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48Highlander said:
Now why would you say that? Does criticising one extreme imply that the exact opposite must be true? Talk about jumping to conclusions. :
As Obi-wan would say, "Only the Sith deal in Absolutes!"
Fighting & Winning The Global War on Terror (WW IV)
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Now why would you say that? Does criticising one extreme imply that the exact opposite must be true? Talk about jumping to conclusions. :
As Obi-wan would say, "Only the Sith deal in Absolutes!"
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Infanteer said:Now why would you say that? Does criticising one extreme imply that the exact opposite must be true? Talk about jumping to conclusions. :
As Obi-wan would say, "Only the Sith deal in Absolutes!"
Yes master. Yet the dark side tempts one so.
Alright, so I was being a bit facetious. Just saying if I HAVE to pick an extreme, I'd rather go far right wing and start blowing away anything that may be a threat then go far left and live the remaining 10 minutes of my life with my head in the sand. Personaly I prefer to stay centered.
Common sense and past experience tell us we have an axtremely pourous border, very lax immigration policies, and a multitude of terrorist orgaizations working within our borders. I'm not sure what Acorn is trying to prove, other than that we tend to assume more terrorists have gone to the US from here than is actualy provable.
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Meanwhile, in one of the active theaters:
http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens200511070904.asp
This also ties in somewhat with the situation in France, where Islamic rioters are attempting to drive out the French Government from their areas. Purportedly local "Islamic Leaders" are trying to tell the French government to back off with the police and allow them to establish order in these neighbourhoods. Although there is no evidence that the Jihadis or their friends are directly involved, this certainly expands the scope of things, and if there is some help or direction from AQ or Iran, then it indicates they are attempting to mount an asymmetrical offensive against the West (a big if, of course).
The real danger is that the Jihadis will move in and establish themselves in the resulting power vaccum in the French neighbourhoods, just as they are attempting to establish themselves as the primary power by attacking legitimate leaders and symbols of authoraty, and destroying economic infrastructure to breed misery and expand their potential recruiting pool in Iraq.
http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens200511070904.asp
This also ties in somewhat with the situation in France, where Islamic rioters are attempting to drive out the French Government from their areas. Purportedly local "Islamic Leaders" are trying to tell the French government to back off with the police and allow them to establish order in these neighbourhoods. Although there is no evidence that the Jihadis or their friends are directly involved, this certainly expands the scope of things, and if there is some help or direction from AQ or Iran, then it indicates they are attempting to mount an asymmetrical offensive against the West (a big if, of course).
The real danger is that the Jihadis will move in and establish themselves in the resulting power vaccum in the French neighbourhoods, just as they are attempting to establish themselves as the primary power by attacking legitimate leaders and symbols of authoraty, and destroying economic infrastructure to breed misery and expand their potential recruiting pool in Iraq.
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48Highlander said:
Facetious? How about silly? Where can you possibly conclude that my comments come anywhere near this:
Your reading comprehension is severely clouded by your assumptions and bias. I am suprised at the comment agains the NP, though I suppose its new role as a Liberal Party house organ is the root of that. Any Canadian papers impress you? (Please don't say anything from the Sun chain....)
We have a pourous border between us an the US. Any lgical suggestions on how to fix that? Lax immigration policies? All right smart guy, what are those policies and why are they lax? Maybe if you know that you can suggest solutions rather than just slag the system.
A "multitude" of terrorist organizations? What constitues a terrorist organisation?
What I'm trying to "prove" is that we need a little more critical thought, a little less bias-driven assumption. Otherwise you're just a mirror image of Naomi Klein - still biased and "lying with statistics" just at the other end of the political spectrum. The National Review needs as much a jaundiced look as the Toronto (Red) Star.
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Acorn said:
Where? Um...how 'bout in what you wrote? You asked what terrorists have crossed into the US from the Canadian side, other than Ressam. To me, that indicates you beleive he was the only one. You whined about "people on this site" treating the National Review as gospel while denigrating anything from the National Post (neither of which is truthful mind you), so I figgured you'd like it the other way around. AND you complained about knee-jerk slagging of anything Canadian, so I figgured I'd throw in some compliments about our government etc. So yes, facetious is the correct word, although silly fits too. But at least I didn't try to compare terrorism with immigration rates ;D
Acorn said:
I've been suggesting solutions for years but nobody's been listening. Really, coming up with "solutions" isn't even all that neccesary - I don't need the system massively changed, I'd just like them to apply a bit of common sense. When a boat load of Chinese immigrants arrives on our shores, it generaly might be a bad idea to say "hey, listen guys, we're a little swamped with immigration hearings right now, so we're going to cut you lose for a while. but make sure you show up for YOUR hearing!". Then there's the idiotic quota systems which bring in individuals with next to no usable work or language skills from one country, while turning down educated proffesionals from another. Followed by our refusal to reckognize equivalences in several fields including medical, which leads to fully qualified doctors working as janitors. And there's deffinitely something wrong with a system where a deportation hearing takes over a year during which time the deportee receives publicaly funded legal council and can continue to live off the welfare system. Ofcourse we also have problems actually getting deported individuals to STAY OUT. I've lost track of how many times I've read about a criminal getting arrested for commiting a crime who had already been deported several times.
