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New Thanks for the pointer. Transcript.
New He's a very wise man. Excerpts.
What do you say now to people who argue that Islam is inherently a violent form of religion?

NAWAZ: The conclusion that I have come to is that actually, no religion, whether it's Islam, Christianity or any idea based on scripture or texts, is a religion of anything, really. It's - you know, Islam is a religion. It will be what Muslims make of it. And it is the sum total of the interpretation that Muslims give to it. So it's not a religion of war. It's not a religion of peace. It happens to be that the majority of Muslims today interpret Islam to disagree with al-Qaida. The vast majority do not belong to jihadist groups. I can say with a level of confidence that Islam is not a religion of war, only because the majority of Muslims don't subscribe to that perspective, not because there's something inherent in the text that tells me it's a religion of peace.

Likewise, on the flipside, I do acknowledge - and we must, I think, as Muslims acknowledge - that there are serious scriptural challenges for us. The Quran does not prohibit slavery. It regulates it, and there's a huge distinction there. And in its regulation of slavery, it refers to it in the Arabic as (speaking Arabic), or what the right hand possesses. In its regulation of slavery or in its endorsement of lashing people as punishment or in amputating the hand for theft, the Quran is explicit in all of these issues. And so our challenge, really, as Muslims, is, yes, fine, the majority of us disagree with al-Qaida, but as I said to you earlier, I shouldn't be thanked for saying I don't want to kill anyone. You know, that should be the baseline, the default. The real challenge for us as Muslims is to go beyond that and have those very difficult conversations about reinterpreting scripture, given the social and political norms that have developed today, and reinterpreting it within a human rights framework.

[...]

If indeed our analysis was correct, which I believe has come to been proven that it is correct, and that's that this is we're dealing with a global ideology that has reached insurgency levels. We're dealing with the spread of ideas that have come to inspire entirely new generations of the young Muslims to join up - that no matter how many people we kill and no matter how many people we imprison, more and more Islamists and more and more jihadists are coming forward. You know, we killed bin Laden. You know, we dealt with al-Qaida as a structural - as an organization, and ISIL emerged. And so if we recognize that we're dealing with a new global brand, then the challenge, really, is to make the Islamist brand, today, as unattractive, as unappealing as Soviet communism has become for young people. We don't see angry, young teenagers today in America or in Britain or in Europe joining Stalin-style communist movements because it's simply just not appealing. It's not attractive anymore. And that's what we need to achieve with the Islamist ideology, and that requires counter-narratives. And so challenging the propaganda head-on of the Islamist is one of the things we do. We work with media. We do lots of public debates and speaking. We do work with Muslim communities as well.

[...]

Something that is just so confounding to me and many people is, why is it that extremist Muslims feel justified in killing individuals for drawing a cartoon or walking into a kosher market? And yet, ISIS is slaughtering Muslims. Boko Haram is kidnapping and killing Muslims. And you don't see Muslims around the world rising up against these extremist movements. But after the Danish cartoons, you saw riots in Muslim countries.

NAWAZ: Yeah.

GROSS: And it just seems, like, so confounding. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit, and I also make the assumption that, as a think tank trying to counter extremism, that you've been trying to organize moderate Muslims into asserting themselves and asserting their version of the religion over the extremist one.

NAWAZ: Yes. The reason for this is primarily because of them-and-us narrative, that the Islamists - as I tried to explain at the beginning of this interview - have a vested interest in peddling. If the Islamists can succeed in saying there's a them and an us, that this is a clash of civilizations - Islamic civilization on the one end and Democratic civilization on the other - which is false by the way. But if they can succeed in peddling that narrative, they create the divide over them and us, and they leave only one option left to Muslims, which is you'll only ever be safe in this so-called theocratic caliphate, so help us establish it.

Now the them-and-us narrative has gained some ground, unfortunately. So even among non-Islamist Muslims, they tend to see the world - many of them tend to see the world through a tribal lens. And of course, when the debate deteriorates to a tribal level, when you are arguing to defend your own tribe, you tend to ignore the mistakes of your tribe and focus only on the mistakes of others. And that's the nature of a tribal-style debate.

