Brace yourself, folks, because I'm about to emerge from my self-imposed hiatus from political blogging to air some of my musings, which, I'm sure, Joshua will no doubt take umbrage with, thus initiating a lengthy comment thread.
I mention Joshua, by the way, because this post is brought to you by The Red Pages.
As much as I hate to trot out a worn analogy, I feel I must jump back into the wayback machine to 1941. Oh, say, December 7, 1941. Something happened around that time, starting with Pearl and ending with Harbor.
Imagine, if you will, in the days, weeks and months following Pearl Harbor, that the U.S. sat on its hands, taking a timeout to really address and discuss the core reasons why the Japanese hated us enough to bomb Pearl Harbor.
"Oh, if only we hadn't stopped shipping them our scrap iron, this never would have happened!! If only we better understood them, they wouldn't have attacked us!! We should be building schools for the Japanese while working to address and dispell the core reasons things have gotten to this point!!"
It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Couldn't have happened. Not a chance. The idea that we should have responded to Pearl Harbor through diplomatic feel-goodism is just idiotic to its core.
And yet, today, there are those who can say, with righteous indignation, that 9/11 was simply the expected punishment we shouldn't have been surprised to have received. If you just look at our past foreign policy missteps, they say, we should have seen it coming.
Sorry, folks, but on that rather cool yet bright September morning--and you can call me a idiot on this if you want--I didn't see that coming, and I certainly didn't think we deserved it, not even just a little. And I still don't.
I graduated with a minor in history, but I didn't really start learning about the history of the Middle East until Sept. 12, 2001. It was kind of the massive rap on your wrists with a ruler that prompts you to bury your nose in your homework.
I've learned a lot, since then and now: about Israel, about Saudi Arabia, about Iraq, about Iran, about Palestine, about the Taliban and about Islam and Fundamentalist Islam in general. And, you know what? After three years of intensive study on the topic, I can say, with strong conviction that, had I known all of this information on Sept. 10, 2001, I would never have guessed that the next day was going to unfold the way it did. I just wouldn't have seen an attack like that coming, and I certainly wouldn't have thought we deserved it for some reason.
All of this is a hamfisted way of getting back to The Red Pages post that irked me. It's a great historical look at the Israeli/Palestinian situation. It points out, correctly so, that Jews were historically persecuted by the Christians far more than by Muslims. It points out, correctly, that the animosity that exists between Jews and Muslims today can be traced to the establishment of Israel and the turning of the back to Palestine. It points out, perhaps correctly, that Islamic Fundamentalism didn't always exist to exterminate the West. It wasn't always the case that Fundamentalist Islamic terrorism was our enemy. That's only the case today because of failings and mistakes and exercises in political expediency along the way.
None of which really matters.
The Japanese, prior to WWII, weren't generally considered an enemy. The road that led to Pearl Harbor was gradual, and nuanced and, in retrospect, it's not surprising that it happened, but it was certainly surprising at the time, and we certainly didn't deserve it.
Perhaps, 60 years from now, we'll read about the War On Terror, and we'll be treated to a historical perspective of the build up to 9/11, and we'll see all the causes and effects, and then we'll close the book and put it back on the shelf, secure in the knowledge that, despite the mistakes that may have been made, even by our own country and its leaders, leading up to the war, we'd still know that it was a war that needed to be fought. And won.
Posted by Ryan at June 21, 2004 12:28 PMI recently replied to just such a question with:
Interesting question, "Why did they feel so strongly to want to do such a thing here?"
What would be your answer? Would you think that there's something you've done to make such a thing be done to you? Maybe it's not some form of revenge, maybe it's something else completely.
If a man should rape you, what did you do to cause it? If a man robs you, what did you do to cause it? If a man should act the tyrant, what did you do to cause it? Perhaps it's not about you, not about your country, not even about your politics or religion.
They do it because they can, because it gives them a feeling of power, because the culture and religion they were raised in restricts them so severely that the only way they can figure out to get power is to perpetuate terror upon the innocent.
Any innocent, be in workers in a skyscraper, or vacationers in Bali, or even Iraqi standing in line for a job. To fight a war with soldiers is too hard, civilians are so much easier targets for such cowards. Terrorists are the ultimate bully and like bullies they live to hurt the weak and helpless, not the strong.
And if you think that they can be reasoned with, you're just wrong. If you think they will keep their word, you're wrong. If you think they want peace, you're wrong.
Oh, say, December 7, 1941. Something happened around that time, starting with Pearl and ending with Harbor.
