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By Barry Rubin
Much of the public debate on airport security is poorly informed and misdirected.
Security assets are always limited and must be focused on where they would do the most good. Hence, profiling--only picking out a small portion of any overall group but starting with certain assumptions about what group is going to do the terrorism--makes sense.
Yet leaving aside any Politically Correct ideology, personal profiling is not a great option for U.S. airport security for three simple reasons. First, the volume of passengers and flights is so huge.
Second, while profiling works very well for Israel, its security personnel are highly educated and highly trained, among the most intelligent and skilled people in the entire population (the ones who deal directly with the passengers usually work at these jobs for a few years during or just after college). Are American TSA people really going to be able to deal with this very delicate and intellectually challenging work? Unless wages and thus costs are raised by a huge factor such a workforce transformation won't happen.
Third, imagine the law suits and political mess.
In addition, although this might seem shocking to people, there have only been two times in the last eight years when terrorists staging an attack have gotten onto U.S. airliners. That is not such a bad record even though, of course, the potential losses were tremendous. An Israeli security expert once said privately: “This is the only profession where a 99 percent success rate is a failure.”
Of course there is some profiling. For example, my travel agent is in Jerusalem. Invariably I would be pulled aside for secondary screening because one category so selected was those whose tickets had been purchased abroad. It got so that I just walked over to that place without being told, to the astonishment of the TSA people.
Yet these kinds of categories did little good and are easily circumvented by would-be terrorists. The same applies with the need to show identification, since all the September 11 terrorists, for example, had legitimate drivers' licenses. If you are going to blow up an airplane you are more likely to be prepared for such things than an average person who might actually just forget his wallet, right?
I was in a train station in Maryland once when I spotted a large suitcase obviously left by itself in the middle of the room. Since every few minutes there was an announcement about "unattended luggage" I thought the security people would be glad to have this pointed out but they weren't at all interested and didn't check it out at all. After about twenty minutes some passenger came back and carried it away. Why was this scene not insane? Because the chance of anyone actually being a terrorist was so astronomically low that security people didn't have to take such things seriously--and they could get away with it.
One simple point that everyone seems not to be grasping is that the essence of terrorism is innovation. The terrorists keep trying to find some new technique which will circumvent the existing safeguards. For example, the September 11 terrorists brought box-cutters onto the plane to hijack it. That was blocked. So they tried a shoe-bomber. That has now been blocked and it hasn’t been done since then. Then there was a liquid and gel type bomb. These items were banned. And now there has been a bomb in the underpants.
Each time, then, the security institutions spend hundreds of millions of dollars and add additional hours onto the procedures to block what was done, while the terrorists move on to a different approach. To a large extent, governments take such measures more to assure the public that the “problem” has been solved than to provide real safety.
Moreover, one should consider whether the damage done to Western economies by forcing these costly inconveniences might be as satisfactory to the terrorists as blowing up one or two airplanes.
If the security regarding getting on planes makes them run out of ideas, terrorists may switch, for example, to entering airports with weapons and starting to shoot everyone in sight. This was a technique used back in the 1980s and is not blocked by the current security regimen, except in Israel. One such attack already happened in Los Angeles against the El Al counter there, an attack U.S. authorities refuse even to classify as terrorism.
What might make sense is the training of a relatively small number of agents at each airport (including selected at-risk airports abroad) who survey passengers and make some choices for secondary screening. This wouldn't be a panacea but might improve the overall protection.
Another point worth knowing—though nothing will be done to fix it—is that the worst possible response to terrorism was the creation of a massive Homeland Security ministry. Fighting terrorism requires small, very flexible units which can adjust quickly to circumstances. What do Homeland Security bureaucrats do, after all? Why they write reports and hold meetings, creating additional levels of decision-making and places where information can go astray and decisions can be delayed.
Here’s what you need to fight terrorism: A reads a report from the field, gets up and walks a few feet, knocks on the door of B, and says: There’s a big problem shaping up. They discuss it, maybe call in a few people for a quick meeting, and then B gives an order to deal with the issue. Having thousands of pen-pushers makes things worse, not better.
Is it any surprise that this approach has turned into such a farce? Why then hasn’t terrorism done more damage to America? Simple, the number of attack attempts is limited due to the terrorists’ resources, the distances involved, and the time needed to train agents and mount an operation.
That’s why individual and locally generated operation—like that at Fort Hood or the shooting of an army recruiter in Arkansas or the attempted attack on Fort Dix or the two guys who targeted Fort Bragg is the bigger and more frequent threat. This is what’s growing, not bombs on airplanes.
For this reason, the identification of terrorism with revolutionary Islamists, individuals or groups, is so important. Debating profiling for airplane passengers is sort of a waste of time since--right or wrong--it just isn't going to happen in the United States or Europe either. But profiling by local law enforcement agencies in terms of who they are going to watch and investigate is an absolute necessity if terrorism in the United States is going to be contained.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
It's Not Al-Qaida the Obama Administration Doesn't Understand, It's Everything Else
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By Barry Rubin
A friend sent me an article written, in his usually witty style, by Mark Steyn in the conservative magazine, National Review, entitled "But We’re Still Gonna Kill You." Steyn writes:
"Barack Obama has spent the last year doing bigtime Islamoschmoozing, from his announcement of Gitmo’s closure and his investigation of Bush officials to his bow before the Saudi King and a speech in Cairo to `the Muslim world' with far too many rhetorical concessions and equivocations. And at the end of it, the jihad sent America a thank-you note by way of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear: Hey, thanks for all the outreach! But we’re still gonna kill you."
But Mr. Steyn, who goes on to talk about various al-Qaida and individual attacks by revolutionary Islamists misses the main point (and I don't say this in any antagonistic sense as I often admire his writings). Of course al-Qaida is attacking America, that's why Obama says the United States is at war with al-Qaida.
To be fair to Obama and his administration, they know that al-Qaida is an enemy that is going to go on waging jihad against the United States until it is defeated. (Though the blockheads running the counter-terrorism program seem surprised al-Qaida might send terrorists only one at a time instead of in groups of 18.)
They also know that some individuals are going to respond to al-Qaida's propaganda and launch attacks on their own. They also seem to understand that Hamas is not going to be moderated by concessions. Moreover, the U.S. government is conducting a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and a covert battle against al-Qaida in Yemen.
Consequently, Obama is not trying to persuade al-Qaida not to kill Americans. Rather, he is trying to undermine its appeal by trying to show Muslim bystanders that al-Qaida's view of the world is wrong. Obama is saying that America doesn't hate Muslims, respects them, follows policies that help them, and wants to get along with them. If this succeeds, fewer people would want to join or help al-Qaida. In addition, the United States is keeping up the military pressure on al-Qaida, at least in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iraq, along with some other places.
Of course, very few people do join al-Qaida, but enough to continue its terrorist campaign. Due to al-Qaida's own strategy--particularly its failure to couple political efforts with terrorist ones--it is unlikely to grow very much any way. Obama's effort is one more factor containing al-Qaida but cannot eliminate it completely. After all, Obama is not going to appeal to people whose perceptions of him and America are filtered through their own culture, history, local regimes and elites, and media. His greatest appeal will be to those who are already the least radical, though that appeal is diluted by his not supporting the efforts of some of them to achieve more democracy and freedom.
