France gets tough

[Hawk one]

Perhaps, but one is centuries out of date. Can you guess which one?

Centuries out of date? Quick, someone tell that to the American president!!!

 

[BPSCG]

You need to pay closer attention to history.
It wasn't a war to overthrow Saddam;

The first President Bush never said regime change was his goal in the Persian Gulf War. He wanted Iraq out of Kuwait, not Saddam out of Baghdad. His successor, Clinton, added the idea to U.S. policy on Iraq:

• In 1998, Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act. U.S. policy, the law said, should "support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." Clinton signed the bill, which authorized $97 million in military aid and equipment for Saddam's rivals inside Iraq. But his administration sent little of that cash to Iraqi dissidents and didn't provide weapons because it didn't know whom to trust.
• In December 1998, Clinton adopted regime change as his policy toward Iraq. A month later, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled around the Middle East to drum up support for Saddam's ouster. At the time, critics said Clinton was trying to counter complaints that he didn't have a tough policy on Iraq.
• Early in his campaign, George W. Bush didn't sound determined to get rid of Saddam. In a Dec. 2, 1999, Republican debate in New Hampshire, Bush said, "If I found in any way, shape or form that (Saddam) was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if he meant he'd take out Saddam, Bush said, "The weapons of mass destruction."
• Three months before Election Day, however, Condoleezza Rice said regime change would be Bush's policy. "The containment of Iraq should be aimed ultimately at regime change, because as long as Saddam is there, no one in the region is safe," Rice, now Bush's national security adviser, said on Aug. 9, 2000.
• Bush first put Saddam on his target list publicly in his State of the Union address this January, but he didn't use the words "regime change." He said Iraq is part of an "axis of evil" and vowed not to "permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us."
• Bush used the term publicly for the first time at a March 22 press conference with Mexico President Vicente Fox. "We'd like to see a regime change in Iraq," he said. "Nothing is new here."

USA Today, August 26, 2002

Go ahead, say it again: "It wasn't a war to overthrow Saddam..."

Look, demon, every war has lots of reasons and causes. Usually, some are good reasons, some are bad reasons, some prove , in hindsight to have been erroneous, and sometimes you discover things after the war is over that makes you wish you'd gone to war much earlier (think Auschwitz).

This war was no different. To claim that it was strictly about disarming Saddam is naive, ignorant, or disingenuous - your pick (I go with #3).

 

[BPSCG]

Of course the answer to that is that it's in the eye of the beholder. Really, the limitation on retribution is up to interpretation when the law is not precise on the subject (what do you do when you get beyond an eye or a tooth?). And, so, unless we provide the necessary propaganda (is that not what the Bible is?) to teach how this limitation should be interpretted and, thus, break the cycle of violence, is not continuing to fight at all costs simply propagating the cycle?

"Behold, I wish to kill you and your friends and your family."

"But I do not wish to kill you...

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed one of your friends."

"But I do not wish to kill you..."

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed another one of your friends."

"But I do not wish to kill you..."

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed your employer."

"But I do not wish to kill you..."

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed your neighbor."

"But I do not wish to kill you..."

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed your wife."

"Now I do wish to kill you! Lay on, and damned be him who first cries 'enough'!".

"What! Are you mad? You must stop this cycle of violence! An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind!"

 

[CapelDodger]

So how long has Russia been a western country then?

On a Eurasian scale Russia is indeed western, and is certainly European. Its problems with Chechnya are fall-out from an imperialist history, so it does have that in common with Western European ex-imperial countries.

 

[Orwell]

And that was his point. Sheesh. The implication in your comment is that bombing Boston is like bombing Afghanistan, which is just ridiculous.

How about bombing Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, etc.? In the Middle East, large numbers of people have been paying for the sins of a few for quite a long time. That's one of the reasons why the US is so "popular" there... And that's the meaning of the "bombing Boston" comment: it's an example that applies to any situation where the use of force is disproportionate. It seems to me like we have less qualms about using disproportionate force with third-world people (specially if they come from the middle east) than with people from developed nations.

Care to justify that ridiculous assertion, or do you just expect us to believe anything you say?

US officials linking Saddam Hussein to Al-Quaeda (without providing concrete evidence, by the way):
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/09/25/us.iraq.alqaeda/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4694.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6581-2004Jun25.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2709233.stm

No, it's sponsored by several states. So what?

"Care to justify that ridiculous assertion, or do you just expect us to believe anything you say?"

But unoffically, it's a different story.

