Thank you, Mike, for expanding and illuminating what I was trying to say. USA Today asks that editorial replies be limited to 250 words, and mine ran 285, so I gave them a good excuse not to publish my piece.

My only extended experience living in a country with another form of government was in Denmark, which is considered a socialist monarchy. Their people enjoy free education and health care from the cradle to the grave and a very low crime rate - so much so that a friend was incredulous rather than angry or vengeful when she left her seat to make a phone call and her luggage was stolen in a London airport. "But it was mine," she protested. It just occurred to me as I sit here that our country doesn't try to "convert" them to a democracy.

While I was there, I shared a common room at the course center with a group from Libya. Their religion is very much one with their government - so much so that when their leader (whose name I can't begin to spell because he is no longer in the media spotlight) would do something of which my friend did not approve, he would burn himself with lit cigarettes. We discussed this practice, and he told me that he felt the pain but that this was the only way he could reconcile with his leadership. Who was I to try to stop the practice - even if I could have - and condemn this man to a lifetime of guilt and deny him the possibility to ever look upon the face of his god?

I believe it is hypocritical of us to preach "embrace diversity" and then engage in ideological imperialism. This is one of the problems with the Peace Corps, and one of my (few) objections to the language of the DoP Bill. Any good cultural anthropoligist will explain their research method of becoming a "participant observer" and trying to interfere as little as possible with the indigenous culture, even if we consider it primitive or underdeveloped.

"Blue in a Red State"

The USA Today article to which Susan referred ends with this statement: “The big question is, Can the United States crush the foreign fighters and help put Iraq back together before that fragile agreement shatters?”

That is, can we kill off these people who are fighting for what THEY believe in? And, of course, these same fighters want to kill us off, because we are attacking their beliefs and values.

This is such an endorsement of VIOLENCE on our part. It indicates that we endorse violence as a way of getting what we want just as much as they endorse violence as a way of getting what they want. Susan is right, therefore. Staying to “crush the foreign fighters” will only lead to increased violence on both sides, and involves our becoming the very evil we deplore in others.

There is an alternative. A lot of folks on both sides want peace. But we can’t insist on replacing Islamic values, beliefs, and culture with our own without vitally threatening a lot of folks who hold to those values. We know WE wouldn’t stand to have our values here forcibly replaced by theirs. Neither should we be trying to force our values (Democracy, Freedom) on them. Influence and inspire them, OK. That approach leaves them free to choose. But not force, or impose. Mainly what both the insurgents and jihadists are saying is: “Back Off! Leave us to live our lives OUR way. Leave us with OUR family values.” Wouldn’t it be a better--and more inspiring--testimony to our professed valuing of Freedom and Democracy to leave them free to choose the kind of government THEY want?

What America, as in the USA Today article cited, is endorsing is not, in my opinion, really Freedom but rather Narcissism, that is, insisting on imposing our domestic political and cultural values on another society. We insist on seeing ours as universal values which ought to be in place everywhere. Islamic jihadists, on the other hand, see theirs as universal values which ought to be in place everywhere. I do not mean to say or imply that their values and ours are equivalent, but it is entirely possible that ours are better for us and for our society right now, while theirs might be better for them and their society right now.

One thing to consider here, regarding to human condition, is that it may be more important for an individual’s or society’s survival to be organized, and hence able to function, than it is for that individual or society be to “right” in a universal, cosmic sense. We certainly need a respect for pluralism for our pluralistic society to function in a reasonably unified and coherent way. Many folks in Islamic countries may not be able to function well in a democracy right now, especially if they have been taught that what the individual thinks is inspired by the Devil but what God proscribed is right and just. The individual's path would lead to damnation, while the religious path would lead to salvation.

Heck, I was taught that as a Catholic growing up! If you asked me what MY opinion was, I usually didn't know. Didn't realize it might be OK just to have my own opinion. I was taught to ask what the Church thought, or taught. What did the Pope say? What did the Fathers say?

In many Islamic countries, I think you might encounter a similar situation. Individuals have been taught to NOT trust their own views, but to follow the divine Law. Now we come along and say: If you want to have a legitimate society in our eyes, you have to trust what each Individual thinks, rather than what the Divine Law says. Is that really right, or fair, on our part? Is it really realistic, on our part. Or are we going to be viewed by them as furthering the work of Satan in their society?

Even today, here, in our country, Christian fundamentalists and Jewish fundamentalists have serious problems countenencing what individuals think. What individuals think is often denounced as "Liberal" in their view, meaning almost the same as "the work of the devil" in our society. They think in a rather similar way, do they not? No, they don't look to the Pope or to a Church, of course, but they look in an analogous way to the Bible or to the Law or Torah.

Isn’t this authoritarian cognitive orientation a main reason why Republican fundamentalists in this country have so little tolerance for genuine democratic processes,for discussion and debate and diversity of opinion in this country? I mean, no wonder why Bolton and Bush would just as soon do away with the United Nations, as well as with the Democratic Party, as well as with Independents.

The values we espouse, and the values we say we espouse, can often be radically out of sync. As many in the Middle estimate have said to us, we can’t hear what you’re saying because we see what you’re doing. You’re not really practicing what you preach.

Respectfully,

Mike O.