Posted on 03/15/2004 2:26:56 AM PST by NZerFromHK
Edited on 06/28/2004 10:22:27 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Let me get this straight. Two-and-a-half years after September 11, on a similar eleventh day of the month, 911 days following 9-11, and on the eve of Spanish elections, Al Qaeda or its epigones blows up 200 and wounds 1,400 Spaniards. This horrific attack follows chaotic months when Turks were similarly butchered (who opposed the Iraq War), Saudis were targeted (who opposed the Iraqi war), Moroccans were blown apart (who opposed the Iraqi war) and French periodically threatened (who opposed the Iraqi War).
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
As you alluded...The shame-honor behavioral theme is frustrating and potentially deadly:
Some nuggets from David Pryce-Jones "The Closed Circle":
"Acquisition of honor, pride, dignity, respect and the converse avoidance of shame, disgrace, and humiliation are keys to Arab motivation, clarifying and illuminating behavior in the past as in the present".
In the west, what is said and done more or less corresponds to the intentions of the speaker and doer...Lying and cheating in the Arab world is not really a moral matter but a method of safeguarding honor and status, avoiding shame".
Sami al Jundi, a Syrian politician:.."Society persecuted us, and so we defied it and began to destroy all institutions with much intelligence and much stupidity, like children growing up who, with time, became more childish".
Ah, more German moral authority. It's funny. Older Germans I met, including many who had been officers in WWII, were profoundly ashamed the government had let the terrorists go, and that the attacks had occured. They felt it was a breach of German honor that the police had not been able to protect the Athletes. Students, as I mentioned before, cheered the Palestinians.
It has been asserted by a number of Europeans - and Americans as well - that Iraq has distracted us from the "real" fight against al-Qaeda, and that no direct link has ever been proven. This is in error. On February 23, 1998, in an Arabic newspaper named Al-Quds al-'Arabi in London, Osama bin Laden and the leaders of Jihad groups in Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangledesh published their declaration of war against the West. There were two principal grievances cited - U.S. military presence on Saudi soil, and the attack of the U.S. forces against Iraq. (Palestine, incidentally, was nowhere to be found.)
It is simply the case that Iraq and al-Qaeda and a number of radical Islamist organizations were inextricably linked and that the toppling of Saddam Hussein has interrupted and weakened, but not halted, the accession of the Islamists to an ability to commit acts of violence against civilians with (1) international sanction, (2) formal state-level funding and support, and (3) an inviolable sanctuary.
This was not a minor threat, and this isn't simply a few bombs. It is quite literally a new form of warfare, engineered to take advantage of international conventions that Europeans seem to regard fondly as a replacement for military defense. It was dangerous enough when funded privately by some of the wealthiest men in the world - bin Laden, for one - but once welded to the degree of support that may be offered by a modern nation-state, has become something fully dangerous enough, in my view, to justify the bellicosity you perceive on this board.
If I might offer a gentle criticism it is that most Europeans of my acquaintance aren't taking the matter seriously enough; that a preference for regarding Americans as wild cowboys whose principal response is shooting the saloon up has resulted in a comfortable and extremely dangerous complacency.
I assure you and the other European readers that the matter is a very serious one indeed. This has little to do with mainstream, ordinary Muslims and everything to do with a small, educated, wealthy cadre of radicals intent on forcibly steering the power of the collective that is Islam to their own ends. It is political activism on a very European model, in fact. It is Lenin, it is Hitler, it is Mussolini. It can be extremely effective, indeed, the history of the 20th century is largely as bloody as it is due to it.
Again, welcome to FR. It would be very good if you would continue to offer your perspective here, in my opinion.
Hehe, that's just being friendly. Wait till you hear what they say about California or Massachussetts.
Welcome to FR!
And without adressing the individual differences: I think Bush is to blame for a lot of this current rift, as he didn't manage to communicate well (not only all the WMD-talk at the UN). His diplomacy was in the end more one of division than of unity amongst us Western countries, comparing him to former Presidents. (Regardless now over the direction of his political views - only history will tell there, which is right)
For all his faults, lets not forget though that it was no secret that Europe (along with Canada who still remains on GW's shitlist) didn't like him even before the election and didn't want him to win and pulled for Gore. Not exactly a wise thing to do so that kind of blame goes both ways.
And the West is also an easy scapegoat, as we tend to have a historic arrogance towards Muslims, which also easily locks horns with prideful Arabs.
Aside from your anti-Bush views you make good points. Although coddling the terrorists with jail time I would take disagreement with.
You may need to rethink either that or your solution to terrorism.
Something happened during the Iraq war that, although incidental to it, did exactly what you stated elsewhere: "you need to withdraw the reasoning- and propaganda-basis for them".