So you want solutions? Refugee claimants show up and we're too busy to proccess 'em? Send 'em back! Hire more immigrations workers for future cases, but in the meanwhile get rid of the problem. Can't seem to keep deportees out of the country? Get better screening procedures. There's so many things that could be improved just by applying some common sense!
Acorn said:
Now we're REALLY getting silly
Acorn said:
On that we can agree, however, a little bias isn't a bad thing. I know that articles in both the NRO and the Star are likely to be inaccurate, so I tend to disregaurd them if I see contrary information from a more reliable source. Similarily, when I hear about a problem in Canada with crime or immigration or something similar, I tend to beleive it untill I see evidence to the contrary. Sure, it's a beleif grounded almost exclusively in bias, but so are most things that people beleive.
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You know, I normally don't find you this obtuse. I was going to post a long rebuttal, but I figured if you got this much wrong:
Your inability to check your work, even from posts that are on the same page or only one page back, indicates that you need a little seasoning. Get your poop in one sock son. My writing wasn't that unclear.
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A description of operations along the Iraq/Syria border. There are lessons to be learned for us as well, substitute Afghanistan/Pakistan border and I think very similar conditions apply:
http://www.nationalreview.com/smitht/smith200511210820.asp
The enemy is also concerned that they might be overtaken by events, as illustrated in this letter:
http://www.nationalreview.com/smitht/smith200511210820.asp
The enemy is also concerned that they might be overtaken by events, as illustrated in this letter:
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More for the repository. The expansion of the ME Theater of Operation is certainly being resisted within the administration by the State Department and DOD certainly has resource constraints which might make a full scale military offensive impractical, but as the author points out, there are some possible alternatives:
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200511230844.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200511230844.asp
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couchcommander
Guest
Back! Thucydides, Herodotus, the Talmud, Soviet defence spending in the 80's and interdependant co-arising have been sucessfully tackled, now onto things that really matter.
No, you're right. Iraqi and Syrian have little to do with national groups in the middle east. Lebanon, IMO, does have an emerging national movement, and we can pick up some Syrian nationalism from time to time though I wouldn't put much credence in it's holding power. I was mistaken in pointing to Iraqi nationalism as a powerful resistant force.
The nationalism we need to watch out for, and the sense of nationalism I was trying to identify (but did so stupidly) is Arab Nationalism, which is largely responsible for this almost automatic hostility towards the Americans for being on Arab land, regardless of what they do there. This is at least partly (along with religious beliefs) responsible for much of the foreign intervention in Iraq (interestly religous concerns turned out to be minimal to suicide bombers, most of them were pissed off that the americans were interefering in Arab lands...along with drugs and coercion). Regardless of whether an Arab is Egyptian, Iranian, Shiite or Sunni, they do have their Arab heritage in common, and across all these barriers will become offended and moved to action if they feel a fellow Arab is being sufficiently attacked (but like anything this can just be ignored, and IMO is still a developing movement)
Arab nationalism means that when we go into a middle eastern country not only are we pissing off the local tribes or religous sects, we are pissing off all of those who consider themselves Arab... which is a big problem.
You argue that nationalism is merly tribalism writ large. To me it seems that this would have to be taken very broadly. If you are simply saying that tribalism and nationlism are the same in that they are social phenomenons where people feel strong ties to other similar peoples, sure. However, these are two very different different concepts when one gets into how these behave, their specific characteristics, and usually the scale on which one is speaking. Typically a nation is a group that is much larger than a tribe, and often times encompasses many tribal groups. Different tribes, while sharing common languages, customs, and histories, will still indentify themselves as being distinct groups centered around the leaders of the local heirarchy (take the the Vandals and the Visigoths being two notable germanic tribes). Nations see past these local affiliations and look to the commonality shared by incredibly large groups of people.
Tribalism, exactly. All tribalism could muster was the Senones to attack Rome under Brennus, who were then quickly driven back by another army. All Ceasar does in the De Bello Gallico is divide Gaul into three bits, the Celts (Galli is what he calls them, Celtae being their language) being one of them. This was not a national group, nor even a tribal group, but a linguistic group. Indeed individual tribes or groups of tribes did attack the Romans but this was not because of some overreaching concern of the Gaulish nation but temporary alliances between tribal groups.
And yes indeed tribalism is still a force in the Arab world, you are definately right about it. Do we need to be aware of it and exploit it? Yes.
Are these tribal groups the same as Arab national groups? No. Do we need to be aware of these national groups and exploit them? Yes. Are these Arab national groups much larger than these tribal groups? yes
And to my very point, can we then take examples from history where national groups did not play a role in determining the strength of resistance? not really.
After the emergence of the idea of the nation in France in the 18th century we see these tribal groups beginning to recognize their common heritages and bond together forming even larger and more powerful groups. Arab nationalism is part of this outgrowth, it is not merly tribalism writ large (as you have pointed out, tribes are still widespread across Iraq, last I counted there were 150). Nationalism is a much larger force.
And to clarify there may be smaller national forces at work than just pan-arabism, but to me it seems that pan-arabism is the largest and a cause for great concern.
Thus, what I was trying to express before, was that overt military actions will most likely, IMO, not be very sucessful if we offend this Arab Identity by calously attacking and occupying various Arab states. We need to be more descreet about it and try not to collectively piss off 320 million people.
Now to try and catch up on what the hell has been going on around here.
