…they hate us for our occupations, as the great Glenn Greenwald points out:
Imagine that. Isn’t Muslim culture just so bizarre, primitive, and inscrutable? As strange as it is, they actually seem to dislike it when foreign militaries bomb, invade and occupy their countries, and Western powers interfere in their internal affairs by overthrowing and covertly manipulating their governments, imposing sanctions that kill hundreds of thousands of Muslim children, and arming their enemies. Therefore (of course), the solution to Terrorism is to interfere more in their countries by continuing to occupy, bomb, invade, assassinate, lawlessly imprison and control them, because that’s the only way we can Stay Safe. There are people over there who are angry at us for what we’re doing in their world, so we need to do much more of it to eradicate the anger. That’s the core logic of the War on Terror.
{ 138 comments }
Amazing ignorance of Islam in the above post. Remember that according to the Koran, there are only two worlds – that of Islam, and that of war (i.e. those nations upon which you must make war). Male kuffar have 3 choices: convert, die, or become a slave (i.e. pay extra tax, give up right to bear arms, have less standing in court). Women are slaves by nature. Homosexuals must be executed. Islam can never be criticized.That said, there are many fake Muslims: those who refuse to take part in Jihad – they are essentially heretics. The terrorists are undoubtedly following Islam correctly in their pursuit of Jihad.
Even were everything you said on the money, the author’s point stands undiminished. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims NOT presently interested in attacking America and Americans. Are they likely to become more or less inclined to take up arms if we topple their governments, occupy their lands, and kill their loved ones. What if it were Muslim governments doing the same to you: are you going to be more or less likely to take up arms against Muslims the world over?
I wouldn’t say it stands undimished – since the title of the blog post is “they don’t hate us for our freedom”. My point was that Islamists do hate us for our freedom, regardless of what else they hate us for.
You know who else hates us for our freedom? Our local gov’ts. If using such hatred as the justification for aggression against a group, you must admit that your focus should be reducing the more local threat, if you truly are valuing freedom.
I don’t remember ever justifying any aggression – simply correcting the claim that Islam doesn’t hate freedom. As for your comment about focusing attention against local aggression against freedom (any state’s monopoly of force), I completely agree. That Islamists view themselves as the enemy of the particular state in which I live doesn’t mean they are inimical to statism itself and that they supporters of freedom, quite the contrary – Islam and Statism are both unjust, aggressive ideologies
“I would have joined a terrorist organization.”
- Ehud Barak’s response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha’aretz
newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had
been born a Palestinian.
Dave,
You obviously never read the Koran. Just saying.
“Dave,
You obviously never read the Koran. Just saying.”
This is what every religious apologist exclaims, when you disseminate the unsavoury texts of their holy book.
i think millions have read the bible and some still debate various meanings in it.
probably several wars fought invoking biblical verses. hangings, etc.
Fine, Chow,
buy don’t forget the the unsavory texts of the Christian bible while you are at it. The Koran has no monopoly on invocation to genocide.
The Christian Bible is a very poor comparison (I do not follow any religion btw), seeing as anything in the OT that conflicts with the teachings of Jesus is cancelled out. A better comparison is the esteem with which Christians hold Jesus and that with which Muslims hold Mohammed. In both religions each of these figures is respectively held to be perfect and essentially beyond criticism. The problem is that it was Mohammed himself who supported and undertook genocide and enslavement of others (especially women, whom he equates to dogs – an extremely unclean beast) – as well as calling others to follow him in these acts. I really can’t think of anything Jesus did that is to be condemned as unjust – certainly nothing near what the supposedly perfect Mohammed did. The truth is that according to Islam the mass murderer, slavery endorsing, pedophilic, male/Muslim supremacist Mohammed is the perfect example of a human being and must be emulated.
anything in the OT that conflicts with the teachings of Jesus is cancelled out.
Convenient. How did that happen?
jmorris84 wrote:
“Dave,
You obviously never read the Koran. Just saying.”
I’m not by any means an expert on Islam, but by my understanding of it, Dave is essentially correct. The ugly secret that a lot of people want to hide, both among Muslims and politically correct Westerners, is that the radical Islamic interpretation of Islam, as given by Dave above, is the most straightforward interpretation of the holy texts of Islam. This is probably why it’s becoming so popular; because it’s easy to understand, instead of the convoluted interpretations that make Islam into a “religion of peace”.
Exactly. As I’ve said above, the “religion of peace” breaks down at the very basis of the ideology. What is this? That Mohammed is perfect (never did anything unjust), speaks only what is right, cannot be critized, and should be emulated. If this is true, then aggressive genocide, theft and slavery can be just, and not only CAN they be just but they ARE just, and should be undertaken. I think it is quite clear that aggressive murder, genocide, theft, slavery etc. fall well outside the definition of “peace”. Note too that the invocation of “religion” certainly cannot cancel out the inalienable rights of man.
I think the radical Islamic definition of “peace” is tied to the fact that in Arabic, Islam can be translated as “peace” or as “submission”. In other words, if everyone submits to the will of Allah, there will be peace. Otherwise…. not so much.
There’s not a word in the Koran about Mohammed being perfect, not being criticized, etc. In fact, it explicitly says that anyone saying that is wrong. If you follow the words of Koran alone (which the Koran tells you is the Right Thing To Do) then the Muslim statement of belief (“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammed is the prophet of Allah”) is sinful — the Koran forbids making distinctions among God’s messengers or naming anyone else beside God.
But Muslims don’t actually pay any more attention to the Koran than Christians do to the bible (which says you should murder your children if they “talk back” to you, etc.)
lol.
I do not know much at all about the Koran so what you are saying may be true. Nevertheless, you are missing one important point in the matter. There are several countries around the globe who are not Muslim at all but you don’t see them being attacked by terrorists. America, Israel, and some European countries are the targets of these terrorists because they are either directly occupying territories or are aiding in the occupations. If the true intentions of Muslims are to attack all nonmuslims, then why aren’t all the other non-muslim contries being attacked as well?
Probably because they do not have enough funding and/or followers. I could ask “if America is such an empire why haven’t they conquered the whole world?” etc. The Islamists are focusing on the most important Western countries since if you cut off the head, the body must die.
america is the body, israel the head.
