Asia 'outraged' At Howard's Terror Call

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
You obviously don't know my views very well, then.

Well, i'll be! Maybe now you know how I felt....

I never supported such a position, so don't associate it with me. Our enemies can selectively use the right of sovereignty to protect their interests all the want; I expect them to. But we have every right to fight for our own interests and crush terrorist groups who threaten our people, even if it means we have to violate national sovereignty sometimes.

I only got involved in this thread because of your statement that one "can't choose laws or rights". You certainly can and I wanted to make that clear. Don't take our disagreement on that specific issue as a sign that I oppose every point you have made; that isn't the case.

First: if you wish to claim some sort of moral supperiority over your foes, you can't act just like them, which ahs been one of my points all along.

As for me clling you hardly a relativist: it has been my impression in other issues that you do hold certain things to be absolute. As I said, the only thing I hold absolute is the system, since this is the one things we can keep steady as everything else changes around us, and somehting needs to stay steady to be able to make sense and give meaning to things.

[Drake Tungsten]

First: if you wish to claim some sort of moral supperiority over your foes, you can't act just like them, which ahs been one of my points all along.

I don't disagree. I personally don't believe in a conventional view of "morality", so I don't care whether our government is "morally superior" or not. I'm far too pragmatic to allow some view of morality get in the way of what I believe is the wise course of action.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by GePap
you do have the annoying and reprehensible aspect of being vaiglorious and conceited

{Jack Nicholson voice}Is there a point in there somewhere? {/Jack Nicholson voice}

I know plenty of ME history. I just don't make the assumption that fact all lead to the same conclusions and I am not blind to the notion of diverngent viewpoints.

When you attribute al Qaeda and the present problems with Islamic fundamentalist terrorism to US anti-Communist policies in the '80s (which in the Islamic world was pretty much limited to aid to Mujahedin in Afghanistan), without reference to any other factors, then you mask what knowledge you have pretty well.

The relevant viewpoints here aren't from the western factual historical perspective, either, rather they're from the fundamentalist world view sculpted and molded in the mosques and training camps.

Hopefuly when you get back to my more 'hilarious' posts you will not be so petulant a child.

MOMMMMMEEEEEEEEE! He called me a name.


As for your points:

This war against "terrorism" is a war against Al qaeda. Most of the Islamist grousp you speak of are national groups, groups which do not carry out international atatcks against general targets. Cehchnya, for ewxample, is a Russian issue only (Chechens don't carry out atatcks against the US, just Russian interests)

You missed the point entirely. Of course Chechen peasants aren't going to attack the US, or even far outside their own territory. They are going to fight, however, and that's one of the essential components of translating the pan-Islamic jihad al Qutb wanted into operational reality.

In al Qutb's time, you had Islamic fundamentalism as the province of a few clerics with limited outside world experience, and mostly rural villagers. (who were the backbone of Khomeini's movement for years, but ineffective even in a national scope until the movement picked up secularly educated urban students and people who could work their way up in the Shah's security forces over a period of years)

In order to create an al Qaeda, you need men with secular educations, social and financial connections, who are susceptible to the fundamentalist message. To make jihadi out of them, you need a real world training ground. If Afghanistan hadn't been a fighting ground, instead of the "Afghan Arabs", "Algerian Arabs" or "Chechen Arabs" would have done just fine. You just need a place to train these guys, harden them, get them in the influence of jihad, and then return them to the outside world to operate. Anywhere would do just fine as a training ground, except for Palestine.

Al Qaeda does, and vital to the creation of this network was the funding and training that the US and western allies gave Islamist to have them fight Communism. So the West does have a great responsibility for makign these anti-west groups (and not simply national-interest groups) possible.

The US funded some 13 distinct groups of Mujahedin. Most of those groups later became the Northern Alliance. Most were not Islamist, and are not now. A few local warlords were anti-west then, and anti-west now, but have not got any more love, affection and support for the Taleban and al Qaeda than we did.

If you look at the rate of annual funding and training, from the US, a small minority of that that went to Islamist groups. With the annual combat losses among all funded groups, the amount of money and training which cumulatively contributed to the development of what is now al Qaeda is a very minor component compared to the sort of "United Way" donations by arab nationals and people like OBL himself, using their social connections to funnel money. People who wanted to become "Afghan Arabs" also contributed money, it was a sort of cause celebre. The most important factor by far was not direct aid by the CIA or arabs, but the development of an indirect financial network of donors who were prepared to advance sums of money for wide-ranging long-term operations other than direct combat in the Afghan theater.

The organization of and marketing to this financial network was not something brought by the west or the CIA specifically - it was a creation of the business and social savvy of OBL and his lieutenants, who were able to mix messages of arab nationalism, Islamic fundamentalism, anti-western sentiments, the "inspirational experiences" of young "Afghan Arabs" returned from their fighting experiences.

Another factor you (and most people) completely ignore in the Afghan issue is how much of the tribalist/nationalist Mujahid vs. Islamist Mujahid conflict was a result of Indo-Pakistani geopolitics. In the post-USSR Afghanistan, when al Qaeda really emerged as a significant force, Indo-Pakistani maneuvering (India supporting the NA and EA as traditionally hostile rivals to Pakistan and the old Greater Afghanistan empirelet of the Pashtuns., to create a potential security threat on Pakistan's northern border, while the Pakistanis wanted a friendly proxy state to be able to maintain their focus on Kashmir)

Unless you blame the collapse of the Soviet Union as a primary cause for the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terror groups, the post-Soviet environment in Afghanistan is much more crucial to their development in Afghanistan (and again, any Islamist-outsider conflict other than Palestine could have been adapted to their development needs). That era was far more dominated by Indo-Pakistani strategic maneuvering (which has a history that predates the modern Indian and Pakistani nations) for indirect power in Afghanistan.