Infanteer said:
No, you're right. Iraqi and Syrian have little to do with national groups in the middle east. Lebanon, IMO, does have an emerging national movement, and we can pick up some Syrian nationalism from time to time though I wouldn't put much credence in it's holding power. I was mistaken in pointing to Iraqi nationalism as a powerful resistant force.
The nationalism we need to watch out for, and the sense of nationalism I was trying to identify (but did so stupidly) is Arab Nationalism, which is largely responsible for this almost automatic hostility towards the Americans for being on Arab land, regardless of what they do there. This is at least partly (along with religious beliefs) responsible for much of the foreign intervention in Iraq (interestly religous concerns turned out to be minimal to suicide bombers, most of them were pissed off that the americans were interefering in Arab lands...along with drugs and coercion). Regardless of whether an Arab is Egyptian, Iranian, Shiite or Sunni, they do have their Arab heritage in common, and across all these barriers will become offended and moved to action if they feel a fellow Arab is being sufficiently attacked (but like anything this can just be ignored, and IMO is still a developing movement)
Arab nationalism means that when we go into a middle eastern country not only are we pissing off the local tribes or religous sects, we are pissing off all of those who consider themselves Arab... which is a big problem.
You're right, kin selection is a very powerful force, and is theorized to be behind much of what we normally perceive as "alturistic" acts. But no, I am still going to disagree with you in that it is not tied to the westphalian state, as the state itself has little to do with the nations contained within it. The arbirary political borders which we set up have in history rarely been in line with the outlines of national groups (except in modern day western europe where things have worked themselves out). This creates problems when these national groups discover themselves and wish to form their own nation states, and the colonial conflicts were characteristic of this.
You argue that nationalism is merly tribalism writ large. To me it seems that this would have to be taken very broadly. If you are simply saying that tribalism and nationlism are the same in that they are social phenomenons where people feel strong ties to other similar peoples, sure. However, these are two very different different concepts when one gets into how these behave, their specific characteristics, and usually the scale on which one is speaking. Typically a nation is a group that is much larger than a tribe, and often times encompasses many tribal groups. Different tribes, while sharing common languages, customs, and histories, will still indentify themselves as being distinct groups centered around the leaders of the local heirarchy (take the the Vandals and the Visigoths being two notable germanic tribes). Nations see past these local affiliations and look to the commonality shared by incredibly large groups of people.
Indeed
I'm saying that given the typical scale of national groups and the ferocity with which history has demonstrated these groups willingness to fight to acheive their goals, especially when threatened by another national group, this force has to be taken into consideration. Comparing ancient occupations where this was not a concern with modern examples where nationalism has to be taken into account is not a wise course of action.
Tribalism, exactly. All tribalism could muster was the Senones to attack Rome under Brennus, who were then quickly driven back by another army. All Ceasar does in the De Bello Gallico is divide Gaul into three bits, the Celts (Galli is what he calls them, Celtae being their language) being one of them. This was not a national group, nor even a tribal group, but a linguistic group. Indeed individual tribes or groups of tribes did attack the Romans but this was not because of some overreaching concern of the Gaulish nation but temporary alliances between tribal groups.
And yes indeed tribalism is still a force in the Arab world, you are definately right about it. Do we need to be aware of it and exploit it? Yes.
Are these tribal groups the same as Arab national groups? No. Do we need to be aware of these national groups and exploit them? Yes. Are these Arab national groups much larger than these tribal groups? yes
And to my very point, can we then take examples from history where national groups did not play a role in determining the strength of resistance? not really.
After the emergence of the idea of the nation in France in the 18th century we see these tribal groups beginning to recognize their common heritages and bond together forming even larger and more powerful groups. Arab nationalism is part of this outgrowth, it is not merly tribalism writ large (as you have pointed out, tribes are still widespread across Iraq, last I counted there were 150). Nationalism is a much larger force.
And to clarify there may be smaller national forces at work than just pan-arabism, but to me it seems that pan-arabism is the largest and a cause for great concern.
Thus, what I was trying to express before, was that overt military actions will most likely, IMO, not be very sucessful if we offend this Arab Identity by calously attacking and occupying various Arab states. We need to be more descreet about it and try not to collectively piss off 320 million people.
Now to try and catch up on what the hell has been going on around here.
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I'd wager nationalism is declining in importance. Group identification, even in the long-standing nations of the West, is becoming increasingly fractured. States where the concept of nationalism is in competition with powerful civil society elements such as religious sectarianism or ethnic sub-division are even more likely to have weak nation-based systems of loyalty. Such is the problem throughout much of Africa - strong civil societies and non-nation-state loyalties make for weak governments and collective action external to the democratic process. That's not to say that a people can't have loyalties to their sect, tribe, and nation all at the same time, but it seems to me that the nation, especially when present in the form of a nation-state, is taking a back seat to more personal/ground-level identities.
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couchcommander said:
You are right out to lunch - Pakistani, Indonesian, and Persian Muslims are equally upset with what is going on. Nassir went out of style after 1967 - look for Qutb and the Ikhwan.
As for the rest of the blahblahblah, I can't figure out what you're trying to say, because it's all based on your idea of Arab Nationalism which is a Cold War relic and has little real value in the politics that are driving Dar al-Islam today.
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Glorified Ape said:
Martin van Crevald would agree with you. Infact, I'd argue that nationalism never really was important in most of the world - as I said before, when applied to the state level it is largely a Western construct and those who placed their loyalties elsewhere really had no need for it (except to pull it out when it meant US/Soviet funding and weapons to deal with the tribe next door).