Conspiracy theories involving Jews running the world, Newson? I expected better from you.
have a read-up on joe sobran, and then get back to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ltNYrScjc&feature=related
sure, i’m febrile.
Russ, you’re a tool. No other way to put it.
“have a read-up on joe sobran, and then get back to me.”
I was under the impression that Sobran was fired by Bill Buckley, and that Buckley was Catholic?
Beefcake the Mighty wrote:
“Russ, you’re a tool.”
Why? Because I won’t follow the ancap party line, and won’t just shut up? Or because I called Newson when he trotted out a conspiratorial cliche about Israel running America?
“Because I won’t follow the ancap party line, and won’t just shut up? Or because I called Newson when he trotted out a conspiratorial cliche about Israel running America?”
You’re a tool because you characterize what newson said as a “conspiratorial cliche.” I’d say the only party line you’re towing is that of the neocons.
For what it’s worth I regard Islam as violent, backward, and corrupt. However, I’m also staunchly opposed to the American wars in the Middle East. I’m able to distinguish legitimate American interests from those of Israel’s, and those who can’t are either fools or fifth columnists. I suspect Russ is both.
buckley’s catholicism didn’t stop him pandering to the lobby. expediency over principle. why should anyone be surprised?
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_sobran.htm
Thanks, Newson, for that link to “The Last Ditch”. Loved this formulation I found there:
“A hypocritical etiquette forces us to pretend that the Jews are powerless victims; and if you don’t respect their victimhood, they’ll destroy you.”
(“The Buchanan frenzy,” Sobran’s, March 1996)
- – - – - – - –
ET,
I won’t indulge in a certain righty’s goofy penchant for gushing that everyone who agrees with him is a “hero”, but this was really good:
http://blog.mises.org/14262/they-dont-hate-us-for-our-freedom/#comment-731637
to mpolzkill:
it was beefcake who put me on to “the last ditch”! a real treasure-trove of free speech. really free, not conditional.
Yes, Newson, I could well imagine it was Beefcake/Byzantine?/Bringer who turned you on to that. I like a lot about the site, but in vain I search it for the scientific explanation of how having more melanin tends to cause a human to reject liberty and civilization.
to mpolzkill:
whether or not one shares that opinion, i feel that free speech is itself a way to reach understanding. shutting people’s mouths doesn’t open their hearts.
Why would they want to attack all the other non-Muslim countries, when they can simply immigrate en masse, which is much easier?
“This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God
Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.”
Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971
Great post Dave. And so many people don’t understand this way of thinking. They tend to take things for what they see and never look any deeper till it “bites” them, or it reeeeally gets serious. Guess what people, it’s gotten way past serious.
Be sure to avoid the common and amazing ignorance as to what the U.S. government, economy, and society have actually become since WWII:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175308/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_american_warscapes/
greenwald says hurtful things about israel because of his profound self-hatred.
Who is the “they” he’s talking about – some imaginary average Muslim who hates our violence but is quite happy with the poverty, despotism, torture and violence and corruption of his own homegrown thugs. Such deep, nuanced reasoning and insight. Thanks, Glenn. I’ve never heard that analysis, except by every liberal in the western world for the last 30 years. Do they pay him for those cold leftovers?
so you’d be in favour of lifting the impoverishing tariffs imposed by the west on certain middle-east countries, and abolishing the subsidies to others? isn’t that a little too like laissez-faire for comfort?
america outsourced its foreign policy long ago.
Spot on, SIr
I said similar in a dialogue with an American gentleman in Hyde Park, London, this summer
Having asked my wife and I for directions he entered into a teasing contest, about the subject of empire and Britains (indisputable) impotence during WW2.
I rejoined with a remark along the lines of the above at which he ran off with a fright, as one would if one thought one had just encountered a lunatic
All one can do is sow the seeds of doubt
they dont hate ‘us’ for the freedom to..once retiring from the CIA and then getting elected president to speak of aggressions like babies being thrown on incubator room floors to die several times when the incubator story was funded by people you know in washington??? is that an accurate description of the freedom someone may hate???
or was that a toilet seat accounting error?
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First know thyself.
Americans are incapable of walking in foreign people’s shoes.
WE the people can’t empathize with others who are occupied, bombed, and looked down on by a power they can’t techno-militarily oppose. No American alive can imagine a foreign invader.
Neither can we imagine the indignity of a foreign force professing moral superiority. But they see our inner city fictional dramas, with the drug wars, porn, bitch beating pimps and money corrupting everything.
A compassionate soldier tosses a candy bar or some drinkable water to a kid; then hears a footstep; he panics and machine guns some unarmed women and children while shouting profanities and oo rahs. We name this collateral damage; some kind of glitch in the system.
We demand they replace their own leaders by a carpet-bagging political democracy that replaces taxes with a counterfeiting machine to feed the cancer that grows wild.
Where will it lead? Will we finally tire of the government, but too weak and too frightened resort to malingering? With everyone on welfare, who will be left to build the tools of war? Other countries will refuse our greenbacks; will the gears finally stick as no American remembers how to grease them? Will it end with a gulag or a fascist corporate penal industry?
We only seem to understand fiction; lacking decent leaders to look to, we use actors to make war look manly. Baritone voices challenge the youth to be Marines. Swords and uniforms sway young men to become terminators.
I am reminded of the twilight zone episode where a human lands on a planet and finds a race of little people the size of ants and proceeds to annihilate them for no particular reason other than they can. In the final scene, a proportionately larger alien ship lands and a giant human foot steps on them.
The bully will eventually meet his match – perhaps a bigger bully. Or maybe the bullied finally grab some of the bully’s weapons.
Then you will see such a lust of vengeance that end in total destruction of the empire. It will be a shock not endured since the Romans were slaughtered by the barbarians.
Is it too late to know thyself?
to pose the question is to know the answer.
“No American alive can imagine a foreign invader”
Not since 1941?
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”
David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
at least we’re on the side of righteousness.
a. The United States wasn’t invaded.
b. FDR got exactly what he wanted with that attack. He spent years goading Japan into first strike.
First know thyself.
maybe you should only speak for thyself.
I do. These are mostly my thoughts. I don’t speak for others. But I do empathize for the innocent dead and those worse than dead.
