Gautam Mukunda wrote: > > Because that seems to be normal group dynamics: > > Isolate a group, treat > > them with constant suspicion and act as if they are > > all potential > > terrorists and sooner, rather than later, there is a > > ground swell of > > support, within the same group, for the extremist > > movements. I have seen > > it happen in Kashmir, Punjab and the North-East. > > An Irish friend of mine tells me that this is also > > the pattern she saw > > in Ireland. > > But, here are two potential problems. One, we have a > real security threat that has to be dealt with. > India, despite its extended history of dealing with > terrorism, has never faced anything remotely like the > 9/11 attack, so we (the US) have one that is different > in kind, as well as in scale, from that faced by other > countries.
I agree with the statement that 9/11 was different in scale but what do you mean when you say it was different in kind? It was a terrorist attack, wasn't it? The attack was audacious and unprecedented, the number of victims was more than in any other terrorist attack but what else was so very different about 9/11? I'm not sure but the para above seems to suggest that you are stating that India, despite its problems with terrorism, doesn't face a real security threat from the terrorists...are you saying/implying that? If yes, would you care to elaborate? > Second, _the support is already there_. People in > Muslim countries all over the world celebrated on > September 11th. I've seen the videotape, and so have > most other people. Sure the support is already there but it isn't as widespread as the tactic I outlined above would make it. Andy has already asked but I'll repeat the question here: how many muslims do you think celebrated 9/11? I remember seeing video-tapes of muslims who were aghast at what had happened. I remember most of the 120 million muslims of my country speaking out against the atrocity. > Opinion polls suggest that in much > of the Islamic world, Osama Bin Laden is a popular and > respected figure. Well, in at least three countries he is the international figure they trust the most to do the right thing. But these are the figures after the Iraq war and I have no idea what the level of support was before this war. However, 3 countries still doesn't make it 'much of the Islamic world'. Carry on with the current policies and it *would* be 'much of the Islamic world'. > So I am arguing that it's time to treat Muslims as > moral actors - our moral equals. They have the > ability to make moral choices - to choose freedom over > tyranny, peace over war, civilization over barbarism. > Large portions of the Islamic world have chosen to > support groups that use terrorism in the pursuit of > the vilest ends (we're not, after all talking about > the ANC here, which used terrorist tactics for > fundamentally just ends. We're talking about people > who want to establish Taliban-like rule _over the > entire world_.) Are you suggesting that the ends justify the means, that Islamic terrorism is so horrendous not because they target civilians but because their end doesn't find favour in our eyes? I'll disagree with the notion. Terrorism is terrorism, it is wrong and any clemency in judging the terrorists because we might approve of their ends is counter productive. > We certainly shouldn't accomodate it, > make ourselves more vulnerable to it, or not impose > consequences because of it when that choice impinges > upon us. Who's asking you to accommodate it or make yourselves more vulnerable to it? All I am advocating is that *we* shouldn't make choices which encourage the craziness. There is a massive difference between the two. :) > > Gautam, how many religio-political groups condemn > > their own > > lunatics/extremists loudly, clearly and constantly? > > For that matter, how > > many political organisations/groups do that? > > Such criticism becomes even more rare when there is > > a physical distance > > between the atrocities and the groups. I can't > > remember any Sikh groups > > decrying the murder of innocents in movement for > > Khalistan, can't think > > of a single Hindu group which condemned the Gujarat > > massacres last > > year.......... > > They they should be condemned for it. They are condemned for it, if and when someone gets around to it, that is. But just the particular groups who fail speak up, y'see, not the entire communities. > Saying nothing > when a group commits barbarism in your name is the > same thing as accepting it. Um, not really. If you accept that the group speaks for you, then and only then, are you guilty of endorsing their actions through your silence. If you consider the group to be a bunch of lunatics, you do not usually assume that their actions reflect on you and your morality. Let's look at 9/11 as an example: OBL, born in Saudi Arabia, trained and supported by the US for years, suddenly launches a horrific terrorist attack on the WTC. He decries the Great Satan and calls the death of innocents a 'victory for Allah'. Why