Arab Revolts Improve Al-Qaeda’s Strategic Position
Some well-known commentators have recently claimed that al-Qaeda has been diminished and made irrelevant because the popular uprisings in the Middle East are not motivated by radical Islam and are not controlled by al-Qaeda.
This kind of sound bite commentary betrays a serious misunderstanding of al-Qaeda and the Middle East and misleads people to believe that al-Qaeda is fast becoming a past problem. These commentators seem to believe that al-Qaeda is nothing more than a fanatical, one-dimensional religious movement.
While it is true that al-Qaeda’s ideology is rigid and fanatical, in the operational arena, it has proven itself to be the pragmatic and combat-hardened leader of an international insurgency that is more than willing to bend its principles in order to get what it wants.
The commentators also seem to have missed the fact that al-Qaeda acts as the vanguard of the Salafi jihad movement and has never stated or envisioned that it would, by itself, lead the overthrow of Middle Eastern regimes. Instead, it has always stated that its main function is to lead by example and incite and inspire others to do the work for them. That is precisely why al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula named its new jihad magazine Inspire.
Al-Qaeda is well aware of the steady stream of poll statistics showing that its popular support in the Middle East is falling, and it knows that it can’t get the job done alone. Because al-Qaeda has always been a hunted minority, it has always been supremely pragmatic when it comes to tactics, and it closely follows the ancient Arabic proverb: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Therefore, for the past five years, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have broadened al-Qaeda’s message to appeal to as many sectors as possible in its campaign to undermine America’s influence and oust our allies in the Middle East.
The most explicit statement of its all-inclusive big-tent policy was documented on May 5, 2007, in an al-Qaeda video, when Zawahiri strongly appealed to a much broader audience than just Muslims.
In the video he emphasizes to the oppressed on four continents that al-Qaeda’s mission is nothing less than to oppose:
the most powerful tyrannical force in the history of mankind …(and assist) all the weak and oppressed in North America and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world.
He then explicitly tells his audience that al-Qaeda does not fight for Muslims alone, but for the all the downtrodden, stating:
that when we wage jihad in Allah’s path, we aren’t waging jihad to lift oppression from Muslims only; we are waging jihad to lift oppression from all mankind because Allah has ordered us never to accept oppression, wherever it may be.
Given the fact that Muslims are ousting America’s allies throughout the region, there is little doubt that al-Qaeda is pleased with these developments, and there can be no doubt that it is strategically benefiting from the chaos. A new report reveals that Osama bin Laden has been crisscrossing the area bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan for high-level meetings with key jihadi leaders. Intelligence officials speculate that his purpose is to develop a plan to take advantage of the Arab revolts.
So what benefits can al-Qaeda possibly get from the chaos? Well, to begin with, just a scant few weeks ago a wide swath of the Middle East was a dangerous combat zone where its members were hunted and killed. Now, it no longer has to worry about drone strikes or other counterterrorism operations conducted by either the U.S. or the governments of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, or Yemen. Rather, these areas have been transformed into virtual safe havens.
At a bare minimum, the revolts have provided al-Qaeda with time, unmolested by the United States or national governments, to recruit, train, plan attacks, and consolidate its position with key tribes that will give it more influence in each state after the dust settles.
As a further bonus, it is likely that the governments that emerge from the ashes will be transformed into anti-American, Islamist regimes more ideologically attuned to al-Qaeda and more interested in accommodating than fighting it. At the very least, the power of Islamists and jihad elements will increase throughout the region.
Within this context, let’s take a look at how al-Qaeda’s strategic position has improved in the specific countries thus far in crisis.
Libyan rebels sold Hizballah and Hamas chemical shells
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 31, 2011, 11:24 AM (GMT+02:00) Tags: chemical weapons Hamas Hizballah Iran Libyan rebels
Senior Libyan rebel “officers” sold Hizballah and Hamas thousands of chemical shells from the stocks of mustard and nerve gas that fell into rebel hands when they overran Muammar Qaddafi’s military facilities in and around Benghazi, DEBKAfile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources report.
Word of the capture touched off a scramble in Tehran and among the terrorist groups it sponsors to get hold of their first unconventional weapons.
According to our sources, the rebels offloaded at least 2,000 artillery shells carrying mustard gas and 1,200 nerve gas shells for cash payment amounting to several million dollars.
US and Israeli intelligence agencies have tracked the WMD consignments from eastern Libya as far as Sudan in convoys secured by Iranian agents and Hizballah and Hamas guards. They are not believed to have reached their destinations in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, apparently waiting for an opportunity to get their deadly freights through without the US or Israel attacking and destroying them.
It is also not clear whether the shells and gases were assembled upon delivery or were travelling in separate containers. Our sources report that some of the poison gas may be intended not only for artillery use but also for drones which Hizballah recently acquired from Iran.
Tehran threw its support behind the anti-Qaddafi rebels because of this unique opportunity to get hold of the Libyan ruler’s stock of poison gas after it fell into opposition hands and arm Hizballah and Hamas with unconventional weapons without Iran being implicated in the transaction.
http://debka.com/article/20811/
Remember that Iran is building missile capability in Venezuela. They will not be topping them with icing.
