Okay.
First of all, let's be clear about something: the warm fuzzy feelings that western Christianity displays toward Israel and Jews is a relatively new phenomenon. As in, "after the Holocaust," new.
Prior to World War I, Muslim Arabs were much more tolerant of Jews than Christians had been up to that point. Muslim persecution of Jews during the Muslim occupation of Spain was rare, and fairly light when compared to the treatment of Jews at the hands of medieval Christians. As Christians took the Iberian Peninsula back from the Muslims, so fell the fortunes of Spain's Jewish population. There was a massive forced conversion of Spanish Jews in 1391, and the Spanish Inquisition was established expressly to investigate the loyalty of Jews who converted to Christianity during that time. In 1492, the last Muslim stronghold in Spain, Granada, fell to Christian armies. That same year, Ferdinand and Isabella expelled all Jews from Spain.
Jews were also expelled, at various times and with varying degrees of effectiveness, from almost every country in Christendom; England (1290), France (1306, 1322, 1394), Germany (1182,1348, 1394), Switzerland (1348), Portugal (1497), Provence (1490), Hungary (1349-1360), Austria (1421), Lithuania (1445, 1495).
The First Crusade, in 1096, resulted in a wide-spread and sustained massacre of European Jews.
And when shit like that went down, Jews went to Arab countries because Arabs, by comparison, were extremely tolerant of Jews.
You go look at a timeline of Jewish expulsions and massacres, you'll see immediately that, until World War I, the overwhelming majority of heinous large-scale anti-Semitism was carried out by Christians in Christian countries. The only comparable event in Muslim lands was the persecution of Jews by the Almohad Moors, from 1147 to 1212. And the Almohads did not, even at the time, represent the main stream of Muslim thought— they were a kind of radical sect within the larger Moorish community.
That all changed after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was beaten by the League of Nations, opening an opportunity for Arab independence in the Middle East. Whichever side of the "Balfour Declaration versus McMahon Agreement debate" one comes down on, it is fairly clear that Middle Eastern Arabs felt that the region known as Palestine had been promised to them by the British and that the British had reneged on that promise. They also felt that Zionist Jews, whether operating as agents of European imperialism or simply as foreign colonists, were acting exploitively by occupying that region and attempting to create a "Jewish Homeland" in Arab territory. Things went downhill from there, and you can blame Arabs or Israelis for how things eventually played out depending on which books you read. But a few facts remain, regardless of which side of the Arab/Israeli conflict you choose to support:
This started out as a political conflict, and it's been allowed to continue for so long that it's turned into a cultural conflict. Anyone who thinks a military solution will resolve a conflict like this is an idiot. This situation needs to be handled carefully, and with an awareness of the larger context of the conflict.
But Michele, over at A Small Victory, talks about "rounding the corner". She's "rounding the corner" toward wanting "to go to war with the entire Middle East". She's harboring that belief that seems so common to Americans, that the United States is an indestructible giant; that other countries only exist because we allow them to exist and that all sovereignty but ours is conditional on our approval. Michele reacts to every headline as if her reaction to the death of an American is somehow more significant than the reaction of an Iraqi woman to the death of one of her countrymen. Michele, by virtue of being an American, is a kind of superhero. She's who the comic book is about; flying around, throwing cars, stopping bullets and outrunning speeding trains. All those little people in Iraq, whose lives are destroyed every time the United States throws a car at a bad guy and misses, are only safe for as long as Michele is sane and rational. But if they make her too mad, she'll stomp them flat.
Michele is "rounding the corner". She's getting angry, and the rest of the world won't like Michele when she's angry.
What a load of self-important delusional bullshit. What murderous indifference.
Michele and her kind will throw punches that will drag this conflict on and on.
I've noticed that sort of hyper-aggressive bravado is extremely common in people who know that they will never personally have to face any danger or hardship. The armchair warriors are always the most gung-ho.
They're sort of like die-hard sports fans. The kind that go to games and paint their bodies the team colors, hoping that the TV cameras will pan to them during a time out.
I mean, somebody's buying all those foam "#1" hands.
Posted by: flamingbanjo at June 18, 2004 04:10 PMWell, I certainly don't want to be accused of promoting murderous indifference, but I feel I should point out that the reason Afghanistan and Iraq still have populations to speak of right now is because we didn't, in our rage immediately after 9/11, let fly with a salvo of nukes. We certainly could have, and there was enough anger at that time that, like the Cuban Missile Crises, it's surprising it didn't actually come to that.
It's odd to me. I read about these beheadings, which should be universally condemned simply for what they are: heinous barbaric murders. And yet, people point to the beheadings and say "See? That's Bush's fault for waging war! We've gone and made them angrier!" As if four hijacked planes and two toppled skyscrapers somehow isn't an indication of some pretty angry people.
Apparently, a beheaded American isn't the fault of the hooded ghouls standing behind him. No, it's Bush's fault.
Posted by: Ryan at June 21, 2004 09:39 AMthe reason Afghanistan and Iraq still have populations to speak of right now is because we didn't, in our rage immediately after 9/11, let fly with a salvo of nukes. We certainly could have, and there was enough anger at that time that, like the Cuban Missile Crises, it's surprising it didn't actually come to that
Ryan, I'm not going to dress this up: you're wrong. We could not, in fact, have let fly with a salvo of nukes. If we had used thermonuclear weapons against Afghanistan, we would have become global pariahs on an unimaginable scale. It would have resulted in open conflict in every country where we currently have troops stationed. The U.N. would have sanctioned us, and possibly initiated a program to expel us from the Security Counsel and invade. The European Union, NATO, and particularly Russia and China would have gone to full alert and possibly attacked select U.S. military targets.
And if you think the bulk of the American population, left and right, would have confined themselves to marching around chanting, "This is what democracy looks like!" after a non-retaliatory thermonuclear attack against a nation that had not officially attacked us, you're smoking crack. I, for one, would take any necessary steps to remove an administration that committed such an act from power. If that meant picking up a gun, I'd do it.