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couchcommander
Guest
Qutb is fringe figure on the extreme of Islamic fundamentalism and doesn't have a lot of pull with your everyday Arab. Infact he managed to piss off the egyptian population and now really only finds support with very very hardline extremists (in part due to the divisive nature of his message).Infanteer said:
And yes your right regarding the Pakistani's, Indonesians, etc.... doesn't mean there still isn't Arab nationalism.
Would you not be upset if say.... Sweden was attacked? Especially if you and the majority of Swedes shared a common religon and worldview? Doesn't mean there is no such thing as Canadian nationalism (heh... well you get my point).
Rest of what I was trying to say in once sentance: If we continue to overtly and callously attack Arab states we will come up against increasing resistance regardless of what we are trying to accomplish.
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couchcommander
Guest
Glorified Ape said:
You may be right about this. However, historically speaking it has been a very powerful movement, and my concern is just that we need to address this in forming our policy.
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couchcommander said:
Fringe figure? Now I know you are talking through your hat....
And, since you missed it the first and second time, the identity of "Arab" isn't the one driving folks these days - Arab Nationalism lost its lustere following its defeat at the hands of Israel; it doesn't seem to garner a strong sentiment from Arab populations; it's either below that (tribal sense) or above it (the ummah).
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couchcommander
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Infanteer said:
Do you honestly think that your average muslim puts much if any bearing in Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq? It would be like looking to Strauss for your average westerner. Though he may be highly influencial in certain circles, including powerful ones, I don't see him affecting the decision making of your run of the mill guy (and it's your average run of the mill guy who will be having to decide whether or not he wants to risk the lives of his family to tell us about the mean men that are building bombs).
If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. Is some new and extreme thread of Islamic fundamentalism driving people to take up the sword against the infidels based upon some notion of a pure society, or alternatively deny us the intelligence we need (certain groups in society would like us to believe this, they would like it very much), or are they just pissed off because we are running around in lands occupied by people they feel a commonality with?
Actual interviews with thwarted suicide bombers support the latter in the vast majority of cases combined with a strong sense of oppression and powerlessness.
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couchcommander said:
Do you honestly think that the average communist insurgent knew the finer points of Marx and Engels? Instead of farting back what you Googled on Qutb, why don't you do some research in the direction I'm pointing you in. I have two of his books sitting right infront of me, and if you'd familiarize yourself with them, you'd see themes that resonate within today's militant Islamist thought - considering this is the prime source of conflict in the region, I don't have any idea where you get off saying he is a "fringe writer" that nobody follows.
I don't care what your professor told you last week, get Arab Nationalism out of your head. If you want to read a good account of its decline, look to the last chapter of Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples - it goes into detail covering Arab disenchantment with pan-Arab Nationalism following its inability to lift their prosperity and power out of the marginalization of 200 years of being on the losing end of wars. What supplanted this nationalism? Islamic revivalism in a few varieties, of which Sayid Qutb's writings (read Milestones and Social Justice in Islam) are among the most influential to radicals who saw their own governments as part of the problem. For an interesting Arab perspective on Qutb's writings on the Islamist movement, read Moussalli's Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb.
No analysis of the shift of Middle Eastern political sentiment to Islamist militancy would be complete without properly analyzing how Qutb's views were brought to the mainstream. An indepth look at the Ikhwan, the "Muslim Brotherhood", should be undertaken. Its earlier radical approach to politics and its rejection of nationalist, secular regimes is important in understanding the roots of the modern Islamic militant. You can still see the support for the Islamist message of the Muslim Brotherhood today as its opposition to the heir to Nassir's regime in Egypt is quiet vocal, despite being a banned party (no thanks to the writings of Qutb)
The other very important reason to look at the Muslim Brotherhood is due to the links that were forged by those who joined its ranks. Two disciples of Sayyid Qutb's teachings who would play big roles in furthering the development of the militant Islam were Sheikh Abdullah Azzam and Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri. Azzam is famous for issuing the Fatwa against the Soviets for their invasion of Afghanistan and starting Maktab al-Khadamat, an organization for funding, moving, equipping, and training Muslims from all over Dar al-Islam to go to Afghanistan and fight a holy jihad (these fighters became known as the Arab Afghans). This Fatwa was not started in the name of Arab nationalism, but in defence of the Islamic faith and it attracted fighters from Morocco to the Philippines. This fatwa generated the impetus for those we now see issued against the West and the United States in specific (Al Qa'ida's being the most well known). Defence of the Faith, not defence of the Arab lands and peoples.
Azzam is also very important for another reason - he, along with his fellow Qutb disciple al-Zawahiri, took a young, devout, and very wealthy Osama bin-Laden under their wing. Young bin Laden, motivated by his university studies in Jeddah, was influenced by the teachings of the 12th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya. Incidentally, Taymiyya's works served as the basis for many of the concepts Qutb espoused - the impetus to fight off the Mongol invaders (who happened to have converted to Muslim) is the historical precedent central to Qutb's notion of jahilliya - which is seen as a crucial piece of Islamic scholarship supporting the notion of sectarian violence within Islam. Anyways, back to bin Laden and Co. Bin Laden's role in the Afghan jihad and his service and friendship with both Azzam and al-Zawahiri served to help deepen his beliefs - combined with the success of the mujihadeen in pushing the Soviets out, it served to reinforce their viewpoint that God had justified their actions and beliefs by giving them victory. This whole trail of radicalization is covered in detail in Michael Sheuer's Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Pan-Arabism played no role in the development of bin Laden and the other Salafist fighters who gained real credibility in the Muslim world due to their service in Afghanistan.
