Transterrestrial Musings

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"Overrated" Follow Up

In response to yesterday's post, Greg Scoblete emails:

I read your post "Overrated" following an Instapundit link. I think you're right, re: doctors, but I noticed you derided the notion that the jihad has any basis in U.S. policy. I think you simplify the argument. There is absolutely some causality between the two, just as there is causality between Islamic fundamentalism and violence. There is ample evidence of this in the writings of bin Laden and among analysts who study Islamic terrorism. (I wrote as much at TCS Daily here).
Nor is it a "progressive" myth. George Bush, Wolfowitz, and other administration officials have explicitly linked U.S. policy to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. This isn't in the spirit of blaming the victim but of knowing your enemy. Believing we're being attacked solely out of religious animus is a comforting myth, but not one that will help us win a needed victory over jihadist terrorism.

Of course, I oversimplified. The post was running long as it was.

Of course we have made foreign policy mistakes that have resulted in the current mess, going back for decades.

My point was that they're not the mistakes that the "progressives" and transnationalists think they are, and that it's not because we do things that make the Caliphists and hirabis upset, or explain "why they hate us," which is the prevailing mind set.

Our foreign policy mistakes have been to give in to them, and thereby encourage them. Terrorism is not an ideology of hopelessness, but of hope. Hope that by making us fear them sufficiently, we will give in to their unreasonable, savage, medieval demands.

[sigh]

It will take a long essay to explain this properly.

There are (at least) two categories of error in foreign policy. One is to commit egregious acts against a people such that they rise up against you.

The other is to show weakness, such that they think that if they can hurt you badly enough, you'll give up, and give in to their demands, no matter how outrageous and unreasonable they may be.

While we've done more than we should have of both over the last...well...half century, if not longer, the latter is the major reason that we are currently under siege (at least metaphorically, if not literally).

Yes, bin Laden whined about the "occupation of Arabia" during and after the first Gulf War. And the Arabs continually whine about the oppression of the "Palestinians" by the "Zionists" (see, I can use scare quotes just as well as Reuters, except...well, mine are actually accurate).

But the real reason for the war we're in can be found in the part of bin Laden's speech about the "weak horse" and the "strong horse."

In Tehran in 1979, in Beirut in 1982, in New York in 1993 (when we treated the first Trade Center bombing as a criminal operation), in Mogadishu, in the Khobar towers, in the Cole attack, etc., etc., etc,.) we have shown ourselves to be the "weak horse." And, of course, it all started when we abandoned the south Vietnamese in 1975.

Only when we decided to take out the Taliban did we surprise the Hirabis. And then, when we decided to topple terrorist sympathizer Saddam Hussein, they trembled. Not because he had been providing them with a great deal of support (though it was not zero, as popular myth has it), but because they recognized that a) a major US military presence in the heart of Arabia was a great threat from a military standpoint and b) the notion of democracy there was an even greater threat to their medieval designs, that depended on an Arabia in thrall to fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam.

So, yes, our foreign policy, at least since 1979, has been based on a delusion--that we could ignore Islamic militancy, or treat it as a criminal problem. This is a delusion in which the Democrats have indulged in particular (though many Republicans supped the koolaid as well, down to the present time, as Pete Domenici has).

But the solution is not to change our policy to placate religious fanatics.

Douglas Hofstadter, in one of his books (forget which one) talks about the irrationality of those who seek compromise uber alles.

He describes a mother presiding over two disputing little boys. She has just baked a cake. One of the boys thinks that the two boys should share the cake. The other thinks that he should get the whole cake.

What is a compromise?

Well, if one listens to people at the UN, or even our own State Department, a compromise between the two positions would be that the boy who wants the whole cake would get three quarters, and the one who thinks it should be shared would get one quarter.

That is, as long as he was willing to fight for it, of course (though only diplomatically, and not, heaven forfend, really fight, with actually breaking things, and killing people), and continue to apologize for wanting even a quarter of it. No, war is evil. We must compromise.

That's where we're at with Islamicists.

We want tolerance of all religions. They want tolerance of theirs, and Dhimmitude for the others.

