One more entry about war, guys. You're warned...
So, I'm still reading Thomas Pynchon's masterpiece, Gravity's Rainbow. (Thomas Pynchon, is you don't know him, is one of the major American writers of the XXth century, in my opinion.) I found a quote, that seems to be appropriate to our troubled times : (the hero, Tyrone Slothrop, an American, is hiding from the MP in Zürich in 1945, and thinks :)
For possibly the first time he is hearing America as it must sound to a non-American. Later he will recall that what surprised him most was the fanaticism, the reliance not just on flat force but on the rightness of what they planned to do...(This can be compared to this excellent paper, which I found via Simon). And in fact, the current attitude of the USA may actually pay in the short term, for the limited zone of Iraq; but, for a load of reasons, it's also creating more anti-americanism, more anti-semitism, and thus more terrorism, while it weakens also the UN and the NATO, and thus the worldwide regulative powers that should help fighting terrorism. Those are problems that shouldn't be underestimated by the USA : they are not alone. The long term effects of a war in Iraq might well be the exact opposite of what they want.
-- Title of this journal entry by Ornette Coleman.
The article you quote is how Europe is growing more anti-American and more anti-Semetic.
Are you seriously saying that terrorists are being bred in Europe? Do you know any Europeans who are going to suicide bomb Americans over this?
I don't think the US is breeding more terrorists with its foreign policy. The lines are already brightly drawn. The religious fanatics don't really need anything more, they only use a war against Iraq as a pretext, an excuse to proclaim hatred they already deeply feel. The only terrorists of great concern are the potential martyrs. These are all religious fanatics already and don't need more convincing.
Liberating Iraq could help alleviate terrorism the the long term. The situation today is untenable. Saddam Hussein starves and deprives his people of basic medical care while he builds mobile biolabs and more and better missiles. Al Qaeda blames the deprivations of the Iraqi people on America and it's allies.
What's are we to do? Release the sanctions (something no member of the UN Security Council has recommended)? Keep the sanctions up and allow more Iraqi children to die and more hatred to fester over this? What is your plan? Not just platitudes. I want to know what you would do.
A liberated, free Iraq, along with a liberated free Afghanistan and hopefully soon an Iran freed by internal forces could go a long way toward removing the true root causes of terrorism; poverty, ignorance and hopelessness.
Americans know that we must take an active stance here. We can't sit back and think that Nuclear and biological terrorism cannot come to our shores. Showing weakness to these monsters will only encourage them. They have stated, quite clearly, that the war is on and that there is no solution short of complete and total subjugation of the US and Israel. You might choose to believe they are not capable of this today, but how far are we from that day?
Re:We need an answer, I agree
rafael on 2003-02-15T13:22:05
Are you seriously saying that terrorists are being bred in Europe?Ever heard about Zacharias Moussaoui ?Re:We need an answer, I agree
jordan on 2003-02-15T18:07:33
- Ever heard about Zacharias Moussaoui ?
Yes, a Muslim of North African extraction. Sure, some Muslim extremists grow up in Europe. Those Muslim extremists are already convinced that the US must be destroyed and need no more motivation.
To them, a war in Iraq is just a pretext to action, not their motivation. These people will not be satisfied until the whole world is converted to Islam at the point of a sword. Moussaoui's statements in open court are that Spain should be returned to Islamic rule and that his aim is the destruction of the Jewish People, the Jewish state, the Russian State and the American State.
Note that's the destruction of the Jewish People. Moussaoui advocates absolute genocide against Jews.
If US foreign policy is breeding this terrorism, then this is the battle we must fight. I see no reason to believe that someone who thinks like Moussaoui would be more or less likely to commit terrorism over a war in Iraq. He's already convinced that the West must be totally destroyed.
We're not going to sit around and hope we can convince these people otherwise. I don't debate with genocidal maniacs. This is like saying the Nazi's could be convinced not to gas Jews if we just stop opposing them. We have to take active measures.
Re:We need an answer, I agree
rafael on 2003-02-15T21:18:16
Zacharias Moussaoui doesn't come from nowhere. He is (strictly speaking) a french citizen with north african origins and a jewish forename, just like me, although I'm not a muslim. Thus, I think that I can understand a bit the process that turns a perfectly normal french citizen into a brainwashed fanatic soldier, ready to give his life for some religious sect. Moussaoui didn't grew up in the hate of jews. His parents were normal, honest, tolerant. I've seen his mother on TV explaining what's the jihad -- the naive, orthodox explanation of the word : the holy war against the temptation of sin. The endoctrinment in islamic movements begins to work exactly like for other religious sects : the victims are separated from their families, and the other adepts become their sole relationships. For this endoctrinment to begin, a initial point is needed. And this initial point is currently given (among others) by the US foreign policy.Re:We need an answer, I agree
jordan on 2003-02-16T04:18:16
- Zacharias Moussaoui doesn't come from nowhere. He is (strictly speaking) a french citizen with north african origins and a jewish forename, just like me, although I'm not a muslim.
This reminds me of Salvidor Dali's quote "The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."
Oh my gosh! I just realized that I have a jewish forename! Had I been born in Europe, I guess I could have been a terrorist as well!
- And this initial point is currently given (among others) by the US foreign policy.
Among other, yes. I think, in Moussaoui's case, it is overwhelmingly to do with being a minority in a country, isolated by your fellow citizens by race, tradition and religion and listening to radical fundamentalist elements. North Africans in France suffer much higher unemployment, for some reason, than the population as a whole. I don't know what American Policy has to do with French unemployment patterns.
Many terrorists, not all, but many are targets for recruitment because a feeling of hopelessness in their lives. I'd like to think that helping to liberate the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq from brutal tyrannies can help relieve some of this hopelessness. The people of Iran are currently restless and are blaming their hopelessness on their religious leaders, a good sign.
It seems to me that American foreign policy is currently addressing this hopelessness in other places. Under pressure from the US, Saudi Arabia is working to reform their society. Kuwait is far more democratic and open than they once were.
The US and it's allies defended innocent Muslims in Kosovo, which should have been beneficial to the view of Americans in the Muslim world, but I'm not sure that it helped.
These are genocidal maniacs, bent on killing every Jew in the world and enslaving the rest of the world in a Taliban-like government. They don't seriously pay attention to foreign policy except as a prop.
If they didn't have US foreign policy as a starting point to influence minds, they'd find some other reason to whip up hatred.
I feel the US should base its foreign policy on what is right, regardless of how fundamentalist monsters may evaluate it. If we change our foreign policy because what terrorists might do with it, in this case, influence minds, aren't we allowing the terrorists to win? What will they have us change next? The dress of our Women? The fact that we don't bow to Mecca five times a day? What?
Anyway, reading Gravity's Rainbow these days is about as insightful as inhaling blotter acid and reading Go Ask Alice, or guzzling tequila and watching Barfly.
It's a bit, how you say, overdetermined; a bit obvious; a bit much.
I suggest reading The Diary of H. L. Mencken while listening to some Towa Tei.
Re:Gravity's Rainbow
rafael on 2003-02-15T13:29:55
I'll go for Browne's Urn Burial then.