On fighting al-Qaida, no one else could probably do a much better job, but then they could succeed to the same extent at a far lower cost in apologies, concessions, and loss of credibility.
Another point that both Steyn and Obama leave out is a lot more important. Despite all of Obama's policy and rhetorical efforts no one in the Muslim-majority world--no major cleric, government, or group--is going to HELP the United States improve its image and defend itself better no matter what the U.S. government does. They may attack, they may cheer, they may do nothing, but no amount of concessions or flattery is going to get them actively to help the United States achieve its policy goals or even defend its people and institutions.
After all, Saudi money and youth are going into Iraq through Syria to kill Americans. Egypt's media promotes anti-Americanism. The Palestinian Authority won't even talk to Israel no matter how hard this U.S. government tries to give it a state and prove that it doesn't love Israel. Pakistan is most willing to fight the Taliban trying to overthrow the Pakistani government but helps the Afghani Taliban trying to kill Americans and overthrow the Afghan government.
A third issue, and probably the most important one of all, is that while al-Qaida is the biggest threat in terms of direct attacks on the United States and its citizens, on the larger stage it shrinks to relative unimportance compared to the Islamist regime in Iran and many revolutionary movements which are much larger and more successful in more than 50 countries around the world. Al-Qaida can carry out a few acts of terrorism each year which may or may not succeed. These movements are striving to seize state power. A historical comparison would be between the USSR and Soviet-directed Communist parties on one hand and scattered anarchist terrorist movements on the other.
The big problem, then, is that the administration thinks the threat comes from a small isolated minority of heretics while everyone else can be moderated somehow:
--The administration believes it can flatter, engage, pay off, or appease Iran, Pakistan, and various Arab governments to stop projecting anti-Americanism and cease sabotaging U.S. efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons or make Israel-Palistinian peace.
--It thinks that by making it harder for members of the Iranian government and their closest supporters to make money abroad the United States can win favor with the Iranian masses and force the Iranian government into a deal not to build nuclear weapons.
--The current U.S. government expects that by saying how much it respects Islam and is sensitive to other customs, cultures, and polities, this will persuade the Muslim and Arab masses that America is their friend, so they shouldn't delight in terrorists killing Americans.
--It does not fully appreciate the extent to which Israel is an ally in a battle against mutual enemies.
--Apparently, it is close to concluding that Hizballah, Syria, and Iran can play a constructive role by almost running Lebanon.
--The government is particularly blind to the threat of the current Turkish government which is drifting so close to Iran and Syria while moving the country in an Islamist direction domestically.
As important as the attempted bombing of the airliner heading to Detroit was, it should be remembered that this is only the second time in more than eight years that a terrorist has gotten on board a U.S. plane.
Meanwhile, Islamists have been making both public relations' and material victories in Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear program, against Israel, in Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, and elsewhere. At the same time, the administration's confusion and weakness has demoralized U.S. allies or Arab countries which at least are being forced by their own interests to fight against the spread of revolutionary Islamism.
In addition, the administration's blindness has led to a spate of internal terrorist attacks in places like Texas (Fort Hood), Arkansas (against an army recruiter), Washington state (against a Jewish community office in Seattle), and many others without the government in any way rethinking its definition of the threat or its policies to protect Americans.
In short, the administration does understand about al-Qaida one of its two worst enemies, it just doesn't fully comprehend any of the other forces causing trouble for the United States, including Islamists in general, Iran, and Syria.
What's the other worst enemy? Why, the administration's own policies, of course.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
By Barry Rubin
A friend sent me an article written, in his usually witty style, by Mark Steyn in the conservative magazine, National Review, entitled "But We’re Still Gonna Kill You." Steyn writes:
"Barack Obama has spent the last year doing bigtime Islamoschmoozing, from his announcement of Gitmo’s closure and his investigation of Bush officials to his bow before the Saudi King and a speech in Cairo to `the Muslim world' with far too many rhetorical concessions and equivocations. And at the end of it, the jihad sent America a thank-you note by way of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear: Hey, thanks for all the outreach! But we’re still gonna kill you."
But Mr. Steyn, who goes on to talk about various al-Qaida and individual attacks by revolutionary Islamists misses the main point (and I don't say this in any antagonistic sense as I often admire his writings). Of course al-Qaida is attacking America, that's why Obama says the United States is at war with al-Qaida.
To be fair to Obama and his administration, they know that al-Qaida is an enemy that is going to go on waging jihad against the United States until it is defeated. (Though the blockheads running the counter-terrorism program seem surprised al-Qaida might send terrorists only one at a time instead of in groups of 18.)
They also know that some individuals are going to respond to al-Qaida's propaganda and launch attacks on their own. They also seem to understand that Hamas is not going to be moderated by concessions. Moreover, the U.S. government is conducting a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and a covert battle against al-Qaida in Yemen.
Consequently, Obama is not trying to persuade al-Qaida not to kill Americans. Rather, he is trying to undermine its appeal by trying to show Muslim bystanders that al-Qaida's view of the world is wrong. Obama is saying that America doesn't hate Muslims, respects them, follows policies that help them, and wants to get along with them. If this succeeds, fewer people would want to join or help al-Qaida. In addition, the United States is keeping up the military pressure on al-Qaida, at least in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iraq, along with some other places.
Of course, very few people do join al-Qaida, but enough to continue its terrorist campaign. Due to al-Qaida's own strategy--particularly its failure to couple political efforts with terrorist ones--it is unlikely to grow very much any way. Obama's effort is one more factor containing al-Qaida but cannot eliminate it completely. After all, Obama is not going to appeal to people whose perceptions of him and America are filtered through their own culture, history, local regimes and elites, and media. His greatest appeal will be to those who are already the least radical, though that appeal is diluted by his not supporting the efforts of some of them to achieve more democracy and freedom.
On fighting al-Qaida, no one else could probably do a much better job, but then they could succeed to the same extent at a far lower cost in apologies, concessions, and loss of credibility.
Another point that both Steyn and Obama leave out is a lot more important. Despite all of Obama's policy and rhetorical efforts no one in the Muslim-majority world--no major cleric, government, or group--is going to HELP the United States improve its image and defend itself better no matter what the U.S. government does. They may attack, they may cheer, they may do nothing, but no amount of concessions or flattery is going to get them actively to help the United States achieve its policy goals or even defend its people and institutions.
After all, Saudi money and youth are going into Iraq through Syria to kill Americans. Egypt's media promotes anti-Americanism. The Palestinian Authority won't even talk to Israel no matter how hard this U.S. government tries to give it a state and prove that it doesn't love Israel. Pakistan is most willing to fight the Taliban trying to overthrow the Pakistani government but helps the Afghani Taliban trying to kill Americans and overthrow the Afghan government.
A third issue, and probably the most important one of all, is that while al-Qaida is the biggest threat in terms of direct attacks on the United States and its citizens, on the larger stage it shrinks to relative unimportance compared to the Islamist regime in Iran and many revolutionary movements which are much larger and more successful in more than 50 countries around the world. Al-Qaida can carry out a few acts of terrorism each year which may or may not succeed. These movements are striving to seize state power. A historical comparison would be between the USSR and Soviet-directed Communist parties on one hand and scattered anarchist terrorist movements on the other.
