Those pesky monolithic terrorists
posted by Liberal Eagle at 12:54 PM
I was listening to the Ed Schulz show on Air America, just now. And there was this caller who had a beef with Ed, and with war opponents more broadly. This individual felt that--get ready for some complex and truly original thinking--we have to fight The Terrorists in Iraq, in order to avoid fighting The Terrorists here. (To add to the eloquence and nuance, the phrase "kicking their asses" was involved.)
I was displeased with Ed's reply. I mean, Ed was right--he said something like "I don't except the simplicity of fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." But to me, Ed failed, as liberals and media people always seem to fail, to challenge the rather insidious framing at work here. Namely, the idea that it is possible, in any meaningful way, to talk about "The Terrorists."
As if The Terrorists were some single monolithic entity. With a single set of goals, a single leadership. Who just happen to be fighting us in Iraq right now because it's convenient, but attacked us here on 9/11 because we weren't in Iraq right then so they had to come all the way here and kill us, but because now we're conveniently located in Iraq they can just go there and try to kill us, which is why The Terrorists haven't attacked us here recently.
Let's, for now, leave aside the fact that, even if it were true, this would be an absolutely reprehensible rationale for the continuation of the occupation. (These are the people who "support our troops" the most? Their argument boils down to using the troops as bait so they can get blown up instead of us.) It almost doesn't matter, because it's not true. In fact, it's a deeply stupid and childlike view of the situation.
There is no entity called The Terrorists. On September 11, 2001, the United States suffered an attack by 19 hijackers trained by, and acting in the name of, Osama bin Laden's then small and relatively centralized group, al Qaeda ("the base," in Arabic). At the time, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the secular dictator of Iraq, weren't even on speaking terms. So, we invaded Iraq, because they allegedly had some weapons (which it turns out we probably should have known they didn't even really have) that some day they might decide to give to al Qaeda. Except by then it wasn't even just al Qaeda, it was The Terrorists people kept mentioning.
So now, we find ourselves occupying Iraq and battling an insurgency that employs terrorist tactics. Now, by definition, that makes the insurgents who are employing these tactics "terrorists." But they employ terrorist tactics in pursuit of a political/military goal--they want the United States out of Iraq. (And presumably each individual group wants to take its place ruling Iraq.)
Reprehensible? Well, yes, terrorism is. I would argue war is, too, even if it is sometimes unavoidable. But that in absolutely no way makes The Terrorists a single group with a single set of aims. The issue is, admittedly, clouded by the fact that one of the insurgent groups in Iraq has renamed itself "al Qaeda in Iraq," but understanding that they are still a separate group from bin Laden's, with separate aims, is no harder than understanding that Jerry Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis are two different people, or that the Pittsburgh Pirates do not actually plunder ships. (The media have done an absolutely terrible job of stressing the point.)
Now, for all I know, al Qaeda's goal, in attacking us on 9/11, was to kill Americans. Nothing more or less. (Which is why there were Islamists who disapproved of the attacks as counterproductive.) That is legitimately something to worry about, and to take steps against, which is why I (and something like 90% of the country, including most liberals) was on board with invading Afghanistan in 2001. I didn't think we were left with much choice.
Iraq, though? Iraq posed no American any measurable threat in March of 2003. Saddam Hussein was a nasty dictator, like many in the world, but he wasn't going to come kill Americans just to kill Americans. And now, the insurgency we're fighting there isn't killing Americans just to kill Americans. It's killing Americans to try to make them leave Iraq. The insurgency is largely homegrown; it's estimated that well over 90% of its members are Iraqis. Given this, it's ridiculous to imagine that the only reason these people are not coming and killing us here is that our troops are nearby.
Terrorism is not an affiliation. It's a tactic. Why is this so hard to understand?
I mean, it's as if, in 1941, we had reacted to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor by declaring a "War on Aerial Bombing." And, after a brief and incomplete invasion of Japan, had turned our attentions to some other country that had nothing to do with the attack, but which we'd wanted to invade for a long time. Let's say France. And justified this attack on the grounds that, since France has planes, we're continuing the War on Aerial Bombing by invading them, and who knows, even if the French aren't themselves Aerial Bombers right now, they do have planes and bombs, and they might some day give planes and bombs to Aerial Bombers, and we can't wait for the threat to come to us!
And then, when the French used aerial bombing as a tactic in resisting our occupation of France, 1940s Dick Cheney would say "see? This proves that The Aerial Bombers who attacked us at Pearl Harbor have now chosen to fight us in France, and we have to keep it up or else it validates The Aerial Bombers' strategy, and they'll come bomb us over here!"
Talking about The Terrorists is just as absurd. To believe it makes any sense, one must ignore the obviously different goals of the Iraqi insurgents, who want our occupation to stop, and al Qaeda proper, which...hell, I don't know, something much more evil, probably death for death's sake followed by 72 black-eyed virgins. My point is you can't lump them together and remain within the bounds of informed logic. To do so, you more or less have to see the whole world as good guys vs. bad guys, and the bad guys are all under Skeletor's command and doing evil for the sake of evil.