As well, during this time the Iranian revolution kicked off and gathered steam. Iran is Persian, so it has nothing to do with Arab Nationalism. However, the Iranian movement really opened the door for dissent in Muslim countries as a state under Sharia that was run by the clerics was telling Muslims that they lived in apostasy under secular, nationalist regimes. Qutb and the rest of the Salafist movement also espoused this view from within as a criticism for the failure of Arab nationalist regimes to deliver any sort of prosperity or or victory against Israel. In response, the Saudi's let the Wahabbi's open the floodgates to prove that they were pious Muslims. You start to see hardline Muslims get real pissed with Arab nationalists, as you saw with the Hama uprising in Syria. This is where the movement to Islamist thought discussed by Hourani really takes a hard edge.
Moving along, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri form Al Qa'ida (The Base) to serve as a network for the Arab Afghans that fought to defend the Faith in Afghanistan. The key question nagging the leaders of the Arab Afghans is what to do next with their success. Azzam was keen to return to his native Palestine and to declare jihad against Israel, uniting Islam against the next "near enemy" that had "invaded" Dar al-Islam. Zawahiri also wanted to return home (in this case Egypt) to finish off the work that Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood had started by overthowing the apostate regime in place there with his organization the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ). Bin Laden had other ideas - he was convinced that the Salafist agenda could be pushed by fighting the other "far" enemy, the United States. With the Soviets gone and rotting from the inside, he saw the US as the only thing left propping up the apostate regimes that resisted the Salafist vision of a unified Caliphate. Bin Laden would (many suspect) take out Azzam with a bomb attack and co-opt Zawahiri to bring the focus of the movement into that of the global Salafist jihad.
The rest is history. Al Qa'ida, as the base of the global Salafist jihad, is an Insurgency Organization, quite possible the first one to be seen on the global level. It's goal is to unite the Islamic world and defend the Faith against apostasy. It's short term objectives to meet this goal is to drive the US and the West from the Islamic world, undercutting regimes which oppose the Salafist ideology. There is nothing "Arab" about this - it is pan-Islamic. This is all covered in great detail on both the political level by Michael Sheuer and on the social/psychological level by Marc Sageman quite well. Al Qa'ida's message is that the US and the Israeli's are leading a crusade to subjugate and destroy the Islamic faith. - they are shaping this message around Western policies and it is one that is fairly powerful in Islamic countries. Again, so you get it this time, it is not based around one of Arab solidarity. Infact, most Muslims, including Arabs, tend to see themselves as Muslims first and members of their nation-state second, as this Pew report suggests. Many see extremism such as that represented by the global Salafist Jihad, as a threat, but that doesn't undo the fact that on a broad level, most Islamic nations (there are exceptions) seem to be seeing Islam as the prime factor in their identity.
Now, as for the specifics - the Islamic Insurgency, much like Communism, is not a monolith. Each area, branch, and network of the movement has its own unique qualities which demand their own unique solutions. I've touched upon this with the explanation of the tribal intricacies that are common to Mesopotamia and the Levant. But this does not take away from the overwhelming influence that Islamist thought plays. The Iraqi Insurgency is not fuelled by pan-Arabism, and Arab nationalism is not a threat to Western policies as you continue to claim (without any substantiation). Organizations like Ansar al-Sunnah, one of the major players in the Sunni insurgency, are based around defence of the Sunni faith in what is a Shi'ite dominated area. Notice the fact that they don't give a shit about their Arab Shia neighbours who they gladly attack. Foreign fighters under the Jordanian Abu Musib al-Zarqawi's Tahwid organization do not flock to Iraq for the sake of the Arab peoples - they are Salafists who see the Americans as a crusader.
Islamist thought has many branches, some moderate, some violent - but they all have great appeal to the Muslim who has seen the Middle East and the Islamic world tugged along by the whim of the globalizing world. This is where bin Laden's appeal comes from and why he is popular amongst many Muslims. The violence, conflict and political upheaval that we see today is linked to the social movement away from nationalism and towards an Islamist outlook that Hourani discussed. Much of the extremist thought that leads men to arms stems from thinkers like Qutb, who you obviously know jackshit about and are so apt to write off as a "fringe writer". Within each conflict there are people that lash out for far simpler reasons (homeland is invaded, political repression, etc - after all, all politics is local) but they find their banner somewhere, and at the moment that banner is grounded in Islamist thought be it violent or benign. I've yet to run into any serious information that argues that pan-Arab thought is what drives resistence and insurgency.
So, you have your marching orders. Read, research, study, and keep up with current events. Don't try to fool us into believing you figured things out between midterms and last weeks frat party because you can throw a few fancy terms and ideas on the forums. I'm not in any way an expert, but this is stuff that a careful observer picks up on - stuff you'd be wise to look up if you want to seriously approach Middle Eastern politics. Until then, spare us the bandwidth and....
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Excellent post Infanteer.