Al Qaeda is alive and well. You probably just don’t hear much about it because they are hiding in different organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. Always remember that Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s No. 2 man, was once leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Radical Islam is radical Islam, whether it is in the Muslim Brotherhood or other radical Muslim political parties in the Middle East. To me, there isn’t much difference between Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda. All of them commit acts of terrorism, all of them kill innocent people, and all of them want Israel wiped off the face of the earth. So really, what’s the difference? Just a week or so ago, a Jewish family was slaughtered by terrorists from Gaza, probably from Hamas. A killing like that probably made Zawahiri proud, the animal. If a radical Islamic group, be it the Muslim Brotherhood or some other organization, takes over in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, or even Syria, the results will all be the same, more bloodshed and more war in the Middle East.
You quite rightly observe that the new islamist-friendly situation recklessly created in Northern Africa is a latent threat to the United States. True. So now you are in a position to appreciate how much more tangible and imminent that threat is to my country, Italy, whose southernmost island shores are closer to Tunisia than Miami is to Cuba. We are being literally overrun by men (a sprinkling of women, but tens of thousands of men) from Tunisia, not Libya, demanding refugee status. Sarkozy’s humanitarianism does not go beyong bombing. France refuses to let the swarms of North Africans in and throws them back if they do manage to seep through the border from Italy.
The European Union, so quick to tax us and order us around, has left us on our own to cope with these men, who need food, shelter and a job, and can very easily turn into Muslim sleeper cells, ready to take action when the call is sounded. In the past 20 years since the Berlin wall came down Italy has taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants, a flow that only striking a deal with Gheddafi allowed us to stem. Thanks to decades of union ruckus and waste, Italy also has the world’s highest debt and very high unemployment. So now we are to be saddled with never ending shiploads of African immigrants, and no one even takes notice. Not a word, no newspaper articles, nothing. Humanitarian sentiments call for bombing, the rest can take care of itself. Al-Qaeda must be thrilled: nothing can beat destroying the WTC in New York, but as they get up close to the Vatican they may well come up with something along the same lines.
Change is sweeping the middle east in the early Spring of 2011 but what change no one knows. The problem with Islamic fundamentalists is that, although the average person in the middle east may reject violent anti-Westernism, that average person nevertheless buys into the general narrative that runs throughout the region in regard to the West and it is that same general narrative that fuels Al-Queda’s political platform.
In WW II Germany, some argue that the average German wasn’t a real Nazi in the sense of the radical core group that advanced Nazi aims. Nevertheless, it was the average German who proved to be the clay that manned German armies, either because they had bought into the false narratives advanced by Hitler and his cronies or because, in the absence of democratic institutions, they were cowed by conformism and domestic violence combined with being wooed by the nationalism of the Nazi Party; it takes a great deal of moral courage and vision to go against ones own neighbors and, lacking any institutions to rely on, what good does it do to rebel against fascists if one simply disappears?
In the middle east, we are talking about an area of the world where Martin Luther King and Gandhi would probably have failed given that they were really only successful in relation to the intrinsic morality of the very institutions they set themselves against. Moral institutions in the middle east that address the greater good and the rights of man and which can be called upon to address that fundamental morality don’t exist in the middle east.
In order to disempower a group like Al-Queda, one must have a base population that rejects anti-Western narratives but that is simply not to be had in the middle east, where waving the spectre of Israel is like waving a red flag to a bull and similar classic themes of Western imperialism and colonialism have great traction.
In short, to defuse radicalism in the middle east, one needs a general public both informed and denuded of an ‘us versus them’ mentality. With the common denominator within Islam being that it lacks the ability to self-criticize in any real way and with institutions dominated by an intrinsically bigoted Islam itself, a solution in these terms may be decades away and uprisings with an economic imperative are not necessarily a ‘Magna Carta’.
Once streets are cleared and the average person goes home, professional organizers and politicians and wealthy business interests once again reassert their presence by moving a few things around for window dressing to keep people at home. While fundamentalist radicals in the long run may not have the answers to assuage economic hardship, we have seen in WW II Germany and Japan and present day Gaza that people can literally see their cultures decayed and destroyed around them and still be either cowed or inspired by fascist regimes able to make the most of their small numbers by violence, better organization or traditions of obedience. In the long run this doesn’t work but in the short run the potential for the exportation of violence is immense.
Like fascist regimes, democracy needs a general populace to buy into the program and resist lawlessness because democracy is a fragile thing that relies on order and faith in law and its own institutions. With the default position of Islam in regard to the West being that Islam is morally superior, it is only a short jump to feeling that that superiority should be evinced in other ways as well. It seems that the battle between post-Enlightenment and pre-Enlightenment civilizations will continue for the foreseeable future and with what result none can tell since in the end, the difference between casual anti-Westernism and radical fundamentalism may not only be negligible, but actually complimentary to one another considering that both draw upon the great narrative of Islam which either besieges others or portrays itself as under siege from those others.
No. I absolutely disagree. Your basic premise, which you do not examine, is that a jihadist and fundamentalist Islamism would take over in the ME. I submit you are wrong. Ideology and reality are not always twin clones of each other.
The population base of the ME has exponentially increased in the last generation, doubling in size. The reality is: these populations must be supported. The current economic mode of statist socialist control of one major resource (oil) cannot sustain this size of a population; it cannot generate enough wealth. The economy must move to a different means of wealth production: private enterprise capitalism. And this also means that the political mode must change to empower this new wealth producing sector of the population: a constitutional democracy.
These are facts; this is reality. Islamist fundamentalism, a virtual reality ideology, has no capacity to engender an economic mode of wealth production. It is parasitic on wealth produced by others – and can only exist in a non-individualist, non-capitalist system..i.e., it can only exist in an economic mode that will not produce the wealth needed for this size of population.
