropriately.
More bluntly, the hope was – and maybe still is – that Americans, stripped of their presumed immunity from incurring any real consequences for their behavior, would comprehend and act upon a formulation as uncomplicated as "stop killing our kids, if you want your own to be safe."
Either way, it's a kind of "reality therapy" approach, designed to afford the American people a chance to finally "do the right thing" on their own, without further coaxing.
After this, Churchill engages in a hate-filled fantasy of what America might do to avoid further attacks. Among his hopes: that we try "hanging a few of America's abundant supply of major war criminals (Henry Kissinger comes quickly to mind, as do Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton and George the Elder)." If we do this, "there is every reason to expect that military operations against the US on its domestic front would be immediately suspended." Again, his point is that we should do these things, that these VIPs have it coming to them just as much as did the victims in the Twin Towers and in the Pentagon.
And, in what Churchill no doubt sees as a terribly clever turn-about, he advocates inspections of American weapons sites, Nuremberg-style trials of "a few thousand US military/corporate personnel," and payment of reparations to all we've harmed. For Churchill, of course, that includes just about the entire world.
He's pessimistic that this plan will come to pass, however, because:
Unfortunately, noble as they may have been, such humanitarian aspirations were always doomed to remain unfulfilled. For it to have been otherwise, a far higher quality of character and intellect would have to prevail among average Americans than is actually the case.
You see, "Americans just don't get it," as is obvious by our refusal to take mass murder lightly:
Already, they've desecrated the temporary tomb of those killed in the WTC, staging a veritable pep rally atop the mangled remains of those they profess to honor, treating the whole affair as if it were some bizarre breed of contact sport. And, of course, there are the inevitable pom-poms shaped like American flags, the school colors worn as little red-white-and-blue ribbons affixed to labels, sportscasters in the form of "counterterrorism experts" drooling mindless color commentary during the pregame warm-up.
And so, Hamilton College has seen fit to invite this man to campus to, what?, as the Journal says, engage in debate over whether 9/11 was good or bad? At least if that's the case, there can be no doubt where Prof. Churchill stands.
Update: Glenn Reynolds links to this photo, which nicely captures Churchill's unintentional parodic absurdness.
Update II: Instapundit is now linking to this post, which places Churchill in the context of '60s nihilism.
| Jan. 28, 2005 | 5:13 PM