You're wrong, Ryan. And your "they're only alive because we kept our anger in check" attitude is exactly the attitude I'm criticizing here. The United States does not exist beyond the reach of consequences.
And yet, people point to the beheadings and say "See? That's Bush's fault for waging war! We've gone and made them angrier!"
Boy, you know, it's remarkable how often I have to use this construction in conversations with people who support the current administration's approach to this war, but:
Did I say that? No, I did not.
I linked to Michele's post about the beheading of Nick Berg because, in it, Michele says the following:
This is who we are at war with. Barbaric animals….
…Let's remind ourselves. The factions of radical Muslim are no longer separate entities. Al Sadr, al Qaeda, all these people are just one big army out to get us. Oh, they wanted to get us all along, no doubt about that.
Her commenters followed up with:
May the Islamists all roast in hell.
We are facing an enemy unlike any other we've ever dealt with, and until these recent events, the concept of 'fighting terrorism' was difficult to grasp. This enemy is defined by their incomprehensible theology; beliefs so at odds with what we hold dear that some can't accept how very far over the line the enemy is capable of stepping, with the serene confidence that their god applauds their actions.
One of the points I'm making here is that this belief that "all Moslems (or Arabs) are terrorists" or that we should "go to war with the entire Middle East" is A) inaccurate and B) dangerous. It's dangerous because it leads people to endorse a course of action that may be completely inappropriate for the nature of the threat we're facing. I'm sure it's extremely empowering to imagine that we can just nuke the Middle East if we need to, but to actually do so would be national suicide. Given that, a mindset that contributes to a popular belief that the Middle East is just one big teeming cauldron of terrorists and lunatics —and that nukes, therefore, would be an appropriate tool for dealing with our problems in the region— is, again, wrong and dangerous.
This is also true of attitudes that paint "Islamofascists" as "barbaric animals". Most of the people that we consider "Islamofascists" are of three sorts: religious extremists, political and economic opportunists, and socio-economically disadvantaged people who feel they have very little to lose. Obviously there are people who represent a combination of these elements, but the point is that taking an essentialist view of Moslems in general or anti-American Moslems in particular is going to lead one to wildly inaccurate conclusions about how best to resolve conflicts in the Middle East.
And if you accuse me of wanting to give all our enemies a big group hug, you can suck my dick while you're at it. I'm not suggesting that the United States should forgive individuals that commit mass murder. I am not suggesting that we should "reward" mass murder. What I am suggesting is that we should be reasonable and prudent when assigning blame for mass murder, and that we should be extreme in our reasonable and prudent prosecution of those crimes.
Should we have hunted al Qaeda after 9/11? Absolutely: we should have hunted them methodically, calculatingly, and publicly. We should have hunted them and their compatriots to the ends of the earth; uncovered their exact connections with regional governments, uncovered their supply lines, put them on trial, shaved off their beards and hung them at Nuremberg.
But that's not what we did. People like Michele bought into this whole, "Eek! The Middle East is full of crazy people whose wacky religion demands they kill us all! Eek! They're unlike any enemy we've ever faced! They're like Martians! They're like that machine Arnold Schwarzenegger played— they can't be reasoned with! They can't be bargained with! They don't feel pity! Or remorse! Eek! We must kill them all! We must kill people who look like them! We must kill people who practice their religion! Who wear the same clothes! Eek! Eek!"
It's a fucking self-destructive panic response. They're like people who freak out when the house is burning down. And when you tell them to chill out and think rationally because it'll improve their odds of survival, they scream, "How can you ask me to think rationally at a time like this!? They're gonna kill us all!"
What-fucking-ever. Grow up.
Apparently, a beheaded American isn't the fault of the hooded ghouls standing behind him. No, it's Bush's fault.
No. It's definitely the fault of the hooded ghoul standing behind him. It's not the fault of all Iraqis. It's not the fault of Palestinians. It's not the fault of Islam. It's the ghoul, with the hood. Show me a plan for going and arresting that ghoul without dropping smart bombs on his neighborhood church and accidentally killing 15 people who just happen to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'll vote for that fucking plan. But this, "they're barbaric animals and I'm turning the corner and coming to believe that we should go to war with the entire Middle East" shit is going to get us all killed.
It's the ghoul, with the hood. Show me a plan for going and arresting that ghoul without dropping smart bombs on his neighborhood church and accidentally killing 15 people who just happen to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'll vote for that fucking plan.
I wonder, truly, if such a plan is even remotely possible. Because, I'm sure, the Taliban would have been more than happy to allow a clandestine military police force to have free reign to root out all the terrorists milling about within the Afghan borders. Ditto Iraq, which had been openly harboring known terrorists and certainly wasn't going to offer them up for arrest.
I'm certainly not advocating steamrolling over the entire Middle East and some of the other "corner rounding" that Michele puts forth. Clearly, she's kinda spilled out of her rocker and has fallen and can't get up.
I see that ghoul with the dull knife, hacking away at the neck of an infidel, and I think, gee, something has to change in the Middle East, and I don't think some sort of police action meant to arrest terrorists is the answer. I think it's part of the answer, but more than that there has to be a genuine change in the way things work in that part of the world. Iron-fisted patriarchies or mullah-controlled fascist states are pretty much the norm over there, with a few exceptions and I think that has to change before we see a decline in the number of hooded ghouls.
Posted by: Ryan at June 21, 2004 02:01 PMBecause, I'm sure, the Taliban would have been more than happy to allow a clandestine military police force to have free reign to root out all the terrorists milling about within the Afghan borders. Ditto Iraq, which had been openly harboring known terrorists and certainly wasn't going to offer them up for arrest.
See, here again, I'm feeling a strong inclination to get really angry because I think you're attributing this boneheaded suggestion to me. But maybe not. Maybe you think that what I was suggesting was actually that the Taliban would let a clandestine military police force into their country. Just that. All by itself. Maybe you think that's all I was suggesting.