would a normal Indian/Chinese/Malaysian/Bangladeshi muslim assume that if s/he doesn't speak out loud and clear, and keeps on speaking until s/he receives equivalent media attention, people sitting elsewhere in the world would start to wonder if s/he has enough humanity and decency to object to infants being the targets of terrorism? What's it got to do with them? Who appointed OBL their official spokesperson? Last I checked, OBL heads a terrorist organisation, not a country or a people. Agreed his guilt is staggering, but why does it have to be spread out amongst those who have never had anything to do with him? How did they earn a share in that guilt? Merely by an accident of birth to Muslim parents? > As Dan pointed out, > plenty of groups _do_, in fact, condemn extremists who > use violence supposedly in their cause. We in the US > see it all the time - so often, in fact, that it can > become a fairly major scandal when a group doesn't do > that. The world isn't the US. So perhaps it would be more practical to pay attention to how things happen elsewhere in the world, understand what the pattern means and tailor your actions to influence those patterns in the desired directions. Outright vocal condemnation is undoubtedly more emotionally satisfying but in the end, it would hinder your struggle to render yourself more secure. > Furthermore, it's one thing to fail to condemn, say, > the Earth Liberation Front when it burns down a ski > lodge. That's bad, and when environmental groups fail > to do that it's a problem. It's another when Muslim > organizations the world over justify the slaughter of > innocents in Israel. I agree. It's incredibly irritating when people think that violence against innocents can be justified by ends but the thing is, I find it equally bad whether it is the muslim organisations who try to justify the suicide bombings in Israel, or Modi talking about Nuclear's laws of thermodynamics and 'hindu rage', basically anybody trying to claim that civilians may be 'rightfully' [or at least excusably] attacked to further any kind of an end or goal. > But we see that over and over > again. If Catholic terrorists were killing protestant > children and the Vatican didn't condemn them, I would > have a big problem with that. But the Vatican _did_ > condemn the IRA. By contrast, over and over again > prominent Muslim clerics consistently excuse and > promote even viler terorrism against civilians all the > time. True. Some muslim clerics do that. And sometimes their congregation hates them for it. In the days after 9/11, the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid [India's largest mosque, built by Shahjahan] praised OBL in one of his Friday sermons. The muslims first yelled at him and told him to take back his words, and when he refused to do so, they stoned him and encircled him within his house until the police came to disperse the mob. He has been rather careful with his utterances since then. :) > If they turend against the terrorists, the > terrorists would lose much of their popular support. A lot of muslim clerics do speak out against the terrorists - for the most recent example, look at how the Iraqi clerics are talking of the violence in Iraq. Some would *never* speak out because they are the ones who *foster* the notion of jihad in their madrassas and masjids. There is after all a strong mullah-madrassa-terrorist nexus, for certain values of the word 'mullah'. > But they will only do so when they have a reason to do > so, and only the outside world can try to create that > reason. When we fail to make demands on the Muslim > world - when we constantly excuse them from making > demands and choices like this, we act as enablers for > what is rapidly becoming a culture-wide pathology. "when we constantly excuse them from making demands and choices like this" - like how? > > Has the Muslim world ever stood up and said that the > > blowing up of > > Jewish infants is a good/acceptable idea? If yes, > > then it is certainly > > their responsibility to refute the statement and > > make whatever amends > > possible. If not, then do you think they might > > resent our assumption > > that all of them lack the basic humanitarian > > instincts to be repulsed by > > the death of infants? > > Quite a few very prominent and important Muslim > clerics _do_ routinely support the terrorists. But > even many of those who do not consistently fail to > condemn them. It keeps happening, over and over > again, and too much of the Muslim world keeps failing > to condmen it. Failure to condemn something isn't necessarily an endorsement of the actions. If the world starts to operate on the the assumption that it does, we'd all be too busy condemning others to ever do anything productive. Look at it from another angle: civilians, adults and children, are being killed in Iraq by coalition soldiers. The Iraqi body count puts the numbers between 7840 and 9668. There doesn't seem to be any outcry or condemnation of these numbers [or deaths] by the coalition govts. All