1941. Yes, late November 1941. I always wondered how they just happened to have all those technicolor cameras handy. Perhaps the secretary of war understood:
“Ten days before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Stimson entered in his diary the following statement: “how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”
Quite a miscalculation – or was it?
http://www.lobelog.com/cliff-may-vs-glenn-greenwald-and-dylan-ratigan-on-msnbc/
candour on tv, what’s going on?
The people,behind the scenes,who pull the strings of power in America need to distract the majority of the electorate as to who their real enemy is. 100 years ago it was the Kaiser.70 years ago it was fascism. 40 years ago it was the Red Menace and today it is islamic terrorism. Meanwhile,the elitists behind the scenes have stolen our wealth,put our progeny in debt forever, and have forged a yoke around our necks to control our very lives. Always,throughout history,people who seek power need to keep the populace focused on hobgoblins and scapegoats to divert attention away from who their real enemy is.Probably less than 1% of the population understand this.
This is the main reason I find it difficult to support people like Ron Paul. I agree with Austrian economics, but it seems too often that libertarians try to make the world fit their ideal world view, as opposed to seeing it like it is. Read a history of the expansion of Islam and you will see that until the ottomans were defeated at Vienna, Islam was a force of constant expansion, and it did so because many viewed it as a religious duty. The people who organize, recruit, and fund the terrorism believe this jihad should continue as a righteous calling until all the world is basically under Islamic control. These are the people who matter because they recruit down and out/disillusioned people to be the actual terrorists, and there are always plenty of those. Sure they speak of Israel and other flash points, but those are just motivational tactics to get people worked up. If they went away, the terrorist leaders would come up with other rallying points. The key is the underlying motivation facing those that fund and direct the terrorism, and frankly, I’m not sure how to best fight it. But since it is a religious motivation, it really has nothing to do with occupation, bombing, or anything political except lack of submission to Islam. Sure, they want to “fix” the middle east first to match their vision of the ideal Islamic state, but once that is done, they will turn their eyes to expansion, just like they did for most of their history. The reason they attack us now is because we stand in the way of them attaining hegemony over the middle east, but even if we ignored the region completely, they wouldn’t ignore us. I’m not saying that all of our military activities are good ones, or even that our government doesn’t use war to distract us from their domestic tyranny. My complaint is with those who think we could just divorce ourselves from foreign affairs and be left alone. They are ignoring reality, and that puts all of us at risk.
You say you agree with Austrian economics, so…the government can’t manage anything, except for massive military operations?
If you actually think a centrally planned aggressive foreign policy is going to work, you might as well just give in and let them run the economy too.
Go back and re-read the end of my post. I did not say anything about how to address the threat. Frankly I don’t know what the most effective way to address it is. My point is, that there is a threat that has nothing to do with military aggression on our part, and you lose a lot of credibility by refusing to acknowledge it so you don’t have to weigh different options of how to effectively address it. The method need not be military, but proponents of each option must be able to explain why it would work given the actual nature of the threat. How would you address it?As for what I believe the role of government is, I believe that people form governments to protect their natural rights (in the sense that Locke meant it) from incursion by others, and that the legitimate roles of government are protecting natural rights from incursion by others (maximizing individual liberty), enforcing private contracts and protecting private property rights. Military defense both protects private property and natural rights from foreign entities, and thus would seem to be a legitimate function of government (within a certain, definable scope of course). Whether or not it is the most efficient means of protecting those things, I do not profess to know, which is where your Austrian economics critique comes in, I believe. Maybe it’s a lack of imagination on my part.
Sorry for jumping the gun, and this next part will sound pretty sarcastic, but I’m actually somewhat serious……
You have the private right to buy some land, build a bunker, and hide in it. You also have the right to own guns, and protect yourself from aggression. Given that the chance of getting killed by a terrorist is remarkably close to 0%, protecting yourself from terrorism is pretty easy to do.
Christians have long used the bible to justify their expansionist schemes, and I have no surprise that it is done with Islam as well, but if the question is about security, you can’t really justify anything just by debating the philosophy of Islam.
In a Chomsky book I read (Hegemony or Survival I think)….he basically says that the only way to have absolute security, is to have absolute power over every part of the world, and that’s basically the recipe for imperialism. Terrorists attacks are tragic, but there truly is no way to guarantee they won’t happen, short of murdering everyone in the world. I mean, the very nature of terrorism works, in-spite of any sort of military domination that we may have. All it takes is someone to hate us, and have a minimal amount of resources to go on a killing spree and….you have terrorism. It’s been beaten to death, but the idea that if we just kill enough (mostly innocent) people, then they won’t want to attack us any more, is a bit crazy.
The idea that the government exists to predicts my natural rights is in a direct contradiction to the idea that I have to pay for military protection which I find unnecessary. The military is just a giant subsidy for wealthy people, and any talk of national security should start from that point.
“You have the private right to buy some land, build a bunker, and hide in it. You also have the right to own guns, and protect yourself from aggression. Given that the chance of getting killed by a terrorist is remarkably close to 0%, protecting yourself from terrorism is pretty easy to do.”
Gee, why didn’t all of those office workers in the twin towers think of that?
Gee, why didn’t the United States stay out of the middle east and not get them killed in the first place?
CH is the first person I’ve seen to present this argument so eloquently. I hope atleast someone from the Mises Institute, who has argued otherwise, would acknowledge the points you’ve put forward.
I agree completely. I could not vote for Ron Paul either, even if he were a viable candidate, and not a waste of a vote. I came to that decision when I read somewhere that Paul, as president, would not condone torture of a known terrorist even if it were necessary to get information that would save American citizens’ lives. That’s not principled to me, simply squeamish.
And you’re right, there are so many people out there who really believe that if we just got out of the Middle East and handed over Israel to the Muslims, all would be well with the world. I can sort of understand this with Europe’s leaders. After all, if you have no great ability to extend military power, your banlieues are chock full of Muslim nuts, and you are going to have to rely on future immigration to prop up otherwise unsustainable social programs that the public demands, appeasement is about all you can do. So I can understand why they are falling into this trap of wishful thinking. And American Leftists, well, they just hate America because its very success disproves (post-)Marxism, and the enemy of your enemy is your friend. But why supposed libertarians fall into this wishful thinking, I don’t get. It’s not like radical Muslims are libertarian or anything. Is it because too much of the hippie contingent of libertarianism borrows too much of their foreign policy dogma from the Left? Or is it because, like the Left, their allegiance is to a utopia, instead of to the countries in which they actually live?