The big problem, then, is that the administration thinks the threat comes from a small isolated minority of heretics while everyone else can be moderated somehow:
--The administration believes it can flatter, engage, pay off, or appease Iran, Pakistan, and various Arab governments to stop projecting anti-Americanism and cease sabotaging U.S. efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons or make Israel-Palistinian peace.
--It thinks that by making it harder for members of the Iranian government and their closest supporters to make money abroad the United States can win favor with the Iranian masses and force the Iranian government into a deal not to build nuclear weapons.
--The current U.S. government expects that by saying how much it respects Islam and is sensitive to other customs, cultures, and polities, this will persuade the Muslim and Arab masses that America is their friend, so they shouldn't delight in terrorists killing Americans.
--It does not fully appreciate the extent to which Israel is an ally in a battle against mutual enemies.
--Apparently, it is close to concluding that Hizballah, Syria, and Iran can play a constructive role by almost running Lebanon.
--The government is particularly blind to the threat of the current Turkish government which is drifting so close to Iran and Syria while moving the country in an Islamist direction domestically.
As important as the attempted bombing of the airliner heading to Detroit was, it should be remembered that this is only the second time in more than eight years that a terrorist has gotten on board a U.S. plane.
Meanwhile, Islamists have been making both public relations' and material victories in Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear program, against Israel, in Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, and elsewhere. At the same time, the administration's confusion and weakness has demoralized U.S. allies or Arab countries which at least are being forced by their own interests to fight against the spread of revolutionary Islamism.
In addition, the administration's blindness has led to a spate of internal terrorist attacks in places like Texas (Fort Hood), Arkansas (against an army recruiter), Washington state (against a Jewish community office in Seattle), and many others without the government in any way rethinking its definition of the threat or its policies to protect Americans.
In short, the administration does understand about al-Qaida one of its two worst enemies, it just doesn't fully comprehend any of the other forces causing trouble for the United States, including Islamists in general, Iran, and Syria.
What's the other worst enemy? Why, the administration's own policies, of course.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Life in an American Fourth Grade: Why One-Sided Indoctrination?
By Barry Rubin
As a liberal I am deeply concerned at the illiberal teachings of American public schools today, but what American children are being taught should not be a partisan issue. The liberal view of America was as both a melting pot and a pluralist society. People should not be judged by their skin color but by their skills, beliefs, and achievements. The United States was a great country which had succeeded in large part due to its emphasis on individual liberty.
The job of government was like a referee in a sporting event, to keep things open and reasonably fair by calling penalties, not calling the plays. A government that imposed its will on society would be like the old non-democratic regimes in Europe which the United States had rebelled against and immigrants had left behind..
As for public institutions, like the schools, they should be careful to avoid any indoctrination, either political or religious. Contemporary issues were dealt with cautiously in order to avoid any partisanship. While these ideals weren't always met, they were attempted with a reasonable degree of success.
Today's public schools seem quite different and at least in the one my son is attending are following a clear left-wing agenda. If conservatives are outraged by the content of what's going on, real liberals should be upset by the violation of their basic principles. Yet I find that parents in the public school my son is attending this year usually have no idea of what's going on or at least no comprehension of its implications.
In many cases, the problem is not so much the individual items but the coherent and deliberate ideological direction of instruction or at least the lack of balance. For example, it’s great that fourth-grade students in Montgomery County, Maryland, are taught the civil rights’ movement song, “We shall overcome” in music class but they haven’t been also taught, say, “America the Beautiful ” or “My Country Tis of Thee.” Something unobjectionable in a broader context--it's good to learn about the civil rights' movement--becomes part of a specific design in which other things are omitted completely.
After about four months in this school year these fourth graders have not been taught anything about America except that it has oppressed those from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Native Americans in a variety of ways. They have read three books on the internment of Japanese during World War Two (and any attempt by students to give reasons why it was done or even talk about Japanese atrocities was dismissed by the teacher), as well as books on slavery and African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans. Is this bad? Not as part of the curriculum but as the entire curriculum?
The ideological context here is that there are two classes of people in America: guilty whites and their non-white victims who are owed a vast debt. The emphasis is not on the success of a system which could make so many changes over time and absorb so many different groups which now constitute a single people. On the contrary, U.S. history is presented as a story of oppression. Note that this is not a conspiracy theory--it is the carefully formulated official curriculum for all schools in the county.
Now the teacher has told them that the election of Barack Obama as president is a great thing because it shows America isn’t racist. But the kids aren’t taught that the American ideal is to believe people should be dealt with as individuals solely based on their behavior and achievement. In other words, a candidate shouldn’t be supported or opposed based on their skin color (or other such factors) but because of character, experience, and stand on issues.
It is unimagineable that a 10-year-old student would dare stand up and give reasons why another candidate should have won. What does this say about the concept of freedom of speech? In fact, the kids were encouraged to parrot the line being given them.
Why should there be advocacy of a specific politician? I think that this is probably the first time in Amerian history that public schoolchildren were taught to support the election of a particular candidate. And it isn't just respect for the incumbent president. If John McCain had won would the students be taught that it was wonderful for a veteran who had braved torture in a prisoner camp was president? I doubt it.
The absurdity of this way of celebrating Obama's victory in this way, a year after it happened, is revealed by pointing out it is equally logical to say that if one voted for Hillary Clinton against Obama that makes one a racist but if one voted for Obama against Clinton that make one sexist. Talk about a no-win situation.
Moreover once you tell children that it is a good thing that Obama was elected, that conveys the idea that he must also be elected for a second term. And what if someone criticizes him or opposes his policies, doesn't the same point apply?
Should this kind of partisan instruction be given fourth graders in a public school when there are lots of other things they can be talking about? Why should teachers be indoctrinating students to support Obama’s election? Is race really the only social studies topic of any importance whatsoever, the only issue in American history?
On another matter, one can see the merit in teaching fourth-grade students that if they are nice they will be popular (though around them they see that this isn’t true); that it is good to give away things; or that one should not show that one is well-off financially because those who can’t afford things will feel bad. But they should also be taught to have a healthy and moral self-interest, that hard study, work, and innovation also gets people more possessions?
The attempt to shape character seems to be replacing academic instruction as the priority in American schools, which led one writer to joke that Americans in the future would be stupid but enjoy high self-esteem.
Then there's the basic problem with imbalance generally on political issues and concepts. Can one object to students being given three days on climate change and more on environmentalism without being also taught that there are trade-offs involved, that if they want to enjoy high living standards a certain amount of tree-chopping, oil-drilling, and river-damming is necessary?
To give equal time to the made-up and non-existent festival of Kwanzu with Hanukah and Christmas, as this school did, is ridiulous. The apparent purpose of this exercise is to racialize even this matter of holidays. In my opinion, it would be better not to deal with such religious matters at all--which should be left to family and place of worship. But as one of my readers remarked, promoting racial separatism--i.e., Kwanzu--is the whole purpose of the exercise in the first place.
In short, schools should teach a balanced curriculum or stay out of certain areas rather than attempt to indoctrinate students.
