Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology By Lee Harris

polict review ^ | 8 2002 | By Lee Harris

[dennisw]

ping

[dennisw]

Written August 2002

[Credo]

Wow.

The only corrective I could see is that there is a valid reason to determine these people's worldview. It is not to pursuade or put on their shoes. It is primarily to destroy them.

Iraq under the Baathists was similar in its fantasy ideology. Saddam had some insane notion that he was some sort of modern Saladin or Nebuchanezzar. To restore Iraq to what he thought was its rightful glory, he was justified in any action he took. The focus of his terror was the Iraqi people, but no reasonable person could expect Hussein to keep it within his borders if unchecked.

[Jim Noble]

Just do it

[Dudoight]

Harris is a brilliant analyst and thinker. Every time I read one of his essays, I come away thinking more clearly.

[carton253]

Or as Stonewall Jackson said... "Raise the Black Flag." That's my strategery...

[Bahbah]

Nice description of the mentality of, say, a Rachel Corrie.

[dennisw]

Nice description of the mentality of, say, a Rachel Corrie..........


The ISM clowns waving their Che Guevara Flags. Fantasizing they are revolutionaries rather than spoiled rotten college students.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030731/168/4uleh.html

[Stentor]

Bookmarked.

[Valin]

Bump for a later read.

[Shermy]

Interesting, but...

False dichotoimies between "hanson" and "Chomsky." Chomsky has no interest in understanding AQ and Wahhabism. Indeed, his screeds carefully avoid analyzing them, falling back on, for example, Israel obsession and bizarre linkage to American Indians in centuries past.

Author talks about Italian Fascism, etc. How about reading what Osama says? He says its a religious war. What's not so hard to understand about that? His comments about seeing the other in our "experience" is too narrow - I'd say prejudices, and for many, anti-american assumptions.

[ecomcon]

Thanks Dennis. BUMP.

[dennisw]

sure thing

[Valin]

In the early days, there were many who were convinced that they knew the answer to this question. A few held that we had got what we had coming: It was just desserts for Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty or the predictable product of the U.S. decision to snub the Durban conference on racism. Others held, with perhaps a greater semblance of plausibility, that the explanation of 9-11 was to be sought in what was called, through an invariable horticultural metaphor, the “root cause” of terrorism. Eliminate poverty, or economic imperialism, or global warming, and such acts of terrorism would cease.


Unfortunaly there are still people who use this line of reasoning(if reasoning it is) if we were attacked it MUST be our fault.

[Valin]

Bump and bookmark.
A 3rd alternative might be that al Qaeda is thinking tactically(short term) and not strategically(long term)?
Does that make any sense?

[okie01]

"How about reading what Osama says? He says its a religious war. What's not so hard to understand about that?"

"Fantasy ideology" describes a broader context.

E.g., all religious wars are, strictly speaking, a product of fantasy ideology. But not all conflicts involving fantasy ideology are religious wars.

Making his argument in this way also avoided having to encounter the emotional baggage that the term "religious war" might have.

Good piece. Supports my instinctive notion that the only satisfactory solution is to exterminate the whole lot, anyway.

[Stentor]

Bump.

[HockeyPop]

Thanks for the PING !

[dennisw]

A 3rd alternative might be that al Qaeda is thinking tactically(short term) and not strategically(long term)? ...............


I think you give them too much credit. They are opportunists who do what they can do. Sure they have theoreticians and thinkers. Sure they can damage us. Perhaps with WMDs. But I think they do what they can, whenever they can arrange execution which can take a while, often sometimes their destructive acts are years in the planning and making.