Of course, the truth is there is no clash of Islamic civilization versus Democratic civilization. The real clash - and there is certainly a clash, and it's certainly an ideological clash. But the real clash is within Muslim peoples and within the rest of the world between those who subscribe to Democratic values, Muslim and non-Muslim, and those who subscribe to a form of fascism, whether it be theocratic fascism as is the form with the theocracy of Iran or the ISIL Star caliphate, or any other form of fascism, such as North Korea that is an ally with Iran. That is the real clash that's going on in the world at the moment. And on both sides of that debate, you'll find Muslims and non-Muslims on either side. And that more complex, richer picture is what Islamists don't want people to understand, and it's why it suits them whenever the debate deteriorates into a them-and-us, being Muslims versus the rest.


This should be required reading in the USA, especially at the federal government level.

Cheers,
Scott.
New You can read that hand-waving virtually everywhere in the West.
This is not a clash between Western Civilization and Islamic [SIC] Civilization? Of course it is. He speaks as though Islam has something to contribute to the West. It doesn't. What is the Islamist/Jihadist's stated explicit goal? The overthrow of Western Civilization and replacing it with Islamic Civilization. How is that *not* a clash of civilizations. Every desert religion is either in the throws of violence to project their beliefs on others and accumulate more power or has a history of doing so. If this were the 16th century, we'd be arguing about whether or not the Catholic Church was negatively influencing society. Islam is the 21st century Catholic Church.

They must be defeated or we shall. I say, give no quarter to these apologists.
Expand Edited by mmoffitt Jan. 16, 2015, 02:08:42 PM EST
New So you clamp down on Islam. Then what?
You saw his point that it's the interpretation that matters, not what the ancient books "say", right? If we clamp down on Islam and try to destroy those advocating a Caliphate (or worse), then the ideology will just take a different form. It'll still be "evil them vs. good and pure us".

They're using religion to rile up people to cause them to support their political agenda.

His point that hipsters don't want to be Stalinists any more is a good one. If we were having House Un-American Activities - II and show trials and the like, there would be new generations of people who would be anxious to join up.

Islam isn't the problem, at least not in the sense that the problem goes away if Islam could be made to go away (which it can't). The problem is finding ways to treat people fairly and to be seen as treating them fairly.

Going your route would make things worse - much worse - IMHO.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.
New The structure of Islam is a major problem.
First, there are two books, the Quran and the Hadith. When Islam is accused of doing bad things, appologists always say, "That's not in the Quran" - and indeed it is not - it's in the Hadith. The Quran is theory, the Hadith is practice.

Knowing of the Jewish Talmud, which allows the interpretation of the religion to be adapted to changing times, the founders of Islam specifically forbade any such thing on penalty of death. So, they're stuck with it as it is. The Quran is so set in stone translating it to a language other than Arabic is forbidden, under the usual death penalty.

The Turks think the Hadith has been edited and they are trying to refine it to an original version - but it doesn't matter. To most of Islam the Turks are just Pagans with enough Islam slathered over to pass. The Turks will be ignored no matter what they come up with, whether it is better or worse than what they have now anyway.

There is no central authority. Anyone can go to a Madras, than set himself up as a local mullah and command his followers in the way he sees fit. This is a real attraction to the the most violent and power hungry. Islam, which means "submission", demands absolute obedience to Allah, and the mullah speaks for Allah in this world.

Jihad is built into the foundation of the religion - so when violent people claim to be Jihadists, mainstream Muslims are reluctant to criticize them, because that would be criticism of Islam.

There are peaceful Islamic sects, such as the Sufis, but they're mostly in Turkey, and it's very difficult for an outsider to become a Sufi - you have to study with a master. Most of Islam wants to kill the Sufis as heretics anyway.