As a liberal I am deeply concerned at the illiberal teachings of American public schools today, but what American children are being taught should not be a partisan issue. The liberal view of America was as both a melting pot and a pluralist society. People should not be judged by their skin color but by their skills, beliefs, and achievements. The United States was a great country which had succeeded in large part due to its emphasis on individual liberty.
The job of government was like a referee in a sporting event, to keep things open and reasonably fair by calling penalties, not calling the plays. A government that imposed its will on society would be like the old non-democratic regimes in Europe which the United States had rebelled against and immigrants had left behind..
As for public institutions, like the schools, they should be careful to avoid any indoctrination, either political or religious. Contemporary issues were dealt with cautiously in order to avoid any partisanship. While these ideals weren't always met, they were attempted with a reasonable degree of success.
Today's public schools seem quite different and at least in the one my son is attending are following a clear left-wing agenda. If conservatives are outraged by the content of what's going on, real liberals should be upset by the violation of their basic principles. Yet I find that parents in the public school my son is attending this year usually have no idea of what's going on or at least no comprehension of its implications.
In many cases, the problem is not so much the individual items but the coherent and deliberate ideological direction of instruction or at least the lack of balance. For example, it’s great that fourth-grade students in Montgomery County, Maryland, are taught the civil rights’ movement song, “We shall overcome” in music class but they haven’t been also taught, say, “America the Beautiful ” or “My Country Tis of Thee.” Something unobjectionable in a broader context--it's good to learn about the civil rights' movement--becomes part of a specific design in which other things are omitted completely.
After about four months in this school year these fourth graders have not been taught anything about America except that it has oppressed those from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Native Americans in a variety of ways. They have read three books on the internment of Japanese during World War Two (and any attempt by students to give reasons why it was done or even talk about Japanese atrocities was dismissed by the teacher), as well as books on slavery and African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans. Is this bad? Not as part of the curriculum but as the entire curriculum?
The ideological context here is that there are two classes of people in America: guilty whites and their non-white victims who are owed a vast debt. The emphasis is not on the success of a system which could make so many changes over time and absorb so many different groups which now constitute a single people. On the contrary, U.S. history is presented as a story of oppression. Note that this is not a conspiracy theory--it is the carefully formulated official curriculum for all schools in the county.
Now the teacher has told them that the election of Barack Obama as president is a great thing because it shows America isn’t racist. But the kids aren’t taught that the American ideal is to believe people should be dealt with as individuals solely based on their behavior and achievement. In other words, a candidate shouldn’t be supported or opposed based on their skin color (or other such factors) but because of character, experience, and stand on issues.
It is unimagineable that a 10-year-old student would dare stand up and give reasons why another candidate should have won. What does this say about the concept of freedom of speech? In fact, the kids were encouraged to parrot the line being given them.
Why should there be advocacy of a specific politician? I think that this is probably the first time in Amerian history that public schoolchildren were taught to support the election of a particular candidate. And it isn't just respect for the incumbent president. If John McCain had won would the students be taught that it was wonderful for a veteran who had braved torture in a prisoner camp was president? I doubt it.
The absurdity of this way of celebrating Obama's victory in this way, a year after it happened, is revealed by pointing out it is equally logical to say that if one voted for Hillary Clinton against Obama that makes one a racist but if one voted for Obama against Clinton that make one sexist. Talk about a no-win situation.
Moreover once you tell children that it is a good thing that Obama was elected, that conveys the idea that he must also be elected for a second term. And what if someone criticizes him or opposes his policies, doesn't the same point apply?
Should this kind of partisan instruction be given fourth graders in a public school when there are lots of other things they can be talking about? Why should teachers be indoctrinating students to support Obama’s election? Is race really the only social studies topic of any importance whatsoever, the only issue in American history?
On another matter, one can see the merit in teaching fourth-grade students that if they are nice they will be popular (though around them they see that this isn’t true); that it is good to give away things; or that one should not show that one is well-off financially because those who can’t afford things will feel bad. But they should also be taught to have a healthy and moral self-interest, that hard study, work, and innovation also gets people more possessions?
The attempt to shape character seems to be replacing academic instruction as the priority in American schools, which led one writer to joke that Americans in the future would be stupid but enjoy high self-esteem.
Then there's the basic problem with imbalance generally on political issues and concepts. Can one object to students being given three days on climate change and more on environmentalism without being also taught that there are trade-offs involved, that if they want to enjoy high living standards a certain amount of tree-chopping, oil-drilling, and river-damming is necessary?
To give equal time to the made-up and non-existent festival of Kwanzu with Hanukah and Christmas, as this school did, is ridiulous. The apparent purpose of this exercise is to racialize even this matter of holidays. In my opinion, it would be better not to deal with such religious matters at all--which should be left to family and place of worship. But as one of my readers remarked, promoting racial separatism--i.e., Kwanzu--is the whole purpose of the exercise in the first place.
In short, schools should teach a balanced curriculum or stay out of certain areas rather than attempt to indoctrinate students.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Radical Islamism: An Introductory Primer
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The following is intended as a work in progress to provide a very brief discussion of issues involving radical Islamism. Naturally, it is too short to make all points, deal with all aspects, and cover all details. I plan to expand it in future to include possible solutions.
By Barry Rubin
A young American named Ramy Zamzam, arrested in Pakistan for trying to fight alongside the Taliban, responded in an interview with the Associated Press: "We are not terrorists. We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism."
What he says is well worth bearing in mind in order to understand the great conflict of our era. First and foremost, Jihadism or radical Islamism is far more than mere terrorism. It is a revolutionary movement in every sense of the word. It seeks to overthrow existing regimes and replace them with governments that will transform society into a nightmarishly repressive system.
And so one might put it this way: Revolutionary Islamism is the main strategic problem in the world today. Terrorism is the main tactical problem.
What is Islamism?
Radical Islamism is the doctrine that each Muslim majority country—politics, economy, society—should be ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship guided by the given movement’s definition of proper Islam. What Marxism was to Communism, and fascism to Nazism, Jihadism is to Islamism.
In some cases, Islamists have a wider ambition to transform the entire world, starting with Europe. While this may seem ridiculous to most Westerners, it does not seem so to the Islamists who hold that view.
Only a minority of Muslims is Islamist but that sector has grown sharply over the last twenty years and seems to be on the increase still. Muslims are also among the greatest opponents of political Islamism, and often its victims. Among those rejecting it are conservative traditionalist Muslims and Arab (or other types of) nationalists, along with a very small group which can be called liberal reformist.
Three places have been under radical Islamist rule so far: Iran and the Gaza Strip, as well as, temporarily, Afghanistan. An Islamist group using democratic tactics has gained control of the government in Turkey, where it is pursuing a step-by-step attempt to transform that country which may or may not succeed. Radical Islamist movements have been active in well over 60 countries ranging from Australia and Indonesia in the east to Morocco in the west, and even in Europe and North America.
The fact that radical Islamism relates to a religion, Islam, is very important (see below) but should not blind observers to the fact that this is basically a political movement and not—at least in the modern Western sense—a theological one.
Of course, Islamism is rooted in Islam but a strong opposition to Islamism—a standpoint shared by many Muslims who may motivated by a traditional view of Islam, ethnic or nation-state nationalism, or a different radical ideology (Arab nationalism most likely)—is in no way an expression of bigotry against a religion.