Yeah. You know what one important difference between Pearl Harbor and September 11th was? It's really obvious. I'm sure it'll pop into your head if you think about it for a while. Got it yet? No? Okay: the attack on Pearl Harbor was perpetrated by Japanese soldiers using materials manufactured and supplied by the Japanese government, on orders from Japanese high command. The attack was accompanied by a formal declaration of war (And there's a debate about whether there was a screw-up with regard to when that declaration was delivered— if it was supposed to be delivered moments before the attack rather than after it. In either case…). It was therefore reasonable to retaliate against the nation of Japan in response to that attack.
So how 'bout you just never use that stupid fucking analogy again? Hm? How would that be?
Imagine, if you will, in the days, weeks and months following Pearl Harbor, that the U.S. sat on its hands, taking a timeout to really address and discuss the core reasons why the Japanese hated us enough to bomb Pearl Harbor.
You know, these kinds of remarks often make me really angry. Because my first inclination is to assume that you're attributing this sentiment to me out of some desire to impugn my character. That you're trying to make me look stupid by ascribing an argument to me that is patently ridiculous. But, as I'm sitting here getting all pissed off, it occurs to me that this might actually be a case of the opposite being true; maybe your goddamn knee was jerking so hard, you had trouble reading my original post.
I didn't say we should have spent the weeks and months after September 11th sitting on our hands trying to really address the "core reasons" for the attack. What I said was that the situation in the Middle East has more underlying reasons than Michele and her frothing hoards seem capable of recognizing. I did not say, but I did imply quite strongly and went on to say explicitly in my comments, that the current approach to handling terrorism in the Middle East fits a very unsubtle, and quite possibly completely inappropriate, model of causality for conflict in that region: that Islam is an inherently xenophobic and extremist religion an that Arab Moslems are all, as Michele says, "barbaric animals" and that the best response to the actions of the 9/11 terrorists is to "go to war with the Middle entire East".
This approach is wasteful, and it is also dangerous: 19 men can kill 3,000. That is not radically less true now than it was three years ago.
It may have taken you three years to feel like you understood enough of what was happening in the Middle East to think intelligently about what would have been the best response to the situation; but the United States Federal Government already (I do them the credit of assuming) had the basic facts about the political history of the Middle East in hand when the towers fell. The invasion of Afghanistan was carried out very quickly, and the invasion of Iraq was carried out in spite of massive international resistance. In any event, it is clear that the Bush administration did not sit around on their hands, waiting for popular approval of their actions. I am not suggesting that they should have.
I discuss the matter of context now because what we, as Americans, are soon to be tasked with is to evaluate the actions of the current administration in their handling of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I chose to critique Michele's description of Islam and Middle Eastern politics because I believe her description of events is emblematic of an inaccurate, racist, and overly general description that is being promulgated in part to support the actions of the current administration in response to those attacks.
All this "Pearl Harbor" bullshit is utterly beside the point. It would have been mostly beside the point the day after the attacks, and it's surely to fuck beside the point now.
the attack on Pearl Harbor was perpetrated by Japanese soldiers using materials manufactured and supplied by the Japanese government, on orders from Japanese high command
The attack on 9/11 was perpetuated by terrorist soldiers using materials manufactured and supplied through a loosely knit organization that could, quite reasonably, be called a type of government, on order from the terrorist hierarchy.
So, yeah, the analogy still holds. I'd love it if there had been a place on the map called al-Queda-stan, but there wasn't. There isn't. Just because this particular war doesn't fit the nice definitions set forth by some global body does not make it any less of a war. When I watched the footage of the 9/11 strikes, I wasn't left thinking "Wow, this requires some sort of police action so we can arrest terrorist individuals." I thought "Wow, we're really at war. Shit's gonna hit the fan."
I wasn't trying to make you look stupid, Joshua. I thinks it's safe to say that you're far from it. The Red Pages post just was the spark that set off my neurons and got me thinking about a lot of stuff I've been absorbing over the past few weeks and I wanted to vent.
Posted by: Ryan at June 21, 2004 04:23 PMterrorist soldiers
Contradiction in terms.
using materials manufactured and supplied through a loosely knit organization that could, quite reasonably, be called a type of government
No, it couldn't. We haven't recognized it. The UN hasn't recognized it. They haven't applied for recognition, they don't govern anyone but themselves, etc, etc, etc. I could call you a type of government. I can call a baseball a type of government, but hey: I'd be wrong. Kind of like you are, right now.
You know why we can't go to war with the Aryan Nation? Because they're not a nation. They don't have a government. You know why we can't go to war with the Crips? See above. You know why we didn't carpet bomb Montana after Oklahoma City? See above. And, I'm sorry, but this is the weakest argument I've ever seen from you.
