Oh, there he goes again ...

[saavedra77]

This morning, President Bush declaimed: "In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with unalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world."

Yeah, there he goes again ...

For the record, I'd argue to the contrary that we're facing a radical fringe of jihadis who feed on existing Muslim grievances over conflicts in Kashmir, the Palestinian Territories, and Chechnya, and over the similarly longstanding U.S. support for Arab tyrannies like the Saudi and Jordanian monarchies and Mubarak's Egypt. The jihadis have long used these conflicts to persuade other Muslims that the West is their mortal enemy, to recruit new militants, and to fuel their ambitions for new Taliban-style theocracies.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq did not of course create Al Qaeda (arguably, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan provided the crucial impetus, there), but President Bush is--perhaps unintentionally--quite right to suggest that jihadis have "now ... set their sights on Iraq"--that is, since the U.S. invasion. Iraq has provided the jihadis with a golden opportunity to tell potential recruits "See? We told you the West was out to destroy Islam!" Hence the now-all-too-routine reports of foreign fighters carrying out suicide bombings and sectarian killings in Iraq. (By all acounts, the foreign fighters are not the most numerous, although they may be the most destructive strand in the insurgency currently tearing that country apart.)

President Bush also alludes darkly to bin Laden's ambition to "establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." I suppose that this is meant to elevate jihadi terrorism to the level of geopolitical threat posed by Hitler and Stalin--a comparison Bush explicitly makes.

But isn't there something a bit, well, ridiculous about this dream, coming from a Sunni extremist whose followers invest as much energy in blowing up Shi'ites (in Pakistan as well as in Iraq) as they do in attacking Western targets? If I remember my history correctly, it was precisely this kind sectarianism and geographic overreaching that brought down the medieval Islamic caliphate in the first place. Sorry, but I don't see the makings of the jihadi equivalent of Nazi Germany or the U.S.S.R., here.

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

The Bush Administration is in a real tough bind. They've made a monster out of a rodent. They have to simultaneously demonstrate the great amounts of damage we are doing to the rodents, while convincing us of the rodent's enormous size.

Yes, rats are bad.

Yes, rats are everywhere.

No, I'm not going to dedicate my life and country to eradicating disease-carrying rats. I'll put some traps out, I'll keep them out of my house, I may even have one as a controlled pet, but outside of that I don't give a shit.

[schmallturm.livejournal.com]

He's not perfect, but he takes our enemies seriously. I thought it was a pretty good speech, and generally agree with it. Maybe bin Laden's reach exceeds his grasp, but he and his fellow travellers have already done too much harm.

I think that you err in attributing to our enemies the motives that you would like them to have -- that they're mad at the US because we don't completely live up to our ideals. Listen to what they have to say. Look at their actions. That's not what this is about. They have their own motives, tradition, and beliefs, they aren't just reacting to what we do.

BTW, LJ is a crummy format for serious discussion.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

I think that you err in attributing to our enemies the motives that you would like them to have -- that they're mad at the US because we don't completely live up to our ideals.

I certainly didn't argue that jihadis are "mad at the US because we don't completely live up to our ideals": ideologists in the tradition of Sayyid Qutb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutb) reject the West as such, and particularly resent the intrusion of Western culture (which they liken to the pre-Islamic "state of ignorance" or Jahiliyya) into their societies.

But many, many less ideological Muslims resent Western countries' support for the tyrants they live under, our tolerance of or tacit support for regimes that have occupied, displaced, or attacked Muslim populations, and the presence of U.S. troops in Muslim countries. "Our ideals" come up in frequent complaints about Western hypocrisy and "double standards", but I seriously doubt that Muslims would feel better about us if we started praising tyranny! The policies themselves constitute the real sore point, here. Terrorism analysts have long been that these policies are contributing to the radicalization of some Muslims, adding to the ranks of those who regard the whole West as an enemy to be resisted.

For example, after the July London bombings, a British government report described Al Qaeda efforts to recruit young British Muslims to the jihadist cause, and found that the U.K.'s foreign policy had contributed to the radicalization of the target population: "The war on terror, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, are all seen by a section of British Muslims as having been acts against Islam. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1688261,00.html)"

Mind you, I supported the overthrow of the Taliban, and continue to have only tactical disagreements over how that war was fought; I'm not saying that Western countries must at all costs avoid offending Muslim sensibilities. I am saying that we could--and should--pick our battles, and our policies, much more carefully.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

BTW, LJ is a crummy format for serious discussion.

Oh, believe me, I know: I stay away from most of the dedicated political pages on LJ, because of the flame wars and flagrant trollery.

