Thursday, July 14, 2005
The High Ground
If reports of "revenge attacks" against British Muslims are true, then those carrying out such attacks are on the same level as the bombers in London. In fact, its almost the same mentality -- I'm going to attack fellow countrymen because they belong to an ideology that I think has hurt people of my ideology. Its ridiculous and shameful. Just as the non-extremist Muslims are trying hard to convince the world that the extremists do not represent mainstream Islam, we must make sure that the world knows that these ignorant fools do not represent the rest of us. Freedom and democracy require that each man be judged individually, not by stereotypes about any group that he belongs to. That's one reason why the Red Scare was so bad -- its possible to be a Communist and not support the USSR or PRC. Similarly its possible to be Muslim and not support al-Qaeda. If we are going to tout freedom as our goal in Iraq and Afghanistan then we need to ensure freedom at home. Attacking people because of their ideology is not freedom. The perpetrators of such acts should be punished harshly, and we should all be ashamed of their actions. I feel that actions like that do far more to incite further terror attacks than the war in Iraq (of course this is just speculation). If I were a Muslim I would not be enraged, in general, about the war in Iraq. In fact, I bet I would support it. However, if attacks against fellow Muslims in my country by other countrymen became rampant, or were not viewed with the highest level of disdain, I might be able to be convinced that my society is evil and deserves being attacked. If we are serious about extending freedom to the world and ending terror we need to take dramatic steps to make sure that our countries remain examples of freedom and democracy and do not descend into hatred or fear.
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9 comments:
You: "Attacking people because of their ideology is not freedom."
Bush: "We will find them, we will bring them to justice, and at the same time, we will spread an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate."
Now, I'm not saying I don't agree with you in principal, but again I think you might want to re-think the way you're making this argument. Bush justifys the Iraq war specifically as a war of ideologies - a war by the United States against the "ideology of hate". We are absolutely attacking people for their ideology.
Was the war in Afghanistan not a "revenge attack"? I think it was entirely justified, but then again I don't think revenge isn't. When another nation or easily discernable group of people threatens our national security or attacks us, we will respond by elliminating that threat first for the simple sake of doing so and second to send the message that we're not to be messed with, i.e. for revenge.
I think revenge attacks and ideology based struggles are justifiable based on the way we define the ideologies we're fighting against. It's not that we're fighting an ideology that makes it right or wrong; rather it's the ideology you're fighting against and the way you wage that war. Fighting against the ideology of extremist islam, of terrorism, is the only acceptable way of responding to it. Fighting the ideology of islam in general, or communism for that matter, is simply ridiculous, and that's the real and bigger problem with these "revenge attacks."
By 'fighting' an ideology I meant violently. Its not only acceptable but laudable to work to end ideologies that are hateful or ignorant. But you cannot and should not kill or violently attack people because of their ideology. If there are people in the US who think that all non-Muslims should be killed that is their right. They are allowed to hold that opinion. We ought to work to change their opinion.
Actions, not ideologies, can be countered with violence. We are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan because we were attacked violently (whatever you think the real reasons are, thats why the public supported the wars to begin with). And without the wars, in my opinion, we will definetly be attacked violently again. We counter action with action. Saddam may not have attacked us, but it was still his actions, not his ideology, that spurred the attack (again, in the popular mind). If Bush said that we were going to go to war to kill everyone who doesn't like us, or even that hates us, that would be ridiculous and evil. But saying we are going to war against people who attack us violently and/or are working to attack us violently is something completely different. The wars may work to end the ideology of hate, but that ideology alone is not cause enough for war. I can hate the US if I want to and unless I do something to hurt other people with that hate I ought to be allowed to have it -- thats the American ideal of freedom.
Bush doesn't rationalize, justify or laud the war because it's action vs. action. He tried that with the WMD and it's fallen to peices. Bush rationalizes the ongoing war in Iraq as a war against the ideology of terror, pure plain and simple. It's a pre-emptive war, which necessarily means we're not responding to any act of war against our state. That doesn't mean we're fighting without provocation - just that we're not responding to anything they specifically did besides be a totalitarian dictatorship opposing the US in the same way they have for hundreds of years and to a lesser extent and with lesser danger than Iran, North Korea or Syria.
Bush flat out calls it a war between the ideology of hope, supported by the US and it's troops through invasion, against an ideology of "fear" or "hatred", represented by dictators and terrorists everywhere.
Bush says that "we will spread an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate." Not, "We're going to kill everyone that hates us." A benefit of the war is it provides a means to change the ideology of the region. That is not the same as a reason for the war. The reason to fight and kill is to "bring to justice" people who are involved in acts that threaten innocent people. An added benefit that we are doing "at the same time" is changing ideology. We did not go to war because of someone's ideology, we went because they killed innocents on our soil. The ideology needs to change, and setting up democratic governments is going to help that. But the two are not the same act -- war and changing ideology. The one just makes the other more possible in this case. Never was it said that we were going to go to war to fight people because they hate us. Its because they attacked us and, because of their ideology, will attack us again. As I said before, the ideology itself was not reason enough to go to war.
This fact is shown by the fact that they've hated us for quite some time now, but we didn't go to war until they attacked us. And we attacked Saddam because he was helping them attack us (if you don't think so there is plenty of evidence at the Weekly Standard, but it probably won't change your mind). When all they did was passively hate us we let them go, because thats just not a good reason to start killing people.
here's a link to some proof about Saddam's connection to terrorists for all of you who are still skeptical: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=110006953. If things like this can't convince you then I don't know what will short of some picture of Saddam and OBL with Saddam's handwriting on it saying "Fond memories with a dear friend" or something like that.
From Rosett’s article:
“By the time Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn are done tabulating the cross-connections, meetings, Iraqi Intelligence memos unearthed after the fall of Saddam, and information obtained from detained terrorist suspects, you have to believe there was significant collaboration between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
A foundation rule of statistical analysis is that correlation does not prove causation. For the same reasons of logic, contact between Iraq and al Qaeda does not prove collaboration between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Proof of collaboration would require direct, documented, and official cooperation in planning, funding, training, and executing the Sept. 11 attacks. That is the standard that would warrant a link between Iraq and al Qaeda and nothing in either this piece or the Weekly Standard piece even comes close to demonstrating that. It is completely irresponsible to make a claim of collaboration with these bits of information.
Iraq had aboslutely nothing more to do with 9-11 than Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, or any of the other Israel and America hating Arab dictatorships. Sudan was probably much more involved, since it housed terrorists and training camps. Bush has stopped trying to tie the knot between 9-11 and Iraq by focusing instead on the ideology of hate and terror, which he frequently sites as the reason we're over there. We got involved because of faulty intelligence, he says, and now we're fighting for an ideology.
I'm am not saying there is a connection between Iraq and 9/11, I'm saying there was a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Just because Iraq is aiding and/or harboring a terrorist group does not mean it is a pivotal player in all, or any, of their attacks. Iraq was most likely not connected to 9/11 at all, but it was connected to al-Qaeda.
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