We want freedom of speech and thought. They want freedom of speech to praise Allah, and freedom to behead any who are less than appreciative of the obvious fact that Mohammed is the Prophet Who Must Be Praised.

The foreign policy mistakes that we have made are to be willing to "compromise" with such insanity. To attempt to meet it half way. To ignore it when it takes ambassadors hostage. To ignore it when it plants truck bombs beneath the World Trade Center. To ignore it when it blows up a barrack of Marines in Beirut. To ignore it when the Khobar Towers are blown up, and to rely on an ostensibly friendly regime to investigate it, despite the fact that it also funds the hatred and ideology that drives madmen to do such things. To ignore it when it attacks a US warship in the Middle East and kills US sailors and damages it to the point that it must put into port for repairs.

These are the things that our foreign policy has done to promote terrorism.

There is no half way. There is tolerance, which the West, and the Enlightenment, for centuries, has promoted, and there is tyranny. There is no compromise with tyranny.

How does one "compromise" with that?

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 06, 2007 01:21 PM

Comments

Yes, bin Laden whined about the "occupation of Arabia" during and after the first Gulf War.

Guess what? bin Laden won this one.

Dubya withdrew our troops from the Kingdom. Looks like more appeasement to me.

Posted by at July 6, 2007 03:41 PM

I suspect that the "occupation" of Iraq more than made up for it...

There was actually little strategic value to us in occupying the Saudi Peninsula, other than protecting it from Saddam's Iraq. However, from Iraq, we can, with trivial effort, threaten Mecca and Medina...

Posted by Rand SImberg at July 6, 2007 03:47 PM

Hi, Rand - you keep making references to
"treating Islamic militancy as a criminal
problem" as a Bad Thing... what't that supposed
to mean? we should be really treating it as
"a military problem"? Seems like our way of going
at "military problems", effective enough against
opponents such as the Third Reich or the Greater
East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, doesn't work so
well against the sort of non-national actors
we've faced since then... things like 9/11 etc.
require, not a "military" response (in the
conventional sense) as such, but something
more like investigation and counter-espionage
(or, more accurately, "counter-sabotage", since
the malefactors appear to be bent more on doing
damage than on sneaking off with Secret
Information...)

This may require an approach that isn't strictly
a "Crime Prevention" program, but must contain as
much of an element of that as of a "War" campaign,
especially given the deeply-unstated assumptions
that folks bring to the notion that "It's A War",
many of which are clearly not applicable to the
present circumstances.

If it were merely a matter of mobilizing
sufficient military-industrial might to strike
with overwhelming force and "Defeat The
Enemy Nation", we would have got that done by now,
but "War" is a rather awkwardly blunt paradigm
when "the enemy" is not a nation but part of a
nation - and especially when "the enemy" is less
of a specific group than what the postmodern
social theorists would call a "performative
identity".

Didn't we learn that from Vietnam?...
The net result of our efforts to "wipe out the
Viet Cong" (as if they were a specific set of
identifiable individuals) was to motivate more
and more of the people of South Vietnam to "do
the Viet Cong thing" - i.e., to join those who
were fighting to liberate themselves from the
southern government and unify with the north.

Are we not considering the point that AQ and AQI
are undoubtedly similar entities, rather than
specific "bad guys" that can be identified and
attacked? It seems that our thought processes are
distorted by this "negative cult of personality"!

-dw

Posted by dave w at July 6, 2007 05:08 PM

"dave w" has acquired the technology to post from an alternate timeline, one in which the VC were not wiped out in the Tet Offensive.

Posted by Jay Manifold at July 6, 2007 05:51 PM

A minor nitpick:

"...I can use square quotes just..."

It's "scare quotes".

Posted by Ben at July 6, 2007 06:15 PM

Well said, Rand.

Posted by Robin Roberts at July 6, 2007 06:49 PM

Beat me to the punch, Jay.

Posted by Bart at July 6, 2007 07:08 PM

They believe that there is only one God, and His name is Allah. You'd better pray five times a day facing Mecca or you're an infidel. We believe that you should be allowed to attend any church, mosque, or synagogue you want, if you choose to worship at all. They think that's immoral, and they hate that.