Well, let me clear this up for you sparky; that's not what I was suggesting. What I'm suggesting is more of an "extradition of Nazi war criminals" model, in concert with massive pressure through the UN and, among other organizations, the WTO. That plan would, very likely, involve an international coalition that would have removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power for, among other things, human rights abuses.
Would we get them all immediately? No. But we would get them. The "shock and awe" approach got more returns faster. But there are still al Qaeda on the loose. And, more than that, the collateral damage from "shock and awe" is creating an environment that may well cause more terrorism, not less.
I see that ghoul with the dull knife, hacking away at the neck of an infidel, and I think, gee, something has to change in the Middle East, and I don't think some sort of police action meant to arrest terrorists is the answer. I think it's part of the answer, but more than that there has to be a genuine change in the way things work in that part of the world. Iron-fisted patriarchies or mullah-controlled fascist states are pretty much the norm over there, with a few exceptions and I think that has to change before we see a decline in the number of hooded ghouls.
I didn't say that a police action meant to arrest the terrorists was the answer to all the problems in the Middle East. I said that it's my answer to how to deal with the 9/11 attacks. That the 9/11 attacks are part of something bigger is no doubt true. But that something bigger needs to be handled with some subtlety. Because it's not just that the Middle East is full of homicidal lunatics. The attitudes we're talking about here have reasons behind them. And as far as the guy with the knife: you know, if you live in a place where a lot of people are killed on a regular basis, you're going to be capable of some really horrible shit. You send a kid to Iraq as a soldier, that kid may torture people because his or her filter for what's acceptable isn't as strong as it should be. If a kid grows up in that environment, they might just end up chopping someone's head off. There are lots of ways to handle both these situations, but "precision bombing" isn't on the list.
And, just as a point of order—
You know, Ryan, we live in a country where babies turn up in dumpsters. Americans burn homeless people to death with gasoline. We have the Ku Klux Klan. We drag Black men to death behind pick-up trucks. We beat gays to death. We have domestic terrorists that blow up federal office buildings. High school kids commit mass murder. Suicide is the leading cause of death among teens in the United States, and our infant mortality is higher than Cuba's.
If you want to hold one thing up and say, "This is emblematic. This action reflects the core attitudes and behaviors of this society or country," there isn't a society or a country on this earth that can't be condemned.
Joshua - we live in a country where babies turn up in dumpsters. Americans burn homeless people to death with gasoline. We have the Ku Klux Klan. We drag Black men to death behind pick-up trucks. We beat gays to death. We have domestic terrorists that blow up federal office buildings. High school kids commit mass murder. Suicide is the leading cause of death among teens in the United States, and our infant mortality is higher than Cuba's.
If you want to hold one thing up and say, "This is emblematic. This action reflects the core attitudes and behaviors of this society or country," there isn't a society or a country on this earth that can't be condemned.
Every society has problems. Suicide & divorce rates are highest among the uber-civilized Swedes, Crime rates in Europe surpass our own.
But that doesn’t express the core attitudes of a society. Those attitudes are expressed by our laws. In America, burning people with gasoline is against the law. Slavery is against the law. Mass murder & terrorism are against the law. We don’t kill people for the crime of converting from one religion to another.
Under the fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law, terrorism, slavery, targeting innocent people in the name of jihad and death for the crime of apostasy are all entirely legal. In fact, they’re often required.
Islamic law is basically the legalization of crimes against humanity. The central goal of Islamic terrorist groups (al Qaeda, the Saudi government, the mullahs in Iran, the Palestinian Intifada, the genocidal Arab Islamists in the Sudan, the Chechen ‘rebels’, the Iraqi ‘insurgents’) is to force the population to live under these horrific laws.
I believe that a society that legalizes slavery, mass murder and other crimes against humanity should be condemned. Do you disagree?
Posted by: mary at June 22, 2004 08:51 AMI believe that a society that legalizes slavery, mass murder and other crimes against humanity should be condemned.
Slavery. Mass murder. Other crimes against humanity.
Do you disagree?
Ahem.
But that doesn’t express the core attitudes of a society. Those attitudes are expressed by our laws.
How convenient. So the awful things that Americans do isn't a reflection of American society? Only the awful things we put into law are reflections of the "core attitudes" of our society?
Interesting.
But, just out of curiosity, what's the expiration date on a thing like that?
So, I mean, for example, if Texas had a same-sex-specific anti-sodomy law that was struck down by the Supreme Court last year, does that mean that, right before the Supreme Court decision, Texas's "core attitude" was homophobic but that, after the Supreme Court decision, the "core attitude" of society in Texas is no longer homophobic? Or, like, Alabama had an anti-miscegenation clause in their constitution until 2000 (it was either 2000 or 1999, I can't remember which). Are they all better now, or does some of that attitude linger on in such a way that it may be considered part of their "core attitude"?
Under the fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law, terrorism, slavery, targeting innocent people in the name of jihad and death for the crime of apostasy are all entirely legal. In fact, they’re often required.
Uh-huh. Under a fundamentalist interpretation of Christian law, every single one of these things is also required and has, in fact, been carried out by Christian governments in the name of various Christian churches. Somehow, Christian churches managed to grow out of that without, say, massive military intervention. Additionally, I would posit that massive military intervention, far from removing these things from Christian culture, would tend to create a certain reactionary fervor on the part of fundamentalist Christians.
Christians still use the same bible they did back during their witch-burning and Jew slaughtering days. The secular society around them has changed, and they have changed with it.
Islamic law is basically the legalization of crimes against humanity. The central goal of Islamic terrorist groups (al Qaeda, the Saudi government, the mullahs in Iran, the Palestinian Intifada, the genocidal Arab Islamists in the Sudan, the Chechen ‘rebels’, the Iraqi ‘insurgents’) is to force the population to live under these horrific laws.