It's "unofficially". Unofficially, there are rumours of all kinds of things. What matters is what can be proven. If there's no proven link up to the highest levels of government, entire governments can't be held responsible for the actions of a few people. Now, "unofficially", Al-Quaeda has received quite a lot of help from Saudis and Pakistanis. But it also happens that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are very important allies of the US.

Mostly, that's because we already bombed them. This like saying in 1946 that the invasion of Germany was unjustified because Germany wasn't presenting any current threat. What does the state of Germany in 1946 have to do with actions of 1944 and 1945?

There is no conclusive proof that any Middle Eastern state is sponsoring this kind of Islamic fundamentalism. Plus, if we go with rumours alone, the most likely candidates for this kind of sponsoring (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) are both US allies.

But if people see that legitimate grievances get more attention if advertised through terrorism, won't that encourage terrorism?

It's not a "let's get tough on terrorism" or "lets give attention to legitimate griavances" thing. It's a "let's get tough on terrorism" and "lets give attention to legitimate griavances" case. There's been terrorism related to the situation in the middle east for decades now! Has the "all stick all the time" approach worked in the past? No. You need a carrot and a stick.

Why do you put supporting terroism in a category separate from terrorism itself?

When I say "supporting terrorism", I mean believing in terrorist propaganda, and agreeing with terrorist methods. Although this is deplorable, it is not terrorism, the same way that being a racist doesn't make you directly responsible for the lynching of an african-american.

 

[Mycroft]

Centuries out of date? Quick, someone tell that to the American president!!!

The word is still used, but unless your position is that President Bush used it in the same sense as it would have been used back in the year 1300, then you have nothing.

If that is your point, then I look forward to seeing you support it.

 

[Flo]

However, if you're referring to 9/11, I think that could only have worked once, simply because prior to that, no commercial airliner that left from a US port had been brought down by a terrorist action, ever. So the policy was, with respect to hijackers, to give them what they want. That won't happen again, with or without airport security.

Agreed, but there are other possibilities to cause destruction and disruption in air transport when security is as lax as it was prior to 9/11. I suspect that the new security measures closed some other avenues potential terrorists had their eyes on (I've been discussing this with an air traffic controller at GVA airport).

The big security problem that would have made a difference for 9/11 is that people on watch lists were not flagged at the counter. I am not privy to whether that has been changed, or not, but being in the computer business myself, I don't have a lot of faith that an effective system is in place.

From my personal experiences post 9/11, watch lists have been extended and used. Also, there's the fingerprinting et al., that I personally think are over the top, but ...

Well, they were there for a number of years, off and on. At least long enough to become regulars at the strip clubs. And there are Muslim neighborhoods in the US. They are probably not as common as in Europe, but they exist.

Yes, but they weren't there in order to preach to those muslim neighborhoods (as an aside, the muslims I know in Europe don't really know there are muslim communities in the US, outside a few immigrants from Arabic countries).

Here's a serious question, about which I'm generally curious. Do equal housing laws not exist in Europe?

There's a lot of anti-racism laws in Europe, but they are only enforced when some gross abuses or crimes have been brought to light. Employers, appartments owners, etc. can't discriminate on the basis of color, race, religion, etc. They do anyway. They will assume anyone with a muslim sounding name, or black and living in certain areas of town, is muslim, for example. Or if you apply for a job or an appartment, you'll be asked for a picture and if you're "typed", you'll be told it isn't available anymore, etc., and it's up to you to prove the real reason is your race or religion. There are coded instructions in job and renting agencies, for example, and a few have been caught recently and have admitted to those practices.

As for employment, I'm similarly ignorant, although when I was training to become a teacher of English as a foreign language, we spent a day learning about the international CV. It contains a fair amount of information that employers are legally prohibited from asking before a hire, including marital status and date of birth. Religion is right out. I guess they could guess by last name, but in the US at least it would be ineffective, as there are plenty of Christians with Arabic names.

In France, you can't ask for race, ethnicity or religion, but most employers will ask for a picture and guess by name (this plays against immigrants from Eastern Europe, too, btw).

I also must admit that I am ignorant as to what an "entry in dancing" means. Do you mean admission to nightclubs?

Yes (forgive my sometimes poor English). See Capeldodger answer for how it has been established in France too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by dsm
Don't forget the Patriot Act and Gitmo...
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Thanks. Yes, those are frequently cited as supporting the notion that the US is especially bad for Muslims.

Flo, however, is saying something different, and I'd like to bring it out.