Islam was once much more liberal and cultured than it is now - but it has been taken over by by the most extreme sects, and there seems no way to reverse that. The lands of Islam tend to be primitive and desolate regions - but those regions once hosted substantial civilizations. I suspect Islam is why they are primitive and desolate.

Perhaps a New Islam can be created and can spread and make converts - but it will have to be done in North America, the only region where the mullahs can't enforce the death penalty for such heresy.



New I've understood similar things about Islam. But the Jihadist / Islamist problem is new.
As Nawaz says, the roots of our current problems with al Qaeda and the rest are in Egypt in fairly recent times (certainly since the 1950s). The Quran and the Hadith are much, much older, of course.

I think there are ways to reverse the problem, and I think Nawaz's approach is the best way to try right now.

We'll see.

Cheers,
Scott.
New I once shared your views. Not anymore.
Islam is the problem. How many young people adhering to [pick your Western religion] besides Islam end up like this:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2010-04-01/news/honor-thy-father-the-inside-story-of-the-young-muslim-woman-honor-killed-by-her-father-because-he-believed-she-d-become-too-americanized/2/

or this

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99616128

or (the irony of this last one is priceless and should give you pause as you are tempted to be swayed by these Islamist apologists)

Muzzammil Hassan was convicted in February of the monstrous murder of his spouse, Aasiya Hassan. It took the jury less than an hour to find him guilty of second-degree murder.

The life sentence was accompanied by an order of protection to prevent the killer from contacting his two children.

"The defendant viciously killed ... and desecrated [his wife's] body because six days earlier she had dared to file for divorce," Assistant District Attorney Paul Bonanno said.
...

Muzzammil Hassan founded Bridge TV in 2004. The American-Islamic station was designed to combat the negative stereotype of Muslims post-9/11. His wife was its general manager.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/muzzammil-hassan-25-life-beheading-wife-aasiya-hassan-article-1.120570

New Gotcher mere Language solution, right chere.
It's not religion. It's when religion gets tied up with politics and demonizing others.
Methinks that here, you elide very much bafflegab to which you (and I) have been exposed, in that process called, 'acculturation'. (It's second-nature not-to-notice this, but that's no longer an excuse in 2015, I wot.)

You may absolve religion X for its horrific, inscribed Commands to the faithful (I guess..) and conclude that, those who Act-out those exact Commands (in whichever Manual) ... are outliers, if that is what you really mean(?) (That's not so unusual, amidst the many euphemisms upon which Murican culture navigates any difficult aka unReasonable or anti-Reasonable matters.)

Matters like Revelations (here at home.) Conveniently excerpting (amidst hundreds of other oft-contradictory biblical passages) each individual Believer decides: just How-Medieval? shall I regress-to [??] Apparently (at least for all the time I've been hanging out in the Empire) this has been deemed normal behavior re. all so-called "religious matters." That is: you'd get an F if you applied this approach to any matter in any science, logic/debate, history or other academic course.

Who. Decides. then: where this Free-pass ENDS?--especially after random killing for the anti-Reasonings merely believed .... is seen to be exponentially increasing, all over the planet.

I mean: if "religion" per se cannot may not be blamed for the consequences of its basic teachings to all adherents--is to get a perpetual Free-pass from all other rules of current civilizations--surely we 're back to dear Bertie: ..You ask me to believe just one absurdity [the virgin-birth, wasn't it?] but I say: if I'm to believe one, then why not any(??)

There's another Language trick we can employ though, to keep such a mental house-of-cards from immediately collapsing; it's not unlike the USSC's arrogation of Power to change word Referents to suit its own recipe for doing parallel-governance. Here it is: Let us 'say' that Religion Is Not The Problem™. Nothing to see here ... move on.
I'll go with that. But then I'd have to add: BUT to the extent that "religion" catalyzes The {mysterious} Problems, as seen in countless historical examples, we can parse The Matter more easily:
Religion is OK. (And likely inextirpable, in any case.) It is only when its fanciful tenets, parables, myths and Commands are intermixed with "Real human Life", that there is a Problem!

