The conundrum of what motivates terrorists to do what they do has always baffled me, and still does. You say the answer is "justice." Is not justice in the eyes of the beholder? I see the blood and gore after innocent Israelis are killed on a bus and I wonder how any ARAB could think this is in any way justified. Is that justice to them? If so, how do we ever, EVER change their minds? OR, and I suspect this is the truth, are we spoonfed the "facts" as the media interprets the facts?
We've learned trusting the media is naive. I just can't believe that "ordinary" Palestinian mothers are that much different than "ordinary" American mothers. I suspect both only want what's best for their children . . . good educations, long lives, happiness, good health, etc.
The media report Iraq is Hell on Earth. I know that's not true . . . but I don't know how bad or how good it is. The same holds true for Palestinians. I'm not convinced we're getting an accurate portrayal of events in the Middle East either.
If we are . . . then I'm still baffled by any country's citizenry that would as a group back the murderous efforts of terrorists. A friend describes their attitudes as the "teeny-weeny" complex . . . they're jealous of us and the Israelis. I can see that to a point, but has life and history beat them down so much that they can't see that hard work begets a higher standard of living? And more respect? And more freedom? And, eventually, all the things other hard-working, freedom-loving citizens enjoy?
THAT is the conundrum. We say "Roadmap to Peace." They hear "the Israelis are taking our land." We say "white" and they hear "black."
How are we EVER going to bridge the cultural differences? The distrust?
A choir knows a hymn by heart and sounds it gloriously in unison. This board is not a choir on this subject.
"but preaching so self-righteously and loudly"
Guilty as charged. You shout by using caps. I shout by strident statements. The nuke mecca crowd shouts with mushroom cloud pics. Moveon.org shouts with Hitler references. We are in better company, differing only slightly from one another and more sharply from the rest of them.
"what motivates terrorists to do what they do has always baffled me, and still does."
I can answer that question, but first I apparently have to get a misconception out of your head. Guess we aren't all on the same hymn yet, are we?
"You say the answer is "justice.""
So siree bob. I said no such thing. We are motivated by justice, and use it, and enact it. Terrorists do not exercise justice and are supremely unconcerned with it. They are after power, not justice - seeking its source, seeking its display, seeking the illusion of it when they can't have the substance.
They think that cruelty is the secret of power, that all powerlessness is caused by morality and self-restraint, that to create power and amass it for oneself all that is necessary is ruthlessness, cruelty, consciously willed evil.
They think that the United States is more powerful than they are because it is more willing to ruthlessly bomb people, to aggressively murder, to lay waste entire cities. They think Jews are powerful because they are cunning and wicked and stick together with lockstep prejudice and humiliate their enemies and listen to no one. They think the rich are rich because they are willing to cheat and steal. They think the poor are the virtuous and the powerless are the righteous.
It is so much easier, you see, to admit that one is weak than to admit that one is morally bad. They diagnose the cause of their weakness as precisely their goodness, their simplicity, their moral easy goingness. Then they seek power by getting rid of these things. By attacking any inward self restraint, by stealing themselves to ignore their humane feelings. Soon they set themselves the task of deliberately doing the most disgusting thing they can imagine.
They superstitiously expect their power must soar as a result. They are thinking to themselves, "to hell with justice, I want revenge, I want power, morality be damned, cut off their heads". They imagine that trashing morality will make them stronger. When they find themselves surrounded by ashes as a result, all cooperation destroyed, all finer feeling evaporating, blind hate everywhere, everything they have ever touched falling to ashes - it never occurs to them that the cause is their cynical maxim that injustice is the high road to power.
At root, their belief that injustice must lead to power is a cosmic or religious faith. And I don't mean Islam. I mean pessimism. They believe that death is stronger than life, that life is a brief interlude between infinite bookends of nothingness, that humaneness and politeness and delicacy of feeling are all lies and things for women, that reality at its core is black pit of desperation. They don't mind dying because they are already dead.
They feel themselves humiliated by their very nature, by their mortality, by their fleeting pointlessness. And they give this humiliation a name. Its name is the west, modernity. Which are to blame for stripping away their illusions and their beliefs, the comfort of sheltering in the hands of a just God.
And they would rather die trying to shatter that humiliation, to defy it even if it is true, than to live in the blink between those bookends of nothingness, pretending this world matters. They say they are dying for Islam. What they mean is, they are at war with the mortality proclaimed by modern secularism as the truth about man. Not because they think it untrue, but because they suspect, fear, that it is true.
So they show no sign of belief in a just judge weighing men's hearts. On the contrary, they think the fate of their civilizations is a purely political matter in their own hands, that can only be advanced by a kind of magical power conjured by systematic cruelty. The root of that thought is scarcely different from the knee jerk reaction you often see even around here - if only we stop being so civilized and such patsies and really get evil and boil our enemies in oil, then we are sure to win. Pray ardently enough to the devil and worldly power must follow. (Think about it - when they call the US and Israel the great and the little satan, and also envy our power and seek it themselves, what are they doing?)