I don't have anything nice to say about either. We do also have more and more measures like the patriot act here, and they don't serve much against terrorism but make a nice tool for our governments to keep us "in chains". As for Gitmo, it certainly comes as a nice argument for recruiters of jihadis, since it doesn't contribute to dispell the feeling that the US government uses double standards of the "do as I say but not as I do" sort ...

 

[Flo]

The word is still used, but unless your position is that President Bush used it in the same sense as it would have been used back in the year 1300, then you have nothing.

But someone could have told him beforehand how it would be received in the muslim world. In Europe, almost everybody know and thought "He said he was going on a what ?! Is he nuts ? the Arabs will blow their top upon hearing the word crusade!"

However, I suspect there was more to do with stupidity and ignorance than with malice, in that case (too)

 

[Mycroft]

But someone could have told him beforehand how it would be received in the muslim world. In Europe, almost everybody know and thought "He said he was going on a what ?! Is he nuts ? the Arabs will blow their top upon hearing the word crusade!"

However, I suspect there was more to do with stupidity and ignorance than with malice, in that case (too)

That may be true, but it's a different topic.

The issue we were discussing is if "crusade" is still practiced by Christianity. It is not, and hasn't been for centuries.

 

[epepke]

From my personal experiences post 9/11, watch lists have been extended and used. Also, there's the fingerprinting et al., that I personally think are over the top, but ...

If you're talking about fingerprinting, then I think you're talking about the border. I'm talking about checking passengers' names when a domestic ticket is purchased. This would have stopped Mohammed Atta, for instance.

Of course, this may be impractical due to false positives.

There's a lot of anti-racism laws in Europe, but they are only enforced when some gross abuses or crimes have been brought to light. Employers, appartments owners, etc. can't discriminate on the basis of color, race, religion, etc. They do anyway.

This happens in the US, of course, as well. However, I think that there are probably more options for civil suits.

 

[Luke T.]

Lately, I've been thinking this whole Islamic terrorism thing is missing a key element. I am thinking maybe this is not an Islamic holy war. Maybe this is a racial war. Arab supremacists.

It sort of reminds me of Elijah Muhammad’s black muslims. No whites allowed. The "white devil".

I don't hear these terrorists, or whatever you want to call them, so much slamming Christianity as you would expect in a "holy war," but more of their rhetoric is "anti-western." Anti white.

As for the OP of this topic and what they are doing, this is nothing new to France. Does anyone else remember the ban on girls wearing scarves on their heads to school?

 

[Skeptic]

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed your employer."

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed your neighbor."

"No matter; I wish to kill you regardless. Behold, I have killed your wife."

I guess this example's purpose is to show even murderous Islamists aren't all bad...

 

[CapelDodger]

Lately, I've been thinking this whole Islamic terrorism thing is missing a key element. I am thinking maybe this is not an Islamic holy war. Maybe this is a racial war. Arab supremacists.

This seems to me to come through strongly. The non-Arab dupes of al-Qaeda - Pashtuns, Chechens, Pakistanis, Indonesians - are just that, useful dupes. And it's not Arab in the modern usage, meaning Arabic-speaking. It's specifically the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula, the people chosen by the Big G (sorry, the Big A) to bear the Prophet. Even more specifically it's the desert Arabs, the Bedouin, not the townies and sod-busters of Yemen and the Gulf. Unsullied by materialism, cleansed by the desert sun and wind, ignorant and unconfused, the noble cowboy ... Whoops, swapped idioms unintentionally. (Deadwood on cable, Monday nights, Wild Turkey ... )

Until the beginning of the 19thCE the term Arab, as used by us occidentals, was applied only to the Bedouin, not the settled people of the Middle East. Bin Laden has modelled himself on that Bedouin image, and all of the finance comes from fat Saudi princelings who do the same. Sad really, but terribly human. The new Caliphate is a dead give-away - even if it's not bin Laden ("I'm so worthy I'll say I'm not worthy") it's meant to be an Arab. At the root of the whole al-Qaeda phaenomenon is the reaction to Arab inadequacy.

The sad thing is the way that perfectly adequate peoples, like Baghdadis or Damascenes or North Africans, have allowed themselves to be bracketed with the Arabs Proper. There are some positive signs, though - even Qadafi is identifying with Africa rather than Arabia these days.

 

[demon]

BPSCG:
"Go ahead, say it again: "It wasn't a war to overthrow Saddam..."