Problem solved! Do Not Tolerate Exceptions to the basic rules of the vast majority of the 'civilized' (while residing on this planet.) I leave it to expert opinion, then: how to separate Real human Life from assassins who claim the Right to follow their dreams, regardless of the nightmares they cause *Others. We Love their n religions! who may do what they wish with whichever people will Let Them: but Not do those things to any person who will Not Let Them.

* Others who, via the inevitable calculation of available manpower and woman-power, $$$ and Techno capabilities, having decided Not-to surrender to incomprehensible-lunatics: are so very apt to apply historical solutions of the kind in which physics + numbers determine who Wins. We ARE the most dangerous species in the Cosmos (so far as we know.) We have yet.. collectively.. to put off changing any "situation" once it has become Intolerable. Period. From 5000 BCE to, er today. No?

There! it's really simple, in the beginning-of-the-End of battling "religion" itself. It's All officially-OK. But ACT IT OUT?
Then: today's cold-war, fought largely by invective (but already via boots-on-groud re ISIL/ISIS) is where The Matter is heading, It's what homo-sap always Does.

{{sheesh}}

SImpler: Planet says/and MEANS: STOP your "so-called" outliers/really. Following. Your. Script. ... or DIE (lots and lots of you collaterals, like always.) And yes, I Do believe that our collective capacity for spinning rationalizations is as Clear as the fact of all those nukes currently on stand-by-Alert, this very minute. Even M.A.D. is still WIth Us All. "In the beginning was the Word", says one sect's book. Apparently at the end, too.


(Unless, of course.. you'd like every one to reason-together with catalysts who, pre-meditatedly support their personal beliefs, which include the **killing of any old/young Infidel, willy-nilly.
For another generation, say? Sincerely hope then: that your Patience becomes quite contagious, despite all those previous failures ... just since Sarajevo.

** Specifically: any old/young Islamist who does-Not believe absolutely in all within the two Manuals is an Infidel: pre-condemned to death (if Honest about her belief.) And if Honest to any other of the sect: guess What. They can 'live with this shame' of silencing their own conscience, but..
New I think we mostly agree.
Sure, the Abrahamic religions have writings in old books and traditions that are too often antithetical to modern pluralistic life.

Like our medical insurance, drug, and medical equipment systems in the US, in an ideal world we would scrap them and start over. We agree that we don't live in such a world.

But...

Juan Cole:

Top Ten Ways Islamic Law forbids Terrorism
By Juan Cole Apr. 17, 2013

Erik Rush and others who hastened to scapegoat Muslims for the Boston Marathon bombing are ignorant of the religion. I can’t understand why people who have never so much as read a book about a subject appoint themselves experts on it. (Try this book, e.g.). We don’t yet know who carried out the attack, but we know they either aren’t Muslims at all or they aren’t real Muslims, in the nature of the case.

For the TLDR crowd, here are the top ten ways that Islamic law and tradition forbid terrorism ...


Just as there are people who (wrongly) argue that the US is a "Christian Nation" based on selective reading of our country's founding documents, people can argue that Islam's documents (wrongly) argue that murder is justified. The problem is the recent teaching that advocates against modernity, not the ancient documents.

We don't scream that Christianity is at war with western civilization even though it has old documents advocating murder under all sorts of circumstances. We (most of us, anyway) have been taught to ignore or interpret-away things like that. Muslims do that as well. And they should (and must) have the freedom to do so.

Direct incitement to violence should be severely punished. On-the-sly incitement should be vigorously argued against and watched carefully. But ways need to be found to teach kids who are lost that Jihadism and the like (I'd include things like militant Libertarianism, Scientology, etc., also too) are not what they appear to be. They manipulative people for the political and economic ends of the leadership. Nawaz is on the right track there, I think.