"Is not justice in the eyes of the beholder??"
No it is not. Justice is absolute. It does not cut along the grain of identity groups but across them. It judges men not by their identity but by their conduct and the maxims of that conduct. It distinguishes innocent from guilty and combatant from civilian, not westerner from Muslim. Justice never excuses unlimited violence, it is always directed at reform of the adversary, it always leaves a way out back into grace, if conduct changes. "He killed, he dies" is justice, because it says "those who do not kill may not be killed", and nowhere in that is there anything about identity. It is formal, formal enough for the golden rule.
"I see the blood and gore"
Well that would be half the problem right there. See moral and immoral actions and actors, not blood. Some blood is just, better shed than left alone. Some is sacred, sacrilege to touch. What draws the line between them? Identity? No, justice.
"after innocent Israelis are killed on a bus and I wonder how any ARAB could think this is in any way justified."
First they don't think it is justified, they think it is expedient and useful and revenge and the way to power, they aren't looking to be just, justice is for patsies. Also, Israelis are all criminals, the little satan, cheaters and ruthless. You can tell, just look how successful they are. Only devil worshippers could be so successful in this world, since evil is the road to power. If they were simple and unoffending pacifist sheep, they would just be slaughtered. They have power therefore they are evil, so they deserve whatever they get.
"how do we ever, EVER change their minds?"
They need to learn that the high road to power lies through justice and not through evil, that evil courses always result in ashes and impotence, that their cynicism is at bottom superstition, heresy, error and despair. Until they learn this they must be smacked down every time they attempt to stand on evil. Every time they seek profit in cruelty, they must see it fail.
Lately we have been rewarding them far too much for their troublemaking - Israel withdrew from Lebanon because of ambushes, Philippines withdrew troops from Iraq because of a hostage, Spain withdrew troops from Iraq because of a bombing, Kerry says he will withdraw troops from Iraq because it isn't Nantucket yet. We do them no favors this way. They can only learn that injustice is a road to ruin by encountering ruin promptly when they try to take that road. In the nature of things, they will encounter it, but we can make it prompt or distant. Justice makes it prompt.
"I just can't believe that "ordinary" Palestinian mothers are that much different than "ordinary" American mothers."
You underestimate the effects of war frenzy and racial and religious hatred, as well as the depth a cosmic outlook penetrates the soul and all of life. The sport of mankind through untold ages has been slaughter of their neighbors. Ordinary people in superstitious times past have sacrificed their own children on bizarre altars to monsters existing only in their imagination, expecting thereby to be magically rewarded. A modern suicide bomber's family is not much different. We gave our first born to "god", perhaps we will get power and respect out of it, and at least the government will send us a check.
They do not know what else to do when their policy of redoubled hatred fails, expect to try even harder by testing new canyons of ruthless cruelty. They think becoming more evil and fighting harder are synonymous. They think all power in the world is purely a result of victory, not of justice or cooperation. If they aren't winning yet, becoming more evil is the only remedy that even occurs to them. Give us H-bombs to smuggle into foreign cities, then maybe the devil will give us our due.
I am of course speaking of the terrorists. There are any number of Iraqis who had a bellyful of cruelty under Saddam, know that it leads nowhere, and want justice instead. There are others who enjoyed being torturers endowed with the authority to murder whoever they chose. And there are others who think the only thing wrong with Saddam's cruelty is they were receiving it instead of dishing it out. Which of these is most numerous? Certainly the first, who would rather try justice for a change. But the others are quite active (and evil, even mad).
How do we deal with it? We offer justice as a free offer. If you behave you will be treated based on your actions, not your identity. If on the other hand you want to try your luck at seeking power through evil, you will get plenty of evil out of it, but no power. Because we will stand here and at whatever risk to ourselves, knock out of your hands anything you manage to grab by descending into ruthless evil.
It is an education. A moral education. In the uselessness of cruelty. In the profitability of justice. Those with ears to hear, let them hear. Those without, get justice, of the "he killed, he dies" variety if that is their choice. You can't save a man from seduction by evil. That is his affair, you can't control it, in the end he decides. You can only give him the choice, and make him face the consequences.
Now, does the whole choir understand this? Does the whole choir understand, that this moral and philosophical difference is why we have choirs and they have suicide bombers? Why we practice cooperation in the production of beauty once a week, while they preach death to the infidel?
It is not enough to wave "our civilization" around like an identifying flag. We have to actually understand why we are civilized, and live that being civilized. And that means trying to teach them civilization, not imitating their worship of evil as an entirely imaginary source of worldly power.
Is that preachy enough for you? Understand yet why I am go off about this?
Some people just love to hear themselves talk, and if educated way beyond their intelligence, it shows in incoherent sentences that make no sense, big words notwithstanding.