Hey Woo . . . wasn't this guy supposed to be a millionaire?Anne Applebaum has just discovered that most terrorists are not "the illiterate warlords of Waziristan." I am not certain that the illiterate warlords of Waziriztan are the illiterate warlords of Waziristan, but let us not get distracted. Since just after 9/11, which was likewise carried out by something other than illiterates, the so-called West has reacted with the same shocked dismay that engineers and doctors and elementary school teachers and suchlike have been so often implicated in various acts of terrorism or insurgency or irregular combat or what have you, despite the fact that engineers and doctors and elementary school teachers and suchlike have been so often implicated in various acts of terrorism and insurgency and irregular combat and what have you. This suggests some kind of a priori fallacy, does it not? I mean, if your own personal Weltanschauung is consistently rocked by seismic WTF moments, then maybe you need to set all those neatly ordered continents adrift.
Alora. If you flipped on al-Jazeera and found their infotainers gathered in a koffeeklatch gaggle around a brightly-lit, technicolor dream set wondering how it could be that a CIA forward operating killbot command center was populated by multilingual, highly educated Americans rather than methsmoking subliterate Great Plains cannonfodder stock, you'd laugh. It would seem preposterous. Obviously the genetic mulligan stew of America's great brooding middlelands provides a fair portion of our grunt quota, but just as obviously we are going to send the smartest of our true beleivers to do the really Important work. No one is surprised by this. The surprise that anything other than a cave dweller would sign on to fight the Americans suggests only that we still cannot wrap our fat-thickened Western brains around the notion that, agree with it or not, there are people in this world nursing real grievances against us, willing to fight and die just as some of us are. One can hardly spit in the direction of an NPR affiliate without splattering some fatuous report on a Harvard Medical grad who forsook his lucrative ENT practice to dress wounds in Afghanistan--that guy is practically an archetype in our wartime Commedia. So why should the other side not have theirs as well?
Part of the shock in these instances is that professionalism is assumed by Westerners to mean Westernized. Clearly those primitive Others could not produce medical doctors! This is our last remaining ideology, a sort of monopolistic modernity, which struggles with the notion that there may actually be a few universities in the Muslim world. It is simply presumed that anyone attaining some modest degree of literacy, vocational ability, and access to a satellite dish will become immediately Americanized. We are very content to repeat the self-congratulatory silliness that imbues a certain moral superiority in something we call innovation, frowning biliously in the vague direction of Mecca and complaining that They are merely using Our inventions against us. And while there is a certain truth to the notion that for the last few centuries, anyway, Europe and North America produced a large part of the world's scientific and technological advancements, the idea that this fact alone obliterates cultural preferences and makes any supposed value system other than our own some kind of pathology is the purest of hubris and the most asinine sort of egotism. (Meanwhile, it turns out that the Hindus and Confucians and Shinto and so forth are quite good at science as well, for what it's worth.) The presumption that every educated Muslim will turn Washingtonward because the West produced the technological systems that said Muslim was trained to operate is wholly nonsensical; it has nothing at all to do with the political and cultural antagonisms driving the ongoing insurgency against American hegemony. Osama bin Laden is not, after all, complaining that Windows is a clunky operating system or childhood vaccination has somehow created autism. He and his compatriots are pissed that America keeps fucking invading other countries.
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Meanwhile, it turns out that the Hindus and Confucians and Shinto and so forth are quite good at science as well, for what it's worth.
I give thee Fermat's Last Theorem done by proving the Tanyama-Shimura Conjecture, by means of Iwasawa number theory.
The Christians
it turns out that the Hindus and Confucians and Shinto and so forth are quite good at science as well
That's because they are honorary whites. Try to keep up.
And yet, when we inundate them with Western comforts, they quiet right down and start surfing the internet for porn while eating cheetos. It's instructive to note that the ones who resist adopt the costuming of the cave dwelling illiterate (or maybe just perhaps their/our impression of it?).
Could it be that this whole jihad thing is just a bunch of (actually deadly) poseurs? Maybe deconstruction is the answer, after all!
nothing is fucked here. these guys are fucking amateurs.
It is simply presumed that anyone attaining some modest degree of literacy, vocational ability, and access to a satellite dish will become immediately Americanized.
Except the French, of course...
You must be a lover of Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Real Americans know there's no such thing as "American hegemony."
what are you a fucking park ranger now?