I assume it's going to take a while for ISIL and the like to become a dead ideology. I think we're going through something like the anarchists, etc., of the late 19th and early 20th century. Of course, that led to lots of nastiness in Europe, but there's no reason why things have to go that far this time. :-( If we manage to learn from history...

We'll see.

FWIW.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New oy you! whats wrong with individual reappropriation?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Heh. Slippery slope and all that. (There's always someone stronger who'll take *your* stuff.)
New Fair enough; we can agree to somewhat-agree on the pernicious Forces in play:
If we manage to learn from history...

Now There's a qualifier! that's recursive and a traditional example of the fact that humans--at base--in most-all daily robot-stimuus/response activities: those tasks which comprise a %huge of "job" activities, social interactions (not just with strangers) etc. ... are navigated by almost muscle-memory.
tl;dr perfection there: Humans are (most-often) Not rational animals. Especially-so when "lives depend upon it".

[Swan-song, then]
We are facing the likelihood of a worldwide *plebiscite--whether we like that thought or not--on How? Whether! RELIGION can continue to supersede-at-Willfulness: all variants of the SOCIAL CONTRACT.

On with: how 'we' usually deal with such crises, via our inner autonomic responses (as seems Crucial next)
Sometimes the drowning one is Saved ... but most-often by the speed of the 'Instinctive-Center' (called Reptile-brain by some) It works fastest of all (faster even than than the Emotional one--as always happens-First in a confrontation--well before/IF-even Intellect can/will start processing. Intellect trails all our LANs in speed.

(Such observations pre-date modrin soft-sciences, none of which negate these asserted characteristics; this stuff is the Poster Boy for analysis paralysis and for the spinning-off of the TLAs (like SAD, ADD ad-nauseum) most often dreamed-up by Big Pharma + willing supine MDs: all working well beyond their grasp of our wetware.)
Thus I deem this shorthand a necessary KISS, and a useful antidote to the convoluted complexification so dear to the 'social science' trainees. (I wasn't incisive enough to discover them; had to wade through much std. stuff to discover the Model.) This-all, IME is quite germane to the clusterfuck surrounding today's FORCING of an overall re-Evaluation of most societies' lassaiz-faire, unThinking toleration of manifestly anarchist parables, hidden or Up-front within all the Corporate==mass religions.

Ex of what always We Do:
The Shogunate's game-plan [at base: KIll Saddam for Shrub's emotional conflicts with Daddy, via instilling WMD -ƒeare; get cheap oil for US, huge profits for Cheney's War-machine Death-merchants ... go home in 3 or 6 months, fat & happy. We all lived through this farrago in which ... we shall be enmeshed perpetually.]

* But the RELIGION Clusterfuck goes deeper into the human psyche than mere heaped-dead-burned bodies of OTHERS, as, for most adherents: it's A Ticket to Ride their last-grasp of (an infantile-Idea of) IMMORTALITY.) N'est ce pâs?

(Maybe someday we shall Thank! the Cheney/Neoconman/Hawk droids for precipitating, Forcing an overdue massive reassessment of acceptable daily behavior on a permanently Over-crowded planet.) If 'we' survive long enough and get through Today well-enough: for the luxury of such beneficent hind-sight.

In sum then, Patience is your long-suit, and I admire your general equanimity and decent arguments for both. Merely, I 'frame' the RELIGIO-issue as transcending.. as demanding a uniquely-tailored firm response from all who demand an impenetrable-Wall between social necessities and the mentally-afflicted amongst us.

And the deepest problem I see, is: not becoming too-Offending of the billions who practice their orisons quietly, have come to rely upon the assurances of their salvations etc. WHILE ALSO instilling within these large majorities, a New Awareness that: in order for them to proceed next with their daily and religious lives: they need to PREACH the necessity of THIS SEPARATION WALL. From the same pulpits and madrassas as created the current Hi-tech Crusaders amongst (their own!) mentally-unbalanced practitioners.

{Simply, for confirmation: Look at existing Theocratically-controlled States and the plight of their inmates, especially of those who would like to Change that State's governance. Syria, Iran et al.)