They believe that women must cover themselves from head to toe, remain uneducated, and basically only exist to spit out kids, preferably males. We think that women make great contributions to society and should not be limited to the whims of a man. They think that's immoral, and they hate that.

They think that religion and government are the same. The only true law is derived from learned Islamic scholars. We believe that true government can only be formed through the consent of the governed. They think that's immoral, and they hate that.

They believe that homosexuals are an apostasy against God and must be stoned to death so all can see. We believe that so long as you don't shove your sexuality in our faces, go do whatever you want. They think that's immoral, and they hate that.

They behead those with whom they disagree. We talk, argue, and debate. They think even debating about the nature of God is immoral, and they hate that.

When it comes right down to it, yes, they hate us for our freedoms and values.

I thought liberals were supposed to champion freedom and individual liberty. Why have mostly only conservatives taken up this cause.

Look at the list above - freedom of religion, freedom of speech, women's rights, gay rights, and democracy - and remind me again why this isn't a great liberal crusade...

Posted by Russ at July 6, 2007 07:56 PM

Look at the list above - freedom of religion, freedom of speech, women's rights, gay rights, and democracy - and remind me again why this isn't a great liberal crusade...

Well, duhhhh...isn't it obvious?

It's because no matter how bad they are, George Bush must be worse.

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 6, 2007 08:09 PM

"It's because no matter how bad they are, George Bush must be worse."
Evan Sayet (a self-described "9/13 Republican") explains how they get there in a Heritage Foundation lecture (Transcript)

You really have to hear his explanation, probably several times, before you can really grasp how liberals think. But once you get it, you can accurately predict how they'll respond to pretty much anything.

Posted by The Monster at July 6, 2007 08:35 PM

They believe that women must cover themselves from head to toe, remain uneducated, and basically only exist to spit out kids, preferably males. We think that women make great contributions to society and should not be limited to the whims of a man. They think that's immoral, and they hate that.

I would support a US ultimatum to Saudi Arabia:

Either full and equal rights for all female Saudi citizens and the ending of polygamy by all members of the Saudi royal family or Saudi oil exports shall cease, courtesy of the US Navy.

After all, Saudi Arabia is the ideological birthplace of al Qaeda. But instead we get kabuki in Iraq and avoid driving a stake in the heart of al Qaeda.

Maybe Bandar Bush can shed some light as to why?

Of course I agree with most of Rand's post. Its just that Dubya has not been tough on the source of the problem, merely a tangential secular thug (Saddam) who deserved regime change but who had very little to do with the rise of al Qaeda.

Posted by Bill White at July 6, 2007 09:09 PM

Fascists are not created by their grievances. The grievances that fascists tend to enumerate reflects something deeper within this mindset, the need to feel at war with the world. It is the fascist that creates the grievance, creates the sense that something justifies the violence that is really the heart of the ideology. Yet take one grievance away and they just find another. A fascist acts based on what they believe, not on anything externally done to them. I also wonder exactly what it means to say that terrorism is caused by this or that policy. Does anyone truly believe that terrorists who so freely engage in inhumanity are motivated by a geniune sense of injustice or unfairness? I think it is far more accurate to say that those who accept inhumanity as an acceptable means to attain a goal actually have inhumane goals. And putting aside whether terrorism is a response to any particular grievance as opposed to a reflection of core beliefs, what does it mean that a policy causes terrorism? Is this a factual cause or an ethical cause? When people say that a policy causes a terrorist act they are unconsciously combining a moral cause for a factual one. They are allocating moral responsibility between the terrorists and their victims. If a terrorist act is per se unethical than nothing morally causes it except the immorality of its perpetrators because nothing can justify it and such an allocation of blame is impossible. Stipulate all you like that a discrete policy is wrongheaded. Stipulate that but for that policy the terrorist would otherwise be leading a peaceful and productive life. Stipulate that this policy is the sole reason they acted violently. Yet in the end nothing caused the terrorist act except the terrorist's choice to act with such inhumanity. In that choice is the difference between barbarism and civilization.

Posted by ian at July 6, 2007 09:56 PM

Ian,

Paragraphs!