Also? Which materials, exactly, were manufactured and supplied by this faux-government? I believe the airplanes were made in Washington State. The box cutters were probably made in China. Maybe they bought them at Wal*Mart. At least one of them received their flight training in Germany.
So, you know, if you're actually going to suggest that my "supplies and materials" argument also applies to the 9/11 terrorists, then somebody needs to bomb Boeing, Germany, and Wal*Mart immediately.
Oh, hey, wait— I've got it. The jet fuel probably came from the Middle East. So I guess that explains everything.
And finally, make up your mind on this soldiers thing. Either "terrorists" are "soldiers" from a "government"— and therefore get POW status— or they aren't, and they don't.
So, yeah, the analogy still holds. I'd love it if there had been a place on the map called al-Queda-stan, but there wasn't. There isn't. Just because this particular war doesn't fit the nice definitions set forth by some global body does not make it any less of a war.
So, first of all, the word "war" has been misused a lot in the last 30 years (war on drugs, war on poverty, war on obesity), but the word does still have a meaning (kind of like the word "government"). War is a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties. One of the important words in that definition: "open". Also, "between nations, states, or parties." If you, as a private citizen, go to Cuba and blow something up, then go hide in Florida, that doesn't give Cuba the right to go to war with Florida. Florida hasn't attacked Cuba. You have. There are extradition procedures. There are international courts. But that's handled through diplomatic channels. Sanctions if necessary.
Or it might be handled with spies and assassins; the Mossad illegally kidnapped Nazi war criminals from countries they didn't have extradition treaties with. They assassinated terrorists involved in the Munich Olympics bombing. I don't support that, but there are reasons it was done that way. One of the reasons is that it minimizes collateral damage.
And, just to lay this out there— if the fucking Mossad, from a country the size of Rhode Island, can hunt 12 people down, surely the United States, with all our resources and technology, can manage it.
Oh, come on. The U.S. didn't "recognize" mainland China for years, but did that make China any less of a governed nation? And, hell, Palestine is widely understood to have a government all its own, yet they're a government without a nation. So, I think your interpretation of what a governed nation is is pretty much still up for debate. Terrorist networks have a hierarchical command structure that's not unlike fascist regimes of today. The fact they don't have concrete borders is a sticking point I'm willing to concede, but that still makes little difference. I mean, if al Queda were to somehow seize control of Saudi Arabia and plop OBL as caliph, do you think the U.S. and U.N. would "recognize" their nation? No, I didn't think so.
Which materials, exactly, were manufactured and supplied by this faux-government? I believe the airplanes were made in Washington State. The box cutters were probably made in China. Maybe they bought them at Wal*Mart.
Nice end around, but you're totally blurring the point. Terrorist organizations are largely self-funded organizations that arm and train their members. They may not be building their own AK-47s, but they're certainly buying them and supplying them to their terrorist ranks.
War is a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
You know, it's the "parties" thing that kind of gets me here because, I don't know, I guess I find myself thinking of terrorist organizations as "parties," but maybe that's just me.
There are extradition procedures. There are international courts. But that's handled through diplomatic channels. Sanctions if necessary.
All of which, historically, have just worked swimmingly, too. Sanctions certainly brought Iraq to its knees, or at least its populace. And diplomatic channels sure intimidated that Milosovic guy and kept him from mass murder. And how's that international court coming along with his trial anyway? Just askin'.
Posted by: Ryan at June 22, 2004 09:34 AMOh, come on. The U.S. didn't "recognize" mainland China for years, but did that make China any less of a governed nation?
See, here again, I find myself getting angry because I really have a hard time believing you don't know better than this.
So, first of all, let me address the recognition issue; I used recognition specifically because it was the easiest and most obvious one. But the recognition issue is hardly the only one, thus the, "they don't govern anyone but themselves, etc, etc…" part of that paragraph.
Terrorist networks have a hierarchical command structure that's not unlike fascist regimes of today. The fact they don't have concrete borders is a sticking point I'm willing to concede, but that still makes little difference.
1. According to your definition, the Boy Scouts of America, the YMCA, the Salvation Army, and all corporations are governments. Baseball teams are governments (does that make a baseball game a war?). Of course, any such organization can influence the machinery of government, and when that happens there are certain questions of civil process that must be applied to them. But that doesn't make them governments in and of themselves.