one sees is politics - 'Did X lie?... What did he know?... This proves that Y knew about this...quagmire or not....the reconstruction package as loan or outright gift?..' These incidents keep on happening over and over again and even those citizens of the coalition countries who didn't support the war consistently fail to condemn this loss of lives. In fact, much of the 'coalition world' keeps failing to condemn these deaths..... Does that necessarily mean that the good decent people of US, UK, Poland, Thailand, Australia etc. lack the necessary humanitarian instincts to feel revulsed/saddened by these deaths? I certainly don't think so and if you agree with me, perhaps you could consider extending the same benefit of a doubt to normal, decent muslims....? > So after a while, maybe their > resentment isn't an issue any more, because it starts > to become a real question about those basic > humanitarian instincts. Their resentment would *always* remain an issue unless someone has the stomach to exterminate one-sixth of the world's population. If you don't think you can do that, then you better start thinking in terms of lowering resentments on both sides. > As long as the moderate majority of the Muslim world > that we keep hearing about refuses to turn against the > extremists, then maybe they _aren't_ repulsed by the > massacre of infants. There aren't many signs that > they are. So they don't have any grounds for > resentment. So how many muslim countries have you lived in to check if there are signs of the aforementioned revulsion? How many polls can you cite where the question of the repulsion factor of killing infants was rated as zero by the muslim respondents who took the poll? Any studies which have made a determination of these attitudes and can give the general stats about the prevalence of the same? Or do you judge grounds of resentment the way certain people go : PNAC, War in Iraq -> all Americans are murderous imperialists? > Again, people outside keep acting as > enablers. Self-examination is hard. You have to have > a good reason to do it. As long as the outside world > keeps removing any reasons for that self-examination, > it won't happen. Umm, what makes you think that self-examination is facilitated by constant criticism and perceptions of extreme threat? I have always found that people are infinitely touchier and more prone to dumping all the blame on the 'other' in such situations. <snip> > But the reason Buckley did it was because no one was > out there saying it wasn't conservatives > responsibility to police their own movement and > protecting them from the consequence of sheltering the > lunatic fringe. It was because American society gave > conservatives the choice of change or defeat and > irrelevance that the change happened. Do you see any difference between political parties and terrorist organisations in terms of modus operandi and objectives? If you do, you can see the problems with the example you cite above. I would agree that tracing and neutralising the terrorists would be far easier if one had the co-operation of all the non-terrorist muslims but such co-operation is usually not won through blanket condemnations, suspicion and derision. If you really do want the muslim majority to speak/act out against the terrorists, you'll need to give them a better incentive than dismissing their resentments out of hand and doubting their humanitarian credentials. And, no, bombing them back into the stone age would not count as a better incentive. > > > We are the ones _being_ attacked, not the > > > ones doing the attacking. Episcopalians aren't > > > launching suicide bombing campaigns. It seems to > > me > > > that the burden to prove bona fides should rest on > > the > > > other side of the scales right now. > > > > Who's 'we': A country? A religious group? > > Non-muslims? > > Who's on the other side of the scales: muslims? > > Extremists? Terrorists? > > At the moment it's pretty much the non-Muslim world, > everywhere it comes into contact with the Muslim one, > be it the Israel, the US, India, China, or Russia > (with varying degrees of legitimate grievance on the > part of the Muslim world). Islam's bloody borders, in > Sam Huntington's very apt phrase. On the other side > are what people in the blogger world have accurately > named Islamofascists - radical Islamic groups seeking > to impose radical Islamic rule over, first, Islamic > societies, and then the rest of the world. Thanks for the answer. Now I have a one more question: If Islamofascists are on the other side, then who is to prove their credentials? These idiots have already shown what they stand for many times over. Asking them to prove their bonafides is the same as asking them to stage more attacks. One minor point though: In India, at least, the muslims are very much a part of the people being attacked. We have Islamic terrorism mainly in Kashmir and since most of the Hindus left the valley more than a decade ago, these terrorists end up targetting muslims as often as any