I'm noticing a little semantic drift here. Up top you're talking about "fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law". Now you're talking about "Islamic law" without qualification. So let me just reiterate the point I was getting at with this initial post: Islam is not an unchanging monolith of cultural and religious intolerance. Right now there is a strong vein of fundamentalism in Middle Eastern Islam. But Islam, as a religion and a culture, has historically been much more tolerant than Christianity. Islam is not "inherently" intolerant anymore than any other religion (like, say, Christianity).
I believe that the current explosion of fundamentalism within Middle Eastern Islam is a byproduct of the relentless European and American imperialism in that region since the West became dependent on Middle Eastern oil supplies. In the United States, Christianity typically exists in its most intolerant and radical forms in places where the population is chronically poor, or feels that they are being exploited by the Federal Government and/or urban financial interests (banks, etc).
People who supported Bush's prosecution of the wars in the Middle East seem inclined to believe that Islam is essentially intolerant and hostile; this belief frees them from any obligation to intervene culturally or economically on behalf of the people of the Middle East. If Islam is essentially intolerant and Moslems are barbaric animals who can only be put down, then the invasion was correct. If Islam is flexible, and Islamic fundamentalism is a byproduct of Western interventionism, then the invasion was the worst possible response
I think the latter.
Under a fundamentalist interpretation of Christian law, every single one of these things is also required and has, in fact, been carried out by Christian governments in the name of various Christian churches. Somehow, Christian churches managed to grow out of that without, say, massive military intervention
Hundreds of years ago. The Muslims were doing it then and they're doing it now. Within the past hundreds of years, they've made almost no progress in any way, shape or form. Can you explain that? I can't.
I'm noticing a little semantic drift here. Up top you're talking about "fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law". Now you're talking about "Islamic law" without qualification
I’m talking about fundamentalist Islamic law as it is being practiced, today, in this current time space continuum. It’s the law in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. People are being murdered every day as a result of those laws. Hundreds of thousands are enslaved at this very moment because of those laws. And your immediate reaction is to ask me to define ‘Islamic law’. Should I define ‘is’?
Right now there is a strong vein of fundamentalism in Middle Eastern Islam.
Finally. So, you recognize that fact. So, what would you like to do about the strong vein of fundamentalism that is currently murdering and enslaving thousands of men, women and children? Should we whine about Halliburton?
More about Islamic (Shariah) law:
- Saudi Arabia July 17, 1998, Under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic law, observance of any religious worship other than Islam is illegal and Christians can be arrested for either distributing Christian materials or attending private meetings for Christian worship.
- Jakarta, February 19, 1999, Jakarta branch chairman, Ahmad Heryawan states, "Indonesian law is man-made, Islamic law comes from Allah."
- Indonesia, June 18, 1999, Islamic extremists want to impose "sharia" (Islamic law) on the majority Muslim population, changing Indonesia's status as a secular state. The current constitution binds the government to religious neutrality.
- Chechnya, June 18, 1999, Chechnya has been declared an Islamic state by a decree signed into law on February 3. However, President Aslan Mashkadov has repudiated identification of his regime with Islamic extremism, defining "sharia" (Islamic law) as simply "the normal way of conduct for every Muslim."
- Indonesia, June 18, 1999, Outwardly tolerant, with a constitution that mandates religious freedom for members of five accepted religions -- Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and indigenous religion. Extremist Muslims have chafed at their numerical superiority offering them no legal privileges, though in practice their overwhelming numbers often result in discrimination against Christians. Militant Muslims continue to agitate for "sharia"
Even Saddam’s ‘secular’ oppression included Shariah:
- Iraq, June 15, 2001, Despite Iraq's secularized government, apostasy from Islam remains a criminal violation of Islamic "sharia" law, ultimately requiring the death penalty. Officially a secular state, Iraq legally protects the freedom of its Christian minority to worship "in churches of established denominations," although the law forbids them to "proselytize or hold meetings outside church premises."
I believe that the current explosion of fundamentalism within Middle Eastern Islam is a byproduct of the relentless European and American imperialism in that region since the West became dependent on Middle Eastern oil supplies.
The current explosion of fundamentalism within the Middle East is the result of the wealth of the Saudi Wahhabis. Wahhabism, the political and religious system that rules the Kingdom has been practiced in the Middle East for hundreds of years. Wahhabism and the writings of Sayyed Qutb are the main inspiration for the current genocidal jihad.
Wahhabism was not created by George Bush or the war in Iraq. Wahhabism’s pro-slavery & pro-genocidal viewpoint was not created by Halliburton or the Carlyle Group.
"Wahhabism gave teeth to its tenets by arming itself through an alliance between its founder, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, and the head of the Saudi clan, Muhammad ibn Saud, in 1744.
In the name of Wahhabism, its adherents were extraordinarily brutal toward noncombatants, including women and children, delegitimizing them as mushrikun, or polytheists, who did not have any right to live. Most notably, in 1802 Wahhabi armies slaughtered thousands of Shiites in their holy city of Kerbala, situated in Ottoman Iraq. Wahhabi warriors also destroyed tombs and other Shiite shrines."
"Such brutality is, in fact, at the core of modern terrorism, for the early Wahhabi warriors acted on Wahhabism's claims that entire groups of people have no right to live and deserve to be slaughtered. And delegitimizing other religious groups and labeling them as infidels or, even worse, as polytheists - often based on the imprecations of mainstream Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia - is precisely how Osama bin Laden's mass terrorism works”
...
This pro-genocide, pro-slavery system of laws is not morally comparable to Christianity. It’s not morally comparable to Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism, Secular Atheism or the Falun Gong. Even National Socialism didn’t legalize slavery.
Islamic fundamentalism is unique.