Look, demon, every war has lots of reasons and causes. Usually, some are good reasons, some are bad reasons, some prove , in hindsight to have been erroneous, and sometimes you discover things after the war is over that makes you wish you'd gone to war much earlier (think Auschwitz).

This war was no different. To claim that it was strictly about disarming Saddam is naive, ignorant, or disingenuous - your pick (I go with #3)."



I never said that "regime change" in Iraq was not one of America's explicit foriegn policy objectives. It was. I said that regime change was not the condition upon which the invasion was mounted. Nothing in the extract you quote invalidates my statement. Another quick look at the historical record demonstrates this.

“The stated policy of the United States is regime change… However, if [Hussein] were to meet all the conditions of the United Nations, the conditions that I have described very clearly in terms that everybody can understand, that in itself will signal the regime has changed.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-10-2002_pg4_1

Also, from the Sydney Morning Herald of October 22nd 2002.

“It would be possible for Saddam Hussein to remain in power in Iraq if he eliminated his weapons of mass destruction, says the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell.... We think the Iraqi people would be a lot better off with a different leader, a different regime," he said, "but the principal offence here is weapons of mass destruction ... The major issue before us is disarmament."

This is from Tony Blair’s statement to the House of Commons on February 25th 2003, (available here:www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030225/debtext/30225-05.htm ) :

"I detest his regime. But even now he can save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully."


It's also true to say that the US would still have invaded even if "regime change" had occurred and Saddam had left the country with immunity (as he was invited to do):

"”If Saddam were to leave, the American forces, coalition forces, would still enter Iraq hopefully this time peacefully because the Iraqi military would not be under orders to attack or fire back," Mr. Fleischer said. "And that way Iraq could be disarmed from the possession of weapons of mass destruction.”’ (Bill Sammon ‘Bush works to ease tensions with allies; Seeks to mend rift with Russia, China’, The Washington Times March 19th, 2003, p. A10)

 

[demon]

CapelDodger:
"On a Eurasian scale Russia is indeed western, and is certainly European. Its problems with Chechnya are fall-out from an imperialist history, so it does have that in common with Western European ex-imperial countries."

Flo:
"The example of Russia demonstrates nothing. Russia has a specific problem with Chechnya, not with the whole muslim world. Should this problem keep on festering, and the West get involved, Russia will be in the fanatic islamist radar as a member of the "atheist-immoral West". It isn't yet, due to its particular history and links with muslims countries (like Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc.), dissents with Israel, etc."



As for Russia being a western country, what you say is accurate but it demonstrates the point I was making (which you appear to have missed and this is perhaps my fault): that the idea of "anti-western" terrorism is vacuous.

My point is simple: "anti-western" terrorism as a label is almost as useless as labelling it "anti-left handed people" terrorism. The fact that most of the countries attacked are "western" is irrelevant; just as it is largely irrelevant that they are democracies, Christian, or pluralistic, etc.

Perhaps the point I'm making is more apparent in a hypothetical example. Let's assume for a second that it could be proved, beyond doubt, that all terrorists had beards. Would that make "The War on Bearded People" a useful synonym for "the war on terror"? I think, inescapably, that the answer is no.

The fact that the countries attacked are predominantly western is irrelevant. Indeed, even if every country attacked was indisputably western, I would still object to the term "anti-western" terrorism. This is because the term is used -in many cases deliberately and insidiously- to obscure and obfuscate the reasons behind terrorism. Terrorist campaigns each have their own specific motivations. Furthermore, religion is not the principal motive for any of them. Rather, there are specific real or perceived grievances in each case which are the principal motivator.

Lumping them all together under terms like "anti-western" terrorism or "islamic terrorism" obscures this fact and makes the terrorism harder to address. This is because terrorism, shorn of its individual specifities and treated simply as one homogenous phenomonen, becomes an apparently near-arbitrary and virtually inexplicable activity which can only be explained through reference to idiocies such as "they hate our freedoms". Terrorism has to be disaggregated and treated as individual events/campaigns, resulting from certain sets of conditions -not as some unmotivated global event like the weather. The consequence of looking at the real motivations of individual terrorist campaigns, however, is that this exposes realities that the leaders of some countries would prefer stay hidden. The notion that there is some global, coherent, heirarchical Al Qaeda organisation directing it all is the epitome of this sleight of hand.

Terrorism is a social pathology brought about by the combination of a variety of material conditions. The current discussion of terrorism is the equivilent of subsuming all the various mental disorders into the single concept of "anti-sanity", assuming a single cause, and then declaring war upon it. That is why I object to the term "anti-western terrorism": it's nonsensical and dangerous.