How delightfully consequentalist. Brutality is acceptable when the ends justify the means, eh? What would you say if the Taliban managed to capture a US military officer and used torture to reveal details about an impending attack that could kill thousands? Come now, let’s not be squeamish. Or is it okay for us to do it because we’re the good guys and they are the bad guys?
we’re the nice waterboarders.
“How delightfully consequentalist.”
Yeah, well, some of us believe in taking consequences into consideration, instead of simply cleaving blindly to dogma.
Russ, would you or would you not be outraged if the Taliban waterboarded US soldiers to save Taliban lives?
Actually, I’d be pleasantly surprised if they used such a relatively non-harmful form of torture.
Oh, you got me there!
Total waste of five minutes.
to russ the apostate:
indeed, the enemy of my enemy can also be my enemy. not supporting zionism does in no way imply supporting islamic fundamentalism. if the europeans have hostile ethnic residents, that’s their problem with their various past colonial adventures, social welfare and immigration policies.
wishful thinking is looking for the wmd in iraq, bin ladin in afghanistan, and the scary, scary bomb in iran, whilst ignoring the original sin in the whole middle east conflict. original appropriation has nothing to do with being gifted someone else’s country by a colonial power. this ain’t about religion, it’s about territory.
If it were about territory on 9/11, why didn’t Al Qaeda leave the World Trade Center in NYC alone and attack Israel or Westerners in the Middle East?
because they realize that without reflexive american support, israel would be forced into a very harsh negotiation with the surrounding countries. apparently everyone else in the world understands this except americans.
Let me get this straight. They wanted America to stop supporting Israel, and yet they attacked America and effectively declared war against it? Have they not read the history books? Do they not know that this would be the worst possible strategy to get Americans to back off? Hello? The Lusitania? Pearl Harbor? I don’t buy it. They’re not that stupid. If it were just about their territory, that would be about the worst possible strategy I can think of. However, if they wanted to provoke an apocalyptic religious war (you know, because they’re religious nuts?) between the dar al islam (house of Islam), and the dar al harb (house of war), then they picked the right strategy.
Oh, one more thing. Maybe a lot of Americans understand, but don’t want Israel to have to be forced into very harsh negotiations with the surrounding countries? I mean, seriously, why else would the US government give all that aid to Israel, if it didn’t think they needed it?
they understood perfectly well that a peaceful severance of body, america, with head, israel is a political impossibility. therefore the winning tactic is to provoke massive retaliation, thereby draining the blood and enfeebling the entire corpus. bush obliged them, and obama’s showing good form, too.
the lusitania incident didn’t arise in a policy vacuum, any more than 9/11.
http://mises.org/daily/1450
pearl harbour’s antecedents are ably presented by various revisionists on this site.
Or, they could just leave Israel alone. But we all know that’s a “political impossibility” as well.
Zionism is code word used by people because they don’t want to admit to themselves and/or other people that what they really are talking about is their hatred and suspicion towards Jews. You may not fall into that category, but it’s what I think of every time somebody brings it up and it’s usually going to be a accurate assumption.
Yes the existence of Israel is a big problem and the surrounding countries, at some point in their history, vowed to wipe Israel from existence and still resent the existence of that country to this day. HOWEVER, most Muslims are not Arabic, most conflicts around the world that extremists are involved in are not with Jews or have anything to do with Israel.
The reason, In my mind, the World Trade Center in New York City was attacked was because the principal threat to the extremist Muslim is our Freedom and our Capitalism and that was what they considered a huge strike against us. With interlocking and mutually beneficial corporate ties between the United States and the Muslim countries of the world it creates a common bond and breaks down barriers and removes misunderstandings. Wealth brings independence and the mass media brings in our own propaganda to their countries. The attractive parts of our culture is now starting to heavily influence theirs.
The World Trade Center was a symbol of this. Destroying it was a huge propaganda success and the predictable result of this that our government would go into freak out mode and it would cause political and economic strife that would take us down a notch or two. Which it did. It worked. Some of these ‘extremist’ leaders are smart, many of them western educated and know the sort of people that run our countries and what buttons to press for maximum result.
Here, here!!
I love it when you respond, but I may have to stop telling you, since you were recently criticized for being my hero. sorry, I can’t help it.
You really form your opinion of who to vote for on whether they will torture prisoners? Should it be all right then for police to torture as well, as long as human lives are at stake? Nevermind the fact that information gleaned from torture is notoriously inaccurate because people tend to just make things up to make it stop. Do you think in the 1st Gulf war all those soldiers would have been surrendering in the thousands if they thought they may be tortured when they did? How many soldiers have been killed because some terrorists holed up in a building decided they would rather die than get tortured by the Americans? I’ve done a few deployments. I know when people saw video of guys getting their heads sawed off that pretty much cemented in everyone’s minds that fighting to the death was the only option. I’m sure things like Abu Ghraib had a similar effect for the bad guys in Iraq. Also, the fact that we tortured became a major recruiting tool used against us. The very question on whether to “condone torture of a known terrorist even if it were necessary to get information that would save American citizens’ lives” is so unrealistic. It appeals to the vast number of people who know nothing about real world intel gathering and operations planning and so base their ideas of whether we should torture from what they’ve seen in action movies and TV shows.
I think I can clear up some confusion for you. You are in correct in that there will be some crazy fucks who want to wage jihad no matter what we do. Alone, they are without power to act. It is like a burning ember in a pile of ashes. No threat. However, our actions in the middle east pour fuel on this ember, allowing it to grow. You are correct that without Israel, and without our murder of civilians, they would find other justifications for their jihad, but would they be as effective at recruiting? What could make recruiting easier than having your enemy kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. As you said yourself, “they recruit down and out/disillusioned people to be the actual terrorists”. But you are wrong that there are always plenty of those. Our wars are producing those by the millions. Israel has policies designed speicifically to create pain in the Palestinians. They say it is so Hamas will be overthrown, and perhaps they believe that. But in the meantime, it is like throwing a cord of wood on that ember.