Therefore – Islamic fundamentalism is NOT going to be the next power in the ME. It has nothing economic to offer – and its heady imaginary world of rhetoric and emotion – can’t sustain the people.
The fact that fundamentalists, living in the emotional and blind rhetoric of their inflamed words, will jump into a real, valid revolution, does not mean that the basic cause and needs for this revolution are Islamist jihadism or that the result will empower such an ideology.
I have done some digging in the memory hole, and lo and behold – after a little reconstruction, this is what ETAB wrote in January, 1979:
“These are facts; this is reality. Islamist fundamentalism, a virtual reality ideology, has no capacity to engender an economic mode of wealth production. It is parasitic on wealth produced by others – and can only exist in a non-individualist, non-capitalist system..i.e., it can only exist in an economic mode that will not produce the wealth needed for this size of population.
Therefore – Islamic fundamentalism is NOT going to be the next power in Iran. It has nothing economic to offer – and its heady imaginary world of rhetoric and emotion – can’t sustain the people.”
Now, 32 years later, ETAB still holds his own – who knows, he may be right. But it is like being ultimately right on a futures trade, yet running a paper loss and bleeding funds until the margin call is too big to take.
Wow. Back in ’79, I was still in grad school, didn’t have my PHD yet, wasn’t writing anything about anything other than my thesis – and it dealt with something quite different from Iran and indeed, had nothing to do with Islam or fundamentalism. And yet – YOU say that I wrote this???? Wow.
The fact that Iran – back then – moved into simply another SIMILAR tribal mode – which was/is frankly little different in authority and economic structure than the previous one of the shah – is NOT indicative that the current ME implosion is similar and that the dictators will simply be replaced with another form of authoritarian dictatorship. You do not understand societal change. The population of Iran had not reached the tipping point, the full range of the carrying capacity of the economy, and therefore replacing one authority with another was NOT an economic or political revolution. Merely a change in The Face.
Then – as the asymmetry between wealth production and wealth consumption began to appear in the 80-90s…you got the rise of authoritarian repression in Iran, as the Rulers try to repress and prevent deep societal change. What is going on now in the whole ME…is this latter phase – that deep asymmetry between wealth production and wealth consumption means that the wealth production method MUST change.
Now, back from your dreamworld and into reality. I’ll say again, that the population in the ME has, over the past 40-50 years, exploded far beyond the carrying capacity of a statist redistributive system. There HAS to be a stronger and more widespread means of producing wealth; and that’s private enterprise capitalism. That means – that the current and quite ancient ME economic mode of tribalist redistribution – has to go. And the tribal mode of political authority, which is tribalism – has to go.
As for the ideology of Islam – look, what first happens in a societal organism is…the infrastructure, the skeleton, the networks of interaction, weaken. These are the economic and political structures. The result of this weakening is a loss of economic wealth, widespread poverty, unemployment, a decaying system of water, energy, transportation, health care, education. Then..the people become..’restless’.
Unlike the West, and the US is a key example, the ME ‘knowledge base’ is simplistic, idealistic and virtual. It exists in the imaginary world of ‘the future’. The West and the US Founders were deeply steeped in the political analyses of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Locke, Hobbes, Hume..and could examine societal organization based on them.
The ME hasn’t had a book translated from the West in a zillion years; its knowledge base is confined to…the Qur’an…which is a rabid hyperbolic rant of a 7th c paranoid schizophrenic…and the later ‘hadiths’ are modes of life of primitive tribal pastoral nomadics. These people don’t have the literature, the theoretical analysis of ‘what is a society’ to use for debate and development. So, when things go wrong in their experienced life, they retreat to the imaginary world of the Qur’an. And plan and plot that IF they all lived like this, THEN, all would be well. Of course this is as unrealistic as any cult ideology.
Back to reality. The basic problems in the ME are economic and political and these have to change…to enable a private enterprise middle class capitalist economy. No other mode can generate the wealth to sustain that size of population. And..constitutional democracy is the only political mode that empowers such a process. Period.
“You do not understand societal change.” – I smirk.
“Now, back from your dreamworld and into reality.” – I chuckle.
“a societal organism” – I laugh.
“… could examine societal organization …” – I laugh like a hyena!
You must be an economists as you have obviously fallen for the myth of “economic man” so beloved of Marxists and adherents of that other dopey ideology free market capitalism. It may surprise you that there are people who have other interests besides owning the newest smart phone.
Anybody who thinks this is a democratic movement is gravely mistaken. In every single one of these countries it’s the secular governements that are being overthrown – and I don’t care if they’re tin dicts or what. The treatment of women in these countries afterwards is horrendous and the press is covering it up. This is a global movement that has been building ever since the old Ottoman empire fell and we are seeing it reimplemented before our eyes. Within a decade or so it will be an even worse hellhole than it is now.
The treatment of women in these countries has been bad before the revolutions. You just didnt hear about it as often. you hear about it more often now. That is important because it allows a greater number of voices to be heard to put pressure on the countries to at least make laws that protect women or prosecute things like sexual assault, etc.
Egypt, under Mubarek, was the number one country for FGM (female genital mutilation). #1. Don’t kid yourself about what was better and what is worse now.
Why, oh why, hasn’t our Messiah, Obama, spoken out and condemned this action?