Personally, I realized the world was a bit more complicated than that, that good was seldom pure and that even evil had a generally rational set of goals within its own framework, when I was still in elementary school. Ironic, isn't it, that when these people took over, we were told the "grownups" were back in charge?
I was displeased with Ed's reply. I mean, Ed was right--he said something like "I don't except the simplicity of fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." But to me, Ed failed, as liberals and media people always seem to fail, to challenge the rather insidious framing at work here. Namely, the idea that it is possible, in any meaningful way, to talk about "The Terrorists."
As if The Terrorists were some single monolithic entity. With a single set of goals, a single leadership. Who just happen to be fighting us in Iraq right now because it's convenient, but attacked us here on 9/11 because we weren't in Iraq right then so they had to come all the way here and kill us, but because now we're conveniently located in Iraq they can just go there and try to kill us, which is why The Terrorists haven't attacked us here recently.
Let's, for now, leave aside the fact that, even if it were true, this would be an absolutely reprehensible rationale for the continuation of the occupation. (These are the people who "support our troops" the most? Their argument boils down to using the troops as bait so they can get blown up instead of us.) It almost doesn't matter, because it's not true. In fact, it's a deeply stupid and childlike view of the situation.
There is no entity called The Terrorists. On September 11, 2001, the United States suffered an attack by 19 hijackers trained by, and acting in the name of, Osama bin Laden's then small and relatively centralized group, al Qaeda ("the base," in Arabic). At the time, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the secular dictator of Iraq, weren't even on speaking terms. So, we invaded Iraq, because they allegedly had some weapons (which it turns out we probably should have known they didn't even really have) that some day they might decide to give to al Qaeda. Except by then it wasn't even just al Qaeda, it was The Terrorists people kept mentioning.
So now, we find ourselves occupying Iraq and battling an insurgency that employs terrorist tactics. Now, by definition, that makes the insurgents who are employing these tactics "terrorists." But they employ terrorist tactics in pursuit of a political/military goal--they want the United States out of Iraq. (And presumably each individual group wants to take its place ruling Iraq.)
Reprehensible? Well, yes, terrorism is. I would argue war is, too, even if it is sometimes unavoidable. But that in absolutely no way makes The Terrorists a single group with a single set of aims. The issue is, admittedly, clouded by the fact that one of the insurgent groups in Iraq has renamed itself "al Qaeda in Iraq," but understanding that they are still a separate group from bin Laden's, with separate aims, is no harder than understanding that Jerry Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis are two different people, or that the Pittsburgh Pirates do not actually plunder ships. (The media have done an absolutely terrible job of stressing the point.)
Now, for all I know, al Qaeda's goal, in attacking us on 9/11, was to kill Americans. Nothing more or less. (Which is why there were Islamists who disapproved of the attacks as counterproductive.) That is legitimately something to worry about, and to take steps against, which is why I (and something like 90% of the country, including most liberals) was on board with invading Afghanistan in 2001. I didn't think we were left with much choice.
Iraq, though? Iraq posed no American any measurable threat in March of 2003. Saddam Hussein was a nasty dictator, like many in the world, but he wasn't going to come kill Americans just to kill Americans. And now, the insurgency we're fighting there isn't killing Americans just to kill Americans. It's killing Americans to try to make them leave Iraq. The insurgency is largely homegrown; it's estimated that well over 90% of its members are Iraqis. Given this, it's ridiculous to imagine that the only reason these people are not coming and killing us here is that our troops are nearby.
Terrorism is not an affiliation. It's a tactic. Why is this so hard to understand?
I mean, it's as if, in 1941, we had reacted to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor by declaring a "War on Aerial Bombing." And, after a brief and incomplete invasion of Japan, had turned our attentions to some other country that had nothing to do with the attack, but which we'd wanted to invade for a long time. Let's say France. And justified this attack on the grounds that, since France has planes, we're continuing the War on Aerial Bombing by invading them, and who knows, even if the French aren't themselves Aerial Bombers right now, they do have planes and bombs, and they might some day give planes and bombs to Aerial Bombers, and we can't wait for the threat to come to us!
And then, when the French used aerial bombing as a tactic in resisting our occupation of France, 1940s Dick Cheney would say "see? This proves that The Aerial Bombers who attacked us at Pearl Harbor have now chosen to fight us in France, and we have to keep it up or else it validates The Aerial Bombers' strategy, and they'll come bomb us over here!"
Talking about The Terrorists is just as absurd. To believe it makes any sense, one must ignore the obviously different goals of the Iraqi insurgents, who want our occupation to stop, and al Qaeda proper, which...hell, I don't know, something much more evil, probably death for death's sake followed by 72 black-eyed virgins. My point is you can't lump them together and remain within the bounds of informed logic. To do so, you more or less have to see the whole world as good guys vs. bad guys, and the bad guys are all under Skeletor's command and doing evil for the sake of evil.
Personally, I realized the world was a bit more complicated than that, that good was seldom pure and that even evil had a generally rational set of goals within its own framework, when I was still in elementary school. Ironic, isn't it, that when these people took over, we were told the "grownups" were back in charge?
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