other group. > Note - not the _outcome_ of the war. The outcome of > the war is pretty much pre-ordained. If this becomes > a full-scale war of civilizations (which is what Bin > Laden wants, after all), then the _outcome_ is that at > the end, we win. Period. You are far more sanguine than me in this matter, Gautam. I am not so certain that a full scale war of civilizations would inevitably end in western victory. Even if you are right and the west does win, it would be a pyrrhic victory at best. And yes, you are right, OBL does want a full scale war between civilizations. What I don't understand is why Bush seems hell-bent upon co-operating with him. > But it can end happily for > the Muslim world - with Muslim countries free, > democratic, and wealthy. Or it can end unhappily - > with the Islamic world effectively destroyed by > Western military power. The latter is a very dangerous delusion on your part. Oh, I am not saying that the US doesn't have the arsenal to bomb the muslim countries back to the stone age but how many countries can you attack at one time? Who would be covering your flanks while you go ahead and launch this war? Anyway, you wouldn't be able to kill every single muslim in those countries. Every single survivor would be out for your blood then. And what are you going to do about the muslim population in the non-muslim countries? Start a conflagration that huge, in the name of religion, and they wouldn't care if their country is attacked or not - they would want revenge. The Indian muslims and the Chinese muslims and the American muslims.....Is the US going to attack India and China? Turn against its own citizens? What are you going to do about the Pakistani nukes? Is the US going to go alone in this war of civilizations? If not, how are you going to convince the rest of the West to join in? > Which one of those happens is > a product of choices on the part of the Islamic > "moderates" as to whether to support the > Islamofascists or not. Right now, they haven't made > the choice. But the longer they are protected _from_ > making that choice, the more they will do what they do > now - tacitly accept the actions of the extremists > without taking any actions to stop them. And the > longer they do that, the higher the chances that it > will end in that terrible conflagaration. Which one of the above happens is also dependent upon the choices made by the non-Islamic world. If we can resist the urge to polarise the world any further, if we stop with the policies which make people think that the war on terror is actually a war on Islam, if we can stop couching this fight in religious terms, we have better chances of marginalising the terrorists. If we don't get diverted by other plans and focus on curbing the funding for terrorists, restricting their access to weapons etc, we stand an even better chance of neutralising and apprehending the terrorists. > > As for the burden of proving the bona-fides, well > > what bona-fides do you > > want them to prove? > > When did they lose their claim to these bona-fides? > > Who are they > > supposed to prove the same to? > > Also, what would consitute sufficient proof? > > To the people being attacked in their name. I want > them to prove that they _do not_ want to convert the > entire world to Islam by force, that they reject those > who do want to do that, and that they will help us > defeat those who do want that. But I thought you said that the people on the other side are the Islamo-fascists. And they carry on the attacks themselves and *do* want to convert the entire world to Islam by force. They are neither going to condemn themselves nor help anyone defeat themselves. Are you sure you aren't getting confused between normal muslims and Islamo-fascists? You have to choose, Gautam: who's on the other side: all the muslims or Islamo-fascists? If it is the latter, then the lines above do not make any sense. If it is the former, then my response is two-fold: 1] The US had that support post 9/11 and it was frittered away on the war on Iraq. I think that is a pity, especially since my country has never enjoyed that kind of a support against terrorism and I was hoping to see a sensible, coherent global policy against the menace of terrorism. 2] On a more personal level, having lost family and friends to muslim terrorists, I'll presume to count myself amongst those who have been attacked by the same. From that perspective, I am strongly opposed to the notion of having random muslims on the streets feel that they need to prove their lack of support for terrorists to me. I find the notion of group guilt reprehensible and I'll have no part in it. > They lost that claim > when 40 years of Islamic terrorism produced support or > acceptance, not rejection on the part of large parts > of the Muslim world. Sufficient proof would be these > societies turning on the terrorists, rejecting them > rhetorically (no more claims that 9/11 was a Jewish > conspiracy), rejecting them financially (no more > financial support for Al Qaeda), rejecting