Whether you and your fellow hipsters here succumbed to it or not, IOZ, the real a priori fallacy in operation here, ably exploded by Applebaum, is the decades-old, prog-pleasing nostrum that Muslim terrorism is some sort of "poor man's warfare", arived at through default necessity by plucky, socially and economically oppressed indigenes, inspired just like their proggie apologists by universal peace, love, brotherhood and the anti-American Way.
Instead, Muslim terrorists are either themselves wealthy and well-educated, or else funded and otherwise directly enabled by wealthy, well-educated Muslims, united in their implacable, murderous hatred of Israel and the infidel West. It's all well and good that you and yours were never deceived by the Freedom Fighters canard, IOZ, but the hordes of credulous, sanctimonious proggies make you the exception not the rule.
Ink, next time just go with "they hate us for our freedoms." It's much catchier.
Also, too, Al Gebra is the second largest threat to America after Al Qea... whatever u call it.
Hold thy tongue, Donald—I speak of men,
Not eaters of the fig in motley clad
Affirming to ride bareback in reverse.
These men be none of worth, and I’ll have none.
IOZ,
yo dude your post is flawed. American army is mostly made up of southerners and white trash, right? Not elites, eh? So your whole comparison is somewhat proves da point I think? Idk.
Peace,
- GucciManeFane
Inkberrow,
my wife is not the issue here!
serious consideration of the motives of terrorists, or acknowledgment of their stated objectives (i.e. to challenge American imperialism,) is seldom tolerated in polite company without being met with accusations of anti-Americanism, or ending up with someone being called an apologist for terrorism. perhaps if the discussion were allowed to proceed out in the open, fewer pwoggies would be deluded about the minutia such as the economic status of the individuals who would attack the empire.
"fewer pwoggies would be deluded"
i think you've got the cause and effect backwards there.
Almost all of the intellectual leaders of Islamic terrorist groups are educated in the West and have been for quite a while.
European and, to a slightly lesser extent, American universities love nothing better than to spread notions of Western decadence, hegemony, etc. among traveling students. The conflicts these students engage in later create lots of State Department and NGO jobs for starry-eyed Harvard poli sci and sociology grads. Plus the professor looks incredibly smart for developing some fancy new theory of oppression. Bonus points if it's Marxist but not, you know, the bad kind of Marxist.
The terrorists send their smart ones to blow up our planes, and we send our dumb ones to invade their countries. Ah, the circle of life.
the decades-old, prog-pleasing nostrum that Muslim terrorism is some sort of "poor man's warfare", arived at through default necessity by plucky, socially and economically oppressed indigenes, inspired just like their proggie apologists by universal peace, love, brotherhood and the anti-American Way.
I believe the issue is their, um, lack of worthwhile armies, navies and air forces, you dumb bastard. Hence, terrorism.
Anon @ 4:53---
So, short-form: "Nasser, ergo terrorism"?? Longer form: "Plenty of moolah, but bad soldiers and generals, so we'll blow up school buses"??
Nutella---
If by "freedoms" you include "support of Israel", I agree. Plus Middle Eastern Muslim manhood was humiliated last century, and America's the toughest kid on the block.
Montag---
It's not that economic status of our attackers is minutiae, just that you're predictably rooting for the truffles of blame in the wrong pasture. Start in the Fifth Arondissement, or wherever the late Arafat the Egyptian's luxury digs are, or in the Swiss accounts holding the pilfered billions in Western aid to Palestine. Then proceed to the palaces of the elites in Middle Eastern Muslim nations. You'll find there's a decided and arguably unnecessary gap betwixt ultra-rich and ultra-poor, almost enough to make good proggies weep at the sight....
I'm reminded of Jeffrey Friedman on the Cambridge Apostles.
Except the French, of course...
Our mutual animosity is due to the fact that we recognize ourselves in the reflection of our counterpart.
Montag, you are correct. Look what happened to Ron Paul when he tried to bring up the subject.
Our support isn't limited to Israel either, Egypt is the second-biggest recipient. The palaces of Middle Eastern elites referred to above primarily belong to our "moderate Muslim/Arab allies". In my estimate, that's far more important to al Qaeda. AQ have pulled off a number of attacks in those countries but have hardly done much about Israel, so my guess is that they just refer to it rhetorically because it's popular to do so. That's just AQ, others such as Sirhan Sirhan may indeed be motivated by Israel. This point also clarifies the issue of inferior militaries: terrorist groups don't have militaries because they are primarily a stateless phenomena. Militaries in sub-Saharan Africa are generally inferior to those of the "moderate Muslim allies" but until the underwear bomber we didn't concern ourselves much with them.
and let's not forget, um, let's not forget: al quaeda was created by US/Pakistani/Saudi support.
the british also supported the wahabbis to destabilize the ottomans. the us now fully supports the hotbed of most "terrorist" activity & ideology, saudi arabia. you could repeat this narrative throughout the muslim world (& elsewhere.)
