Recommended Reading:

Asking "Why?" is not a weakness

Michael Moran has a column at MSNBC.com that expresses similar views to what I wrote about yesterday:

In one of the most poignant lines from the 9/11 commission report, the panel noted how out of touch with the wider world Americans were in the late 1990s as their music, clothes, movies, values and corporate brands reached the most remote corners of the globe:

“America stood out as an object for admiration, envy, and blame. This created a kind of cultural asymmetry. To us, Afghanistan seemed very far away. To members of al Qaeda, America seemed very close. In a sense, they were more globalized than we were.” — 9/11 commission report, p. 340

For all the talk since the attacks of reformed intelligence agencies, tightened security and spreading democracy abroad, Americans seem to be lapsing back into navel-gazing. What else could explain the focus on Vietnam-era military records at a time when American troops are fighting two separate wars overseas?

At the root of this denial is an erosion of national humility — a stubborn inability to examine our own actions that prevents us from getting beyond the question of “how” we were attacked and to the question of “why?”

We know today some of the answers to “how?” Sclerotic as it may be, the American bureaucracy appears resigned to accepting some of the changes the 9/11 commission proposed, though the fight to blunt some of the more radical ideas, like making someone accountable for such failures, will go on.

But addressing the “why” of the attack is far more difficult. Understand, the question is not why al-Qaida ordered the attacks, or why individual attackers were motivated to commit suicide. The cult of death that exists at the fringes of Islam explains that all too well.

The deeper “why,” however, concerns the enormous gap between the way Americans view their actions abroad and the way the rest of the planet is viewing them. How did America go from a country viewed by many as, in Ronald Reagan’s words, “the last best hope of mankind,” to being ranked in polls by many as a greater threat to world peace than Osama bin Laden?

Asking "Why?" is not whining, as some right-wingers accuse, it is the key to winning the war. To defeat your enemy, you must know your enemy, not only the "who," but also the "why." Moran has a point when he mentions an erosion of national humility. Yes, we have much to be proud of, but pride without humility is arrogance. We must never lose the ability to question ourselves in a rational, reasonable way. As was said by a man 2400 years ago in a book that is still studied worldwide:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
   -Sun-Tzu