Posted by: mary at June 22, 2004 06:34 PMIf I may be so bold, I believe one of the points Mr. Norton may be trying to make (not that he needs me to speak for him) may have something to do with how Western economic interests in the Middle East dating from the colonial era and continuing to the present have actually provided the breeding ground for the kind of fundamentalism you so rightly revile. Your offhand dismissals of any criticism of the business practices of companies such as Halliburton (which has been forced to admit intentionally defrauding U.S. taxpayers on more than one occasion) seems a bit facile in light of this. I don't think that business interests like Halliburton, Bechtel, the Carlyle Group or Wal-Mart for that matter are responsible for fundamentalism in the sense that they're setting up mosques and preaching jihad. But economic pressures definitely have played and continue to play a role in hindering the progress of these and many other "Third World" countries towards more open societies.
When you point out that the Islamic world seems to have made little progress towards better human rights or greater religious tolerance (I assume here you are discounting the predominately Islamic republic of Turkey) in the last several hundred years, it must be considered that the countries in the most oil-rich regions have never been given the chance at the kind of self-determination that in other nations has allowed for that sort of progress. The lines on the map of the Middle East were drawn up by colonial European powers and, after the World Wars, the United States. To deny the role that access to those resources played in those demarcations seems, again, a bit disingenuous.
It's interesting to note that the three regimes you initially list as examples of the most egregious forms of Islamic law's oppressiveness, namely Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Nigeria are all (as far as I know) on friendly terms with the U.S. administration. Looking back at what I know of the history of the region, I don't think this is particularly unusual, either. The U.S. has not consistently backed the most democratic governments or the most progressive elements in those societies -- quite the contrary. Examples abound of countries such as Saudi Arabia, with its abysmal human rights record and what amounts to a medieval form of government, which has received full backing from the U.S. Or Iran, where the U.S. helped to overthrow an elected government which was perceived as too leftist, and left it in the hands of the Shah (again, basically a monarch.)
In these examples, I would characterize the motivations for supporting those particular governments as being respectively, ecomonic (Saudi Arabia has the world's largest oil reserves, and some would speculate that it is easier to deal with a small, extremely wealthy elite than with, say, a republic), and, in the case of Iran, economics coupled with a Cold War ideology that divided all countries into either pro-U.S. or pro-USSR.
The current uneasy alliance with Pakistan is a shining example of that same form of foreign policy in the current War on Terror. Pakistan is ruled by a military junta that seized power in a coup, is currently engaged in a hot war with the world's largest democracy, and is apparently riddled with some of the most pernicious strains of militant Islam. So why are we doing business with them?
It is natural for nations with colonial interests to place a premium on access to resources and on security. These are the concerns that, again and again, have compelled our leaders to practice the sort of Realpolitik that forces us into these uneasy alliances. Loss of access to oil could have disastrous effects on our economy. Concerns over the threat posed by terrorism are very real, and sometimes demand us to adopt the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach to diplomacy.
But. There are many, myself included, who believe that this endless chain of band-aids and deals with the devil, foreign policy based exclusively on short-term self interest with no regard for the welfare of the inhabitants of the countries that make up the pieces on our global chessboard, will result only in more of the same.
But, I agree with you. Militant Islamic fundamentalism is very bad.
Posted by: flamingbanjo at June 22, 2004 10:45 PMflaming:
As they would say in the ancient language of my people, "Fuck'n A."
Posted by: Joshua at June 22, 2004 11:51 PM"This pro-genocide, pro-slavery system of laws is not morally comparable to Christianity. [...] Islamic fundamentalism is unique."
Poppycock. Balderdash. If that isn't irrational Anti-Islamism and religious arrogance at its finest, I don't know what is. All the things you describe have at one time or other been carried out by fundamentalist Christians. Yes, most of the stoutly devote Christians who perpetrated those barbarities have now been dead for several centuries, but that in no way changes the fact that Islamic fundamentalism is in absolutely no way unique and that a pro-genocide, pro-slavery system is, or at least was, in fact highly compatible with Christianity.
What I have difficulty understanding is why you insist on ascribing things to Islam when I find that seeing religious fundamentalism, especially in its incarnation as a state religion, as the root of most of this evil, gives a far better fit to the historical facts.
Oh wait, I see that you in fact do share that view point. I'm now even more confused why you're singling out Islam in this manner...
Joshua, I don't know whether I should be freaked out by your need to pick battles with the ASV crowd, or if I should admire you for it. As for the changes in Michele's attitudes over the years, I have no incliniation to wade through all the bile and vitriol, the suggestions of genocide and torture offered as a solution to the "Islamist Problem" by the oh-so-highly moral right wingers on ASV to try and understand it. But I know it happened to other people as well (ESR comes to mind...), so this phenomenon of intelligent, well-spoken conservatives turning into ranting, raving, blood-thirsty war proponents after 2001-09-11 is not unique to her, more's the pity.
flamingbanjo - Brilliant argument. Especially this:
“There are many, myself included, who believe that this endless chain of band-aids and deals with the devil, foreign policy based exclusively on short-term self interest with no regard for the welfare of the inhabitants of the countries that make up the pieces on our global chessboard, will result only in more of the same.”
It echoes this statement from The Belmont Club:
“The dynamics here are complex. The damage to oil facilities will be partially offset by higher prices from the product which reaches the market. Terrorist activity has the same economic effect as a cartel-mandated reduction in production. It means that oil exporting countries can charge more for less. For so long as terrorist damage is restricted to fairly cheap sections of pipe through "Iraq's deserts" -- in the BBC's phrase -- or to expatriate Filipino cooks, Indian janitors or Australian chefs, the oil exporting countries can actually be net gainers from terrorist activity..."
"..In particular, America bears a disproportionate share in keeping "oil chokepoints" open. World oil flows, on which Europe, Japan and the Third World are heavily dependent, go through the Bab el-Mandab, Bosporus, Hormuz and Malacca Straits, not to mention the Suez canal"
"..Indonesia and Malaysia, peace be unto them, would accept American money; money for which America would get no thanks, to secure oil supplies through a Strait not a drop of which is used in America but by Japan, Korea and China. The War on Terror may prove to be "all about oil" but not in the way the Peace Lobby means it. International energy security, to which the Europeans contribute industrial action, is premised on the "commons" of American-provided maritime security. It is being turned into a money machine through which the most atrocious regimes on earth can extort ever increasing amounts of political influence and wealth through a glorified protection racket by proxy."