CH,
Very good. You might have to live on my hero list. It’s a double edged sword.
Thank you for your thoughtful post.
The problem I see with your argument is that we were left alone. We were left alone for a long time. We did not begin seeing attacks by muslims against Americans until the 1970′s. So what were these people doing before that? Did they just not exist? How did Americans all of a sudden become a target? They’ll never turn their eyes to expansion beyond their own borders. They can’t even unify all of one country and you think they’ll successfully unify the middle east and then attempt to expand outwards from there? Yeah right, and I thought WMDs were a long shot.
Ok, well at least we’re on cordial terms (no sarcasm there). The comparison between Christian political expansion and Islamic political expansion I find to be superficial. Political expansion was not in any way supported by Christ in the Bible, whereas political expansion (jihad) is one of the 5 defining pillars of Islamic faith. There’s a difference between perverting the faith to justify military expansion, and military expansion being a basic pillar of the faith.
As for terrorism, I’m not arguing for absolute security. I’m arguing for an optimization of individual liberty. That means persecuting those (individuals, not civilizations) that attempt to trample the natural rights of others (life and property being natural rights). If we chose to enlist others in the persecution of those who have violated our natural rights, and those others agree, then that is perfectly in line with individual liberty. So to go after individual terrorists (or more accurately, the terrorist leaders, who have freely joined with the terrorist actors in the violation of others’ natural rights) I think is perfectly legitimate. The probability of me being sprayed with acid is statistically insignificant, but that does not mean I have no right to retribution.
Furthermore, the terrorism is not the biggest threat. The threat is that the terrorism will be used to get us to ignore the middle east, after which the fairly well-funded fundamentalists can attempt to take over the region. Should they succeed, they will have much greater resources at their disposal, including a greater ability to indoctrinate. That’s when we could be faced with a clash of civilizations that we would not be able to avoid.
As far as you not wanting to pay for it, I believe that is a legitimate complaint. To a certain extent, joining a society for the protection of your natural rights that it provides from those stronger than you obligates you to join in the protection of the others in that society. However, where would you go if you chose to disassociate from said society? It would certainly be a difficult thing to do. For that reason, I am more in favor of states providing their own military resources, and allowing them to provide funds/troops to a military effort should they wish, but also to abstain should the country not be under direct assault. I’m sure this does not go far enough for your taste, but I would think it is a step in a better direction.
Also, as an aside, I got the idea from the manner in which the early Arab conquest were composed of individual tribes that fought for the Caliph according to their freely given and always revokeable (sp?) consent.
Granted, you cannot find exhortations for military conquest in the New Testament. But you can find such rationalizations for imperialism in the Hebrew bible, the foundational text for Judaism. Does that mean that the American empire should expand the WOT to include a War on Jews?
Yes.
Again, rationalizations for imperialism are different than a command to do so as a fundamental part of the faith. It is easier to convince a people to give up on one vs. the other.
Also, don’t put words in my mouth. I never advocated for a war on Muslims. I argued that we must fight those who would conquer us and trample our natural rights. There are individual Muslims who feel that military jihad is the right course. And to the extent that they act on those convictions, yes, we have the right and should fight them. What you have done is attempt to change the subject instead of addressing my point that some people are actually a potentially unavoidable threat. Instead of answering my question of what to do about it, you acted like I was arguing for genocide instead of the persecution of those individuals who have actually trampled our natural rights.
I completely agree with your second paragraph, but I’m not sure what sort of actions you think should be used to deter terrorists (or what distinguishes terrorism from murder). If someone commits an act of terrorism, they should be punished accordingly, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on this site disagree with this. Most of what we are debating is whether or not we should invade and occupy other countries in he name of fighting terrorism.
Even if declarations of war became the responsibility of individual states, it wouldn’t make unjust invasions any more just. It would still be partially funded by unwilling people, and the same policies would be implemented.
Jihad is one of the 5 defining pillars of Islam? Last I checked, they were monotheism, daily prayer, alms-giving, ritual fasting and pilgrimage. In Sunni Islam anyway. You just pulled that out of your ass. Wiki up the “Five Pillars of Islam” if you don’t believe me.
Muslim fanatics do hate, or rather, despise, America (and Europe) for its freedom; of course, what they really hate, what makes them go mad, is its power, the fact that Western countries are technologically and logistically miles ahead of their beloved Muslim theocracies.
Sorry for the rant, but I’m getting increasingly sick of all this pandering to Muslim fanatics and murderers.
First, American foreign interventions have a complex effect, and it’s not always hate from every non-American, as so often assumed. Just ask the Kurds. Foreign governments are no more legitimate than the US governments, and often much more criminal. Many people don’t identify themselves with “their” government, and welcome the invasion.
Then, all this unconditional “anti-war” thing seems rather silly, although I must admit it’s pure wisdom compared to the Keynesian “war is good for business”.
The state sucks at making war as it sucks at everything else. That doesn’t mean a libertarian can’t support a war. It just means he would like war to be waged by private armies. But just as a libertarian can use the mail service and the public roads, he can support a particular war if the threat is real. It goes without saying that he shouldn’t support the waging of war for petty economic interests, or targeting civilians, but that’s not being a libertarian, that’s just being a decent person.
The main mistake of the modern American foreign policy may well be its lame attempts at “nation building”. It’s a thankless job and a waste of time. If war is necessary (and sometimes it is), just attack, invade, capture the main villains and leave.
The often-repeated “they are here because we are there” is only partially correct. They are here because “we” let them come. Kick all Muslim fanatics out of Western countries. All those who who condone Muslim terrorist attacks (of course), all those support Sharia, as applied in Muslim countries, all those who think it is OK to physically punish people for their personal choices, be it sexual or religious (including atheism, “idolatry”, apostasy and blasphemy), are fanatics. It is urgent that those people, first, stop having a vote in a Western democratic government, and then are separated from Westerners by a border. The fact that many of them were born in Western countries is no reason to declare defeat and let them slowly take over.
Martin OB wrote:
“If war is necessary (and sometimes it is), just attack, invade, capture the main villains and leave.”