Yes, such a confrontation is unprecedented (as was the fission bomb) and only an egotistical fool could imagine to See the shortest/best route through the many mine-fields of human jelloware! I think that, if we punt/kick that terribly-dented Can down that endless road One More Time? we Shall exacerbate all mere 'climate' Damocles' Swords and regress to the handy/compact/Reliable gadgets in all those arsenals.

Think I'm done on the entire Clusterfuck; no idea how many/few cohorts for my POV exist out there, nor if there are more useful overviews as might occur next: via Sheer Luck.
Am content that we'll always have Tom Lehrer and George C. to Play Us Out: and ... ... what could be more Cosmically-humorous than That? :-)

Carrion.


Of course too: post-such a RAND-grade Spasm War™ the population Would be decimated, the many sources of Industrial emissions stilled. But all Know-as-fact that there is no more high-grade ore to be found near the surface, no magical instant-food sources, not enough 'caves in which to hide' etc. It would be a miserable denouement.
Alas. We Can be Just that Dumb, despite squeaking-by all those cold-war nuke accidents (a fact also unknown to most of the planetary masses.)

Decisions.. ain't they a Byotch?! Manfred to an unwanted priest: Old man.. it is not so hard to die.
Or ..if the Meaning of liff is merely to collect more Stuff? what's to lose? ;^>
New Why?
We (most of us, anyway) have been taught to ignore or interpret-away things like that. Muslims do that as well. And they should (and must) have the freedom to do so.

I've started re-reading (actually, first go I never finished it - oldest daughter borrowed it and it's just now returned) Hitchens' God is not Great. Even before that, I was struck by something eluded to by Dawkins. Why must we "respect" any religion? You can't control thought, people are free to "believe" whatever they wish. But that doesn't mean we should treat any of them with any degree of respect. I, like nearly everyone here I'd wager, was raised that anyone's religious views need to be respected. You hear that same drivel from people like the sitting head of the world's leading pedophilliacs association the pope, among others. I, like I suspect most, just accepted that "respect for religion" is one of those late 18th century ideals that are sacrosanct. But it's utter nonsense. I haven't heard anyone cite a decent argument as to why the free exercise clause should not be stricken from our Constitution. I've never heard a good argument as to why it is important to "respect religion."
New Respect is too strong a word.
re·spect
rəˈspekt/
noun
1.
a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.


I don't feel that way about religion. My feeling is more along the lines of the Golden Rule: You don't tell me what to believe, and I won't tell you what to believe.

"God is not Great" is a good book. Hitchens was a master of English and of constructing a compelling argument. But he was also wrong about quite a few things (e.g. Bush and the Iraq War).

Flipping into "old man yells at clouds" mode isn't going to convince fence-sitters. It will hurt the cause.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Re: Bush and the Iraq war.
I've been re-watching his many interviews on the topic and I have a different way of looking at what he was saying. So much so, that I'm not sure now. He was advocating a war against Islamic Cultists. And, as he said during a Daily Show interview, "You got to war with the President you've got." ;0) I think he was right with regard to the threat this particular religion posed. I didn't see it. I'll admit its beyond my comprehension how any of the desert religions have any genuine followers left and this bias caused me to be blind to the danger they posed. Their foundations wouldn't pass the sniff test of a mid-intellect 10 year old from the West. Christianity's prevalence in the West is strictly due to convention and I suspect in a lot of cases fear. Isn't it time, in the 21st century, that we alter our course? If we didn't, as a society, treat these idiotic fairy tales with legislatively dictated respect, there wouldn't be any marching morons of this particular stripe left.

On the Iraq War, about all I can say is Christianity had its crusades and moved past it. It's Islam's turn to have theirs and we should crush it before it starts. Why are we afraid to "declare war on religion"? We should mock it for all it is worth. We should teach our children to pay absolutely no heed to any clergymen, regardless of which mosque, church, synagogue, temple or chapel in which they spew their nonsense. We don't really even have to go that far. All we've got to do is ask them, "Does what he's saying make any sense to you at all?" 95+% of them will say "No."