Posted by Mike Puckett at July 6, 2007 11:17 PM

"But instead we get kabuki in Iraq and avoid driving a stake in the heart of al Qaeda."

One of the stupidest statements ever posted.

Anywhere. Ever.

Posted by Tom W. at July 6, 2007 11:40 PM

One of the stupidest statements ever posted.

That's an exaggeration. While it's certainly dumb, Bill himself has often posted more stupid things. This one's actually kind of average for him.

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 7, 2007 06:14 AM

BW:
"I would support a US ultimatum to Saudi Arabia:

Either full and equal rights for all female Saudi citizens and the ending of polygamy by all members of the Saudi royal family or Saudi oil exports shall cease, courtesy of the US Navy."

Are you not old enough to remember the '73 oil boycott? When the world economy screeches to a halt, will you step out and say "My bad."? Ultimatums are like bluffs in poker and our hand isn't good enough to win when they call our bluff.

BW:
"Its just that Dubya has not been tough on the source of the problem, merely a tangential secular thug (Saddam) who deserved regime change but who had very little to do with the rise of al Qaeda."

Why do you think we were in Saudi Arabia in the first place? If he hadn't started wars with everyone in the region, we wouldn't have needed the troops there. One of the reasons OBL gave was our troops in SA.

Posted by Bill Maron at July 7, 2007 07:33 AM

Greg Scoblete misses the point.

Terrorists aren't mad because we support repressive Arab dictatorships and support Israel and overthrew Mossadegh and all that, in and of themselves. To your typical Western commentator, Osama is mad because to the way we think about politics, those things are bad enough in and of themselves to cause violent resentment and defiance.

But Osama doesn't think politically like a Westerner. He does enough to know how to manipulate our politics, but he thinks politically like a Muslim. There is a large disparity there. Didn't Muslims never translate Plato's Republic into Arabic or something? Something like that, and scholars think that is why Western and Islamic political philosophy is so different.

They're mad because these things have been an obstacle to them overthrowing those repressive dictatorships and setting up even more repressive theocracies in their place. Theocracies with imperialist ambitions far beyond the wildest dreams of Pan-Arabism. Nasser just wanted to destroy Israel and unite all Arabs under Egyptian and his personal political control. Osama wants to unite all Arabs and all Muslims in general and then start up the invasions of Europe again.

That is the key difference that those who complain about our foreign policy "causing" terrorism consistently fail to pick up on.

Posted by Chaos at July 7, 2007 09:15 AM

So, BW's most excellent suggestion is to impose a blockade on the world's largest producer of oil?

And when global economies crash, as Bill Maron notes, this will make more or fewer states decide to assist the US in its efforts against terror?

And do you think the poorer nations of the world, many of them with Muslim minorities or even majorities, will thank us or hate us for the resulting economic devastation? Do we think that they will see this as being about oil, or about human rights?

And when developing states, such as China and India, are thrown into massive chaos because the economic growth that they've seen comes, not to a slow halt, but a sudden crash, will they just happily sit by and let it happen, or will they assist the Saudis and others?

Whose side are you on, Bill W?

Posted by Lurking Observer at July 7, 2007 10:45 AM

Jay, your claim that the Viet Cong were "wiped out" in the Tet Offensive appears to be without merit. After all, it is obvious that the organization survived and contined to function militarily. I see no change in its role in the Vietnam War, it was always subservient to North Vietmanese goals. The only genuine change seems to be an increase in the number of North Vietmanese members. I don't consider subversion or takeover of an organization sufficient in itself to be an example of "wiped out". Else we could say, for example, that the Sierra Club has been wiped out by the Greens.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at July 7, 2007 11:02 AM

Karl:

I believe that no less an authority than General Giap characterized the VC as destroyed.

The Tet Offensive was launched because the VC and the North Vietnamese both believed that the South Vietnamese government was likely to collapse. Thus, this was an all-out offensive, with much of the VC infrastructure, including sleeper agents and quiet cells, unmasking themselves in the process.