You missed one:
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/381810
A lawyer who works with various Islamist groups has predicted that 3000 leading figures of the Jama’a al-Islamyia and ُEgyptian Islamic Jihad groups will return to Egypt in a few days, as their names have been dropped from the “wanted” list maintained by Egyptian security forces.
“They are coming back from Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Kenya, Iran and London,” said Ibrahim Ali.
I would like to interject and support James May’s position. Egypt is, from my perspective, Germany appx 1929. The Weimer republic with so many voices and ideas and divisions amongst it’s population that the organization of a force that can oppose Islamization politically and culturally may be extremely difficult.
ETAB is correct that the issue is economic and what Egypt needs is free markets and free ideas. Where I disagree is that there is actually not a wide acceptance of this mentality any more than there is an adversity to Islamization.
One of the things that I found interesting in the liberation movement was that the “liberal” forces were largely socialist in nature. They are continually talking about “social justice” and “redistribution of wealth”. an idea that finds itself acceptable in a nation with a very wealthy, small upper class, a growing, but still small middle class and a very large poor working class. Many of whom are both socialist in nature and conservative Islamic.
Democratic Egypt will be looking to marry these two items. Which, of course, means that Egypt’s economic woes are going to go into a tail spin. The problem then will be that the new democratic government will not be able to deliver on expectations. This is where the MB may turn into the National Socialist Workers Party circa 1933.
They are going to be the organization that offers an identity that matches the people’s ideas of themselves as both Muslim and nationalist (Egypt). I even find it interesting that the MB is saying that it will only limit it’s self to 30-35% of Parliament. Reading history, the Nazis had just about that amount but were able to take over the government because all of the other liberal, democratic forces were so disorganized and intent on maintaining their individual organizations and ideas that they were unable or unwilling to unite in the face of the Nazis.
I am rooting for the liberals to get their organization together and unite in some fashion to stave off the same possibility for the MB take over. However, the MB has a history of doing what the Nazi party did before it came to power. Organizing bread and soup lines, helping people get jobs through their association, providing monetary assistance to out of work families, etc.
This isn’t really a new concept historically. the question is how do we react to it?
We are reacting very badly, right now. Partly because of our own internal politics and economy (the same problems in 1933). What we should have right now is a focus on building our military, new technologies and energy supplies. We should also be working extremely hard to get the liberal democratic forces in Egypt up and running fast, with a way to spread their message.
However, as James notes, there is a very pervasive anti-western strain even in the more moderate portions of the population. Even if they don’t buy the whole story about it being the Wests fault for their condition, they still believe there is a peripheral causation. What is also there is a building case of Nationalism coupled with this blame situation.
So, if we cannot help the liberals move forward, i believe the next decade has Egypt going MB/Nazi Germany on us.
There is only one caveat to that. Egypt, of course, does not have the economic or resource base to become a threat in the short run. Then again, the new world is full of new ways of making war. The real question is what will happen to the surrounding countries and their ideological travelers across the ME? These countries could supply natural resources like oil and gas for any military machine.
The other difference is that none of these countries really have any agricultural basis that could support their populations for food. That is a leverage, pressure point. Also one that we could take advantage of in the short run to provide assistance to any liberal government to insure a better trajectory for their citizens. Even economic investment. Anything that insures that the liberals, even the socialists, are a better option than the Islamic way.
STick and carrot. We should also have whispered into the Islamists ears that if they take Egypt down that path, we will cut them off at the knees. Not that I think we have a government or administration that has the guts of Teddy Roosevelt to tell them that or put it into play.
Libya is not quite the way to show them that, but maybe the message is there.
Very nice analysis – many thanks.
Yes, given the serious problem of the implosion of the current method of economic wealth production (statist redistribution) – and the lack of a knowledge base to enable the development of a capitalist free enterprise middle class economy – the danger of fascism is ‘there’. But I maintain that the danger is nowhere comparable to the 1930′s situation in Germany.
The reasons are – that the structure of our world is now no longer based around nations and sovereigns but around networks. That is, we are now in a global infrastructure. Our fiscal, economic and even political modes are all networked together. Statism, because of its authoritarianism, is incapable of assimilating and using the modern informational networks. The strength of the modern information network is its rejection of authoritarianism, its rejection of singular authority and its..networking.. which waters down singular authority.
Therefore despite the emotional appeal of fascism, with its mythic tales of previous and possibly future heroic glories, it cannot ‘talk over’ the informational network of the world. This includes commercial goods, information, ..contacts, blogs, twitter, facebook…banking..everything.
I fully agree with you that what we should be doing is setting up economic agreements with the private sector businesses of the ME. Not the Rulers; the private sector. Not easy – as the Ruling Guys in the ME reject private enterprise and try to prevent individuals from engaging in such nefarious acts. But that’s the way to go…
Yes, you are right – these countries have little arable land and little agricultural productivity; they rely heavily on sale of their one commodity, oil (or Suez tolls) to import their sustenance. But this monolithic economy is inadequate; they must move to private enterprise small to medium businesses – and this is where we ought to be working to set up links and networks with individuals in the ME ready to work in these areas.
Not easy- and in particular, with an ignorant and stupid Obama in charge.
ETAB
I was making a similar case on MJTs post on Libya. I agree that the information networking is a key method of, if not preventing fascism, then in speeding it’s demise.
The gentleman has asked “when is the Islamic Arab enlightenment” period going to begin. My point is that it has already begun and that is why we are seeing it’s various forms in the convulsions of the region. Starting with, unfortunately, the rise of Salafi ideology as a counter or reaction to the ‘Enlightenment’.