It never ceases to amaze me that these naïve oxygen thieves racking up the student loans love to shove their "academic credentials" such as they are in our faces but fail to realize that some ( many?) of us poor dumb grunts have cracked a book or two, spent some time in the proverbial ivory towers, and can add a set a set of academic letters after our names as well. And that's in addition to the actual boots on the ground experience we bring to the table.
It never ceases to amaze me that these naïve oxygen thieves racking up the student loans love to shove their "academic credentials" such as they are in our faces but fail to realize that some ( many?) of us poor dumb grunts have cracked a book or two, spent some time in the proverbial ivory towers, and can add a set a set of academic letters after our names as well. And that's in addition to the actual boots on the ground experience we bring to the table.
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couchcommander
Guest
Infanteer,
(for the record here, snippy comments have been provoked)
Thank you for your chronology of the emergence of what we in the west have identified as Islamic extremism, and some of our explanations of how it might affect suicide bombers, insurgents, etc. I have actually had exposure to this material previously, and no, not just from wikipedia.
However, as I stated before, Qutb, Islamic fundamentalism, Al-Qaeda take a back seat when you actually stop reading the half digested puke coming out of Conservative American media, and farting back out the incoherent chunks (I'm not sure which is worse, that or google hershy squirts?).
It first really occured to me that the reasons behind the bombings and the insurgency could not be entirely attributed to fanatical religous extremism at the 10th annual interfaith symposium on terrorism held here at the U of A earlier this fall (sure beats google, and I am having a hard time remembering if it was before or after last weeks frat party.....).
There it was pointed out that all religons have a history of terrorism, even in the modern sense. Timothy Mcvay (or however you spell it), Anti-semetic groups, militatant jewish settlers, etc. etc. Further, it was shown that Islam does not really support the position of the bombers, and that only by a very scewed interpretation of the Koran did it actually lend itself to terrorism. To me, it seemed, that basically every Islamic leader I had spoken too had that same message. To me, once again, it seemed as though one would almost have to try and bend the words in the Koran to fit to an already existant anger.
Further, it was not hard to notice the level of anger in the room towards the "imperialist" United States. These people, who had joined together with Jews, Christian, Athetists, etc. to try and explore this phenomenon were certainly not islamic extremists, but yet the room rose to a standing ovation when one of the professors doing a presentation started into how the US was certainly no Ivory Tower, and how ignorant they were to believe that they could spread their idea of "democracy" (the quotations around this word cannot be stressed enough, there was almost a level of disgust when it was said, and no, it's not because he hated democracy in it's true sense, just that the US thought they had the answers to the worlds problems) by riding into these poor, downtrodden middle eastern country and killing hundreds of thousands of people. It did not matter to these people the circumstances surrounding their deaths, whether or not credible intelligence indicated the presence of high level targets or not. They were just pissed that the US was there, killing people.
Well, as you're probably thinking, this is all great, but so far all I've done is share my feelings... where's the proof.
Those were my thoughts exactly. Given the fact that I had just had a thought contrary to every CNN newsclip I had seen over the past few years, I thought this warranted further reivew.
Firstly, being a student in my own Ivory Tower (unfortunately no letters behind my name yet, just wacky ideas), I turned to scholary journals. One of the first ones to catch my eye was a 2004 article in the international journal of public opinion research, an oxford publication, titled "World Opinion Surveys and The War in Iraq". In this of course it detailed the usual general resentment towards the US in non-western countries, and almost hatred in middle east, but a section entitled "Oil, Israel, Muslims, the World" (pg 249), offered some insight into the nature of this resentment.
Outside the US and Britain, in the middle eastern countries surveyed, the majority of respondents said that the US "wanted to control mideast oil" and "dominate the world" and that they hadn't done a good enough job to prevent civilian casualties. These answers were attained from a series of polls conducted by reputible organizations and were now being published in a journal out of one of the most prestigous univerisites in the world.
There was no mention of "kill the infidels" or "interfering in creating a pure society", just your average run of mill guy pissed off that the americans were heavy footidly trampling around in their backyard, and not doing a good job of preventing innocent people from dying.
Further, when asked whether or not the removal of suddam hussein would result in the region becoming more democratic, most middle eastern respondants diagreed (and no, I'm not saying I do). So not only do they think we are trampling around in their backyard, killing innocent civilians, but for no good reason either.
Uh oh. I'm pretty sure this is one of the ways to spell "insurgent".
The extent of this anger went even further. Of surveyed middle eastern countries, a majority of respondants thought that suicide bombings were "justified". Once again this was the general popuation. These are not the leaders of radical islamic sects in Iraq pronouncing intefadas or preaching about the great devil and the need for pure Islamic society, there are run of the mill muslims who's Imams, like the ones we have here, are quite adament that the Koran does not really justify terrorism. Hrm. CNN needs to find a new "expert" IMO.
Combine all of this with continuing questions as to the legality of the war, even in western journals. This quote is from the abstract of "From Unity to Polarization: International Law and the Use of Force against Iraq" in the European Journal of International Law. "The USA and UK have become increasingly isolated in their insistence that implied authorization by the Security Council, material breach by Iraq of the ceasefire regime and, for the UK, humanitarian intervention justify their use of force." Put it all together and we've got a lot of reasons for anger on the part of Arabs, and none of it has anything to do with Qutb or the Muslim Brotherhood.
So, now that we have this construct of "how to build an insurgent sans fundamental Islam", I decided it might be prudent to compare it against actual insurgents. Using the biggest google fart I could muster, I dug up a number if interviews with actual attempted suicide bombers. The responses were interesting.
