Not long ago, a slick, viral video appeared in my Facebook feed. Produced by Al Jazeera Plus, it featured a woman named Amaryllis Fox talking about what she had learned working for the CIA. I was frankly alarmed by a lot of what she said.
I, too, am a former CIA officer; I worked on counterterrorism operations after 9/11. I was honestly astonished at Fox’s naïveté. Even more alarming, the video has now, as I write this, been viewed more than 70 million times, sending her message of moral relativism around the world.
Let’s look at some of her most dangerous assertions.
“Everybody believes they are the good guy.” Does this mean she believes there are no good guys and bad guys anymore? If so, I disagree. And even if we, the United States, are not always the good (or best) guys, can we not agree that groups like ISIS are immoral and dangerous and must be defeated? How could she work for the CIA without believing she was with the good guys?
The “War on Islam.” As Fox surely knows, the “War on Islam” is largely a post-9/11 construct, based on the writings of Sayyid Qutb, later appropriated by Osama Bin Laden. It is a convenient demagogic trope, and fringe political leaders in the Islamic World trot it out to distract their constituencies from more deep-rooted failures of governance. It gained currency because it is a simple concept that is impossible to disprove, and plays on peoples’ worst suspicions and paranoia.
Meanwhile, in the 15 years since 9/11, two American administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have been at pains to say over and over explicitly that America is not at war with Islam. I’ve never heard any American—from any part of the political spectrum—say we are at war with the religion of Islam or the mass of its adherents. Has Amaryllis Fox? Millions of dollars have been spent on diplomacy programs to reassure people around the world that we are only opposed to the small group of people that wish us harm.
On the other hand, it is demonstrable that radical Islam, both Shia and Sunni, declared war on the United States long before 9/11. Was the U.S. ‘at war with Islam’ in 1983, when 241 Marines were killed in Beirut? What about in 1993 at the World Trade Center? Or in 1996, when the Khobar Towers were bombed? Or in 1998, when our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked? Was the crew of the U.S.S. Cole ‘at war with Islam’ in 2000? This didn’t begin in September 2001.
“Stories manufactured by a really small number of people.” Here, Fox indulges in an unsupported conspiracy theory that moneyed interests in both the East and the West are somehow deliberately prolonging hostilities for reasons of venality and consolidation of power. Who are they? She doesn’t say. Just some shadowy evildoers.
This is utterly irresponsible. She is giving fodder to the tin foil hat crowd on both sides. They’re eager to find someone to blame for everything wrong in the world, and Fox is giving them a faceless straw man enemy they can cling to.
“The only way to disarm your enemy is to listen to them.” So our inability to defeat ISIS stems from a failure to listen? Really?
We have known since well before 9/11 what the radical (Sunni) Islamists wanted: a religiously pure territory ruled under Sharia law. More recently, they have begun to strive for a “caliphate” from which all non-believers must be expelled. Some have even suggested they are pursuing something like the Umayyad caliphate of the 7th Century, which extended across North Africa into Southwestern Europe.
We’ve listened to them plenty. Even the famously dovish President Obama understands that there is no negotiation to be had. We have two options: fight to stop them, or await the next attack and watch atrocities proliferate.
“You might have made some of the same choices.” You mean, if I’d grown up in Afghanistan, with virtually no education other than memorizing the Koran, and being fed a constant diet of hatred toward infidels? Yeah, maybe I would have. That doesn’t make those choices right, just misguided.
I believe that most Americans teach their children to be tolerant of other cultures and embrace the diversity of our country. That’s what separates us from people who grew up under Taliban-like regimes. Is Fox still holding out on the two being morally equivalent?
“We are Luke and Han.” This is the most laughable part of her soliloquy. Every guerrilla force likes to think of itself as the underdog, fighting against The Man. That’s how they recruit more people! The Russian Revolution of 1917 used the same tactic when they fought the monarchy, but once in power Stalin killed 50 million people. Drug gangs and cults use the same method. Terror groups like ETA, 17 November and the IRA did, too. Were they Luke & Han? Fighting a strong enemy using guerrilla tactics does not by itself make one’s cause just.
“If the enemy is a policy, that we can work with.” Which policy has ISIS proposed that Fox believes we can work with? I’m curious.
I believe Fox’s moral relativism sends a pernicious message that could actually hurt efforts to build bridges with the Islamic world. She’s suggesting that radical Islamists are really no different from ‘ordinary’ Muslims, or in fact anyone, anywhere. As if our inability to blunt the onslaught of terrorism is rooted in a lack of imagination. That’s simply wrong.
There is no question that the roots of terrorism are complex. And the United States has made myriad mistakes in the Middle East. I know of nobody that would claim our foreign policy is perfect or even internally consistent. We have much room for improvement. But part of our moral authority comes from our willingness to acknowledge when we have erred. We do that. They don’t.
There is a stark difference between them and us. They are nihilistic, xenophobic, irrational, and volatile. Culturally, they want to take their societies 12 centuries into the past. They will brook no dissent, and will recruit and fight as long as they can. As we speak they are teaching their own children to hate and kill. Are they really the same as us?
I hope Fox will reconsider her words. She reached a lot of people with that video. She was right that the conversation about radical Islam is vastly oversimplified by the media. Unfortunately, she only muddied the waters further.