As a result of Saddam Hussein's threatening invasion of Saudi Arabia since the first Gulf War, the U.S. stationed military bases there as protection.
The biggest item in a Declaration of War that Osama bin Laden issued against Americans in 1998 was the presence of the U.S. military in that country.
By removing the threat from Iraq, the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia was no longer needed, they are now out of the country, and the major sticking point in that Declaration of War has also been removed.
Where would I find articles from this VDH?
I am well aware that I ain't the first German here and since discussing politics seems your everyday bread-and-butter for you, my arguments also won't be anything new. Though I actually don't view myself as "typical", but as rather pro-American - I do find our media often to be one-sided and often turn to something more neutral, like BBC. I know BBC probably isn't popular around here, but they are somewhat in the middle between German and US-media and more focused on "just the facts" than a rather opinionated selection of news.
"I am not convinced" sums it up rather well indeed. It is actually a quote from our foreign minister, who held a speech in German at the Munich Security conference early 2003. In the end, he suddenly switched to Englisch, turned personally to Rumsfeld and told him "Mr. Rumsfeld, I am not convinced". (And - looking at today's evidence - who was right? You can not ignore the fact that "evidence" on WMD was poorly and in a manipulative way interpreted by the Bush-administration)
I mentioned it once IMO, and this because I had seen it as an argument from Freepers. I am aware it was "only" the West-Coast, though I don't know how that would change the issue, as it is the USA.
And no, of course it can't be compared to Auschwitz, silly, no one said or suggested that. But it is a drastic and widely casted net over also many innocents - that was the point. You know: All men are equal, civil liberties, guilty until proven innocent - those basic virtues, which must be weighed against such.
Aaaah, exactly. You are so much more honest than any speeches from Bush prior to the war. Refreshing. And I am even willing to acknowledge possible merits of arguing for such a case - but fact remains:
Those were not what Bush sold it to us. He pressed for WMDs (as Wolfowitz even achknowledge past the war, mostly for "technical reasons") and this is exactly the beef why Europeans in Spain or the UK ask so much more than their American counterparts: "Well, where are they? Were we lied to?" It seems sufficient for Americans to "have done the good deed to remove a dictator", even if no weapons are found. For us, it is the profound issue whether the "official" reasoning for war was the truth or not. Americans shouldn't underestimate that when they point fingers at "weasely Europe"
You maintain that until there is a settlement of mideastern grievances there will be terror. Those are the ultimate german weasel words that bring knots to American stomachs. THE past 75 years of history force an honest man to recognize that the settlement of these grievances is the extinguishing of the state of Isreal. The grievances of the middle east were born in the beer halls of Munich and the ministies of Berlin, not in Cincinnati or Chicago.
I don't think they are weasel words. They are a sober evaluation of the situation. And I am quite painfully aware how the shadow of the Holocaust brought a huge additional hardening to the emotional atmosphere. (Though anti-semitism itself is sadly also much older than Hitler - but the main trauma is the Holocaust)
There is a great documentary on that event called "One day in September". THe entire handling was all a shameful disaster.
You are right even that many of these students back then sit today in Schröder's cabinet (not meaning cheering on hostage-takings - but being leftist demonstrators, sympathizing with the Palestininan cause, protesting Vietnam, etc).
But you shouldn't forget to mention that one of the reasons for the student demonstrations back then was the bad handling of De-Nazification post-1945. Many Nazi-members had careers past 1945 and sat in powerful positions. And when you talk of officers from WWII, I - as a 60s-born German - immediately think of "Oh, Officers? In what war-theater? Did they participate in the scorched-earth-policy in the East? Gave helpful assistance to ethnic cleansings?"
Did you hear of the big debate in the past few years over a controversial exhibit called "Verbrechen der Wehrmacht" - "The Crimes of the Wehrmacht"? An attempt to highlight that it was not "just the Waffen-SS" out there in the fields doing the bad stuff, but also parts of the Wehrmacht to engage in war crimes?
Once again, the ghosts from the past have their influence.
Quite true mostly.
And I wouldn't even view the gun-crazy part as something negative: It seems a bit of a deal that America has the willing role of a protector (While EU could do a bit more, would Americans really want a France or Germany armed up to its teeth, matching the US? I don't think so), which we other Western countries gladly finance with cheap money. US of course also gains the advantage from its military and intelligence superiority that it will always have "the edge" in shaping economic enviroments to their advantage, while we are happy campers riding in the shadow and being good consumers for them and they for us.