& yeah, those goatherders in waziristan have the means for "insurgency," but not the means to get on western airplanes to detroit.
"The terrorists send their smart ones to blow up our planes".
On the showing so far, that doesn't say much for the rest of them.
I mean, you think the Washington Post would have a better understanding of this so-called elite through its CIA contacts.
Even when the darkies play dress up as doctors and engineers, it's supposed to be something cute, something meriting a pat on the back and the tousling of the hair, good for YOU for putting down the camel reins and picking up a BOOK you little adorable rascal!
But they're supposed to be toiling in the forgotten backwoods, drilling tiny wells and saving lives through simple, homey techniques like keeping wounds clean, not putting their heads together to think doubleplus ungood thoughts!
Well, for one, I think that the toll taken by the western social state on the society/peoples supporting it is as much an issue in the "rise" of Islam.
So it may be an issue of relative size.
I mean when the turkish leadership declared global islamic jihaad in 1915 everyone had a good chortle.
E.g. if Israel would have 4 million settlers eager to move to West Bank and Gaza, Palis would be much more eager to play ball.
Inkberrow, your response addressed to me is noted. i'll try not to repeat what TGGP and anon 7:24 have said, but your point about the ultra-rich/ultra-poor gap is taken.
"we do it to challenge the foreign oppressors in the region."
"bullshit. you do it 'cause your jealous that you didn't get your share of aid dollars and/or petrodollars."
you're probably right that Western imperialism is blameless. it's not like there's a massive perpetual military presence in the region to ensure certain among the ultra-rich, the ones willing to deal, stay in power.
Inky's got that seething, barely-veiled rage against Muslims at the boiling point.
Inky, I suggest bottling the shit and selling it to AIPAC. I'm sure you'll never have to work a day again.
Montag---
I know it's fun rhetorically to swing between ad absurdum extremes, but give some thought to imagining a position in between Western imperialism as "blameless", and Western imperialism as the fashionably exclusive recipient of blame. It's tiresomely conventional, but it's what grown-ups do.
Charles F.---
Look, I already told you I accepted the Paris Commune as the realization of the human quest for a Just Society. That anti-Semitic stuff just isn't pertinent any more.
anti-semite!
"[B]ut give some thought to imagining a position in between Western imperialism as 'blameless', and Western imperialism as the fashionably exclusive recipient of blame. It's tiresomely conventional, but it's what grown-ups do."
how grown-up of you to bait the same comment thread week after week by calling everyone "hipsters".
Well? Art thou not a man of no regard,
A greasy tallow husk of failèd flesh?
I think you're getting there, but much more succinctly: they are morally justified; the only terrorists are us.
Anon @ 2:09---
I also bait the progressives here week after week by calling them "progressives", and IOZ by referring to him as "our host". I was a hipster myself for a little while, in Spring 1988.
but give some thought to imagining a position in between Western imperialism as "blameless", and Western imperialism as the fashionably exclusive recipient of blame. It's tiresomely conventional, but it's what grown-ups do.
that's not as hard as you probably imagine it would be for an aging hipster (though my beard isn't ironic, it's utilitarian,) such as myself, but i'm guessing there is a position that one could hold, which you unsurprisingly seem to subscribe to, that goes something like, "there are a great many factors at work in this situation, as there are in any political conflict, and though Western imperialism has its role to play, it is by no means solely responsible for the myriad power imbalances, violent conflicts and terrorist backlashes we are seeing."
as for the tendency, (which seems much less fashionable than you make it out to be beyond the far left,) in the US to focus primarily on the role of the US foreign policy of violence and exploitation: perhaps one might come to this focus because they see US militarism as the most deadly force involved in these conflicts, and also the only element that forcibly takes a significant percentage of their wages to finance the bloodletting. what's more, it does so as a 'representative democracy' that ostensibly allows people to have a say, though little impact this "say" has on US policy. they may also see condemnations of terrorist tactics and admonitions against extremist Islamic thought crimes, as extraneous, as addressing the actions of a party (the terrorists) with which they have no right to expect a "say," and as only serving to reinforce the murderous policy responses that they Hope to Change.
ink,
i too once dabbled in hipsterism. not in nam, of course.
How do you think credit crunch affected porn?
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