The very fact that the North had to repopulate the VC indicates just how badly the VC were shattered---and your assessment that the VC were always under northern control belies the beliefs of the pro-VC elements here in the US (who believed the VC were, in fact, part of the NLF, and that the NLF was separate from the North Vietnamese).

As important, though, the VC to some extent were independent of the North, just as Mao was independent of the Soviets, or Kim Il-Sung was independent of both Moscow and Beijing. Just as Stalin sought to liquidate home-grown Communists alongside nationalists and anyone else (and, it is argued, deliberately failed to aid the Warsaw Uprising in '44 in order to ensure as many Polish nationalists were dead and unable to oppose his take-over of Poland), so, too, would Ho and company happily move in behind a weakened VC infrastructure and control them AFTERWARDS.

Posted by Lurking Observer at July 7, 2007 12:42 PM

It is not only the birthplace of Al Queda,of Wahhabi Islam and the world's largest oil producer, but of Islam itself. Directly, countering the KSA would be like Iraq, but complicatedc 5 fold. You think the Russians would work with us despite Nalchik, Beslan, & Nord Ost. The Chinese, despite their Uighur problem in Zinjiang province, India; even with their ISI Kashmiri prpblem from {Pakistan.(You see in the case of the Ahmed brothers from Bangalore,a direct case of Wahhabi Influence)France, the UK. I don't think so. From Baa't Y'eor's Eurabia, one sees how the present immigration and non-assimilation policies of the EU were extorted as the cost of ending the embargo.
One sees in Dore Gold's tome on the subject,
"Hatred's Kingdom"; which has been incorporated into Dan Silva's "Messenger thriller, that the '73 boycott directed by OPEC rep Al Yamani was expressly supported the Wahhabi ulema. Why not, it enriched Saudi coffers,led to an Ilkwan challenge at the Great Mosque; by members of the Al Quahtani & Utaibi clans, which in turn led to the full support of the Saudi zakat foundations &
madrasssa creating apparatus. The death of King Faisal by what they regarded as a 'corrupted'
princeling, reinforced this view. They steered
the course of the Afghan campaign; favoring Hekmatyar, Khalis, & Raisul Sayyaf over Gilani,
Rabbani & co. This was not unlike the events of
the aftermath of British operations during the
first World War; when they were the undue beneficiaries of British influence due to the Sr. Philby's influence; over the Hashemites. When the
Brits gave up after Balfour, & Sieves; they swept
the Hussein family out of their shrines, with theIlkwan that they promptly betrayed. They also
followed the Brits into Southern Iraq, after the
"Out of Mesopotamia" cries became too shrill. The
devils bargain that King Saud made with the Americans; has over a quarter century empowered
these tribes; whose kinsman make up the lions share of the GItmo detainees, shaheeds against Baghdad, Fallujah, Al Quaim. et al; aide d'camps
to Chechens like "Khattab" and bombers in Riyadh
proper. One tribe, the al Ghamdi tribe, had it's
own house in Taliban controlled Kandahar; which
two of the 9/11 hijackers came from. Another, the
Uteibi, one of who where the original Gitmo 3 suicides, another convicted in Yemen, for forging
documents to go to Iraq.

Ironically, the example of Zarquawi & Raed el Banna; the shaheed of Hilla from L.A,; not to mention young Mohammed Asha, indicate that the Hashemites, are about to lose their last battle
as well