New Meh.
(That's a good word. Sorry I over-use it. ;-)

The Australian (from 2008):

Hitchens defending himself:
[...]

We were never, if we are honest with ourselves, "lied into war".

We became steadily more aware that the option was continued collusion with Saddam or a decision to have done with him.

The President's speech to the UN on September 12, 2002, laying out the considered case that it was time to face the Iraqi tyrant, too, with this choice, was easily the best speech of his two-term tenure and by far the most misunderstood.

That speech is widely and wrongly believed to have focused on only two aspects of the problem, namely the refusal of Saddam's regime to come into compliance on the resolutions concerning weapons of mass destruction and the involvement of the Baathists with a whole nexus of nihilist and Islamist terror groups.

Baghdad's outrageous flouting of the resolutions on compliance (if not necessarily the maintenance of blatant, as opposed to latent, WMD capacity) remains a huge and easily demonstrable breach of international law. The role of Baathist Iraq in forwarding and aiding the merchants of suicide terror actually proves to be deeper and worse, on the latest professional estimate, than most people had believed or than the Bush administration had suggested.

This is all overshadowed by the unarguable hash that was made of the intervention itself.

But I would nonetheless maintain that this incompetence doesn't condemn the enterprise wholesale.

A much-wanted war criminal was put on public trial.

The Kurdish and Shi'ite majority was rescued from the ever-present threat of a renewed genocide.

A huge, hideous military and party apparatus, directed at internal repression and external aggression was (perhaps overhastily) dismantled.

The largest wetlands in the region, habitat of the historic Marsh Arabs, have been largely recuperated.

Huge fresh oilfields have been found, including in formerly oil-free Sunni provinces, and some important initial investment in them made. Elections have been held, and the outline of a federal system has been proposed as the only alternative to a) a sectarian despotism and b) a sectarian partition and fragmentation. Not unimportantly, a battlefield defeat has been inflicted on al-Qa'ida and its surrogates, who (not without some Baathist collaboration) had hoped to constitute the successor regime in a failed state and an imploded society.

Further afield, a perfectly defensible case can be made that the Syrian Baathists would not have evacuated Lebanon, nor would the Gaddafi gang have turned over Libya's (much larger than anticipated) stock of WMD, if not for the ripple effect of the removal of the region's keystone dictatorship. None of these positive developments took place without a good deal of bungling and cruelty, and unintended consequences of their own.

I don't know of a satisfactory way of evaluating one against the other any more than I quite know how to balance the disgrace of Abu Ghraib, say, against the digging up of Saddam's immense network of mass graves. There is, however, one position that nobody can honestly hold but that many people try their best to hold. And that is what I call the Bishop Berkeley theory of Iraq, whereby if a country collapses and succumbs to trauma, and it's not our immediate fault or direct responsibility, then it doesn't count, and we are not involved.

Nonetheless, the thing that most repels people when they contemplate Iraq, which is the chaos and misery and fragmentation (and the deliberate intensification and augmentation of all this by the jihadis), invites the inescapable question: What would post-Saddam Iraq have looked like without a coalition presence?

The past years have seen us both shamed and threatened by the implications of the Berkeleyan attitude, from Burma to Rwanda to Darfur.

Had we decided to attempt the right thing in those cases (you will notice that I say attempt rather than do, which cannot be known in advance), we could as glibly have been accused of embarking on "a war of choice". But the thing to remember about Iraq is that all or most choice had already been forfeited.

We were already deeply involved in the life and death struggle of that country, and March 2003 happens to mark the only time that we decided to intervene, after a protracted and open public debate, on the right side and for the right reasons. This must, and still does, count for something.