…
The US, like almost every other nation in the world, believes that they are required to maintain an uneasy alliance with nations like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for the sake of the world's economy. Like you, I believe that this relationship costs more than it’s worth. The benefits that we’d gain from dissolving these ‘alliances’ and dismantling the economic systems that support militant Islam would outweigh the risks. We should abandon Realpolitik and dismantle those alliances sooner rather than later.
I can’t really agree with the later, kindergarten style reasoning. Yes, Militant Islamic fundamentalism is very bad, but your concurrent kindergarten black/white implications that Western economic interests dating from the colonial period are also bad, bad, bad! are not as supportable. Western economic expansion does provide a few benefits to the world – better medical care, longer lifespan, Palm Pilots, takeout sushi, etc.
The West is not entirely evil, capitalism has provided the world with incredible benefits – especially when compared with failed philosophies like Communism, which created starvation, oppression and 100 million dead.
Sometimes you have to face the hard fact that life is not all black and white. There are some grey areas.
Gudy - I'm singling out fundamentalist Islam because its determination to force unwilling people (including moderate Muslims) to live under Shariah law has currently resulted in over one million deaths. People are dying as a result of this philosophy every day.
Hundreds of years ago, Christians were pro-slavery. Hundreds of years ago our ancestors were painting themselves blue. So what?
I thought that most people, not just "oh-so-highly moral right wingers" disapproved of oppression, genocide, racism and slavery. Apparently, I was wrong about that.
Actually, I believe what I was trying to say was that the involvement or Western economic interests may have had effects other than universally positive ones. I guess I assumed that the benefits of WalMart and Coca Cola were already well documented enough that I didn't need to list them. (For instance, where you aware that Coca Cola is the pause that refreshes?)
This is because I inferred from your use of words like "whining" about Halliburton that you were painting all those who find fault with them and companies like them as completely missing the point. What I am saying is, yes, the people who engage in murder and terror are responsible for their actions and should be held accountable. But they are not acting in a vacuum, and to pretend that nothing we do has any effect on that lets us off the hook a little too conveniently.
I do not believe that the we in the U.S. must accept blame for terror in order to look for solutions to it. I, for one, would rather prevent terrorism than avenge it once it has taken place.
It seems we are in agreement about our alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia et al. Part of what I am getting at is that I think one of the major obstacles to adopting a more sane policy is the lobbying influence of corporations with a direct stake in continuing business as usual. I am not opposed to profit per se, I just think that it's wrong to place profit on an equal footing with human life when considering policy.
I also do not see good foreign policy and economic growth as being mutually exclusive. But I do see good foreign policy and Business as Usual as being mutually exclusive.
Posted by: flamingbanjo at June 23, 2004 11:00 AMThis pro-genocide, pro-slavery system of laws is not morally comparable to Christianity… Islamic fundamentalism is unique.
Hundreds of years ago, Christians were pro-slavery. Hundreds of years ago our ancestors were painting themselves blue. So what?
Timothy McVeigh's favorite book, by his own report, was The Turner Diaries, written by William Pierce, "a founder and trustee of the 'Cosmotheist Church,' a 'Christian Identity' group which shares membership and organizational space with the National Alliance. (The pseudo-religious Identity Church movement holds that whites are the 'chosen people' of the Bible, and that Jews and blacks are 'mud people' and the children of Satan)."
The bombing in Oklahoma City follows a blueprint laid out in The Turner Diaries.
German Nazism had an antecedent in German Lutheranism.
And there's a new movement in the Old South, referred to as Confederate Christianity:
"Formed in Alabama in 1994, the League of the South is a nationalist organization that advocates secession from the United States of America and the establishment of a fifteen-state Confederate States of America (CSA)… With over ten thousand members, the League professes a commitment to constructing this new CSA based on a reading of Christianity and the Bible that can be identified as 'Christian nationalist.' This position is centred upon what we identify as the theological war thesis, an assessment that interprets the nineteenth-century CSA to be an orthodox Christian nation and understands the 1861–1865 US Civil War to have been a theological war…
"Utilizing original publications by nineteenth century Presbyterians and internet postings by the League of the South as the resources for our analysis, our explication will examine the roots and development of the theological war thesis. We argue that the theological war thesis originates in texts by theologians who between them contended that the Confederacy comprised an orthodox Christian nation, at times intertwining this religious viewpoint with, amongst other things, defenses of slavery, denunciations of public education and mass schooling, and proposals to maintain a hierarchical and unequal society."
Joshua – I’m not a Christian, and I don’t know much about Christian cults, but I’ve read up on the Sudan. If you’re looking for a Christian group that’s comparable to al Qaeda (but isn’t as well-financed) there’s the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army:
"The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. They are notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to become rebel fighters or concubines. More than one-half-million people in Uganda's Gulu and Kitgum districts have been displaced by the fighting and are living in temporary camps, protected by the army."
Hinduism has also inspired some cults, including the Thugees made famous by the second Indiana Jones (my least favorite)
The original Thugs were bands of roving criminals in India who strangled and robbed travellers. Originally these gangs committed murder following precise religious rites to honour Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction"
..and about religion and slavery, before the Chinese invasion, Tibet was a slave-owning feudal theocracy. One monastery owned 25,000 slaves, who were indoctrinated to believe that their servitude was "just punishment for their bad karma."
I guess you’re right – other religions have created brutal, genocidal cults that are in some ways comparable the current Muslim fundamentalists. It’s possible that the only reason that the Wahhabi-influenced jihad has killed so many people is that it has more money than the other homicidal cults.
It’s possible that the only reason that the Wahhabi-influenced jihad has killed so many people is that it has more money than the other homicidal cults.