 

[CapelDodger]

This war was no different. To claim that it was strictly about disarming Saddam is naive, ignorant, or disingenuous - your pick (I go with #3).

Of course wars result from a confluence of motivations, and of course in a democracy the people in power have to publicise some and suppress others in order to keep public opinion - a serious matter in a democracy - on-side. One argument that has never been used, by any administration, in the US as a justification for war is the benefit of foreigners. US public opninion would not accept war with Iraq for the sake of freeing Iraqis from Saddam, and that argument was never made. Nor was the argument about "spreading democracy". The US public is not going to sanction the expenditure of blood and treasure for the benefit of people they don't know. The Iraq War was promoted as a reaction to a clear and present threat to the US and its citizens. not as a rescuing of Iraqis from other Iraqis, none of whom your average Sherman gives a toss about.

 

[The idea]

Terrorism is a social pathology brought about by the combination of a variety of material conditions.

Could you clarify and support that claim?

 

[BPSCG]

Of course wars result from a confluence of motivations, and of course in a democracy the people in power have to publicise some and suppress others in order to keep public opinion - a serious matter in a democracy - on-side. One argument that has never been used, by any administration, in the US as a justification for war is the benefit of foreigners. US public opninion would not accept war with Iraq for the sake of freeing Iraqis from Saddam, and that argument was never made. Nor was the argument about "spreading democracy". The US public is not going to sanction the expenditure of blood and treasure for the benefit of people they don't know. The Iraq War was promoted as a reaction to a clear and present threat to the US and its citizens. not as a rescuing of Iraqis from other Iraqis, none of whom your average Sherman gives a toss about.

You probably have a good point here. It would be a good argument - it's the Sharansky argument, really - except that it can't be summed up in 25 words or less. It would involve explaining some abstract, fairly complicated concepts, in particular, why the tyranny that loves you is far more dangerous than the democracy that loves you. In these news-by-five-second-sound-bite days, it would be almost impossible to make the case, because most people are of average intelligence, which, as Kurt Vonnegut once observed, means they can't think at all, except in short bursts. Your broadcast news is news by slogan: shots of people chanting "No blood for oil!" and "Abortion is murder!" and "Four legs good, two legs bad!" (oh, wait, that's Animal Farm...).

That's one of the things I like about this forum. I can make a long, complex argument, full of subtleties and abstractions, often over a period of days, and not get shouted down the second someone hears something he disagrees with. He may disagree with it anyway, but I'm able to make that complex case, and the majority of people here are capable of understanding it, and digesting it, even if they ultimately disagree with it.

But most public discourse gets reduced to "It's a woman's right to choose!" and "Guns don't kill people, people kill people!"

And the case for a war has to be reduced to "WMD! WMD!", while the more complex reasons get shunted aside.

 

[CapelDodger]

As for Russia being a western country, what you say is accurate but it demonstrates the point I was making (which you appear to have missed and this is perhaps my fault): that the idea of "anti-western" terrorism is vacuous.

I agree entirely that terminology is a problem. It distorts perceptions by conjuring up "the west" - a crop of the Cold War, sown in 1917 and reaped in 1990, and still not including Russia. (Life was so simple in the old days ...) You asked "Since when was Russia western?", and as far as I'm concerned it always has been. Long before Napoleon crossed the frontier, French was the polite language of Russia. Russia has always been the space created by occidentals pushing back orientals. Even Sovietism was created solely from European philosophical components.

Modern-day "Islamic terrorism" encompasses an array of local conflicts, most of them represented in Pakistan which was always an accident waiting to happen ... I digress. The "anti-Western" badge - meaning anti-progress, anti-modern, anti-future - is a distraction. We should look at each indiivdual conflict and ask which side represents progress. Often the answer is "neither", but hey, that's the species we have to live with.

 

[CapelDodger]

And the case for a war has to be reduced to "WMD! WMD!", while the more complex reasons get shunted aside.

I have an issue with universal suffrage. Basically, I'm agin it. One could argue - on this forum, for instance - that spreading the fundamental values of the US Constitution to the wider world will bring benefits, hard to quantify but why demand precise measurement? One could then argue that the most important place to spread them to is the US of A ...

The US Constitution tries to define an oligarchy, not a democracy. In those days "democracy" was a negative term, synonymous with "mob-rule" today. Democratic Oligarchy has been subverted - not just in the US - by an aristocracy via promotion of the franchise ad absurdam.