Michael Winship: Read the 9/11 report — but get it right

Joe Fitzgerald’s last line in his recent guest essay (Aug. 26, Daily Messenger) attacking the downtown Manhattan Islamic study center is a bit ironic: “It would be a good thing if these people would read the ‘9/11 Commission Report.’”

Ironic because in the body of his piece Fitzgerald has played a little fast and loose with the actual 9/11 Commission Report, rearranging the order a bit, changing a word here and there, but more important, eliminating key phrases that give what he quotes more nuance than he would have you know.

Whether he did this himself or copied it from a website or some other publication, I don’t know. But here’s what the report says versus Fitzgerald:
Fitzgerald writes that the report says: “The enemy is not just ‘terrorism,’ some generic evil. The catastrophic threat is more specific. It is the threat posed by ISLAMIST terrorism.”

What the report actually says (p. 362): “But the enemy is not just ‘terrorism,’ some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism — especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates and its ideology.”

That’s not so different, except that it specifies al Qaeda in particular, which in itself is important.

Fitzgerald’s version: “The enemy is sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal. The enemy rallies broad support in the Arab and Muslim world and its hostility toward us and our values is limitless. It makes no distinction between military and civilian targets.”

The actual report (Preface): “We learned about an enemy who is sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal. The enemy rallies broad support in the Arab and Muslim world by demanding redress of political grievances, but its hostility toward us and our values is limitless. Its purpose is to rid the world of religious and political pluralism, the plebiscite and equal rights for women. It makes no distinction between military and civilian targets. Collateral damage is not in its lexicon.”

Of course, religious and political pluralism is precisely what the supporters of the Islamic study center in lower Manhattan are defending, not “Islamic triumphalism,” as Fitzgerald claims. That the phrase is missing from Fitzgerald’s version — as well as the reference to the “redress of political grievances” — is telling. The official report wants you to know that there were and are political grievances in the Middle East; some, sadly, legitimate. Apparently, Fitzgerald does not.

Fitzgerald’s version: “The Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the ‘head of the snake,’ and it must be converted or destroyed.”

The actual report (page 362): “Usama Bin Ladin [sic] and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition) … [MY ELLIPSIS] That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world — against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the ‘head of the snake,’ and it must be converted or destroyed.”

Fitzgerald eliminates the report’s point that those who engage in Islamist terror do so from a minority position of intolerance and distortion. In doing so he lets in the implication that the Islamic religion in general and not a splinter group of fanatics is culpable for the events of 9/11 and other acts of terror.

Yes, everyone SHOULD read the official report — it’s one of the best and most thorough depictions and analyses of what so many of us living near Ground Zero witnessed firsthand on 9/11. But if you’re going to quote it in defense of your position, quote it accurately and present the proper historic and political context that the official report so admirably delivered to the American public.

Michael Winship, a native of Canandaigua, N.Y., is president of the Writers Guild of America, East, and senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.