Similarly, the idea that opposition to Islamism is in some way “racist” is absurd since no “race” is involved. Just as opponents of Communism (capitalist, imperialist) and fascism (Jews, Bolsheviks) could be discredited by calling them names, the same is done with those who oppose Islamism.
Very roughly, Islamism is parallel to Communism and fascism as revolutionary mass movements. Analogies should not be carried too far but are useful in understanding certain basic points.
There are a wide variety of Islamist groups. A small but energetic international grouping of local organizations called al-Qaida; Muslim Brotherhood branches, Hamas, and Hizballah are the best known. In virtually every Muslim majority country and throughout Western Europe there are such organizations working very hard to gain state power.
What is the relationship of Islamism to Islam?
Islamism grows out of Islam and its advocates easily find widely accepted and very basic Islamic principles that justify their world view and behavior. But Islamism is an interpretation of Islam and not the only one possible. Indeed, for centuries there have been different interpretations.
To argue that Islamism is the inevitable or “correct” interpretation of Islam is as silly as it is to argue that it is some external, heretical ideology which has “hijacked” Islam. A rough parallel can be made with the relationship between Communism and either liberal or democratic socialism, and of fascism compared to conservatism or nationalism.
What Islam “means” can only be interpreted in practice by Muslims in a process of debate and struggle. We will see what happens in the decades to come. For outsiders to claim that Islam is “really” a religion of peace or “really” inevitably aggressive is meaningless. And, yes, no matter how powerful a religious text seems to be worded, followers of that religion can always find ways to ignore or reinterpret those texts.
Just as the Islamists can base their case on original Islamic texts, their Muslim opponents can argue from centuries of practice as well as their own interpretations. The reason that the Islamists (who were earlier called “fundamentalists” for precisely this reason) have to go back to the seventh century texts—though of course there are later ones they use that support their case—is that the intervening years did not follow their precepts. Indeed, that is precisely their complaint.
What eventually emerged is what I call conservative traditionalist Islam which subordinated itself to the rulers. It was no longer a revolutionary doctrine. A key point in this approach was the argument that as long as the ruler was a believing Muslim he should be obeyed. In addition, it was a powerfully held stance that no Muslim could judge and condemn as heretical the beliefs or behavior of other Muslims unless they were really obvious and extreme ones. Islamism had to combat these and other tenets of conservative traditionalist Islam.
To summarize in one sentence: we should be absolutely honest in showing how the most sacred texts of Islam appear to validate revolutionary Islamists but we should understand that a struggle is going on among Muslims in which different interpretations are contending. While Islamism is not the only possible interpretation of Islam, its approach is certainly shaped and justified by basic Islamic texts. Unless Muslims and especially qualified clerics reinterpret these tenets, Islamism will continue to have a strong advantage in competing with conservative traditional Islam while liberal reformism will remain a tiny, powerless viewpoint.
It is not that Islam has been hijacked, rather different forces are fighting over control of the steering wheel.
State sponsorship and nation-state ambitions
It is also, even when not so visibly state-sponsored, often an instrument of specific states, most notably Iran and Syria. Trying to spread Islamist revolution has been a major goal since the takeover of Iran itself and fits closely with Iranian great power ambitions. Not all leaders have pursued this with equal vigor but it is a high priority of the current rulers. A wide variety of organizations from barely disguised front groups to powerful Islamist organizations in Iraq, Lebanon, and among the Palestinians are used for this purpose. Most recently this pattern has been extended to Yemen. Some are pure assets, others client groups with a measure of independence.
While itself not an Islamist regime, Syria has understandably calculated that the Islamist side serves its interests very well. Thus, idea that Syria can easily be pulled away from its alliance with Iran and backing for Islamist groups like Hamas and Hizballah is a fantasy.
It is quite true that al-Qaida has shown that Islamist groups don’t have to be state-backed but the fact is that many of them still are able to operate because there is a regime behind them.
Tactics and strategies
Like Communist movements in the past, Islamist movements use a wide variety of strategies and tactics. The use of a non-violent tactic—like participation in elections—does not indicate that the group has ceased to be revolutionary. Actually, it is tough pressure by the regime that might force the Islamist leadership to postpone revolutionary activity to the distant future (Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood), repress it altogether (Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood), or get it tied up in electoral knots (Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood).
On the other hand, it is no accident that the most militant Islamist groups have flourished where government is weakest: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Iraqi insurgents.
As for terrorism, that is a strategy and tactic which appeals to these movements for very specific reasons. These include the following points. While the Islamists claim they are only conducting a “defensive jihad”—since there is no caliph, offensive jihad isn’t supposed to happen—they are actually conducting offensive revolution.
The ideas that America is being attacked because Jihadists dislike its freedom or that it is being targeted because of its policies are both partly true. But precisely the same point could be made about Communism, Nazism, and Japanese imperialism. The problem of American culture and freedom, however, does not relate to what goes on in the United States but the fear that this model will spread inevitably to their own societies.
The complaint about U.S. policy is related to the fact that America is seen as a protector of the regimes the Islamists want to overthrow. The motive here is not that these regimes are tyrannical but that they are not Islamist. Lebanon and Turkey, the most democratic states in the Muslim-majority Middle East, have especially strong Islamist movements.
Another reason for targeting the United States or others in the West is that killing infidels is popular among the Islamists’ constituency as a sign of power to defeat the stronger West. The alternative is to focus terrorist attacks on the local governments. But killing fellow Muslims is less popular and the governments strike back with ferocious repression, while they are more likely to tolerate movements that only attack non-Muslims at home or abroad.
Why is terrorism used?
--It expresses the total and dehumanizing hatred Islamists have toward their enemies.
--It shows their disinterest in any compromise since the use of terrorism will dissuade their enemies from making deals.
--They believe that intimidation works and the history of terrorism shows they are not wrong in doing so.
--Terror, at least against non-Muslims, generally pleases their constituency and thus strengthens their base of support.
--This tactic fits with certain Islamic beliefs and texts while well-known clerics do not condemn terrorism, at least against non-Muslims, strongly, explicitly, and consistently.
It is tempting to say that terrorism is a tactic of last resort when repressive regimes permit no other route. But in most—though not all—cases, terrorism is used against the less tyrannical societies for a simple reason: the really repressive ones quickly kill the terrorists.
Conclusion
Neither more democracy nor more prosperity provides simple solutions to this challenge by Islamism. Many Islamist leaders and cadre come from well-off families. They are driven by ideological, cultural, and religious factors just as left-wing students in the West seek utopian transformations of society. Equally, they are not driven by antagonism to tyranny since their goal is to establish a new, worse tyranny. Both the Nazis and Communists came to power by overthrowing democratic regimes, in part through elections. With Islamism’s strength, the problem is not the lack of democracy by the rulers but the lack of a strong democratic movement to compete with it.
The Islamist movements will only be defeated by the destruction of violent groups as well as a widespread perception among Muslims that they either cannot take power or are a disaster as rulers.
Better government and higher living standards in their own countries would help to some extent in some countries. Aside from not overestimating this factor, it should be added that the West has no way to make these things happen, by overthrowing and replacing regimes (as Iraq and Afghanistan show), by changing its own policies, or by pressuring the incumbent regimes to change.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
The following is intended as a work in progress to provide a very brief discussion of issues involving radical Islamism. Naturally, it is too short to make all points, deal with all aspects, and cover all details. I plan to expand it in future to include possible solutions.