Our own Enlightenment period in the west occurred as Empires expanded, securing trade routes that also improved the flow of information and people. That enlightenment was sped up with the invention of the printing press. Information and ideas were now portable, accessible and relatively cheap compared to the great Tomes transcribed by Monks and purchased by the wealthy.
A rising middle class that had more time and more money to spend on these “luxuries” meant ideas and information were more quickly passed and assimilated.
What we see now is that history, in it’s usual trajectory, has been sped up. The US has been long providing security for the transportation of goods, people and information. The internet and it’s various tools like facebook, etc are the printing press of our times, providing a fast, cheap and accessible way to spread information.
However, I don’t believe that this alone can stave off the rise of another fascist ideology, but, instead, will move it’s rise and destruction faster.
Keeping in mind that the free flow of information and globalization of the last era started hitting it’s high point in the late 19th century. With it, rose the ideologies that spawned socialism, fascism and communism. that is because the information sharing was made quicker by things like the transatlantic telegraph, news wire services and the mass production of books.
In those days, books on freedom and democracy shared the same space, timely movement and markets with Marx, et al. So, it was not as if the information flow did not exist on equal footing.
I think the issue here is that in the trajectory of information flow and globalization, we cannot forget people are still attached to their national identities. It is nationalism, along with economic woes, that gives rise to fascism. Information flow does not hinder that because we are talking about humans and their emotions, not cold information or unfeeling networks.
However, since the flow of information has sped up and so to has the trajectory of revolutions around that, it would mean the possibility that fascism will float to the top more quickly and then, hopefully, wear out it’s welcome faster.
To prevent it would require that we advance information more quickly into the realm where fascism is raising it’s ugly head. We have to spread the ideas of individual rights and responsibilities, protection of minorities and free markets more quickly.
The problem, as you point out, is that we have a latent statist as our leader. We need a Reagan right now. Somebody who speaks the language of freedom and free markets instead of our current Wilsonian, Chamberlain, Carteresque, Rodney King “can’t we all just get along” Obama.
No, we can’t all just get along because not everybody wants to “get along”. Failing to recognize that is putting us right back where we were before the beginning of “the end of history”.
Oh…and isn’t it bizarre that history has put the Jews right back in the middle of this mess?
That is not anti-semitism. Just making note that history IS bizarrely circular in he last century.
ACtually, here I’ll disagree. I don’t think that the Jews or Israel are central to this current implosion of the ME. I know that Israel likes to feel that all the Islamic angst is over ‘them’ – but I suggest that the implosion would have occurred even if Israel did not exist.
The reason for this ME implosion is, again, that triadic set of the basic infrastructure of societal organization: the size (and location)of the population; the economic mode; the political mode. If these three are not in harmony with each other – the result is disastrous. The ME nations retained a redistributive statist economy, which is to say, a tribal economy of Rulers distributing the wealth downwards according to kinship and contract bonds. And they retained a tribal political mode of dynastic Rulers and Ruled.
This infrastructure can’t deal with a massive population in the multimillions – and especially one that has such limited natural resources as in the ME. You can’t eat oil; heck, the Islamic nations didn’t even have the knowledge base to discover, extract or process the oil…much less invent the vast array of machines that use it as an energy source. So, all the rhetoric about the Evil West colonizing the area-for-oil is sheer nonsense.
At any rate, this infrastructure has simply reached its operational capacity and must change. It’s difficult because they bizarrely froze their minds by setting up their economic and political infrastructure – as A RELIGION!!!! Islam has very little of the metaphysical to talk about but a great deal to say about the economy, the political and societal orders. And they defined it all as dogma! Frozen into a religion! How’s that for reasoning, thinking beings. So- it’s hard…but..unless the ME wants to reduce its millions of population by more than HALF…they have to change their infrastructure.
And, as I said, Israel always feels that unrest and Islamic fascism is ‘all about Israel’ – but it has zilch to do with them. Israel was used by the dictator rulers as a red herring to distract and externalize unrest but it really isn’t working. The people need basic economic and political change. Then…the ideology will change..
Again, a really great analysis; many thanks. A few more points:
1) Fascism is indeed a nationalist ideology. It, like socialism and communism are utopian, universalist and communitarian. Anti-individual. Fascism is mythic in the sense that it envisions an imagined ‘Glorious Past’ to which we, If we are Good/Pure, can Return. Utopias are, by definition, existent only in the imaginary world. [Side note: Obama, as a utopian, lives only in an imaginary world of virtual rhetoric; he's unable to function in the real world of facts and context.]
2) But the problem with fascism as an answer to the economic needs of the ME is that their needs are not for state industrialism – which satisfied, for a short time, Germany in the 30s – but are for small to medium size private capitalist businesses. That’s a key problem.
3)National identities can never be lost; private property, so to speak, can’t be dispensed with because we are finite beings in interaction with finite realities. We can’t exist without such direct bonds and connections that lead us to support our environment (see the argument made by Aristotle against Plato’s support for the abolition of private property.] I’m not advocating that in the least.
4)Agreed about the role of information spread during our reformation phase – but there’s a difference in the nature of modern information. It is ‘horizontal’ rather than vertical. That is, there is no single author and authority. There is, instead, a ‘collection of wisdom’ that will offer, debate, evaluate and conclude, the information provided by the many. We all know how an ‘event’ appears on the Internet, and is instantly shown up as false by a plethora of commenters. It is this constant evaluative openness of the Network that enables the rapid spread of information in this modern era. Dictators have a difficult time controlling this..
