bobboren,
Wish I got in on this earlier, its an unusually high-caliber debate for IMDB. There are a lot of points I wanted to address, so I hope I don't forget any. And before I start, I'll tell you I'm not a "leftie wacko" and I also get tired of the constant low-brow Bush bashing, even though I think Bush is a particularly incompetent president, as are his cabinet members.
As far as the Muslim extremists; my biggest concern is that you seem to be grouping all the different extremist groups togther. The truth is far more complex, and much less organized. The idea that all extremists want to revive the Muslim Caliphate is incorrect; this is a view held by a select few, such as OBL and his ilk. But not all groups have this as their goal; their stated purposes range from establishing shariah (Islamic law) in their own government, to "freeing" their homeland (Palestinians, Hezbollah in Lebanon, etc.)-- these claims may or may not be valid, but they are what the people themselves claim they are fighting for. Certainly, these groups sometimes work together, but they often fight with one another as their goals are sometimes contradictory (particularly among Shi'a and Sunni rifts). To view this disparate rag-tag collection of groups as a monolithic enemy is fallacious. Which, by the way, I think is one of the biggest faults with the current US "gameplan."
And your allegation that if left unchecked, this monolithic boogeyman would sweep across the world like the Nazi menace is absurd. In most cases, they can't even get traction in their own countries. Remember that these groups face constant threats from their own governments (even countries like Iran that are run largely by religious extremists actively fight extremists in their own borders because, regardless of their supposed ideology, they are still an established government and they fear any possible threat to their power grip -- of course, they gleefully fund militants in other countries, just as most countries, including the US, do; its part of international power play), from other militant groups, and from Western military and police forces (I support small-scale police or special forces actions against specific terrorist cells, not large-scale wars and destabilization of standing governments).
As well, many local mosques do not like the extremists; many Sunni Islamo-fascists are inspired greatly by Saudi Arabian Wahhabism, which if enforced requires locals abandon many of their most beloved rituals, ceremonies, and holy sites as they are seen by Wahhabis as Pagan and blasphemous. Most Muslims, like most people of any religion, don't like it when a bunch of foreigner-radicals show up and start trying to tell you how wrong and sinful you are. This happened in the Balkans, when many Saudi-funded radicals tried to "aid" the muslims there, but also tried to enforce Wahhabism by destroying holy shrines; they were beaten and chased out in one particualr instance, and in others were simply ignored. Really, the truly extreme version of Islam, as practiced by OBL, only has a serious hold in a few countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (both of which are our allies, and both of which are ruled by non-democratically elected dictatorships, by the by), and since the bungled post-invasion, Afghanistan (mainly from Pakistani-trained radicals filtering across the open border and playing on locals' rage over the foreign occupiers -- at least as they view them). In the majority of other countries, they have only small cells and are largely despised by the populace.
Which brings me to another point; the hard-core radicals who truly want a global Islamic Caliphate and a return to 7th century shariah are a very select few. As we learned during 9/11, this small number can cause major damage. But they can also be managed, if we actually apply the proper resources to our intelligence and special forces, which evidence suggest we did not do for quite some time leading to 9/11. These select few should be hunted down by police and intelligence work, but we have completely destroyed most of our chances to do so and instead followed a pre-planned strategy of nation building and attempts to increase our ability to police the world. I hate conspiracy theories, because they are always way too simplistic. However, this seems largely based in the pre-standing "neo-conservative" agenda, as openly outlined on Project for a New American Century's own website, to expand US influence throughout the world, emphasizing military might and international policing over economic (which I think is best -- see Friedman's "Golden Arches" theory) and diplomatic (largely unsuccessful -- see the UN for reference...) strategies. This was argued for in the long essay titled "On Paradise and Power" (or something like that, been a while) by one of the most vocal advocates of the "neo-con" strategy. After 9/11, we had the sympathy of most of the world (including much of the Middle East, despite the media's need to loop endless shots of Pakistani radicals burning the US flag and celebrating), and many governments offered to help with the hunt. We could have capitalized on this to form greater alliances with once-enemy nations, and to strengthe pre-existing relationships, and we could have benefitted from increased cooperation between many nations' intelligence services with a common goal of finding OBL and his accomplices.
Instead, our current administration reacted mainly in an ideological fashion, using the attacks as an excuse to expand US military influence. Understandably this frightened many people around the world, and it gave political opportunists like France and Germany the chance to take an anti-American position, and likewise gain political clout as the "brave nations that stood up against American tyranny." Never mind that these countries are guilty of many of the same "sins" as America, and that they have a clear benefit to oppose the US...These actions also largely justified to many young impressionable Muslims around the world OBL's anti-Western rants. And thats another point; "true believers" like OBL are rare, but they have had no shortage of recruits since our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. This isn't because many are suddenly embracing their ideology as much as because these organizations give them a way to fight what they see as foreign invaders. I can't emphaisze this enough -- there is a clear difference between the select few who call for and truly believe they can bring about an Islamic Caliphate, and the much larger numbers of those who simply use this radicalism as a vehicle to attack those they perceive as enemies.
I support going after OBL and other terrorists with full force; however, I don't see how invading sovereign countries and destroying their governments helps in that pursuit. This strategy is counter-active in several ways. For one, it turns others against us, because people and their governments start fearing they may be the next one to go -- or, as in Europe, they fear one country having too much power, an understandbale concern (of course, most of these countries hide this fear and pretend their true concern is human rights, but their actions speak clearly). Secondly, full-scale invasions are costly, slow, and burdensome; knocking out the governement is the easy part, but then you have to spend billions of dollars and many years rebuilding the infrastructure, establishing a government, and trying to root out the terrorist factions which suddenly have much more clout and freedom of mobility. And of course, the troops that are attacking Baghdad or hunting for Saddam are NOT hunting for OBL.