By Barry Rubin
A young American named Ramy Zamzam, arrested in Pakistan for trying to fight alongside the Taliban, responded in an interview with the Associated Press: "We are not terrorists. We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism."
What he says is well worth bearing in mind in order to understand the great conflict of our era. First and foremost, Jihadism or radical Islamism is far more than mere terrorism. It is a revolutionary movement in every sense of the word. It seeks to overthrow existing regimes and replace them with governments that will transform society into a nightmarishly repressive system.
And so one might put it this way: Revolutionary Islamism is the main strategic problem in the world today. Terrorism is the main tactical problem.
What is Islamism?
Radical Islamism is the doctrine that each Muslim majority country—politics, economy, society—should be ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship guided by the given movement’s definition of proper Islam. What Marxism was to Communism, and fascism to Nazism, Jihadism is to Islamism.
In some cases, Islamists have a wider ambition to transform the entire world, starting with Europe. While this may seem ridiculous to most Westerners, it does not seem so to the Islamists who hold that view.
Only a minority of Muslims is Islamist but that sector has grown sharply over the last twenty years and seems to be on the increase still. Muslims are also among the greatest opponents of political Islamism, and often its victims. Among those rejecting it are conservative traditionalist Muslims and Arab (or other types of) nationalists, along with a very small group which can be called liberal reformist.
Three places have been under radical Islamist rule so far: Iran and the Gaza Strip, as well as, temporarily, Afghanistan. An Islamist group using democratic tactics has gained control of the government in Turkey, where it is pursuing a step-by-step attempt to transform that country which may or may not succeed. Radical Islamist movements have been active in well over 60 countries ranging from Australia and Indonesia in the east to Morocco in the west, and even in Europe and North America.
The fact that radical Islamism relates to a religion, Islam, is very important (see below) but should not blind observers to the fact that this is basically a political movement and not—at least in the modern Western sense—a theological one.
Of course, Islamism is rooted in Islam but a strong opposition to Islamism—a standpoint shared by many Muslims who may motivated by a traditional view of Islam, ethnic or nation-state nationalism, or a different radical ideology (Arab nationalism most likely)—is in no way an expression of bigotry against a religion.
Similarly, the idea that opposition to Islamism is in some way “racist” is absurd since no “race” is involved. Just as opponents of Communism (capitalist, imperialist) and fascism (Jews, Bolsheviks) could be discredited by calling them names, the same is done with those who oppose Islamism.
Very roughly, Islamism is parallel to Communism and fascism as revolutionary mass movements. Analogies should not be carried too far but are useful in understanding certain basic points.
There are a wide variety of Islamist groups. A small but energetic international grouping of local organizations called al-Qaida; Muslim Brotherhood branches, Hamas, and Hizballah are the best known. In virtually every Muslim majority country and throughout Western Europe there are such organizations working very hard to gain state power.
What is the relationship of Islamism to Islam?
Islamism grows out of Islam and its advocates easily find widely accepted and very basic Islamic principles that justify their world view and behavior. But Islamism is an interpretation of Islam and not the only one possible. Indeed, for centuries there have been different interpretations.
To argue that Islamism is the inevitable or “correct” interpretation of Islam is as silly as it is to argue that it is some external, heretical ideology which has “hijacked” Islam. A rough parallel can be made with the relationship between Communism and either liberal or democratic socialism, and of fascism compared to conservatism or nationalism.
What Islam “means” can only be interpreted in practice by Muslims in a process of debate and struggle. We will see what happens in the decades to come. For outsiders to claim that Islam is “really” a religion of peace or “really” inevitably aggressive is meaningless. And, yes, no matter how powerful a religious text seems to be worded, followers of that religion can always find ways to ignore or reinterpret those texts.
Just as the Islamists can base their case on original Islamic texts, their Muslim opponents can argue from centuries of practice as well as their own interpretations. The reason that the Islamists (who were earlier called “fundamentalists” for precisely this reason) have to go back to the seventh century texts—though of course there are later ones they use that support their case—is that the intervening years did not follow their precepts. Indeed, that is precisely their complaint.
What eventually emerged is what I call conservative traditionalist Islam which subordinated itself to the rulers. It was no longer a revolutionary doctrine. A key point in this approach was the argument that as long as the ruler was a believing Muslim he should be obeyed. In addition, it was a powerfully held stance that no Muslim could judge and condemn as heretical the beliefs or behavior of other Muslims unless they were really obvious and extreme ones. Islamism had to combat these and other tenets of conservative traditionalist Islam.
To summarize in one sentence: we should be absolutely honest in showing how the most sacred texts of Islam appear to validate revolutionary Islamists but we should understand that a struggle is going on among Muslims in which different interpretations are contending. While Islamism is not the only possible interpretation of Islam, its approach is certainly shaped and justified by basic Islamic texts. Unless Muslims and especially qualified clerics reinterpret these tenets, Islamism will continue to have a strong advantage in competing with conservative traditional Islam while liberal reformism will remain a tiny, powerless viewpoint.
It is not that Islam has been hijacked, rather different forces are fighting over control of the steering wheel.
State sponsorship and nation-state ambitions
It is also, even when not so visibly state-sponsored, often an instrument of specific states, most notably Iran and Syria. Trying to spread Islamist revolution has been a major goal since the takeover of Iran itself and fits closely with Iranian great power ambitions. Not all leaders have pursued this with equal vigor but it is a high priority of the current rulers. A wide variety of organizations from barely disguised front groups to powerful Islamist organizations in Iraq, Lebanon, and among the Palestinians are used for this purpose. Most recently this pattern has been extended to Yemen. Some are pure assets, others client groups with a measure of independence.
While itself not an Islamist regime, Syria has understandably calculated that the Islamist side serves its interests very well. Thus, idea that Syria can easily be pulled away from its alliance with Iran and backing for Islamist groups like Hamas and Hizballah is a fantasy.
It is quite true that al-Qaida has shown that Islamist groups don’t have to be state-backed but the fact is that many of them still are able to operate because there is a regime behind them.
Tactics and strategies
Like Communist movements in the past, Islamist movements use a wide variety of strategies and tactics. The use of a non-violent tactic—like participation in elections—does not indicate that the group has ceased to be revolutionary. Actually, it is tough pressure by the regime that might force the Islamist leadership to postpone revolutionary activity to the distant future (Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood), repress it altogether (Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood), or get it tied up in electoral knots (Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood).
On the other hand, it is no accident that the most militant Islamist groups have flourished where government is weakest: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Iraqi insurgents.
As for terrorism, that is a strategy and tactic which appeals to these movements for very specific reasons. These include the following points. While the Islamists claim they are only conducting a “defensive jihad”—since there is no caliph, offensive jihad isn’t supposed to happen—they are actually conducting offensive revolution.
The ideas that America is being attacked because Jihadists dislike its freedom or that it is being targeted because of its policies are both partly true. But precisely the same point could be made about Communism, Nazism, and Japanese imperialism. The problem of American culture and freedom, however, does not relate to what goes on in the United States but the fear that this model will spread inevitably to their own societies.
