who are "the terrorists"? Everything depends on the answer
I think we know that
(1) a major source of information as to why and how bad people should attack the West is the al-Qaeda establishment. They should be caught and put to justice. Now might be a good time to twist arms in superficially cooperative but really recalcitrant governments who might be shielding them -- short, that is, of invading such countries, all over again. This would of course entail admitting, at least tacitly, that the Iraq war has been the equivalent of amputating the wrong limb.
(2) the appeal of the people covered under (1) to other people of the Muslim or Arab world should be limited. They have the advantage of essentially unchecked propaganda about how the US is bad. This propaganda should be checked, countered.
Right, pseudonymous blog commenter has solved the policy problem of today. What next?
This is related to my post below, which, I see, is going to be lost in the shuffle. What way of life is threatened, and how? Are Muslims in London particularly oppressed? Did those responsible actually think thoughts like "I will strike a blow for my sacred truths"? These aren't rhetorical questions.
It will matter whether the perpetrators are British-born or not; whether they were raised in UK Muslim communities; whether their sense of themselves as jihadists is part of a pan-Muslim identity forged by their immersion in a foreign culture (compare, for example, the existence of "african-american" as a single identity in the US, an identity that fuses together diverse ethnic and cultural origins), or if it's motivated by the conditions of their distant country of origin. All of this informs an effective strategy of response. The apostropher is both morally and strategically wise to warn against lumping all Muslims, all Arabs, etc. together, even subconsciously, because this oversimplifies and thus weakens our efforts to keep bombs off trains.
We know that Al Qaeda terrorism has so far included both British Muslims (e.g., Richard Reid) and those from more distant countries.
FL,
I sure hope your post below is not lost, because I responded in full down there.
How can there be any doubt that "know your enemy" is absolutely essential in fighting any war? I can't imagine any US general stating he does not want intelligence on his enemy.
I assert that our enemy in this conflict is more than al-Qaeda. This conflict is truly a clash of cultures.
File this story in the "we're so fuct" file.
How can there be any doubt that "know your enemy" is absolutely essential in fighting any war? I can't imagine any US general stating he does not want intelligence on his enemy.
Even the neoconservatives believe this to be true; hence, the laughably racist and reductive Teh Arab Mind.
The.
Although Teh would be more apropos.
This conflict is truly a clash of cultures.
really? i respectfully, humbly, and totally disagree.
as far as i can tell, not all muslims are trying to kill americans, or even any sizeable portion of them. i think we are trying to frame it as a clash of cultures in order to make sense of the fact that we desperately want to believe invading iraq would somehow make the world a safer place for us after the terrifying disaster of 9/11 which shook our confidence in our safety.
I also have a creeping fear that the holy warriors aren't all on one side, and that many who are making and carrying out policy in the U.S. secretly wish for a great Muslim horde to fight against, a true clash of civilizations, which is why our primary strategy seems to be (as far as I can tell) one of escalation rather than crime prevention.
Yeah to 9 and 10: it might be a clash of cultures, but only if you line up Muslim, Christian, and Jewish fundies on one side, and the rest of us on the other.
silvana,
Huh? Of course there is a clash of cultures. That doesn't mean a horde of anyone is being aggresive. And invading a country is the last thing you'd want to do to win a clash of cultures.
My take is that the clash is between modern Islam and traditional Islam. The religion is going through its version of the reformation and we are seeing ramifications of that playing out all over the world.
This affect us non-Islams because of globalization and because the heart of Islam sits over our more strategic resource.
ogged,
Yeah to 9 and 10: it might be a clash of cultures, but only if you line up Muslim, Christian, and Jewish fundies on one side, and the rest of us on the other.
I do. Judaism and Christianity have had their reformation. The fundies aren't gone, of course, but they lost. Those religions made their peace with science and capitalism and socialism and consumerism and modern life. Islam is struggling to do that now.
"Western civilization" is a surrogate for reformed Islam.
well, Tripp, if you're going to frame it as modern islam vs. traditional islam (although i would probably say 'fundamentalist' islam, as many things advocated for by the extremists are in fact much more rigid than the islam of yore), that's a different question. i supposed i assumes the clash was between islam and the "west" (whatever that means) or christianity or something.
i just think of a clash of cultures as a conflict between two sizeable, equally viable, but opposed on some fundamental matter, groups. the fundamentalists are a tiny fringe group that pretty much everyone else agrees is batshit insane. i think of a clash of cultures as, perhaps, the crusades.
and, to nitpick, it's non-muslims, not non-islams.
tripp, i guess the main reason i say it is not a clash of cultures is because i do not consider islamic fundamentalism to consitute a "culture" in the way that we traditionally understand that word.
silvana,
Okay. I'm a dilletante when it comes to sociology so I'm sure I am not using the word precisely.
Tripp, I'm not entirely down with the "Islam is going through a reformation and we're all feeling the effects" line. It might be true, but not to the point of ignoring the agency of the western nations, and their role in bringing about today's state of affairs (I'm thinking broadly here, about propping up regimes, supporting bad actors, failing to support democratic reform, etc.).
Silvana,
As you can tell I'm a dilletante when it comes to Islam as well.
My view is that western culture or the US or Christianity doesn't have anything against Islam per se. we don't want to convert them. We don't want to sell crap to them. We do want their oil though. Still the fundie Islamists use us as a surrogate to strike against. Their governments would rather have them attacking us than attacking the monarchies or dictatorships or modern Islam.
So we got involved whether we wanted to or not. We built bases to protect the oil. They attacked us. It would be a lot easier if we could simply wall ourselves off like we do with some African countries and say "You guys work this out for yourselves."
ogged,
I agree the West has had a lot to do with setting this table.
Establishing Israel and the West's need for a stable supply of oil set this table.
Taking the long, long view the oil thing will work itself out. We'll burn it all up. As for Israel I have no idea.
the notion that we don't want to sell crap to them is totally untrue.
that is, in fact, the number one complaint of many of your "average" arabs on the "arab street" or whatever - that the economic omnipresence of the united states is erasing local character, culture, and sovereignty and being replaced with pepsi, marlboro, mcdonalds, and levi's.
this claim is a little bogus since a lot of those industries are franchised in such a way as to boost the local economy much more than it affects or aids the american economy in any appreciable way, but the effect is still the same. they perceive that the american economy and the american way of life (through american products and "permissive" moral standards such as the mtv-facsimiles that have cropped up to compete with american programming) is taking over and erasing their cultural identity.
Their governments would rather have them attacking us than attacking the monarchies or dictatorships or modern Islam.
well, it's clearly not working, as many arab countries continue to suffer from terrorism. of course, that doesn't much matter, unless it's foreigners killed.
not that i'm bitter.
silvana,
Sometimes I wonder if Mattell would gripe if the US passed a law saying "no selling Barbie in Iran."
Yeah, it should be an Iranian law, and maybe it already is, but what if the US government did it? Would Mattell fight the law? If I was Mattell I'd have to think long and hard about my sales figures and whether it would be worth it.
Understanding the "why are they?" and "how could they?" can be a distraction. But, in another sense, this is totally unhelpful. Who are "the terrorists?" Everything depends on the answer.
I agree with ogged that it is absolutely critical that we understand who the terrorists are, and what their motivations and their goals are. We need to know this in order to stop them. On re-reading my post, I can see how one could draw the conclusion that I thought that such things were irrelevant; that is not at all what I meant.
Marty whipped his head around furious and glared at Biff video poker INT DARK STOREROOM.