A few other random points: you say the military invasion of Iraq was a success, but the problem lies in using troops as police. Troops aren't police, I agree, but the invasion was poorly planned form the start, and many of the problems now spawn from that. We went in with too few troops, with too little armored support, and with no plan for securing the countryside. The powers that be wanted a flashy and impressive lightning strike, and they ignored the protests of many of the military professionals (such as Shinzeki), who asked for more troops and a slower, more organized invasion. By shooting through to the capital, we left the countryside and most cities open to pro-Saddam militia infiltration and to the organizing of radical Sunni and Shi'a militias, which we are now fighting constantly. This is of course not too mention the idiocy of attacking a Ba'athist regime, which, regardless of its cruelty and violations of human rights, was a more-secular, more-socialist government that came down hard on religious extremists as threats to their power, and which served an important role as a mostly-secular, very powerful buffer in the region. Saddam was a tyrant and he deserved to die like a criminal, but that doesn't mean that we helped ourselves any by opening a power vacuum that acts as a perfect battleground for a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi'a Iran for dominance of the region.
I agree, Chomsky is a turd. He has some interesting things to say about language and its manipulation, but any value is lost when he adds in all of his pro-socialist, ultra-liberal ideology.
I disagree with your interpretation of history. The Islamic empire acted in a fashion the same as any other empire at the time; it conquered lands and people. This isn't anything special to Islam -- see Persian empire, Roman empire, Alexander's empire, the many Chinese empires, the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan empires, Mongolian empire, as well as the British, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Byzantine, and Holy Roman empires. All of these were characterized to different extents and at different times, by rape, murder, theft of land and property, extended warfare, religious intolerance and forced conversions. Furthermore, the crusades were not "revenge" for Islamic invasion of Europe. At the time of the invasions (700s) most of Europe was not yet completely Christian, and there was no feeling of unity between the Franks, Saxons, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, so forth and so on. So the invasions, in their eyes, were not of "Europe" but of distinct kingdoms or chiefdoms. And at various times, Christian armies aided Muslim armies against other Christian kingdoms when it benefitted them. Point is, they viewed the Muslims as just another political entity, possibly hostile, possibly friendly (as well as the Mongols to the East and the Vikings the North). It wasn't until the Catholic church was more established throughout the European nobility that they began viewing themselves as remotely united, and began retroactively viewing the Muslims as Heathen religious enemies. Even at this point, most military action was based more on political and economic decisions, as exemplified in the constant warring between catholic-European kingdoms, and in the particular instance during one of the Crusades when the crusading army never actually reached the Holy Land, and instead satisfied themselves by sacking several of the wealthy Byzantine cities (Byzantine, mind you, was Christian, albeit non-Catholic). The crusades were about what most wars have been about -- power and wealth.
The only relevance of the crusades to modern events is that many in both the Christian and Islamic worlds try to use them as justification for religious hatred.
Apologize for the long post, but there was a lot of ground to cover. Future posts will be shorter...
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VeryGimpy
16 years ago
Whoa whoa whoa!
I probably missed the train on this debate (since you wrote this ½ a year ago), but I have to react to something here.
While I agree on a lot of your points, your comments about Europe are just way, WAY off the mark:
...it gave political opportunists like France and Germany the chance to take an anti-American position, and likewise gain political clout as the "brave nations that stood up against American tyranny." Never mind that these countries are guilty of many of the same "sins" as America, and that they have a clear benefit to oppose the US...
These countries' governments had substantial backing in the population for these reactions - as did most European countries at that time and now. Dismissing it as opportunism is simply ignoring the facts. Both Germany and France's single most important partner outside the EU is the US. Financially and politically. So the "benefits" are rather unsubstantial (as in: made-up). Sure, France has a passion for being anti-american, but Germany has been uniformly pro-american for 60 years. So where are the "benefits"?
I'm not saying that Europe is without fault or that we have not previously been guilty of the same sins. But attacking the messenger is ridiculous and petty.
The truth is that France and Germany (and a lot of european as well as american citizens) were UNCONVINCED by the US reasons to go to war and would not support it. 5 years later this is more or less PROVEN RIGHT. And not being critical towards the evidence is something that american media, congress and most of the population are now waking up to the consequences of.
And so now it's: "So they were right, but they only said it because they wanted to look cool" - Wonderful logic.
And there's more of the same:
...or, as in Europe, they fear one country having too much power, an understandbale concern (of course, most of these countries hide this fear and pretend their true concern is human rights, but their actions speak clearly).
Sorry? What's hidden here? Has there been lack of criticism of US unilateral action? Has there not been calls to bring this to the UN? In that case it's the worst kept secret in history.
Your comment also implies that there's no legitimate concern for human rights. Here's a crazy idea: Can it be that Europe is BOTH concerned about unilateral power wielding and violations of human rights? Or even that the former can lead to the latter?
I'd say any reasonable person would be.
I'm getting worked up, but i agree with you on most of your comment. It's just that these arguments play straight in to the pathetic Rumsfeldt old/new Europe narrative. It's divisive, it's incredibly simplistic and it's wrong.
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