The complaint about U.S. policy is related to the fact that America is seen as a protector of the regimes the Islamists want to overthrow. The motive here is not that these regimes are tyrannical but that they are not Islamist. Lebanon and Turkey, the most democratic states in the Muslim-majority Middle East, have especially strong Islamist movements.
Another reason for targeting the United States or others in the West is that killing infidels is popular among the Islamists’ constituency as a sign of power to defeat the stronger West. The alternative is to focus terrorist attacks on the local governments. But killing fellow Muslims is less popular and the governments strike back with ferocious repression, while they are more likely to tolerate movements that only attack non-Muslims at home or abroad.
Why is terrorism used?
--It expresses the total and dehumanizing hatred Islamists have toward their enemies.
--It shows their disinterest in any compromise since the use of terrorism will dissuade their enemies from making deals.
--They believe that intimidation works and the history of terrorism shows they are not wrong in doing so.
--Terror, at least against non-Muslims, generally pleases their constituency and thus strengthens their base of support.
--This tactic fits with certain Islamic beliefs and texts while well-known clerics do not condemn terrorism, at least against non-Muslims, strongly, explicitly, and consistently.
It is tempting to say that terrorism is a tactic of last resort when repressive regimes permit no other route. But in most—though not all—cases, terrorism is used against the less tyrannical societies for a simple reason: the really repressive ones quickly kill the terrorists.
Conclusion
Neither more democracy nor more prosperity provides simple solutions to this challenge by Islamism. Many Islamist leaders and cadre come from well-off families. They are driven by ideological, cultural, and religious factors just as left-wing students in the West seek utopian transformations of society. Equally, they are not driven by antagonism to tyranny since their goal is to establish a new, worse tyranny. Both the Nazis and Communists came to power by overthrowing democratic regimes, in part through elections. With Islamism’s strength, the problem is not the lack of democracy by the rulers but the lack of a strong democratic movement to compete with it.
The Islamist movements will only be defeated by the destruction of violent groups as well as a widespread perception among Muslims that they either cannot take power or are a disaster as rulers.
Better government and higher living standards in their own countries would help to some extent in some countries. Aside from not overestimating this factor, it should be added that the West has no way to make these things happen, by overthrowing and replacing regimes (as Iraq and Afghanistan show), by changing its own policies, or by pressuring the incumbent regimes to change.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
“Outsmarting” the Terrorists by Being Incredibly Stupid?
By Barry Rubin
Here’s my usual disclaimer: I would love to be able to stop criticizing the Obama Administration but it keeps saying and doing things that shock and surprise me or—if you want to put it this way—live up to my worst expectations.
I’m sitting on a U.S. army base briefing officers along with a high-ranking State Department official who works on the Middle East. At one point, he gets a quaver in his voice and starts talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict making quite clear which side he’s on. Sounding scared he says: “While a lot of problems in the world can bring trouble only the Arab-Israeli conflict can get you and your families killed.”
The officers look disgusted. He is fitting precisely their stereotype of a cowardly diplomat. Abandon Israel and save your life and that of your children, is his message. Oh, and this is after September 11 which makes the statement even more ridiculous.
This kind of blatant cowardice is usually better concealed. It more often occurs in regard to intellectuals facing challenges like the “Danish cartoons.” But it is glimpsed at times in a sort of strategic fearfulness, a refusal to do what’s in one’s interest lest someone might get mad about it.
John Brennan is the president’s advisor on counter-terrorism and may be the dumbest of all Obama’s foreign policy appointments. Brennan is apparently ex-CIA and he has yet to persuade me that he has any understanding whatsoever about terrorism. He’s the guy who said that Hizballah wasn’t a terrorist group because it ran candidates for parliament and had lawyers among its members.
Now in a television interview, he stated that the Guantanamo prison should be closed because al-Qaida has used its existence in order to make propaganda.
A few hours later, President Barack Obama repeated this talking point in the course of discussing reinforced controls on airplane passengers:
"We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaida," Obama said. "In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."
What? Is his understanding really so minimal that he thinks the formation of a revolutionary movement to seize power in Iraq and overthrow the Saudi government took place because the United States maintained a prison in Cuba? Is this man who proclaims himself the great understander of other cultures so ethnocentric that he thinks, so to speak, that “everything is about us?”
Does Obama have any sense at all of what al-Qaida uses as recruiting tools, of their ideology and goals? And would closing Guantanamo deprive al-Qaida of a recruiting tool, would it hurt that group? Isn’t it obvious that, if anything, al-Qaida would proclaim this as a victory: Out of fear of us, the camp was closed! We have prevented the oppression of Muslims! We can make the great Satan tremble and give in! Now, that’s a recruiting tool!
I actually find Michael Scheuer, another former CIA guy, more congenial than Brennan though he also has some terrible ideas. Scheuer views anti-American terrorism as solely caused by U.S. support for Middle Eastern regimes.
The reality is that there are three causes: U.S. policies; hatred of the American culture and society not because they care what goes on inside the United States but because they believe it will ultimately transform their own societies through both power and seductive example; and a desire to prove their strength and increase their support base by humiliating the world’s leading power.
Scheuer’s main credential is that he headed the Usama bin Ladin task force at the CIA which, one would think, would mark him as a failure whose ideas didn’t work at all. On the positive side, he doesn’t just focus on hating Israel but also blames U.S. support for all the Arab regimes as well. Of course, if the United States stopped this support, these regimes would more likely be overthrown by radical Islamists (not necessarily al-Qaida) and then we could see if the Islamists stopped hating and attacking America. (I’d bet they’d step up attacks.)
But Scheuer can’t help revealing his special hatred of Israel, even when this contradicts his own thesis. In a C-Span interview he said that Americans must decide whether they want their sons to die in Iraq and Yemen in order to defend Israel. Funny, I thought they were there to protect the Iraqi and Yemeni governments—which are not even friendly toward Israel—and American interests. I guess I'm the onlyone who remembers how much this sounds like Nazi propaganda in World War Two: Americans! This is just the Jews' war and not yours!
And then he makes an even more amazing statement when asked how America can stop terrorist attacks on itself:
“Ultimately we have to find a way to dissuade them from focusing their anger on us and persuade them to focus their anger at what they themselves believe to be the real enemy the governments that govern them and oppress them and Israel.”
Of course, U.S. support for Great Britain made Nazi Germany look at America as an enemy, and the same goes for U.S. support for China and imperial Japan, and U.S. support for dozens of countries and the USSR. But the United States backed these other states because it wanted to block victory for a hostile force which would use these other places, if taken over, as a base to destroy U.S. interests and to hit America more effectively.
How would someone have been treated if they advocated betraying these allies so as to plead more effectively from aggressive tyrannical movements: Please leave us alone. We promise not to inconvenience you in your march to world conquest!
But Scheuer gives us just this imaginative proposal. Urge al-Qaida and other terrorists to attack U.S. allies—which they can hit a lot harder and damage a lot more—rather than America. (Ironically, this is the reverse of what the Saudis and other Arab regimes try to do.) Of course these groups will do both!