"Mukdi ultimately attributes his fateful decision to the death by shooting, when he was nine years old, of a much older playmate, and to two humiliating episodes at Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoints â †one of which occurred just a year before he decided to become a shahid." - http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/1910.cfm
"Hamamreh said her prime motivation was personal, and she declined to elaborate.
Another reason, she said, was the effect on her, along with all Palestinians, of the ongoing violence and what they see as their oppression at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces." - http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000092.html
"OBEIDA KHALIL (translated): There are many reasons why I tried to carry out a suicide bombing. I was very young when the first Palestinian Intifada happened, but I saw how the Israelis killed little children and how they destroyed our houses.
During this Intifada I was engaged, but four days before our wedding my fiancé was killed by the Israelis. Since then my family has started to carry out attacks. My brother and my female cousin were suicide bombers." - http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1042349.htm
"He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when, via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric, savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked through Baghdad.
'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here to help us but to destroy us,' he said.
Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer, said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not better.'
He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time had come. 'We realised. We had to act.' " - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1302718,00.html
and my personal favourite:
"JR: What was the main reason for you deciding to become a suicide bomber? The one reason in particular.
Hussam: The reason was because my friend was killed.
The second reason I did it is because I didn't want to go to school.
My parents forced me to go to school and I didn't feel like going. " - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3899015.stm
The thing that got me was though indeed most of them did feel they had a religous justification for committing the acts they did, it was only after the western world (or Israel) had enraged them to the point of homicide that these beliefs, in the majority of cases, came into play, not the other way around.
The other thing I noticed was a stark difference between these people, the actual perpatraitors of the crimes, and those who represented the organizations they "worked for". The people who didn't actually have to face American guns or blow themselves up were all fire and brimestone (to use a Christian analogy), but when you actually get down to the guy on the ground who is doing the killing, it's the fact that you killed his friend, occupied Arab or muslim lands, treated their societies with disrespect, etc. etc. that provoked them to action, not the writings of some extremist.
So there we have it. Suicide bombers, iraqi insurgents... they are not in it due to some overreaching religous goal or belief (or, as you so heatidly assert, quite possibly not anger at US attacks at what they preceive to be their Arab nation either), they are in it becasue we, through our actions, have pissed them the fcuk off by using heavy handed military tactics and being insensitive to their attitudes and desires.
Thus, we cannot continue to callously use overt miilitary actions to influence affairs in the middle east or we risk running into ever increasing resistance regardless of what we do.
Danjanou:
Why would I be spending hours of my day reading these forums and debating various topics with the posters on it if felt you all didn't have something to add? I appreciate the perspectives that the diverse community on this forum can bring to the table, and the fact that many if not most of the posters have just as much knowledges on these topics as I do, and many of them, on top of having decades of more real world experience, also have much greater academic backgrounds. Doesn't stop me from disagreeing you, even if it uses up precious oxygen, and accusations of naivety can go both ways in this argument.
(for the record here, snippy comments have been provoked)
Thank you for your chronology of the emergence of what we in the west have identified as Islamic extremism, and some of our explanations of how it might affect suicide bombers, insurgents, etc. I have actually had exposure to this material previously, and no, not just from wikipedia.
However, as I stated before, Qutb, Islamic fundamentalism, Al-Qaeda take a back seat when you actually stop reading the half digested puke coming out of Conservative American media, and farting back out the incoherent chunks (I'm not sure which is worse, that or google hershy squirts?).
It first really occured to me that the reasons behind the bombings and the insurgency could not be entirely attributed to fanatical religous extremism at the 10th annual interfaith symposium on terrorism held here at the U of A earlier this fall (sure beats google, and I am having a hard time remembering if it was before or after last weeks frat party.....).
There it was pointed out that all religons have a history of terrorism, even in the modern sense. Timothy Mcvay (or however you spell it), Anti-semetic groups, militatant jewish settlers, etc. etc. Further, it was shown that Islam does not really support the position of the bombers, and that only by a very scewed interpretation of the Koran did it actually lend itself to terrorism. To me, it seemed, that basically every Islamic leader I had spoken too had that same message. To me, once again, it seemed as though one would almost have to try and bend the words in the Koran to fit to an already existant anger.
Further, it was not hard to notice the level of anger in the room towards the "imperialist" United States. These people, who had joined together with Jews, Christian, Athetists, etc. to try and explore this phenomenon were certainly not islamic extremists, but yet the room rose to a standing ovation when one of the professors doing a presentation started into how the US was certainly no Ivory Tower, and how ignorant they were to believe that they could spread their idea of "democracy" (the quotations around this word cannot be stressed enough, there was almost a level of disgust when it was said, and no, it's not because he hated democracy in it's true sense, just that the US thought they had the answers to the worlds problems) by riding into these poor, downtrodden middle eastern country and killing hundreds of thousands of people. It did not matter to these people the circumstances surrounding their deaths, whether or not credible intelligence indicated the presence of high level targets or not. They were just pissed that the US was there, killing people.
Well, as you're probably thinking, this is all great, but so far all I've done is share my feelings... where's the proof.
Those were my thoughts exactly. Given the fact that I had just had a thought contrary to every CNN newsclip I had seen over the past few years, I thought this warranted further reivew.