And – the effective disappearance of space as a value in the spread of information is vital. We instantly see what is going on in Tripoli; time and space have little control over this movement of information.
5) It is indeed the era of Reformation in the ME. Their hard task will be to reject Islamism and its fascist essence, and forge a new identity. The first step is – enabling the economic freedom to develop a middle class.
6)With regard to Obama, I am reminded of Jonathan Sewell’s outline of what John Adams was NOT. It reminds me strongly of what Obama IS.
“He is not qualified by nature or education to shine in courts…. he cannot dance, drunk, game, flatter, dress, swear with the gentlemen, and small talk and flirt with the ladies; in short, he has none of the essential arts or ornaments which constitute a courtier”.
And that description, of a ‘courtier’ fits Obama perfectly. He’s a courtier; he loves to charm and lead ‘shout-outs’ and pontificate his ambiguous imaginary mantras which all deal, not with the current real issutes of the day but with an imaginary future of ‘hope and change’ and ‘winning the future’. And ‘let’s all get along’ (heh – his Tuscon Let’s Get Along speech didn’t stop the vicious Wisconsin Democrats did it?)…
Obama, the socialist anti-American, the narcissist, refuses to deal with the real world; leaves all that to others – and actually, prefers not to deal with others, nations or individuals, who have power.
I am going o respond to that, but I have to go do something (darn it). Either tonight or tomorrow AM.
Just warning you so that you can come back to read/respond.
I think this is important because I believe we are missing a national policy to deal with these issues and we should be figuring out what we want our representatives/president to do to set up for the future problems.
“Islam is the answer”, that is the MB’s Utopian vision. Unfortunately, after the last decades, I think this has more play in parts of egypt than you and I agree on and certainly in other nations in the region.
In reply to Kat-Mo’s comment on ‘Islam is the answer’…I’ll compare this with Obama’s ‘Hope and Change’ and “Winning the Future’. That is, these are utopian, idealistic, imaginary worlds that are being referred to – and are alienated from hard everyday reality.
The utopian world, the imaginary world, will always be with us. We, as a species endowed with the unique capacity ‘to think’ and thus, to imagine and model ‘that which is not here right now’…must retain this capacity. It’s an integral part of our reasoning capacity. We can not only observe the world objectively, examine it empirically, but we can IMAGINE what it would be like if we do ‘such and such’. So – I’m not going to deny the vital importance of this capacity.
Equally, it is a devious and enthralling and addictive capacity and it is easy for us to use it within harmful agendas. These usually involve forcing others to behave in a certain way such that IF we do such and such, THEN this wonderful result will occur: – whether it’s Obama’s agenda to bewitch you into an emotional braindead state so that you vote, unthinkingly, for him, or the Union agenda to control an administration or the fascist and communist agendas to control a population.
So, given that these people in the ME have had no other knowledge base other than the Qur’an, do not have the knowledge base of the US Founders in Aristotle, Cicero, Locke etc, and have been programmed, essentially, into operating within the imagination rather than the scientific and logical…the utopian world of Islamism isn’t going to disappear that rapidly.
But I maintain that it does not provide that vital economic infrastructure and therefore, cannot be retained. It will have to change. Usually, the ideology of a population is the last to appear and the last to change …within a major transformation. First comes the basic triad of population change, then economic then political. Finally, at the very end, the ‘conscious’ movement appears and people begin to articulate what has happened. Takes time.
I’ll reply to two of your posts.
I am not saying that the Jews are responsible, but as someone else mentions down the post, part of the rise of fascism and the manner in which it must form the mythical “utopia” from history is that the previous utopia was ended by someone else. The reason, of course, is that nationalism and, in this case, Islam, cannot admit to an error in it’s culture, people and devices.
There must be an outside reason for their failure. In this case, as it was in the last, it is the Jews. Not because they actually did anything, but because they are convenient and the long time adversary (since Abraham disinherited Ishmael in favor of Isaac). It was the same in Europe where anti-semitism had a long history.
Since devout Muslims must believe that the Qu’ran is the infallible, perfect word of God and Mohammed his righteous messenger, the laws and guidance must be the perfect way. Therefore, there can be no error in Islam. Only the way that people practice it.
On the “horizontal information”, there are two issues:
1) People can still pick and choose what they read or who they interact with on the internet, narrowing the flow of information
2)If we do not actively push information, ideas, etc, into that realm, it can still be avoided.
For instance, I was recently tweeting messages with some folks in Egypt when a leftist, aggregating news links, posted a video from Alex Jones purporting to have proven links that the US was giving money, arms and direction to Al Qaeda. They chose it because it plays into their myth that it is not their fault or Islam, that AQ was someone else’s invention.
In fact, we went on to discuss the Salafi issue in Egypt. Their point of view is that these people are a creation of outside forces on Islam, forcing them into their extreme position. I responded that a person is responsible for their own actions and that at this moment they are living in at least as free a society as they were likely to gain sometime in the future. What was their excuse for their actions now? She could not explain, but agreed that each person must be responsible or their own acts. A triumph of sorts I suppose.
But, that illustrates the point of selective choice of information to re-enforce our own ideas.
On the issue of Islamism and economics, I think we are agreeing that what Egypt and the ME needs is a free market and that Islamism as a politico-economic structure cannot sustain the people. What they need and what they want or will get are definitely different things.