Given the totality of events, the overall time frame and the different players, US "anti-communist" or any other type of aid in the 1980's was an extremely minor constituent in the present problem, although it is fashionable to exaggerate in importance for "you reap what you sew" moralizing. It also has the benefit of being simple, since bilateral geopolitics has been the American mindset since WW2 at least.

1. We had the support of the Yemeni government. there was no reach of sovereignty. HOward was speaking of something far more fundamental than one tiny act. Which again was why he took the statement back.

Whether we had the support of the Yemeni government isn't really that big of an issue, IMO. Had we not had that support, but the Yemeni government been unable or unwilling to exert effective control over it's own purported territory, then IMO the same action should have been taken. Maybe not for such a relatively small value target, but the simple notion of permission from a peanut state unable or unwilling to exert control over the territory it claims should not be an absolute bar to preemptive action to eliminate active threats.

2. re: my post to Drake.

The moral superiority bit? I'm not interested in debating moral superiority. I'm interested in the most efficient means of killing al Qaeda and their active allies, or otherwise breaking their capability to kill us. If there's cheap and inoffensive ways of doing that, great, if somebody's going to get pissed off, too bad.

3. This great difference you speak of is one of capabilities, not morals. The US, and to some extent, Australia, has the capability to strike in such a way as to just kill insurgent. The insurgents don't. When they have to kill, they must find another way, which means soft targets, civilians. I fail to see where you would have the evidence to make your statement about what they mean to do. It would serve their cause far more if they couls violently overthrow the governments they seek to topple, yet they have not done so, why? Because they are weak.

Absolute capabilities are meaningless. The relevant standard is how well current capability can be adapted to long term strategy. The airliners that hit the WTC could have easily been directed against different targets, say Langley and NSA at Fort Meade. Suicide bombers in Palestine could concentrate on specifically attempting to maximize the ratio of IDF personnel taken out. The ability to attack conventional military forces by unconventional means is present, but it doesn't suit the strategic goal. As von Clausewitz and others have pointed out, the center of gravity is economic and political, rather than military. This was first stated in other terms by Sun Tzu. If you break the enemy's political will to fight, you don't care about the disparity between your forces, and failing that, if you can break the enemy's economic ability to support those forces, you can do more damage than in direct conflict.
(another reason why Islamic fundamentalism needs secularly educated jihadi to succeed - they need to be able to reach into our mindset, the same as we need to be able to reach into theirs to defeat them.)

The evidence of what they mean to do is found in their own writings and statements, in their interpreation of the Quran and Hadith, and the strategy is fairly direct. The governments they are seeking to topple are nothing less than all non-Islamic government worldwide.
In particular, if you can find a translation of Sayyid al Qutb's ma'alim fil tariq, the entire concept is clear.

The traditional jahiliya (originally the religion and beliefs of the arabs prior to Islam) is now any and all non-Islamic states which do not fully embrace Sharia. The simple fact of having a non-Islamic legislative body (Iran has fallen from the standards of "purity" advocated by al Qutb) places us and the rest of the world as the enemies of true Islam - enemies which must be converted or destroyed to please Allah and be rewarded in the coming life. Other Salafists like Sayyid Abu A'la Maududi have similar views - one is either with Allah, or kafir - an infidel who defies Allah and must be destroyed.

In order to first obtain control over the secular arab governments, which are viewed as kafir whores of the US, they have to break the US will to project power into the arab world. In order to do that, having the means to directly attack military forces is irrelevant. We are more or less insulated from the losses incurred by military forces - the loss of 3,000 troops in combat halfway around the world would have a hell of a lot less
impact than watching the WTC towers drop on CNN. We are regarded as weak, amoral, selfish, clinging to life, in fear and rejection of Allah, so the strategic goal, regardless of capability, is to strike at the weak underbelly. If the US has to expend a large portion of it's economic resources to secure itself internally, and encounter economic disruption due to security measures and insecurity due to the prospects of random attack, both the means and the will to project power are undermined.

This is where al Qaeda fits into the framework of local and nationalist Islamic movements - as the mobile striking force which can inspire by striking the big remote target - the greatest Kafir of them all, and by being the strategic threat which limits the will and ability of the big Kafir to come to the aid of it's lackeys in Riyadh and elsewhere when their time comes.

Many things are taboo. They are not to be done. Take making a human clone. Today countless laws have been passed to stop it. Now lets say someone clone a child, and the child is healthy. What validity do those anti-cloning laws now have? The precedent of breaking the law makes it possible to overturn them, to destroy them. If no one were to clone a healthy child, then there would be no precedent to overturn them , now would there?

The precedent argument is relevant to what, exactly? If you hold some form of political sovereignty to be some sort of sacred cow, it has been slaughtered in every war that has ever been fought since the concept of political identity. Given the hypothetical choice between, say, declaring war on Indonesia or Yemen, or a quick raid to waste some terrorists they can't or won't deal with themselves, which is preferable?

The precedent for that sort of preemptive action goes back for centuries.

Pleas etry to argue above childish word games....

Only if you try to argue past superficial generalizations.