What if it's not Israel?

[Mycroft]

Time and time again Israel is given as the reason for middle east problems. From pronouncements of why Bin Laden and co. is "really" angry with the West, to absurd pronouncements that peace in (fill in the blank) can’t be achieved until the Israeli/Arab conflict is resolved first.

It never made sense to me. What does Israel have to do with Morocco? Why should the Israeli/Palestinian-Arab conflict need to be resolved before stability is brought to Iraq? It doesn’t make sense that it’s all in sympathy for the Palestinian-Arabs when there are so many other abuses against Muslims that are worse that get little or no attention.

Here is a writer that asks the same question:

WHAT IF IT'S NOT ISRAEL THEY LOATHE?
by Amir Taheri

In his recent foray into Ramallah, Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw identified the Palestine-Israel conflict as the most important issue between the West and the Muslim world. Straw was echoing the conventional wisdom according to which a solution to that problem would transform relations between Islam and the West from what is almost a clash of civilizations to one of cuddly camaraderie.
But what if conventional wisdom got it wrong?

I have just spent the whole fasting month of Ramadan in several Arab countries, where long nights are spent eating, drinking coffee and, of course, discussing politics.

There are no free elections or reliable opinion polls in the Arab world. So no one knows what the silent majority really thinks. The best one can do is rely on anecdotal evidence. On that basis, I came to believe that the Palestine-Israel issue was low down on the list of priorities for the man in the street but something approaching an obsession for the political, business, and intellectual elites.

When it came to ordinary people, almost no one ever mentioned the Palestine issue, even on days when Yasser Arafat's death dominated the headlines. When I asked them about issues that most preoccupied them, farmers, shopkeepers, taxi drivers and office workers never mentioned Palestine.

But when I talked to princes and princesses, business tycoons, high officials, and the glitterati of Arab academia, Palestine was the ur-issue.

Complete article. It's worth reading in its entirety.

Biography of Amir Taheri.

 

[karl]

Even if the Irael/Palestine conflict happens to be a low-priority issue for most Middle Easterners (compared to their daily survival), it has been proven time and time again to be a very effective tool for drumming up support from certain groups of politically active people. Much like gay marriage in the US.

 

[a_unique_person]

I don't believe that if there was no Israel, the ME would be a land of peace, love and harmony. I do think it is a significant factor in problems that are being experienced, however. Other factors are equally or more important. Eg, the transition from tribal to democratic societies, the tribalism that divides and unites Arabs, the rise of fundamentalist Islam, the legacy of centuries of colonialism, etc.

 

[da bear]

Something that kind of sent a twinge through my brain is, what's the motivation for a very right wing public relations firm having this article on it's site?

From
disinfopedia ...

Jim Lobe describes Benador as follows:

"When historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the US media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been… But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neo-conservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months."

— Jim Lobe, The Andean Condor among the Hawks Asia Times, August 15, 2003.

The Asian Times article at The Andean Condor link is an interesting read actually.

 

[materia3]

Wasn't OBL's self-stated reason for 9-11 and other planned terrorist acts and actions based on his deep rooted objection to the presence of United States troops and materiel on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia and perhaps elsewhere in the region following the end of the first gulf war? Wasn't the Cole parked in Yemen, ossie's birthplace? This must have been too much for him to take.

The reason for the instability in the region is paranoid lunatics like OBL. If elite arbaic intellectuals and press try to connect this to Israel, rather than call a spade a spade, that's their problem. OBL has asserted his paranoia as rationale over and over again. Israel vrs. Palestine is a fringe issue with him.

History is filled with both secular and religious charismatic fanatics, delusional saviors and paranoid schizophrenics. We have no shortage of them in the U.S. either. OBL belongs right up there with Hitler, Stalin, David Koresh, Jim Jones and other personalities of similar note. He's just another member of that club who got lucky ...so far. I saw a recent analysis of who the insurgents are in Iraq and it was pointed out that before the invasion Saddem (add him to the list) released 120,000 criminally insane inmates from his prisons. Here's a gun. Be a good boy now and go shoot some people.

 

[Nikk]

I saw a recent analysis of who the insurgents are in Iraq and it was pointed out that before the invasion Saddem (add him to the list) released 120,000 criminally insane inmates from his prisons. Here's a gun. Be a good boy now and go shoot some people.

120,000 criminally insane people in a country the size of Iraq?

What is your source for that?

 

[Pescado]

120,000 criminally insane people in a country the size of Iraq?

What is your source for that?