Posted by narciso at July 7, 2007 05:52 PM

It is not only the birthplace of Al Queda,of Wahhabi Islam and the world's largest oil producer, but of Islam itself. Directly, countering the KSA would be like Iraq, but complicatedc 5 fold. You think the Russians
would work with us despite Nalchik, Beslan, & Nord Ost. The Chinese, despite their Uighur problem in Zinjiang province, India; even with their ISI Kashmiri prpblem from {Pakistan.(You see in the case of the Ahmed brothers from Bangalore,a direct case of Wahhabi Influence)France, the UK. I don't think so. From Baa't Y'eor's Eurabia, one sees how the present immigration and non-assimilation policies of the EU were extorted as the cost of ending the embargo.
One sees in Dore Gold's tome on the subject,
"Hatred's Kingdom"; which has been incorporated into Dan Silva's "Messenger thriller, that the '73 boycott directed by OPEC rep Al Yamani was expressly supported the Wahhabi ulema. Why not, it enriched Saudi coffers,led to an Ilkwan challenge at the Great Mosque; by members of the Al Quahtani & Utaibi clans, which in turn led to the full support of the Saudi zakat foundations &
madrasssa creating apparatus. The death of King Faisal by what they regarded as a 'corrupted'
princeling, reinforced this view. They steered
the course of the Afghan campaign; favoring Hekmatyar, Khalis, & Raisul Sayyaf over Gilani,
Rabbani & co. This was not unlike the events of
the aftermath of British operations during the
first World War; when they were the undue beneficiaries of British influence due to the Sr. Philby's influence; over the Hashemites. When the
Brits gave up after Balfour, & Sieves; they swept
the Hussein family out of their shrines, with theIlkwan that they promptly betrayed. They also
followed the Brits into Southern Iraq, after the
"Out of Mesopotamia" cries became too shrill. The
devils bargain that King Saud made with the Americans; has over a quarter century empowered
these tribes; whose kinsman make up the lions share of the GItmo detainees, shaheeds against Baghdad, Fallujah, Al Quaim. et al; aide d'camps
to Chechens like "Khattab" and bombers in Riyadh
proper. One tribe, the al Ghamdi tribe, had it's
own house in Taliban controlled Kandahar; which
two of the 9/11 hijackers came from. Another, the
Uteibi, one of who where the original Gitmo 3 suicides, another convicted in Yemen, for forging
documents to go to Iraq.

Ironically, the example of Zarquawi & Raed el Banna; the shaheed of Hilla from L.A,; not to mention young Mohammed Asha, indicate that the Hashemites, are about to lose their last battle
as well

Posted by narciso at July 7, 2007 05:54 PM

The problem, as I see it, comes in two parts; one makes the other more difficult. The first part is the world's dependence on Middle East, particularly Saudi, oil and the second is Muslim terrorism, financed in large part by said oil.

The Arabs didn't do anything to deserve this bounty. They still don't. They didn't invest any of the money, train any of the technicians or do any of the work to get it out of the ground. All they did was to be on the ground under which it sits, and divide their time between killing each other and rubbing their faces in the sand five times per day while facing in the general direction of a rock.

Ergo, they don't deserve it. At all. And they shouldn't get to keep it, or the proceeds of its previous sale.

What to do about it? Simple. Send in the troops - if necessary pulled out from Iraq - and seize the oilfields, while simultaneously freezing any and all Saudi assets in the West. That done, destroy Mecca and Medina by any expedient means. And if any Muslim resident in any Western country, citizen or not, protests in any way at all, throw them out.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at July 11, 2007 11:40 AM

Sorry for the late reply. First, I see no evidence that the VC ever was an independent organization. Good propaganda to poorly informed individuals can duplicate the effect you observe.

Second, keep in mind that Giap was not a member of the VC and may have personal reasons for downplaying their role later in the war.

I know I'm being overly obtuse here. But I see the story of the VC's destruction in 1968 as another incorrect platitude, this time spun by the side that apparently wants to think that the US almost had victory. Even if the VC were as crippled as claimed, it obviously was repopulated. Even if it were suborned by other interests (in this case North Vietnam), that doesn't really matter IMHO. It certainly didn't prevent South Vietnam from falling.

My point here is that crippling setbacks are common to insurgencies. Mao has his "Long March" and many other successful rebellions can point to times in their past when they had been close to failure. Even the future US faced grim times when the southern colonies were subjugated by Lord Cornwallis in the late 1770's.

My take is that insurgencies are like weeds. A good day of weeding doesn't fix the weed problem. It's a continual problem that requires some level of constant effort. Sometimes you may need a lot of effort (if the weeds are plentiful) and sometimes a little effort (when you got most of the weeds).

Posted by Karl Hallowell at July 13, 2007 06:26 PM

Hi boys!
2a6f1bfd2be2ae64ef9fcd499b13a08d

Posted by http://mama.indstate.edu/users/vikram/index.html at December 10, 2007 10:05 PM

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