I'm sure that's a factor. Certainly the weird concentrations of wealth created by Middle East oil exploitation have allowed groups and individuals to become incredibly powerful in a region where most people have very limited access to basic resources. But, here again, I refer you to the points so eloquently enumerated by flamingbanjo; one of the major factors that creates those weird concentrations is U.S. and European economic complicity. And sometimes it goes beyond that.
Mohammed Mossadegh, former prime minister of Iran, attempted to nationalize Iran's oil supply in the 1950's, only to have his democratically elected government overthrown by a CIA coup to re-install the Iranian monarch, the Shah. It's not like Mossadegh wasn't planning to sell oil to the West, but nationalization might have raised the price (though evidence suggests it may not have). In nationalizing the production facilities, Mossadegh's government displaced British Petroleum (And there's a funny story here; for years BP had been claiming that their facility was worth about 1/10 its actual value in order to avoid paying taxes to the government of Iran on the actual value of the facility. So when Iran nationalized the oil production facilities, they paid BP what BP had said the facility was worth, and BP completely flipped out).
British and U.S. energy industry moguls convinced Eisenhower and Churchill that Mossadegh was a communist, so the CIA arranged to have the republican government overthrown and replaced with the Shah. The Shah agreed to give the Western interests a ruling hand in Iranian oil production in exchange for his return to power. Consequently, after the coup, you had a monarch who was receiving the bulk of the payment for the country's oil resources, in a nation full of people who were hungry, underfed, and whose soil and water was being poisoned by unregulated oil production.
So for 25 years, the Shah, with full U.S. backing, ruled essentially as a wealth and indifferent king, while his people got poorer and more and more pissed off. And, as is often the case among underemployed poorly educated people who feel like the government is screwing them, the Shiite Islam that the Iranians practiced became increasingly fundamentalist. The Shah exacerbated this fundamentalism by cracking down on it, banning Moslem literature and murdering dissidents. Evidently he'd never read Machiavelli, or he might have known better.
In 1979 the Shiites removed the Shah from power and the Shah went to the United States— which, not surprisingly, pissed the Iranians off something terrible.
And this is the backdrop for U.S./Iran relations to this day.
Does that mean that Shiite hostility toward the United States is our fault? I, for one, don't think that's terribly relevant. Does it mean that the United States deserves to have its citizens killed by terrorists? Of course not.
What it does mean is that any strategy for dealing with Shiite Moslems is going to have to take into account that they view the United States, historically, as a country that has fucked them over pretty badly in the course of enforcing an imperialistic economic agenda on them in order to access their oil. It means that invading Iraq and taking control of its oil resources is going to push all the wrong buttons with the locals. It means that Shiites who seem to hate our guts and don't seem particularly inclined to believe us when we say we're just there to restore democracy are not, in fact, hostile lunatics. They just know their regional history and consider it relevant in determining the veracity of American claims of good will. In which regard, unfortunately, they seem to be one up on most Americans.
It also means that the U.S. might do well to consider a more generous strategy in the future. If the U.S. had supported Mossadegh instead of overthrowing his government, we may well have profited handsomely from favored trading status for Iranian oil (this was also true of Ho Chi Minh, who tried repeatedly to garner U.S. support for Vietnamese nationalist resistance to French colonialism).
But what are we doing? We're invading a region that has become pathologically paranoid about being colonized, particularly by the United States, and we're installing a regional government that is friendly to U.S. oil interests, with extremely limited international oversight.
Call me a pessimist, but I don't see this doing much to stem the tide of anti-US Moslem fundamentalism.
Joshua – you offered a list of faith based fascist groups and cults that you believed were comparable to Wahhabism. Many of these groups were (and are) racist, homophobic, misogynistic, pro-slavery and pro-mass murder, just like Wahhabism and Wahhabi-influenced –isms. (Khomeinism, Salafism, etc.)
Were all of those groups created by “U.S. and European economic complicity”
Saudi-funded Islamists are currently attacking Buddhists monks in Thailand. Is that the result of monk economic complicity?
Do you think a “generous strategy” and an attempt to win the hearts and minds of extremist cult groups would be an effective strategy?
Should the Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis have tried to understand what past offenses had caused the Germans to act that way? Should they have tried to win the hearts and minds of moderate Germans with a strategy of generosity?
Should America have tried to win Axis hearts and minds? Should we have apologized profusely for the crimes we’d committed in the past? We had done a lot to offend them. Maybe we should have been nicer.
Your description of Iran’s recent history leaves out one small detail. Khomeini. Did you forget about him or did you just not know about him?
I guess you don’t know about him, since you seem to be confusing all Shi’ites with the followers of Khomeinism:
"The present Iranian regime is based on the ideology of Khomeinism - which is as far removed from Shiism as it is from other mainstream "ways" of Islam. The first victims of that ideology have been Shiites. The Khomeinists have executed over 100,000 Iranians, mostly Shiites. They also caused the deaths of almost a million other Shiites in the eight-year long Iran-Iraq war. Over 3.5 million Iranians, most of them Shiites, have gone into exile.. "
I can’t see how you could have forgotten Khomeini. Don’t you remember the fatwa against Salman Rushdie? That was hard to forget.
Anyway, can you think of any genocidal, racist cult that has been won over by kind words and deeds? I can’t either.
I don’t think we’ve followed the best strategy in the Iraq war – when you’re dealing with an area of the world that’s equivalent to a hornet’s nest, you should either leave it alone or you should remove the whole thing at once. This half-done job risks the lives of Iraqis and American soldiers. We shouldn’t have gone in without a plan to deal with the fundamentalists in Iraq, the Wahhabis and the millionaire mullahs in Iran. The best way to solve that problem would be to come up with a plan.
Who said anything about "kind words and deeds?" That's your straw man, as near as I can tell.
I thought that most people, not just "oh-so-highly moral right wingers" disapproved of oppression, genocide, racism and slavery. Apparently, I was wrong about that.
I though so too, until I came upon extreme right wing blogs like ASV, Little Green Footballs etc., and saw how people there, "oh-so-highly moral right wingers", were advocating carpet bombing Iraq and torturing prisoners, until I read how people were justifying the atrocities of Abu Ghraib as the normal course of people having fun and just needing to blow off some pressure.