Ironically, a part of the reason America stayed in Iraq for as long as it did is because if we did what you suggest, Iraq probably would have suffered even worse in the civil war than it did. And then, everyone would have bad-mouthed the US for going into Iraq, created a power vacuum in an already unstable country, and then leaving. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…
“Kick all Muslim fanatics out of Western countries.”
Or at the very least, don’t subsidize radical imams with the dole.
no dole, period.
“Sorry for the rant, but I’m getting increasingly sick of all this pandering to Muslim fanatics and murderers.”
All the more so since they do not care what we think. Our hypocrisy is wasted on them. They classify things as right or wrong. From there point of view, they are right. No amount of pandering is going to change this.
“They are here because “we” let them come. ”
Again this is a decision by the Administration to ignore the provisions of Immigration Law. Those who belong to an organization that advocates the violent overthrow of the government of the US are barred from entering or residing in the US. To obtain citizenship, you are required to make the statement under oath -”I believe in the Constitution of the United States of America”. To make such a statement when you believe in Sharia Law is to obtain citizenship under false pretenses. (I have yet to see anyone have their citizenship revoked for this. There were a few NAZI’s who did have their citizenship revoked.) However, to be fair, there are a lot of members of congress and judges who make the same perjured statement when they take office.
to martin ob:
the debate really turns around american tax dollars ending up both propping up israel and selected arab states. if it were only your or my private money concerned, who’d care?
i agree with your point on the west’s crazy democratic process, the danish cartoon episode and the violence that inspired showed how far down the road to self-destruction the west is already.
You don’t think that the Danish cartoon episode showed the European Muslims in a bad light?
sure. anyone who impinges on a cartoonists sense of humour is a thug. cartoonists are what makes politics almost bearable to watch. i agree that denmark has a serious problem with disaffected home-grown muslims, i just don’t agree that bombing iran, for example, would see any improvement in danish cartoons.
It showed them in a frightfully bad light. It’s just hard to take seriously the objections of Western liberals on this issue, when they also support the jailing of “holocaust denial”.
i liked the film “reel bad arabs”. more nuanced israeli films like “lebanon”, “waltz with bashir”, and “the lemon tree” could never have come out of hollywood, one-eyed as it is.
There’s no doubt, media freedom is far greater in Israel than the supposedly liberal West.
at least n. joseph potts’ dailies can still be enjoyed in the archives. i don’t hold out much hope for his “rehabilitation” here. at least he’s not languishing in a cell.
Many Christians also support “physically punish(ing) people for their personal choices, be it sexual or religious (including atheism, “idolatry”, apostasy and blasphemy)” particularly sexual choices (I consider imprisoning a person a physical punishment). Should they also be evicted from the country?
When I mentioned physical punishment, it was shorthand for a variety of barbaric practices that many Muslims support and no Christian has supported for centuries (at least), not to a criterion to be applied in a vacuum. You can’t equate jail with lapidation, or spanking with flogging, or ear piercing with sexual mutilation.
Besides, short of secession, nothing can be done about fundamentalist Christians, because they are already in their home countries; that’s no reason to abstain from doing something when something can be done.
The good news is that fundamentalist Christians, being Westerners, have a sense of kinship and loyalty to their fellow citizens, whereas Muslim immigrants are only loyal to other Muslims. Conversely, Western society has undeniable Christian roots, and Enlightenment values have thrived in a largely Christian environment. The opportunities for productive dialogue are much more real.
Anyway, unlike in the Muslim world, Christian fundamentalists are a minority. Most Christians accept the separation of church and state, and they don’t take it as their religious duty to punish all sinners in this life, as it is for Muslims if they support Sharia.
The only trouble with the Muslims is that a sect of them is responsible for pretty much all the major conflicts remaining in the world today. It’s not just Middle East or Jews in Isreal or whatever. It’s global.
Look at pretty much every major conflict in the world from Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, East Asia, and into the Pacific islands it’s all pretty much Muslims versus whoever they happen to be next to. And it sucks because it’s not even a majority of Muslims or anything like that. It’s just some. But they terrorize and control the people around them, even other Muslims.
You can even look at countries like Iran. Most of the Iranian population is modern and very progressive. It’s their government that is the problem.
With Christianity they had the protestant revolution and the eventual reformation of the Catholic church. It took hundreds of years of waring for Europe to finally break free from the mixture of religion and government that was concocted by the ruling elite to maintain control over the population.
Most of the real negative aspects of Christianity during the middle ages has nothing to do with anything in the Bible or anything remotely resembling any sort of truth or enlightenment that anybody saw in it originally. It was just part of the machinations of a minority of the population to control a majority of the population.
It’s easier and cheaper to rule a people that are convinced that you have a divine right to rule then it is to maintain militaristic control. That’s all there is to it.
This is a situation we see with Muslims today. The religion is used as a tool of manipulation and control by a minority of people (government) on the population.
———————
Also if anybody is curious about understanding Middle Eastern and Asian cultures a bit better you have to understand the differences between guilt-based cultures and shamed-based cultures. Most people in the west do not have a clue on how influential Christianity and the protestant revolution is to our basic thoughts and values. We exist in a world were we blame ourselves for problems and internalize guilt. Were there is truth and falsehoods perpetuated by individuals and a right and wrong that extends beyond ourselves that is often universal in concept. We internalize our controls and morals.
Other cultures don’t necessarily work like that. Depending on your particular up bringing often there is no guilt concept or feelings at all. All that matters is how your actions reflect on your tribe and on your families.
Of course, for most people there is a mixture, but it’s a interesting study if you really want to understand what is going on.
The Tamil Tigers were the world leaders, before they were destroyed, in suicide bombings and they were not religiously affiliated. I also doubt the large volume of conflict and strife in South America is Islamic related.
>> “Will it end with a gulag or a fascist corporate penal industry?”
Why not both?
As for Western Imperialism versus Islam, my conclusion on the subject is roughly analogous to the question of Republicans versus Democrats — neither, thank you.
Islam is just as nonsensical and irrational as any other kind of superstitious crap, whether that’s the myth of religion or the myth of statism. I acknowledge that 99% of the world operates on the foundation of these twin lies, but I don’t need to defend one to indict the other.