2. By the very loosest definition, a government is anything that influences, controls, or restrains the behavior of anything else. That little gizmo that keeps a rental car from going faster than 55 miles per hour is a governor; your jock strap governs your package— or, more accurately, the pouch governs and the strap is the infrastructure of government. The material plane is governed by the laws of physics. Can we declare war on physics? No. You know why? Because not everything that governs is a government.
3. Or, hey, let's look at it this way: if al Qaeda is a government, then we're at war with al Qaeda. But we didn't attack al Qaeda. We attacked the government of Afghanistan. If a civil government can be held responsible for the actions of a pseudo government operating within its borders, does that mean that any nation where a U.S. corporation engages in illegal activities (such as coercion, threats and murder, to break unions or prevent the advent of unions), outside U.S. borders has a perfectly legal claim to invade the United States and take the executives of that nation back to their country for criminal prosecution, killing as many American citizens, soldiers, and cops as necessary to carry out that goal?
4. That border issue? It matters more than a "little".
And, just in case it's not clear, the subtext here is, "Don't be a tit. There's a difference between a government and a gang, group, organization, or team."
Nice end around, but you're totally blurring the point. Terrorist organizations are largely self-funded organizations that arm and train their members.
Yeah yeah. But we weren't talking about terrorist organizations in general. We were talking about the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks. You compared 9/11 to Pearl Harbor, and our attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq to the U.S. attacks on Japan in World War II. I pointed out that there was a clear, documented, declared link between the soldiers, materials, and weapons used to carry out the 9/11 attacks and the government we retaliated against. And you wrote:
The attack on 9/11 was perpetuated by terrorist soldiers using materials manufactured and supplied through a loosely knit organization that could, quite reasonably, be called a type of government, on order from the terrorist hierarchy.
You wrote that, evidently, as a rebuttal to my point about the obvious need to attack Japan in response to Pearl Harbor versus the much less obvious need to attack Afghanistan or, for fuck's sake, Iraq in response to 9/11. And, because you seem to be in the mood to attribute statements to me that I didn't make, let me be clear what I'm not saying: I'm not saying that the Taliban should have stayed in power, nor am I saying that Saddam Hussein should have stayed in power, nor am I even saying that the Taliban didn't have connections to al Qaeda. What I'm saying is that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 guys who, not to put too fine a point on it, seem to have gone out of their way to avoid using any resources at all that could be connected directly to any government in any way and that, as far as that goes, Pearl Harbor is a terrible, inaccurate, misleading analogy for the 9/11 attacks. The only things the two events have in common is that they A) killed a lot of essentially innocent people and B) drove the American people into a frothing homicidal rage.
Point being, I'm not blurring a goddamn thing. You're trying to generalize your argument because it was patently inaccurate to case.
All of which, historically, have just worked swimmingly, too. Sanctions certainly brought Iraq to its knees, or at least its populace. And diplomatic channels sure intimidated that Milosovic guy and kept him from mass murder. And how's that international court coming along with his trial anyway? Just askin'.
You know, this is what really gets up my ass about these debates. You try to play this game of "I'm just being realistic. All that 'diplomacy' stuff doesn't work. What we really need is direct application of overwhelming force, because that's the only thing that works against some problems." You cop this attitude like I'm some kind of big softie for advocating sanctions— like I'm advocating half-measures that won't be useful because of my overriding idealism and my faith in due process, while you're operating from this stance of hardened pragmatism.
What I rarely come right out and say (though I've suggested it pretty plainly several times) is that there are two ways to look at "due process". The way that is most positive and productive is to look at it in terms of idealism and respect for the rule of law. But the rule of law serves another purpose: it masks the exercise of power, and prevents conflicts from spreading. And, in case it slipped your attention, the paragraph after the one where I suggest sanctions suggests assassinations.
Machiavelli wrote that, "however strong your armies may be, you always need the backing of local people in order to take over a province." That the United States sits at the head of a global empire is hardly a secret at this point. That supporters of the Bush administration have economic motives for pushing the invasion of Iraq is a point you have conceded on this blog several times. As far as that goes, one of the problems I'm addressing in my demands for "the rule of law" is that these people, these economic imperialists, are fucking incompetents. They either ignore the basic rules of how to hold power, or they follow them so badly that they might as well have ignored them.
By and large, they achieve their ends in the most obvious, direct fashion possible, and they always seem to imagine that an overwhelming display of force will pacify the local inhabitants of the areas they seek to exploit. But that's not how it works. It wasn't how it worked 500 years ago, and it's not how it works now.