You can't get much further away from disapproving genocide and oppression unless you were planning and doing these things yourself.
Posted by: Gudy at June 24, 2004 01:17 AMMary - Flamingbanjo is absolutely right. I never said anything about "kind words and deeds". He's also right that this, "Josh wants to give all the terrorists a hug," line is your straw man. It's also Michele's straw man, and the most commonly employed straw man of pretty much every blogger I've argued with about the war.
Pointing out that the tactics employed by the Bush administration in addressing Middle Eastern terrorism are inappropriate to the political realities of the region, and have therefore resulted in unnecessary loss of life on a massive scale, is not the same thing as suggesting that "kind words and deeds" will fix the situation. If anything, I would advocate harsher deeds, more intelligently executed.
Bush is trying to use a sledge hammer to drive in a loose bolt. Saying that I think a wrench would have been a better tool for the job is not the same thing as suggesting that we shouldn't have done anything about the bolt— or that we should have stood around blowing on the bolt, trying to make it turn with wishful thinking. Force was required, but it was applied in the least productive fashion imaginable.
And this business about me "forgetting" Khomeini? Also a straw man. I brought up the recent history of Iran to point out various historical realities that the current strategy in the Middle East fails to address. Not, as I said quite specifically, to assign blame for that history, but rather to evaluate current U.S.-Middle East policy in the context of history.
Anyway, can you think of any genocidal, racist cult that has been won over by kind words and deeds?
So, while I can't think of any genocidal, racist cult that has been won over by kind words and deeds (which is fine, since I never suggested such a thing was possible), I can think of at least one that was effectively disarmed by political means that addressed the history of the population that was involved in the cult. The United States-based Nation of Islam ("Black Moslems"), was a racist cult that preached that Caucasians were incarnations of the Devil, and should be completely wiped out and/or politically supplanted whenever possible. Weirdly enough, membership in the Nation of Islam started to fall off after the Civil Rights Act was signed, and the NOI has significantly moderated its slogans over the last 40 years as a matter of political survival— if they hadn't, I suspect they might have disappeared altogether.
Also, the KKK— weirdly enough, their membership started to drop off right about the time the economy in the rural areas they were occupying started to improve. And, even today, the KKK typically has its strongest support in poor rural communities where, again, religious fundamentalism is also most common.
What's suggested by these two cases (and others throughout history) is that the best way to deal with a racist genocidal cult is to battle it on two fronts: address existing socio-economic inequities, because socio-economic inequity generates discontent that makes a population vulnerable to radical indoctrination; and prosecute crimes committed by the cult vigorously, openly, and specifically (rather than, say, locking people up in a remote military base and refusing to let them speak to the outside world, blowing up an entire building to take out one sniper, racial or religious profiling, etc etc.).
Bush is fighting this war with half-measures on one front and excessive force on the other. His reform movements are insufficient to placate the population we're dealing with, and his military measures are over-general and inflict collateral damage that causes a loss of regional autonomy and a deep-seated animosity.
Note, please, that this critique does not imply that the situation should not have been dealt with. But it is being dealt with badly, and I hold George W. Bush responsible for that.
Posted by: Joshua at June 24, 2004 11:01 AMRyan, you need a reality check
your comment on the nukes suggest to me that your pathological psyche has missed some turns in the road to logical reasoning and forming your own opinion
your the kind of guy which i think would like Ann coulters 'slander'
now im overreacting here, and i dont want to get too personal, but really i think people who endorse of using nuclear weapons in any situation are not needed in a world seeking peace (hopefully)
I thought that most people, not just "oh-so-highly moral right wingers" disapproved of oppression, genocide, racism and slavery. Apparently, I was wrong about that.
girl, youre missing out on things
its been pointed out several times on quite a few boards they DO approve these things..
Saudi-funded Islamists are currently attacking Buddhists monks in Thailand. Is that the result of monk economic complicity?
But SA is still on of US best friends in the area?..
Posted by: Twilite at August 4, 2004 05:14 PMJoshua:
You're wrong about the Cosmotheist Church. Dr. Pierce created the National Alliance in the early 70's and created Cosmotheism as a dilineation of his philosophy. It is NOT Christian Identity! CIs are nutcases and neither the National Alliance nor Cosmotheism are Christian in nature. Now the current leadership of the NA, since Dr. Pierce has died, have attempted to soften the anti-Christian stance of the NA and have even allowed a CI nutcase to become an NA official "spokesman" but such actions do not speak for true Cosmotheists of the "old" NA, such as myself, but rather can be attributed to the new leadership's desire to create a "big tent" and form some sort of political party, which I think is useless as the Jews who control the media would NEVER allow White Nationalists to get the sufficiently positive coverage on the Jew-tube necessary to win any sort of election beyond possibly the local level.
John
John is quite right and Joshua is just
completely wrong about the religion
of Cosmotheism.
Cosmotheism is NOT at all CHRISTIAN,
as it is a CLASSICAL PANTHEISM, and
so COSMOTHEISM certainly is NOT at
all any CHRISTIAN IDENTITY religion,
whatsoever.
Maybe this Joshua is only confusing
Cosmotheism and the National Alliance
with the CHRISTIAN KLU KLUX KLAN, just
like some few do deliberately confuse a
religion with its politics? "Cosmotheism"
the classical pantheist religion with
"White separatism" the political goal
of the National Alliance for example?
John may also be right about the change
in strategy by this new leadership of the
National Alliance since Dr. William L.
Pierce's death of allowing "Christians"
into leadership positions within the NA,
which might dilute the message and intent
of the "Old Guard". However, some of the
more recent statements and actions of some
of those within the National Alliance seem
to suggest that any such "fears" are not
quite justified.
Best regards,
Paul Vogel aka the NEEDLE
bannedneedle@yahoo.com
http://www.cosmotheism.net