You are also right about complacency being a European problem, though I view that more on other fields, like our horrific inability to adjust our currently well-running societies to the coming dangers, like drastically shrinking populations with all its explosive consequences like empty pension-funds, etc., the constant expansion of the EU with weaker and weaker economies, which will have to be fed through by the rest, etc, etc. It gives me nightmares to think of it and the nauseating inability by politicians to confront it, but this complacency doesn't play a role on the differences in perception of WOT and the Iraq-issue.
I assure you and the other European readers that the matter is a very serious one indeed. This has little to do with mainstream, ordinary Muslims and everything to do with a small, educated, wealthy cadre of radicals intent on forcibly steering the power of the collective that is Islam to their own ends.
True. And what would the best antagonist for a group of fanatic Muslims wanting to stir up a Jihad amongst their fellow moderate believers? Perhaps a Christian radical, who publically called for a Crusade and who mentions whenever he can his Christian beliefs?
This sort of drastic summary is actually the other main fear that we have, aside from the uni-lateral approach: Bush comes across as driven by radical religious beliefs, a Christian Crusader. Osama couldn't have asked for a better opponent to fill the old cliches of Crusades and Jihad once again, could he?
I am a Christian myself, but the "typical European Christian" - I am a member of the Church, pay my money, but only attend for ceremonies of some sort. I pray rarely, and that only in private. It baffles me to see calls for prayer posted even here on this political board. Unthinkable over here. Since I lived for a bit in the US myself, I know where this comes from and I respect that, but it does instill a fear in me that there are people _on both sides_ who not see this with a clear analytical political mind, but to argue from their religious background and a religious gut-feeling that this is now "the big fight once again" between Christians and Moslems.
Certainly the radical muslim side is the agressor and the dangerous terrorist - I don't mean to compare, but I see a religious approach also on parts from our side, which IMO will blur clear thinking when trying to avoid blaming Islam in its entirety.
The officers I knew were, for the most part professional panzer and kavallarie officers, from families long in Prussian, Saxon or Bavarian service. All of their fathers had served in WWI, and their grandfathers had served in the Danish, Austro- and/or Franco-Prussian wars. Many of their great- or greatgreatgrandfathers had served with Bluecher at Waterloo. Some of them fought in the East, some in the West, others in North Africa.
Thank you for the amazingly satisfying, cogent and reasonable exchange on a volatile subject. I admire your erudition, your restraint and your depth of knowlege. I envy your equanimity.
You have touched on an extremely sore point with me: the astounding notion, held by most Europeans (and a sizeable number of Americans) that if "we" are entitled to have nuclear weapons and/or weapons of mass destruction, every other country in the world is similarly "entitled", regardless of their track record on the prerequisites to membership in a civilized society or a civilized world.
First of all, stripped of all the BS, no country, group of countries or supergroup (the UN) is authorized to bestow "entitlement" That is why World Wars happen. That's is why they are likely to happen again. Power itself is the sole enabler, and the record of the United States is remarkable in recorded history, in its unique restraint. Most other countries, even those deemed "civilized" would have used and abused the power we have wielded for real empire building, and national maneuvering. In overt ways. I can picture Germany and France, even Belgium and Holland, those national midgets, permanently taking over all the Middle East oil fields and administering their personal "OPEC". There is no doubt in my mind.
The only reason they can never do that is lack of means. Belgium, France and Holland, to continue the example, are no longer present in the Pacific, in Asia or in Africa simply because they lost the means to do so, and are sulking in their past glories, substituting moral posturing for impotence.
It is pathetic. In my fantasy world the United States would remove all military aid from Europe, both physical, support and definitely financial. Let them stew in their delusionary paradise. Let them, as you put it, "solve the problems they have created" and quit whining. The solution will not be easy no matter who forces it; but it can be bloodier. A lot bloodier. I just hope in the next round, the blood and wealth sacrificed and gone forever is totally European.
One small point: the Froggies still have a couple of Pacific colonies (Tahiti and Bora Bora -- where there are pleasant Club Meds I am told by friends who have been there). Otherwise, the Dutch , Belgians and French are pretty completely excluded from their former colonies in the Pacific and East Asia.
Another critical point about which we disagree, both as nations and as individuals. You see it as a "police matter", I see it as infinitely more serious, more deadly and totally unresponsive to the police universe where "All men are equal, civil liberties, guilty until proven innocent - ... apply. Which leads me to answer another question you raised: Who is VDH?
He is Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian who was discovered by our government and is an advisor to them now. He is an academic, not an activist or politician. He teaches military history at our Military Academies. But his book, Carnage and Culture discusses the underpinnings to the argument that the "treating terrorism as a police matter" is ineffective and totally inappropriate from both a historical and a pragmatic point of view.
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