But my journal reflects what's on my mind; I endeavor to post thoughtfully about these things, and I welcome any serious replies.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

Maybe bin Laden's reach exceeds his grasp, but he and his fellow travellers have already done too much harm.

Sorry, I don't mean to "bury you" in replies, but I did want to say, separately and distinctly, that we are in wholehearted agreement on this score.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

IIRC, there were similarly 'terrorist' groups in the Islamic fundie far wings before Afghanistan, but I'm a bit rusty. Certainly the sectarian fighting in Afghanistan which predated the Soviet invasion comes close, and I thought that either Saudi Arabia or

However, "... a radical ideology with unalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world" sounds an awful lot like what various earlier folks used to say about Communist Russia.

If there were no "enemy superpower", would we be forced to create one to keep the military-industrial-fuel complex profitable?

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

wow, I should finish sentences more often.

I think that the radical arms of the Ba'ath party have been linked to quasi-terrorist activities since shortly after WWII. Various Islamic states had insurrections and homegrown mobs of folks angry at Western occupying forces by the forties. Afghanistan certainly coalesced a lot of the Arab world's anti-Western factions into a united front which led to bin Laden and today's Taleban, however.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the Ba'ath Party had longstanding ties to Palestinian terror groups--on pan-Arab rather than Islamist grounds.

And, yes, there is a long history of Islamic populations resisting foreign occupation. I think that this might be a separate issue, though: you could say the same thing about many groups that have been subject to foreign occupation.

What is relatively new is the form of Islamism that began to appear on the scene after WWII, which was specifically a reaction to modern Western culture. The ideas of the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb are often cited as Islamism's ideological starting-point. (Of course, Qutb's puritanical, theocratic, and militant themes have roots going back to the early days of Islam.) The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is particularly important to the development of this movement because the resistance it engendered brought together men from all over the Muslim world around a common Islamist ideology, and because the mujahedeen ("holy warriors") were later able to boast of defeating a superpower, there. The Taliban are an offshoot of the jihadi fervor of the time, although they're only one of the Islamist factions that emerged from the war.

Sources

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

You may or may not already be familiar with these, but the following are some books that have been really helpful to me in understanding the history and development of militant Islam:

Gilles Kepel. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. This is one of the best general books on the subject I've come across, tracing the development of modern militant Islam from the writings of Mawdudi and Qutb during the early-to-mid-20th century to the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khomeini's Iranian Revolution, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Algerian GIA, and Al Qaeda.

Rohan Gunaratna. Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. This is the fullest treatment I've seen so far of the origins, ideology, and structure of Al Qaeda--it's roots in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, its internationalization after that war's end, the role of bin Laden and other leaders in shaping Al Qaeda ideology and propaganda, the relationships that bin Laden and his circle formed with other militant groups around the globe.

Ahmed Rashid. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. This book talks about how the Taliban emerged from the chaos that followed the anti-Soviet jihad, as a forceful alternative the rival mujahedeen "warlords," the group's tribal basis among the Pashtuns, its extremely puritanical and misogynist ideology, its entanglement with Al Qaeda, etc.

Great books, if you don't mind delving into some decidedly uncheerful subject matter ...

Re: Sources

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Once upon a time, I'd have been reading those books for my career. These days I rarely have enough brain (thanks to fatigue) for "real" reading. But I've toyed with the idea of doing more research in that direction for (yet another) potential book, so I'll keep these in memories. Thanks.

[ryuusama.livejournal.com]

I suppose that this is meant to elevate jihadi terrorism to the level of geopolitical threat posed by Hitler and Stalin--a comparison Bush explicitly makes...it was precisely this kind sectarianism and geographic overreaching that brought down the medieval Islamic caliphate in the first place.

Ah, but see, you acknowledged that there is history before the US became a nation. I honestly believe Bush thinks the rest of the world didn't come down from the trees until after the US Constitution was written. Oh, but wait! That would mean he'd have to recognize Darwin's theories! No, no, I'm wrong--that kind of logical stumbling block would only be recognized by someone who actually thinks about what they say.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I was struck, in listening to that speech, but how much of it more aptly applies to what Bush and his gang are tryin to do -- use Iraq to create a foothold in the region, etc. Iraq was stable before we invaded, how could the terrorists have hoped to use it then. There were a lot more elements like that. I'd like to transcribe the speech and do that analysis, but Ican't even post about my own life these days.

It's a pity that Bush doesn't seem to realize that the real enemies of the U.S. weren't in Iraq until we went in there. Especially worisome that he's not getting any real grief for failing to hunt down Bin Laden himself.

Sigh.