I don't recall any exact numbers, or any mentioning of mental stability, but I do recall that in the months before before the Iraq invasion Saddam did indeed release prisoners. It may have even been a majority of prisoners, but like I said, I am not sure. It was in the headlines at the time and probably could be Googled, but I'll go ahead and leave that to somebody else.

 

[materia3]

120,000 criminally insane people in a country the size of Iraq?

What is your source for that?

The country is 437,000 square kilometeres. The July, 2004 population estimate is 25 million and change. Source for this:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html

Source for Husayn emptying the jails was an American military officer being interviewed on a cable news program. I agree, I don't know if the 120K people Saddam Husayn jailed during the years before his reign toppled are all certifiably criminally insane. Probably a good deal of them did nothing at all. We finished the job of emptying the jails ourselves when we got there and then started filling them up again. Saddam no doubt used this ploy to make sure there would be total chaos on the ground there. It worked. There is.

There is no doubt Saddam Husayn jailed a lot more people than deserved incarceration.

Anyway this officer opined that he thought the ranks of the insurgents came from among many of these released "criminals"
and his viewpoint was that they were criminally insane. Now that's a term to be reckoned with in this context. People willing to strap bombs on themselves and fill their cars with explosives in order to die for some fabricated religious reason or to protect their country which up to the fall of Husayn they didn't have much stake in anyway could be construed as insane in some quarters.
So we can get picky if we want to or just look at what's happening.

When being released the prisoners probably were told told they were being freed to help fight for their country, and of course, for Islam. That's the kicker.

 

[Nikk]

And why should criminals become insurgents?

Typically criminals want money and saleable goods and prefer to target those weaker and less prepared than themselves. The US army and the Iraqi armed services don't fulfil those criteria.

It is very likely that recently released criminals have contributed to general disorder such as looting, kidnapping for money and all sorts of routine crime but hard to see why they should be tempted by high risk low monetary value targets.

 

[materia3]

Interestingly while we were on the subject, and you can find recent items on this in Google, the U.S. has over 2 million men, women and children in prison, probably half of which are due to drug related crimes and a disproportionately higher number of blacks and latinos among that number ... groups that turn to drugs for economic empowerment. This is nearly 1% of the U.S. population. At the same time we have a puppet government in Afghanistan which is the world's largest heroin producer with all of the country involved save for Kabul and President Bush has given these drug lords a free pass. He tries not to talk about it and steadfastedly ignores questions from reporters on the subject; and he and Cheney ignored questions about it during the debates as well. Figure that one out.

Regarding Iraq: So what % of 25 million is 120,000? Less than a half a per cent. Not so far fetched.

 

[Mycroft]

And why should criminals become insurgents?

Typically criminals want money and saleable goods and prefer to target those weaker and less prepared than themselves. The US army and the Iraqi armed services don't fulfil those criteria.

I suppose that depends on why they were "criminal". Are these people who would have become insurgents against Saddam? If so, it's reasonable to believe many of them would take advantage of the chaos to struggle for the type of government they wanted. If that type of government were different from what is likely to result from elections, then armed conflict with coalition forces is likely.

Regarding Iraq: So what % of 25 million is 120,000? Less than a half a per cent. Not so far fetched.

.0048%

 

[materia3]

And why should criminals become insurgents?

Because they are recruited, clothed, fed and armed and even paid to do so as their jail doors were opened. What better source of corruptible manpower?

Typically criminals want money and saleable goods and prefer to target those weaker and less prepared than themselves. The US army and the Iraqi armed services don't fulfil those criteria.

See number one above. They are paid, fed, armed and clothed for attacking such targets.They are now part of large gangs with theoretically noble goals. Petty thieves who work outside the insurgency are attacked and murdered by the insurgents.This is part of the Mafia-style technique of eliminating the competition by sanctioning those who work outside the clan.A few examples and the others are quick to line up.

It is very likely that recently released criminals have contributed to general disorder such as looting, kidnapping for money and all sorts of routine crime but hard to see why they should be tempted by high risk low monetary value targets.

In a sane world such as the beautiful tranquil countryside around Kent where we know the motives and rationales of the bad guys and the good guys I would agree with this assesment. Iraq is a world turned upside down and everything you consider from home means nothing. Not only are the insurgents being given weapons and explosives, fed, clothed and paid, they are being instilled with firebranded religious fanaticism as well, coupled with a patriotic duty even though everyone is trying very hard to set up an Iraqui led and elected government by the end of January.Their stated intention is not to allow this to happen.