Conquest is always motivated by the same thing — power to the point of slavery. The myths used by the power-mongering slave masters to sell the people on war may change, but the real object is always the same.
And ultimately, even foreign conquests are motivated by one thing — to further solidify the enslavement of the domestic population. The war is never really against a foreign “them.”. The real target is you, and it always has been. Contriving foreign threats is just another tool is their toolbox.
Wow, I didn’t think I would see this many ludicrous comments on a Mises blog post. The overriding reason that people living in the Middle East hate the U.S. is that the U.S. props up regimes that are directly responsible for their enslavement and torture. Oh yeah and the whole bombing/starving thing that we have going on.
But please, don’t take it from me! Take it straight from the horses mouth (warning, some harsh language): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo5pbs40Gc4
From the video:
“Islam, as such, had nothing to do with 9-11. If you think that, you are a f..ng idiot, and here’s why: I’m gonna read you a transcript from one of Bin Laden’s videos…”
Is there anything more idiotic than thinking a mass murderer can’t be also a liar, or, at least, a cynical propagandist?
He’s speaking to an American audience, so he uses the language of liberty and justice, to appeal to braindead leftards like the guy who made this video. When he speaks to a Muslim audience he uses the language of Islam and Jihad. Even Sadam Hussein used Islam at some point in his speeches when the American invasion was imminent, so are we to believe the 72 virgins had nothing to do with those guys killing themselves along with the infidels, or that they cried “Allahu akbar!” just to sound cool?
And then there’s the passion and conviction with with this guy reads Bin Laden’s words. Oh, the unjustly prosecuted freedom fighter! They call him a terrorist just for murdering a few thousand innocent men, women and children! I know he will deny it, but it shows.
line up this speech with one of bush’s and see which propaganda sounds more credible.
I tried to put this link in my previous post, but I did it wrong, I guess.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11090-2004Nov24.html
I’m no Bush fan, by the way. Of course, the attack didn’t come out of the blue, just because American women don’t wear burqas, as some Bush speeches may suggest. It came from nationalism and hurt national pride, and the terrorists’ nation is Islam, so Islam is at the center. Incidentally, many aspects of Western freedom are against Islam.
a nationalist needs an enemy to rally his subjects and quash dissent. the radical islamist needs the devil-america as much as neocon needs the arab bogeyman, and the zionist the antisemite.
And Bin Laden is a radical islamist, which the guy in this Youtube video has the incredible gall to deny.
You’re posting the solution to the crossword puzzle – you’re spoiling everyone else’s fun!
Well if the Austrians are right about the Economy, and we go into massive Hyper-Inflation of some sort, fighting those dragons abroad, will be a bit more difficult.
I don’t exonerate Sharia Law, or anybody that doesn’t respect human life, but as Free People, is a Centrally Planned Socialist Govt. the best tool to fight an enemy?
Unless you anihilate every last one of your opponents, you are basically peeing in the wind! Not that I condone that, but well what alternative is there really in a War………
The question is really this, at least to the one’s that see our current path of Nation Building/WOT as the best alternative against our eventual demise, how do you get you cake and eat it too? How do you roll back govt., when War only grows govt. and go back towards individual libety. This is when “National Security” becomes policy, and the collusion gets going. You can’t seperate a Wonderful Military, and the driving force in Washington, and their myriad of special interests. Is this what the average citizen really want representing his interests. The Constitution hasn’t taken care of the balance and put things back to Reset. Never.
The Austrians here aren’t delusional about a threat, but they know better to what instrument magnifies the conflict, which a lot of times will regress to something a lot less serious than what fiddling a govt. does to exacerbate the situation. People take advantage folks. And from this B.S. you as a Common Man, don’t have the best guard against a real threat, because most of that kinda stuff is out of the mass populace’s hands. A Private Anything would definitely be a better, more effective tool. I’m talking of private security.
Boils down to People Love Be Taken Care Of! And the babysitter isn’t always a good choice (your failed representative govt.). Time to grow up Citizens!
Jihad means struggle, not holy war.
David the Atheist Living in Qatar, Lived in Kuwait, Lives Among Muslims, Never Locks His Door, Never Fears For His Life, Never Even Feels Threatened
wait till we invade iran, then see.
Yep. Well that’s where the Suadi Arabian terrorists are from, so you know, logic and all
You know, I agree with everything Glenn Greenwald has to say on this subject.
Since when did all the neocons get here?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think its someTea Partiers showing up on this site. As much as people try to dress them up as different, they’re “neo-con lite.” New and improved fiscal and tax talk, same old war like xenophobic belligerence. It bothers me that many of them cite some form of Austrianism, at least in terms of economics. I’m not a fan of them or their aggressive nationalism and militarism, it’s my hope they educate themselves and stop with all the hate and war.
I disagree with the article. Am I included in the “neocon” group? You can call me a few ugly names, but “neocon” is not quite fitting, and here’s why:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
I’d say Neoconservatives are first and foremost democracy fanatics. That’s why they are for open borders (America is a democratic country, so nothing can go wrong) and extremely interventionist (let’s turn every country into a democracy and enemies will become allies), which is a fatal combination.
I don’t know about others, but I consider myself a Hoppean market anarchist, although culturally I’m more of a classical liberal. I know this site, I know the attacks on militarism are well-meaning and often accurate. I’m just getting tired of the cultural-relativist, Western guilt flavor of many articles and posts. I think we should go beyond the easy labelling and dismissal (on both sides), acknowledge this division withing libertarian thought, and start a serious debate about this topic.
to martin ob:
do you support american tax dollars going to prop up countries like egypt and israel?
As you may guess, I don’t support tax dollars being collected to begin with. Now, I won’t use this trick to evade your real question.
Assuming that taxes will be collected anyway, defense is one of the few sectors of government spending you can’t safely bring to zero, barring complete market anarchy (won’t happen), and I find it perfectly conceivable that big military spending is necessary under some circumstances. I see no reason why foreign policy can’t include helping allies when they are under attack without any fault of their own. That’s how it works among individuals, why not among countries. I know you will say Israel is a bad choice of an ally, but that’s not my main concern here.