His heart was in the right place, but his refusal to accept that Bush's invasion made things much, much worse (not just a few unfortunate consequences in an on-the-whole noble adventure) - and his searching for flakes of gold in the mountain of destruction that Rumsfeld and Bush's people constructed - was and remains a severe blot on his legacy.

Cheers,
Scott.
New But why did it make things worse?
I think, and perhaps Hitch would agree, that for the sake of "respecting the religion of Islam" we didn't go far enough.

Personally, I blame Carter. What was he thinking when he cancelled the neutron bomb?


New a decent argument? How about hanging people for attending
tribal dances? That was sort of stopped by the courts over the last 60 years or so.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Fail to respect != commit atrocious acts.
I'm all for letting people have big pasta parties for the FSM, but I'm *NOT* for all of us pretending to believe that a belief in the FSM is sane. Nor am I in favor of inculcating the attitude in our young that "one must respect the believers of the FSM." It's horseshit. How does society improve if we teach that respecting horseshit is a sign of an enlightened society? Let 'em do whatever they want. Just don't let them have *ANY* say in how we are governed.
New Fail to respect leads to commit atrocious acts.
lack of respect equals contempt which leads to abuse
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New You need to respect a person's right to be stupid...
where "stupid" is your assessment of their belief. It's a matter of tolerance. After all, some of your beliefs may be considered stupid by others and you want to be left alone to hold them.

You do not have to respect the stupidity itself. And certainly you do not need to accept actions based on that stupidity which affect you directly.
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New Exactly. Well said.
New They have no such right.
     Fresh Air: some insights on th Zealots. - (Ashton) - (34)
         Thanks for the pointer. Transcript. - (Another Scott) - (23)
             He's a very wise man. Excerpts. - (Another Scott) - (22)
                 You can read that hand-waving virtually everywhere in the West. - (mmoffitt) - (21)
                     So you clamp down on Islam. Then what? - (Another Scott) - (20)
                         The structure of Islam is a major problem. - (Andrew Grygus) - (1)
                             I've understood similar things about Islam. But the Jihadist / Islamist problem is new. - (Another Scott)
                         I once shared your views. Not anymore. - (mmoffitt) - (17)
                             Meh. - (Another Scott) - (16)
                                 Gotcher mere Language solution, right chere. - (Ashton) - (15)
                                     I think we mostly agree. - (Another Scott) - (14)
                                         oy you! whats wrong with individual reappropriation? -NT - (boxley) - (1)
                                             Heh. Slippery slope and all that. (There's always someone stronger who'll take *your* stuff.) -NT - (Another Scott)
                                         Fair enough; we can agree to somewhat-agree on the pernicious Forces in play: - (Ashton)
                                         Why? - (mmoffitt) - (10)
                                             Respect is too strong a word. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                                                 Re: Bush and the Iraq war. - (mmoffitt) - (2)
                                                     Meh. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                                                         But why did it make things worse? - (mmoffitt)
                                             a decent argument? How about hanging people for attending - (boxley) - (5)
                                                 Fail to respect != commit atrocious acts. - (mmoffitt) - (4)
                                                     Fail to respect leads to commit atrocious acts. - (boxley)
                                                     You need to respect a person's right to be stupid... - (a6l6e6x) - (2)
                                                         Exactly. Well said. -NT - (Another Scott)
                                                         They have no such right. -NT - (mmoffitt)
         Just started reading, have to quit for now, but ... - (mmoffitt) - (8)
             so according to you the KKK represents mainstream christianity so we - (boxley) - (7)
                 Neither Christians nor Mormons are openly plotting the overthrow of our government. - (mmoffitt) - (5)
                     whistling at a white woman is a good reason for a hanging? - (boxley) - (1)
                         Seriously? - (mmoffitt)
                     Um. Yeah they are. - (static) - (2)
                         Yup. -NT - (Another Scott)
                         Don't misunderstand me. - (mmoffitt)
                 You meant Aryan Nations. -NT - (a6l6e6x)
         Good one! Thanks, Ashton! -NT - (a6l6e6x)

Drugs.
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