Defeating a broad and adaptive network requires patience, constant pressure, and
strong partners in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and beyond.
Obviously, this is not a good way to 'win', but I think perhaps it is a more realistic theoretical approach to things. Additionally, and it disturbs me to admit this, I think he does a very good job tying incidents like Bali and the murder of Theo Van Gogh into creating, if you will, a case for radical Islam as a global ideology.
Also, and this hits me only now, I think maybe it's not useful to discuss the ways in which mainstream Islam supports violence or the actions of terrorist groups. In my world, at least, it is necessary for Islam to be integrated into a Western style of living because, if that doesn't happen, your remaining options are a full-out cultural 'clash of civilizations' to use Huntington's term, or a permanent and fundamental change in Western values. What we should be doing, then, is exactly what Bush did in this speech - assert that in no way does Islam support these actions. Because even if you secretly think maybe Islam does, wouldn't you rather change that? And, as the West has been doing for years, the best way to deal with difficult religious issues is to ignore them. If you don't make an issue out of it, then the secular lifestyle of the West can survive. The Catholic Popes of ages past have made a huge number of 'infallible' decrees - asserting Galileo's idiocy and various other things, and the Catholic church has (correctly, I think) found that the best way to deal with their subsequent disproving was to ignore them and pretend they never existed. I mean, if we all read Catholic doctrine correctly, or ANY religious doctrine correctly, then homosexuality just couldn't exist legally. Period. And yet it's been here for years, and most people agree that it should continue to exist. That's because the religious doctrines concerning it have faded quietly into the woodwork. You can't just unsay the Word of God, so you have to sweep it under the carpet.
All of this talk about Islam as a fundamentally violent religion is certainly not helping much.
This all has very little to do with Bush's speech which, I think, was the latest in a string of largely meaningless and yet very patriotic speeches. I found one comment particularly interesting:
Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder
is justified to serve their grand vision. And they end up alienating decent
people across the globe.
A little self-descriptive, do we think? But it couldn't be tyranny if our 'grand vision' is FREEDOM.
And this leads to an interesting corollary - is there such a thing as philanthropic war?
The white man's burden is a hard one to bear.
4 comments:
I find your blog very interesting, but I feel the need to amend your statement on papal infallibility. Contrary to popular belief, the pope does not (and historically has not) gone around making "infallible" statements about anything and everything. Catholic doctrine does not state that the pope is inherently infallible. Rather, the pope can declare his infallibility on issues of Catholic dogma, and this has only happened twice. Both infallible decrees are in relation to Mary: first, that Jesus was conceived immaculately, and second, that Mary did not die; rather, her body was assumed into heaven.
Fair enough! That's interesting to know, and probably makes theological consistency a lot easier to manage. I think my point still stands if you substitue "huge moral authority" for infallibility. I appreciate the comment! I am embarrassed at my lack of knowledge about Catholicism, and any little bit helps.
omg ure sooooo liberal ack ack ack. i agree that bush has a grand vision. and i also agree that his grand vision has caused casualties. but everything causes casualties. ppl would have still died if bush had never been born. and at this point it's not the white man's burden anymore. It's the question of gobal responsability. people are always mad at the US whether we interfere or not. and really, do we have to justify our interference? the american govt's first job is to aid the american ppl. when you can prove that something like sept 11 wouldnt have happened if our govt had acted differently, then u have a point. and dont start in on our whole middle east foreign policy thing... as the world is, there is no way that a powerful govt can act without creating enemies. and as the world is, a group like al qaeda was inevitable. ok ill stop provoking u now...
Rachel, your point seems to be "people will still hate us, so we can do whatever we want." now, i would agree that people will still hate us. I would even agree that september 11th would have still happened (debatable, though) even if the US had changed its foreign policy. Certainly I couldn't prove otherwise. But what i WON'T say is that a) it's our right to 'be responsible for the world' if the wourld doesn't want us there and b) that we have any sort of good vantage point from which to judge what "good" is. So what we end up doing is saying this: Democracy (ie, our government) is good. Capitalism (ie our government) is good. Anything that challenges these is bad, and we will do you the favor of stopping it for you.
I guess my point is - the "it would have happened anyway" argument is not an argument for proceeding.
And frankly, as I said earlier, anybody who's got "The Truth"(as I believe Bush thinks he does) is a scary, scary person. I guess I'm arguing against the mindset rather than against any particular actions he's taken. Although I will argue against those in the future.
So there, li'l sis.
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