them in > every way and shape until the terrorist organizations > have been destroyed. Ah, you mean a consistent social, political and economical boycott of the terrorists. Just the way we, the non-muslims, have consistently marginalised and boycotted the terrorist organisations and their supporting nations over the last few decades. We all know where the majority of the funding for the Al-Qaeda comes from today and of course, no humanitarian country in the world has any ties, economic and diplomatic, with the country which funds this nasty organisation. We all know which countries provide training facilities for terrorists and, of course, no decent non-muslim country offers any economic and military aid to these terrorist-breeding countries. Yup, our [non-muslim] response has been incredibly consistent on this issue over the last 4 decades and if only the muslim world would follow our lead, the problem would be wiped out in next few years.... > This war will be decided within the Muslim world. We > in the outside world need to stop being enablers of > the pathologies that have allowed the terrorists to > flourish so far. Yes, let us stop being the enablers - let's stop training and funding lunatics, let's stop supporting repressive regimes just because they better suit our strategic needs, let's stop attacking their countries on the flimsiest of pretexts, let's stop supporting and praising dictators while the 'silent muslim majority' keeps on marching and asking for democracy, let's make it abundantly clear that we possess the discernment needed to distinguish between terrorists and the people who merely share a religion with the same. Let us not isolate them, push their backs against the metaphorical wall and ask them to sort out a problem we helped create before we treat them as humans. Instead, let us abjure these polarisations, cast no slurs on their character and *ask* them for their help in tracking down the horrible people who think violence is a good answer to political problems. > As long as the outside world > continues to do so, the Muslim "moderates" will not > act, because they won't have any incentive to do so. Oh, I think you're mistaken here. The Muslim moderates seem to have strong incentive to want curbs on the fundamentalist school of thought. After all, it is their children who fall victim to these skewed philosophies, their societies which are the first to suffer from this phenomenon. Take Pakistan for example, the CIA and ISI collected the mad mullahs in the 80s and started the Taliban madrassas. The process of Talibanisation carried on in different parts of Pakistan and the desired outcome was soon seen in Afghanistan.ISI too saw the desired outcome in Kashmir. But the moderate muslims in Pakistan were horrified then and are even more worried now. The madrassas still exist, y'see, nobody thought of dismantling them. So they still spread their message of hatred and violence. Frequent coups, rampant corruption and you end up with a country where the only free/affordable education for the non-rich comes from these madrassas. If you think the normal citizens of Pakistan are happy to see their kids go to the madrassas and turn into foaming-at-the-mouth terrorists you are wrong. I have seen mothers of toddlers say that sometimes they pray that India would just nuke Pakistan - at least they would all die together and be spared the sight of seeing their children fall prey to the madness being preached and practiced. 'Better that they die than that they live to kill others', that is what these mothers say while looking on at their children. I don't know about you, but I can neither doubt their humanitarian credentials nor the level of their helplessness and despair. So I'd say that the muslim moderates already have enough incentive to want to stop this madness. These are the people we need to help and the way to help them is not by blaming them or bombing them or telling them that it is their problem and they need to solve it before we even entertain the possibility that they might be human after all. Imho, the way to help them is by stop helping their enemies, the people who establish and propagate the fundamentalist madrassas, people who silence any sane opposition and leave only the nutcases talking. So perhaps Mushy can be asked to do something about the madrassas, perhaps Mushy can be asked to hurry up the re-democratisation of Pakistan and stop throwing his political opponents in jail. Mushy claims to be an ally of US in TWAT - perhaps he can be asked to ensure that Al-Qaeda is at least declared a terrorist organisation in Pakistan..... > Our responsibility is to stop being enablers. Since > September 11th of 2001, the US and its allies have > taken up that responsibility. It's time for the rest > of the world to do the same. Who are the allies of the US in this context? Is the rest of the world the same as Islamic world or are we talking of yet another group? Ritu GCU Prepared For The Deluge _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