Firstly, being a student in my own Ivory Tower (unfortunately no letters behind my name yet, just wacky ideas), I turned to scholary journals. One of the first ones to catch my eye was a 2004 article in the international journal of public opinion research, an oxford publication, titled "World Opinion Surveys and The War in Iraq". In this of course it detailed the usual general resentment towards the US in non-western countries, and almost hatred in middle east, but a section entitled "Oil, Israel, Muslims, the World" (pg 249), offered some insight into the nature of this resentment.
Outside the US and Britain, in the middle eastern countries surveyed, the majority of respondents said that the US "wanted to control mideast oil" and "dominate the world" and that they hadn't done a good enough job to prevent civilian casualties. These answers were attained from a series of polls conducted by reputible organizations and were now being published in a journal out of one of the most prestigous univerisites in the world.
There was no mention of "kill the infidels" or "interfering in creating a pure society", just your average run of mill guy pissed off that the americans were heavy footidly trampling around in their backyard, and not doing a good job of preventing innocent people from dying.
Further, when asked whether or not the removal of suddam hussein would result in the region becoming more democratic, most middle eastern respondants diagreed (and no, I'm not saying I do). So not only do they think we are trampling around in their backyard, killing innocent civilians, but for no good reason either.
Uh oh. I'm pretty sure this is one of the ways to spell "insurgent".
The extent of this anger went even further. Of surveyed middle eastern countries, a majority of respondants thought that suicide bombings were "justified". Once again this was the general popuation. These are not the leaders of radical islamic sects in Iraq pronouncing intefadas or preaching about the great devil and the need for pure Islamic society, there are run of the mill muslims who's Imams, like the ones we have here, are quite adament that the Koran does not really justify terrorism. Hrm. CNN needs to find a new "expert" IMO.
Combine all of this with continuing questions as to the legality of the war, even in western journals. This quote is from the abstract of "From Unity to Polarization: International Law and the Use of Force against Iraq" in the European Journal of International Law. "The USA and UK have become increasingly isolated in their insistence that implied authorization by the Security Council, material breach by Iraq of the ceasefire regime and, for the UK, humanitarian intervention justify their use of force." Put it all together and we've got a lot of reasons for anger on the part of Arabs, and none of it has anything to do with Qutb or the Muslim Brotherhood.
So, now that we have this construct of "how to build an insurgent sans fundamental Islam", I decided it might be prudent to compare it against actual insurgents. Using the biggest google fart I could muster, I dug up a number if interviews with actual attempted suicide bombers. The responses were interesting.
"Mukdi ultimately attributes his fateful decision to the death by shooting, when he was nine years old, of a much older playmate, and to two humiliating episodes at Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoints â †one of which occurred just a year before he decided to become a shahid." - http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/1910.cfm
"Hamamreh said her prime motivation was personal, and she declined to elaborate.
Another reason, she said, was the effect on her, along with all Palestinians, of the ongoing violence and what they see as their oppression at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces." - http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000092.html
"OBEIDA KHALIL (translated): There are many reasons why I tried to carry out a suicide bombing. I was very young when the first Palestinian Intifada happened, but I saw how the Israelis killed little children and how they destroyed our houses.
During this Intifada I was engaged, but four days before our wedding my fiancé was killed by the Israelis. Since then my family has started to carry out attacks. My brother and my female cousin were suicide bombers." - http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1042349.htm
"He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when, via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric, savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked through Baghdad.
'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here to help us but to destroy us,' he said.
Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer, said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not better.'
He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time had come. 'We realised. We had to act.' " - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1302718,00.html
and my personal favourite:
"JR: What was the main reason for you deciding to become a suicide bomber? The one reason in particular.
Hussam: The reason was because my friend was killed.
The second reason I did it is because I didn't want to go to school.
My parents forced me to go to school and I didn't feel like going. " - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3899015.stm
The thing that got me was though indeed most of them did feel they had a religous justification for committing the acts they did, it was only after the western world (or Israel) had enraged them to the point of homicide that these beliefs, in the majority of cases, came into play, not the other way around.
The other thing I noticed was a stark difference between these people, the actual perpatraitors of the crimes, and those who represented the organizations they "worked for". The people who didn't actually have to face American guns or blow themselves up were all fire and brimestone (to use a Christian analogy), but when you actually get down to the guy on the ground who is doing the killing, it's the fact that you killed his friend, occupied Arab or muslim lands, treated their societies with disrespect, etc. etc. that provoked them to action, not the writings of some extremist.
So there we have it. Suicide bombers, iraqi insurgents... they are not in it due to some overreaching religous goal or belief (or, as you so heatidly assert, quite possibly not anger at US attacks at what they preceive to be their Arab nation either), they are in it becasue we, through our actions, have pissed them the fcuk off by using heavy handed military tactics and being insensitive to their attitudes and desires.
Thus, we cannot continue to callously use overt miilitary actions to influence affairs in the middle east or we risk running into ever increasing resistance regardless of what we do.
Danjanou:
Why would I be spending hours of my day reading these forums and debating various topics with the posters on it if felt you all didn't have something to add? I appreciate the perspectives that the diverse community on this forum can bring to the table, and the fact that many if not most of the posters have just as much knowledges on these topics as I do, and many of them, on top of having decades of more real world experience, also have much greater academic backgrounds. Doesn't stop me from disagreeing you, even if it uses up precious oxygen, and accusations of naivety can go both ways in this argument.
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