By any rational account it should be their patriotic duty to make sure it happens. Oh, but then throw in internecine tribal differences/warfare as well and you complete the recipe for disaster we have there now. Without a doubt we have seriously miscalculated the situational outcome there. We cannot compare the unique combination of pressures being exerted on the insurgents in Iraq with anything we know in England or the U.S.

In the U.S. we have an ironic expression for this taken from a line in The Wizard of Oz: "Dorothy, this isn't Kansas anymore."

 

[Cleon]

.0048%

Your math is a little off:

120,000/ 25,000,000 = 0.0048 = 0.48%

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

I think that there's a fairly simple answer to Your question Mycroft.
That being that every state in the middle east has a dream of some sort of ethereal "Greater Arab" Middle East. Since T.E.Lawrence and the house of Saud was established. They envision a pan-Arab entity not only in terms of a political framework but also theoratically.

That means just by it's mear existence Israel is a poke in the eye of Qaddafis and Saddams. Couple that with the idea that the US has different scales of behavior for Israel and another for everyone else and there Ya have it . A festering swamp of violence.

There can be no accommodation between the two extremes since it's a question of yes or no, Does Israel have the right to exist? I think We know the answer and the outcome.

 

[Nikk]

Regarding Iraq: So what % of 25 million is 120,000? Less than a half a per cent. Not so far fetched.

The figure is not high for ordinary criminals/minor enemies of a repressive regime. But my original comment referred to your suggestion that there were 120,000 criminally insane people released and that would be a staggering figure.

 

[Nikk]

And why should criminals become insurgents?

/snip/

By any rational account it should be their patriotic duty to make sure it happens. Oh, but then throw in internecine tribal differences/warfare as well and you complete the recipe for disaster we have there now. Without a doubt we have seriously miscalculated the situational outcome there. We cannot compare the unique combination of pressures being exerted on the insurgents in Iraq with anything we know in England or the U.S.

In the U.S. we have an ironic expression for this taken from a line in The Wizard of Oz: "Dorothy, this isn't Kansas anymore."[/i]

Actually many experts ( and even non experts like, ahem, me ) on the area predicted that a violent resistance movement would develop after a successful invasion.

I think that the idea that released criminals are the backbone of the insurgency is a red herring though.

The invasion led to the discharge of the Iraqi army including all its officers, most of whom were Sunni's from the areas where the insurgency is strongest. The loss of Sunni dominance was also a direct threat to all those leaders and tribes who benefited from and participated in Saddam's rule. This gives you the skilled motivated base for the insurgency. On top of that you have all the wide eyed unemployed young men who resent a foreign, christian invasion. Further you have all the idealistic foreign jihadists who can think of nothing better than dying for Islam . With all that lot you don't need to pay many crims to do your fighting. There are motivated and often skilled volunteers to do the job and the dying.

The current estimates are about a 75% 25% split between the locals and the foreigners. It would be interesting to know how many of the suicide bombers are foreigners as I have seen it suggested that the Iraqi's try to use them for these sort of operations rather than volunteer themselves.

 

[a_unique_person]

Wasn't OBL's self-stated reason for 9-11 and other planned terrorist acts and actions based on his deep rooted objection to the presence of United States troops and materiel on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia and perhaps elsewhere in the region following the end of the first gulf war? Wasn't the Cole parked in Yemen, ossie's birthplace? This must have been too much for him to take.

The reason for the instability in the region is paranoid lunatics like OBL. If elite arbaic intellectuals and press try to connect this to Israel, rather than call a spade a spade, that's their problem. OBL has asserted his paranoia as rationale over and over again. Israel vrs. Palestine is a fringe issue with him.

History is filled with both secular and religious charismatic fanatics, delusional saviors and paranoid schizophrenics. We have no shortage of them in the U.S. either. OBL belongs right up there with Hitler, Stalin, David Koresh, Jim Jones and other personalities of similar note. He's just another member of that club who got lucky ...so far. I saw a recent analysis of who the insurgents are in Iraq and it was pointed out that before the invasion Saddem (add him to the list) released 120,000 criminally insane inmates from his prisons. Here's a gun. Be a good boy now and go shoot some people.

Yet when he wanted USSR troops out of Afghanistan, he was a freedom fighter and a hero.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

You can give that up right now AUP.

The US has an extraordinarily long history of duplicitous behavior in our dealings politic. The expedient embrace becomes tomorrows nightmare. That can be shown in the far East , the Middle East , South American juntas like Pinochet and all our other proxies. It continually amazes me that the idiots in charge consistently make the same mistake over and over with what they think is an eye for realpolitik. Regardless of party in power.

The freedom fighter of today becomes the enemy next week. Ever see the picture of Rummy with Saddam? Very telling.