I do aggree that American foreign policy has been hyperactive, wasteful and counter-productive in many ways, maybe because of the neocons’ blind faith in democracy, or the obsession with fighting communism worldwide before that. It’s just that I detect something deeper, a principled refusal to accept that defense spending and indeed war may be the only option in some cases.
Now I can ask you: what would you think if some wealthy Americans send money to help Israel defend against an attack, without any taxes involved?
i have no problem about people sending private money, or people pouring their own blood into foreign conflicts. but there’s an enormous hypocrisy at play in america. when these private funds go to israel there’s no hue and cry, yet when the private funds of arabs are devolved to “unacceptable” causes, it’s called funding terrorism. an untenable double-standard.
neocons aren’t obsessed about democracy, that’s a veil (see hamas). they’re obsessed about israel. whether israel is any less illegitimate than any of the other states interests me less (although our views on this obviously differ) than the injustice of us tax money ending up there.
note that neocons never contemplate giving the electorate the possibility of voting against foreign aid, that sort of democracy is anaethema to them.
Well, I do have issues with private individuals sending money to criminals. Maybe those “unacceptable” causes are actually unacceptable, and maybe it’s called funding terrorism because the money goes to actual terrorist groups.
I don’t think there’s a double-standard at play, because no-one is saying all private donations are equally respectable (and then acting differently); there’s simply a disagreement about which ones are respectable and which ones are not.
I stand by my claim that neocons are a brand of democracy fanatics. I don’t mean they will respect whatever decisions come out of a democratic process, I mean they have a blind faith in democracy to bring about the results they expect; they are confused and frustrated when it doesn’t. That’s the only way I can make sense of their aggressive foreign policy (nation building) combined with nearly open borders. They think that once they set up a democracy in a foreign country, nothing can go wrong, because “there was never a war between two democracies”. They think the American democracy can assimilate all the immigrants into traditional American values.
Here’s another summary of their views:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Neoconservatism
the problem is one of defining “criminals” or “terrorists”. the zionists were considered terrorists by the british colonial rulers of palestine. the diaspora materially helped and funded these “freedom fighters”/”terrorists”.
israel-firsters harp on about democracy to sugar what might otherwise prove a bitter pill for the american public. when the election throws up a hamas, suddenly their cheers for democracy die down.
Hear, hear!
Here’s an alternative take on neoconservatism, one that renders their actual actions a bit more intelligible:
http://www.vdare.com/macdonald/030918_neoconservatism.htm
don’t lift the veil, please, it’s impolite.
…it also highlights the importance of stifling non-affiliated scholarly discussion of a controversial “historical” event.
i think it’s wrong to suggest that jewish american trotskyites merely ignored the horrors of the ussr, pre-1950′s. rather, they were active boosters of the regime, and reveled in what was a large jewish representation within the soviet administration.
Interesting link and theory, Beefcake.. on the other hand, I wonder if you know what most authors on that site say about Muslim immigration. Be careful! you could do much worse than being called a neocon.
As for the theory, well, maybe, who knows, but how do you explain the war on Irak? Where are the Jews? Israel is still the closest to a Western-style democracy in the area, which is a straightforward explanation of the neocon support.
Given that Neoconservatism is widely held to be a kind of left-liberal assault on the traditional conservative movement, I’m not surprised that many neocon thinkers are Jewish. For some reason, Jews tend to rise to the top intellectual positions in most Western societies, and they tend to lean left-liberal. I don’t think there’s any conspiracy (otherwise why don’t other minorities conspire and to the same?); they are just smart, disciplined and politically-oriented. They have a strong influence on Western thought, but I think it’s simply a reinforcement of Western tendencies, rather than a calculated, self-serving highjack, as often implied.
I’m aware of VDare’s position on immigration, and I don’t find it particularly objectionable. Then again, I subscribe to Hoppe’s thinking on this matter, so I don’t find the restrictionist position to be as scandalous as many other libertarians do.
Re. Iraq and the neocons: the recent book by Sniegoski (who often writes for The Last Ditch website) called The Transparent Cabal details the role the neocons’ Israeli-centric worldview played in their engineering of the war. Indispensible work.
a fatwa is about to be issued for beefcake the mighty.
i found the sniegoski work on the torrents:
http://bit.ly/cCIC2z
Nice find, newson.
Have a look at this:
http://www.mail-archive.com/pnews-l@yahoogroups.com/msg01666.html
Shocking to learn that this was published in National Review, but things were rather different back in ’58 I guess.
harry elmer barnes, widely denounced as a “denialist”. good article.
good points raised by martin ob. historically zionism and socialism were fellow-travelers, at least until the early fifties, so the left-leaning tendency is understandable. the points about jews being motivated, disciplined, and talented, etc. are valid.
i think david cole explains quite well why the jewish bloc is more monolithic in america than other minorities (in israel more lively debate can occur).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysJFJ4K8oJ8
i think “conspiracy” is gilding the lily. a confluence of interests is more believable. also, i don’t believe that the two cultures are as similar as the neo-cons like to portray.
just for the record, i don’t prance round the house in lederhosen.
For the sake of my own personal sanity, everyone needs to read William Chittick’s The Vision of Islam.
1. http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Visions-Reality-Understanding-Religions/dp/1557785163
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chittick
One bit of misinformed history – the very first Islamic attack on an American interest happened in 1954, 9 months after the United States toppled Iran’s government. Prior to that, you have to go all the way back to the Barbary Wars, and those weren’t actions specifically targeted at the United States, but on any ship passing in the Mediterranean.
It seems to me that the original lighting the powder keg was the whole creating a brutal puppet dictatorship in Iran. How that amounts to “hating freedom” is beyond me.
J.
“It seems to me that the original lighting the powder keg was the whole creating a brutal puppet dictatorship in Iran.”
Iran had a secular government at least from 1921 when the Shah’s father took over the government after a military coup. During WWII Iran was important as a source of oil. The Shah came to power in 1941 after his father was forced to step down by British and Soviet occupying forces. Iran has always been split into factions – the religious factions who “hate freedom” and those who wanted Iran to become a western style secular culture, much like Turkey. The takeover in 1952 was not a takeover by the religious faction – it was a takeover by communists. The CIA, under the urging of Winston Churchill, organized a coup to reinstate the Shah.
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