Moreover, what happens after al-Qaida or other Islamists seize power from these abandoned regimes? No doubt they will fondly remember that the United States stopped opposing them and be good buddies of America, right? (Warning: previous sentence is sarcastic.)
Actually, though, this is what was going on during the pre-bin Ladin era. Radical Islamist groups did focus on attacking regimes in the region—especially Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia—but were soundly defeated by the governments, except in Lebanon. Facing this stalemate, bin Ladin proposed attacking America directly. This is what led to September 11.
The basic problem is that Scheuer, and Brennan and Obama, too, basically think that the Islamist assault is something that can be made to go away by some clever stratagem: flatter Muslims; move away from Israel, abandon Israel, show more sensitivity; try captured terrorists in a U.S. court; or something else. Yet the beginning of wisdom is to understand that this is a challenge parallel to that from Communism and fascism.
The idea that al-Qaida and other terrorists can be bought off by selling out all the more moderate Arab states and Israel or they can be confounded by closing Guantanamo illustrates ignorance on a stupendous scale. The point of U.S. strategy should not be to “deny” al-Qaida talking points—it will never lack for them no matter how U.S. policy changes—but defeating it, making it impossible for the group to operate, blocking its attacks by effectively targeted defensive measures.
Have all the most basic lessons from centuries of statecraft been so thoroughly forgotten by those who govern in the West?
Here’s my usual disclaimer: I would love to be able to stop criticizing the Obama Administration but it keeps saying and doing things that shock and surprise me or—if you want to put it this way—live up to my worst expectations.
I’m sitting on a U.S. army base briefing officers along with a high-ranking State Department official who works on the Middle East. At one point, he gets a quaver in his voice and starts talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict making quite clear which side he’s on. Sounding scared he says: “While a lot of problems in the world can bring trouble only the Arab-Israeli conflict can get you and your families killed.”
The officers look disgusted. He is fitting precisely their stereotype of a cowardly diplomat. Abandon Israel and save your life and that of your children, is his message. Oh, and this is after September 11 which makes the statement even more ridiculous.
This kind of blatant cowardice is usually better concealed. It more often occurs in regard to intellectuals facing challenges like the “Danish cartoons.” But it is glimpsed at times in a sort of strategic fearfulness, a refusal to do what’s in one’s interest lest someone might get mad about it.
John Brennan is the president’s advisor on counter-terrorism and may be the dumbest of all Obama’s foreign policy appointments. Brennan is apparently ex-CIA and he has yet to persuade me that he has any understanding whatsoever about terrorism. He’s the guy who said that Hizballah wasn’t a terrorist group because it ran candidates for parliament and had lawyers among its members.
Now in a television interview, he stated that the Guantanamo prison should be closed because al-Qaida has used its existence in order to make propaganda.
A few hours later, President Barack Obama repeated this talking point in the course of discussing reinforced controls on airplane passengers:
"We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaida," Obama said. "In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."
What? Is his understanding really so minimal that he thinks the formation of a revolutionary movement to seize power in Iraq and overthrow the Saudi government took place because the United States maintained a prison in Cuba? Is this man who proclaims himself the great understander of other cultures so ethnocentric that he thinks, so to speak, that “everything is about us?”
Does Obama have any sense at all of what al-Qaida uses as recruiting tools, of their ideology and goals? And would closing Guantanamo deprive al-Qaida of a recruiting tool, would it hurt that group? Isn’t it obvious that, if anything, al-Qaida would proclaim this as a victory: Out of fear of us, the camp was closed! We have prevented the oppression of Muslims! We can make the great Satan tremble and give in! Now, that’s a recruiting tool!
I actually find Michael Scheuer, another former CIA guy, more congenial than Brennan though he also has some terrible ideas. Scheuer views anti-American terrorism as solely caused by U.S. support for Middle Eastern regimes.
The reality is that there are three causes: U.S. policies; hatred of the American culture and society not because they care what goes on inside the United States but because they believe it will ultimately transform their own societies through both power and seductive example; and a desire to prove their strength and increase their support base by humiliating the world’s leading power.
Scheuer’s main credential is that he headed the Usama bin Ladin task force at the CIA which, one would think, would mark him as a failure whose ideas didn’t work at all. On the positive side, he doesn’t just focus on hating Israel but also blames U.S. support for all the Arab regimes as well. Of course, if the United States stopped this support, these regimes would more likely be overthrown by radical Islamists (not necessarily al-Qaida) and then we could see if the Islamists stopped hating and attacking America. (I’d bet they’d step up attacks.)
But Scheuer can’t help revealing his special hatred of Israel, even when this contradicts his own thesis. In a C-Span interview he said that Americans must decide whether they want their sons to die in Iraq and Yemen in order to defend Israel. Funny, I thought they were there to protect the Iraqi and Yemeni governments—which are not even friendly toward Israel—and American interests. I guess I'm the onlyone who remembers how much this sounds like Nazi propaganda in World War Two: Americans! This is just the Jews' war and not yours!
And then he makes an even more amazing statement when asked how America can stop terrorist attacks on itself:
“Ultimately we have to find a way to dissuade them from focusing their anger on us and persuade them to focus their anger at what they themselves believe to be the real enemy the governments that govern them and oppress them and Israel.”
Of course, U.S. support for Great Britain made Nazi Germany look at America as an enemy, and the same goes for U.S. support for China and imperial Japan, and U.S. support for dozens of countries and the USSR. But the United States backed these other states because it wanted to block victory for a hostile force which would use these other places, if taken over, as a base to destroy U.S. interests and to hit America more effectively.
How would someone have been treated if they advocated betraying these allies so as to plead more effectively from aggressive tyrannical movements: Please leave us alone. We promise not to inconvenience you in your march to world conquest!
But Scheuer gives us just this imaginative proposal. Urge al-Qaida and other terrorists to attack U.S. allies—which they can hit a lot harder and damage a lot more—rather than America. (Ironically, this is the reverse of what the Saudis and other Arab regimes try to do.) Of course these groups will do both!
Moreover, what happens after al-Qaida or other Islamists seize power from these abandoned regimes? No doubt they will fondly remember that the United States stopped opposing them and be good buddies of America, right? (Warning: previous sentence is sarcastic.)
Actually, though, this is what was going on during the pre-bin Ladin era. Radical Islamist groups did focus on attacking regimes in the region—especially Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia—but were soundly defeated by the governments, except in Lebanon. Facing this stalemate, bin Ladin proposed attacking America directly. This is what led to September 11.
The basic problem is that Scheuer, and Brennan and Obama, too, basically think that the Islamist assault is something that can be made to go away by some clever stratagem: flatter Muslims; move away from Israel, abandon Israel, show more sensitivity; try captured terrorists in a U.S. court; or something else. Yet the beginning of wisdom is to understand that this is a challenge parallel to that from Communism and fascism.
The idea that al-Qaida and other terrorists can be bought off by selling out all the more moderate Arab states and Israel or they can be confounded by closing Guantanamo illustrates ignorance on a stupendous scale. The point of U.S. strategy should not be to “deny” al-Qaida talking points—it will never lack for them no matter how U.S. policy changes—but defeating it, making it impossible for the group to operate, blocking its attacks by effectively targeted defensive measures.
Have all the most basic lessons from centuries of statecraft been so thoroughly forgotten by those who govern in the West?
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