There's a good dialogue in Stephen King's Firestarter, where the character Rainbird is thinking about how to get something he wants. And he remembers a safe-cracking class he took when he was getting his training at Langley, with this ex-convict who'd been hired to teach the class. And the con tells a story about these two guys who found this great score. So they broke in, did everything right, and then used a bunch of nitro to blow the safe. But in the process, they burned the money. And Rainbird reflects that this is typical of the United States federal government; instead of applying some art to a situation to get what they want, they always lay in with the nitro. Then they're left standing there, covered in scorched green confetti, wondering what the fuck just happened. And they never learn from their mistake.
George W. Bush burned the money. Donald Rumsfeld burned the money. Dick Cheney burned the money. Haliburton burned the money. Right now the Middle East is just a big smoking crater full of scorched green confetti. And, lest we lose sight of this, one of the reasons that's fucked up is that it means the people of the middle east got doubly screwed.
It's like when someone broke into my ex-girlfriend's car once; they swing a crowbar at the side of the car and smashed the main driver's side window, and bent the door frame. But the radio had already been stolen out of the car a week or so earlier, so they ended up picking all the change out of the ashtray. I was annoyed about the radio, but insurance covered it. But if I'd caught up with the asshole with the crowbar, I'd have cut his nuts off with a teaspoon. Thieves are bad enough. But incompetent thieves are a public menace.
Do some people in the U.S. government have the right idea? Do some people in the current administration know what needs to be done in order to successfully take over a province? Yeah; building schools and hospitals and subsidizing gas prices in Iraq are all steps in the right direction. But invading in the first place was the wrong way to go. Invading on the scale we did, without U.N. support, created a degree of animosity that exceeds the goodwill created by schools and hospitals. The prison abuse scandal? Same thing. And now U.S. energy interests will stay in Iraq to exploit the resources they gained during this invasion. And people in Iraq will hate them, and will continue to be violent toward them. And the U.S. will always have that need to go back in there and defend U.S. economic interests in the region. It's clumsy and stupid and unnecessary.
Everyone makes fun of Bill Clinton. They call him Slick Willy. Whatever; Bill Clinton was a guy who could get what he wanted without burning the fucking money. You know why I'm voting for Kerry in November? Not because I think he's a good guy. Not because I think he's as smart as Clinton was. I'm voting for him because I'm hoping he'll be a guy who knows how to crack a safe without blowing the contents all to shit. It offends my ideals, but I'm enough of a pragmatist to see that Bush and his crew of grunting Neanderthals are the greater of two evils. As far as that goes, his "flip flopping" only bothers me because it's the mark of a clumsy manipulator. But even a clumsy manipulator is likely to be more precise and efficient than the Bush administration
a small point: it wasn't a rather cool morning. bright, yes, but really quite warm already by 8:43 a.m.
And attacking a country in retaliation for the actions of its government is one thing. Attacking a country in retaliation for the actions of a loosely scattered group of people, a small estimated percentage of whom are believed to probably be within its borders, is something else entirely. But it's a something else we've done a coupla times now.
In November 2001 I had reason to travel to Fort Worth, Texas, and hang out with a bunch of military folks. Primarily Navy and Marine officers. One thing they all kept telling me, as soon as they found out I live less than two football fields away from the World Trade Center site, was "We'll get 'em for ya." I kept saying, over and over, I didn't want anyone to go get anyone for me. It was clear then, just as it's clear now, that a miltary approach would not be the appropriate one against a hidden, maneuverable, rather well-funded, secret enemy.
What we're doing is killing flies on a rhino with a hammer. And we keep smacking the rhino. And c'mon, do you really wanna piss off a rhino?
Posted by: mixup at June 22, 2004 03:18 PMWell, it might have been warm for you in NY mix-up, but here in MN it was decidedly cool.
Posted by: Ryan at June 22, 2004 04:14 PMFar be it from me to speak for her, but I think that's not altogether what she was getting at, Ryan.
Posted by: Joshua at June 22, 2004 06:21 PMThieves are bad enough. But incompetent thieves are a public menace.
No shit. I once owned a 85 GM C/K truck, one of the easiest things to break into on earth while living in St. Paul. Even I can get inside one with a clothes hanger in about 20 seconds. Some dumbass kid pries the lock cyclinder out of the door (!), gets in the car, fucks the dashboard and and radio all up, can't get the radio out, and finally steals my Aja (yeah, yeah, I know) CD out of the car. Must have taken 10 minutes. Complete bloody amateurism.
the 9/11 attacks... drove the American people into a frothing homicidal rage
Oh, honestly.
Posted by: Dylan at June 22, 2004 09:57 PM
Stumble It!