In reply to Kat-Mo’s reply to me of April 2nd – yes, I agree with the selective choices of information to reinforce one’s own ‘tenaciously held opinion’. That will always be the case.
But the strength of a horizontal information network, which doesn’t have established vertical authority – is that someone else can step into the network and rebut that person’s perspective. That isn’t possible in a vertical communication network.
That won’t necessarily change their opinion; tenacity is usually stronger than facticity. Elvis is still going strong. But – the potential is there to isolate that opinion only to those marginal few.
Excellent commentary right here, and a valid comparison of Islamic subversion/opportunism with those of the National Socialism in the early 1930′s unrest in Germany.
I’d like to take things a step further and say that with the ethnic, tribal, and linguistic diversity of this wide belligerent Islamic area from inside Pakistan westwards to the Mediterranean countries extending along the roof of North Africa…..we’re spinning our wheels in all of this sand with massed ground forces deployed there in our two separate but related wars……I’d propose (yet again) the American-style quarantine and isolation policy varying with each of these main countries’ borders, which was successful (ultimately) against the Soviet swath of countries from East Europe to Vladivostok and Canton. That “curtained”-off area required no intercontinental missile launches.
This poster also wishes that people would (good grief!) read history and seek parallels….none will be exact of course, but what we’re doing right now combating rabid Islamist belligerence under the guise of their “religion” and their monotheism just amounts to whack-a-mole…it’ll never work because we Westerners cannot ever separate this Islamist obsession with rage and jihad….they are all melded into one nasty whole claiming to be a cult-ish “religion”.
“Hearts and Minds” efforts are nonsense, and not an answer. Troops and bombs are not the answer…….hence what’s needed is effective tight quarantine and containment.
I would like to agree, but there is a few problems with that. Mostly the problem of mass, cheap transportation moving individuals about, from and within these areas means that the war has transformed, at this time, to terrorism by small units or individuals. That gives these nations “deniability”.
On the other hand, the way we acted against the communists wasn’t just the Cold War “curtain”. We actively infiltrated these areas with information and US products on the black markets. Or, at least, we did our best not to interfere with that flow.
The blackmarket flow of products was free markets, laissez fair. Where the statis govts could not provide certain items or no cheaply or quantitatively, the black market did. It also kept money out of the hands of the statist govts bypassing their economic/taxing system.
And, finally, wherever we could find freedom lovers inside those countries we supported them with material and moral support including routinely and ruthlessly demonizing the communists and their evil in every information format that we could.
So, in essence, we would need to develop a Cold War Strategy 2.0 that runs faster to keep up with the free flow of information.
I really think that means that our govt will also have to become streamlined, faster and more capable of reacting in cases where such revolutions take place.
We would also have to accept that over a long period, terrorism will be the norm of warfare. in which case, we have to be better at finding it and rooting it out.
We can solve those problems you mention, but this paste of yours below, I admit, is a serious drawback to my suggestion:…
“I really think that means that our govt will also have to become streamlined, faster and more capable of reacting in cases where such revolutions take place.”
I think our stark partisan rancor will be a taffy-like sticking point. I read somewhere earlier today that the 9/11 Commission chairman (Lieberman?) has said that we’ve not made much progress on their recommendations.
But, this paste of yours I think is doable, and to a certain extent has been accomplished as of now:
“We would also have to accept that over a long period, terrorism will be the norm of warfare. in which case, we have to be better at finding it and rooting it out.”
I’m optimistically convinced that despite our various Intelligence activities/successes not being able to be broadcast, that we are doing better than the liberal media will permit our public to believe. We’re not dummies, contrary conventional gossip. I give us Americans a lot of credit for averting some unmentionable horrors. I give is credit for this in spite of the shrieks and cries from the likes of the A.C.L.U. and the New York Times/Washington Post axis.
…evil typos:….
…read instead “contrary to conventional…”
…read instead ” I give us credit…”
I wrote:
“Nevertheless, it was the average German who proved to be the clay that manned German armies, either because they had bought into the false narratives advanced by Hitler and his cronies or because, in the absence of democratic institutions, they were cowed by conformism and domestic violence combined with being wooed by the nationalism of the Nazi Party;”
Take that same general scenario and transplant it to the near brushes these uprisings may have with democracy and it is eerily similar. Further add the German theme of blame and having been betrayed by outsiders and it is still more apt.
Islam, when it comes to being a source for jurisprudence, seems to have a completely reverse notion from the founding fathers of America. Our colonial ancestors were pragmatists who knew what aspects of the human personality to trust and mistrust, what aspects could not be denied and what must be denied. Unlike the founding documents of America, Islam seems to instinctively want to deny what it means to be fully human in terms of a society and want to lock it away in the same way the Muslim Brotherhood was locked away in Egypt.
Since Islam was founded on naked imperialism and colonialism, it should be no surprise that when it could expand no further it collapsed in on itself and really has no vision of life to offer without creating foes to struggle, roil and agitate against. Islam seems to not have a sense of living in the ‘now’ and happily involving itself in its own affairs.
How can democracy ever come to fruition when a charter like a ‘Magna Carta’ is constantly portrayed as a charter, not against dictators, but against God? In the end no one knows what will happen and the story will be different for each country. It is rather sad to see in this day and age a struggle between fundamentalists who think Turkey and Egypt are too progressive and people who just want opportunities to enrich their lives. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood have nothing to offer the world but a dreary replay of past failure and no vision for a future that addresses the reality of populations that have simply grown beyond their ability to sustain themselves.
Pragmatism and humility are not benchmarks of Islamic thought and as long as secular models of gov’t are denied together with a deep mistrust of the very Western models that can save the middle east, there will be deep problems. We have similar modes of thought among liberals in America whereby, because a false narrative is attached to the thing, the one thing that might provide a solution is the one thing that will never be tried.
Reading the lines, and in between the lines, we surmise why Egypt and Tunisia, under new management, are not helping those who had enough of Gaddafi.
“God’s war on terror” by Walid Shoebat and Joel Richardson is must reading
for those who are not afraid of intellectual honesty. Which rules out most of the blight inside the Beltway, and in other capitals.
What we see today in the Islamic world is the Harvest that America has sought all along.
After 9/11/01 when we looked at our attackers and considered how we were going to fight them, we saw that it was basically a moribund culture that was in its death throes. Illegitimate massively corrupt Authoritarian gangster regimes, ruling over a submissive population whose only form of organization outside the government was religious, and so we decided to demonstrate a superior culture on a local similar people where its superiority could not be ignored or hidden. So we killed the tyranny in Iraq, and imposed a Democracy, with the rule of law, and free markets, a seed of western culture that would slowly flower and grow, where freedom would begin to be tasted by peoples which have never in history been free. And so pressure began to build, in the frozen Islamic cultures, and when the pressure got to great, all that was needed was a spark to cause a chain reaction.
I said at the time, that installing a Democracy in Iraq was one of the greatest strategic maneuvers in Human history. It was an example of cultural judo of the first water, putting a naturally corruption reducing Democracy in what was once the most cosmopolitan Arab nation, with its central location, was a Brilliant response to 9/11.
Bush is going to gain huge credit for this eventually, as he should.
Everyone is worried about the Moslem Brotherhood, and Islamists taking control from the Tyrants. But, I wonder how much credit they will get in the polling booth, as I seriously doubt that they will be able to take control without a vote. And even if it’s the case of “One man, One vote, Onetime” that is still a Victory for us, as it is a Cultural recognition on their part, that only a Democratic vote can confer Legitimacy. And we finally got some movement out of the frozen stagnate authoritarian Islamic states.
We Win!!!
I essentially agree. However, it is simply speeding up the timeline, like the interjection of the internet (free, fast, cheap flow of information) into the security of trade routes and travel matrix.
As far as the “judo” aspect, whether intentionally or not, one of things that escapes people is the history of Iraq. I do not mean the recent history. I mean the history that is important to such people as the Islamists. Baghdad was once the seat of the Caliphate, before the Ottomans took over and moved it to Istanbul.
Moving on it and planting our flag there was essentially grabbing one of their objectives before they were ready to move on it. That was one of he reasons that the insurgent war did not take off immediately. THey weren’t prepared and it took them some time to gather assets and move into the area.
I think that the one problem we had was imagining how hard they would fight to take it. IN the realm of imagination and strategic planning, this was a deep error. That is why I believe we did not plan for it nor actually realize what a strategic win it was for us.
That doesn’t mean it is over.
Historical places and times have meaning to them. We have to plan around that.
Of course the conflicts improve Al Queda’s position, and don’t you expect that the faux President and faux American Barack Obama knows it well? It all goes back to Obama’s early development (Communist from fathers and mother and their friends) and his early education (Muslim). Can anyone seriously think that Obama does not know this? Of course, many whose heads are up their nether orifices can think so. Let them.
Of course it could help alqueda. but anything we do can help them. these people want us dead. period! Islam want to rule the world. it dosent want peace, nor tolerance, nor just a voice. Islams singular mandate is the subjigation of the world under islamic rule and and the destruction of all thoes who do not follow it. I cant understand why there is so much confusion on this topic. that is what islam is and therefore it will do anything, lie cheat, steal kill, etc to achieve this end. My point is we need to start looking at the midle east as they are. an enemy bent on our destruction. not som emisunderstood people with just a different viewpoint. these idiot libs and even some conserves who want to talk and coddle them only serve to bolden and give them focus. they only understand 1 thing. ‘the persuesion of power” you dont apply 21st century morality to a culture who cant get out of the 12th century. you simply wipe them out and move forward. because i garuntee if we dont they will do that to us without hesetation
Have you read Ezekiel 38 & 39 lately?
The unrest in the Middle East seems to be setting up Chapter 38.
ETAB your putting economics before philosophy as long as you do that you won’t change a dam thing in the ME. Once you get the philosophy changed then you can implement free-market reforms to say other wise is just pissing in the wind.
Nope. The ideology is always the last to appear and the last to change. It’s the expression, the conscious articulation of the deep infrastructure in which a population lives. And that deep infrastructure is the basics of ‘being alive’. Not thinking; being alive.
That means – how does one exist, as a finite piece of matter, in this finite material world. That’s first. Then, we, being human, can dress it up in words and articulate and embelish and even put in morality and cauaslity into ‘how we exist’. But that all comes after we actually ARE existing.
And you don’t follow or change an ideology if the words are empty and just words; they have to mean something…which is to say..they have to relate to reality. Reality is..those basics: living. Being alive.
So- I totally disagree. Heck – if you were right, then, any and all ideologies could be ‘introduced’ into a population and they’d all accept it. Just for its words. Doesn’t happen; people are not computer programs to be reprogrammed.
First – the existence; then the words.