Mao wrote in his little red book that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” – a strange notion for those of us accustomed to thinking that it came out of a ballot box, but you have to admit of a certain charming simplicity.
The notion is all well and good for those who would accrete power to themselves, but the power hungry will have need for many more guns – and people to point them – than they’ll have desire to share that power with. How to motivate the little people? Socialist-style class warfare was Mao’s path, which is just another way for greed to hold hands with envy and cast admiring glances in the mirror.
Ideology, in other words.
Victor Davis Hanson argues that Osama bin Laden’s Islamist movement is much more about the accretion of power than it is a reaction to some shifting set of quotidian grievances. Which – if he’s right – makes the whole notion of appeasement rather problematical, doesn’t it?
No, we cannot all just get along:
The truth is that bin Laden and al Qaeda want power for themselves, and use religious grievances and shifting political demands to try to achieve it.
In their worldview, Islam’s chance for a renewed united Muslim caliphate was shattered into impotent warring nations by sneaky 19th century European colonists. They now want to reunite modern Arab nations into an Islamic empire run by the likes of bin Laden and his sidekick, Ayman al-Zawahri…
Bin Laden’s problem then is not really tiny Israel or global warming or mortgage interest rates, but an all-powerful and free West led by the United States. It alone has the military and economic power to stop radical Islamists. Plus, we bring the more powerful message of political freedom. And American popular culture, with its informality and egalitarianism, is sweeping the globe, seducing far more adherents than does rote memorization of the Koran.
So, despite bin Laden’s bragging, America remains the big stumbling block, the stronger horse. The United States alone ensures that bin Laden stays a sick man babbling in a cave
Lex,
My only problem is that this is a rather abstract view of “power” – Osama had lots of power via his family connections, service in Afghanistan, etc. prior to his going on jihad against us and our friends. You have to eliminate a great deal of what we know about the man – his belief that the muj in Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet empire, that the mere presence of US forces on “sacred” Saudi soil was an affront, and his willingness to live as a wanderer in the Northwest frontier – to say that he is merely “using” religion. People want power for a purpose – in the case of many jihadniks I think that purpose is profoundly religious and that is why it has real resonance throughout the Muslim world.
Though either reading makes appeasement a hard sell, I think not simply reading out religion as a tool matters hugely since it is a major American fault to be trying to find the “pragmatic reasons” those funny little ferners do the things we do so we can all sit down at the negotiating table and figure out how much we need to pay them to get them to stop doing whatever we find vexing. Ultimately the abstraction of “power” becomes shorthand for they are in it for themselves, and the fact is that very nasty people doing evil things can have real, if abhorant, ideas for which they are willing to lay down their lives. In a certain sense even that sacrifice involves “power” but of a very different, otherworldly (perhaps lower wordly) kind, but it does no good not to take their announced reasons for doing things seriously (sort of like people trying to figure out where ol’ Adolf was really going with the race stuff – what was his real angle? Maybe that he believed it and wanted to wipe out other inferior races, starting with Jews, nicht wahr?)
Funny thing is, they DON’T lay down their lives. They convince their followers to do that. The sycophants that follow OBL et al, for the most part come from uninformed and uneducated people clinging to the only thing they really know, their religion. So, the motiviation as I see it can only be for attaining power, however you want to slice it and dice it, abstract or absolute.
President Bush isn’t perfect, but he does understand the stakes in this war and he has never wavered on them. Oh please God, may our next president understand them as well.
Mao is right. Bin Laden knows it. The ballot box is how free people elect political leaders. The gun, and the will to use it, is how we became and continue to stay free.
Lee,
May I submit that a problem with your description is that it doesn’t describe at all the 9/11 hijackers who were far from uneducated and had lots of non-religioius options in life that they forswore, like many other jihadis. Also, Bin Laden and some of his lieutenants have put themselves in harms way from time to time, and some of them have died for it.
I want these people dead, and I find their ideology contemptible, don’t admire their devotion, etc, but it does us less than no good to assume that they are uneducated and they want “power” in the abstract. It matters in terms of how we pursue and eventually kill them to understand that they are after religious power, and that their understanding of what that power looks like informs how they fight as well as how they train and recruit. (If we start looking for uneducated Arabian campesinos when it is an urbanized, westernized elite that are preparing for the sequel to flying planes into buildings we wont find them).
We fight where we can. Afghanistan, and for that matter Iraq (at the time) were doable. We engage where they will engage us. We kill them because they need to be killed–they created a reality we could no longer ignore. While nausea sets in with our losses, better fight there than here. Obviously.
That said, our biggest mistake IMHO was not defining this war at the outset as a Holy War. A factional Holy War, but a Holy War. Make Muslims decide whether their religion supports the radical opportunists that are feeding their youth into our meatgrinders while threatening our existence. Or, whether the Koran might be interpreted……hmmm….differently. Make THEM choose between the self-serving evil scum that they follow (which reflects on their own “righteousness”) or, maybe drop a dime on the current Mullahs and get some “new talent”.
Too bad we could not have engaged in Iran at the outset. And Syria. And done some selective door knocking in Saudi Arabia…NOT DOABLE.
Guadalcanal was the best we could do at the outset of a long struggle, long ago. Not exactly the heart of the Empire, but we engaged. The limitation then was capability and logistics. Our limitation at the outset of this struggle (and continues to be) political will and internal partisan politics. We should have gone in heavier…we should have committed our ENTIRE Nation. We made mistakes. We always have. War is like that.
I pray we will adapt (and it appears we are) and eventually prevail…violently. Grrrrr…
David,
I agree with what you are saying, however, I submit to you that the vast majority of the Al Qaida-ites are not educated past a religious indoctrination. Yes, some were educated, most are merely highly trained killers bent on performing one task. Yes they want to kill us. Their leaders are doing so imho for power, the power to create an Islamic State based on Sharia law. I’m no expert, but, that’s how I see it. I do agree with your points as well. And I too pray we prevail… as for adapting, well, whatever works to kill them before they kill us.
Lex – Notwithstanding Mao’s treachery and tyranny, I was not aware that is was just merely “greed” and “envy” that were the motivation for nearly two decades of Chinese civil war, the Long March, and ultimately the establishment of the PRC in ‘49. That certainly saves one from reading and trying to understand a long and complex history. Thank you.
As for Victor Davis Hanson, while his understanding of history may be thorough and accurate, his personal and political opinions are often not. Hanson is a neoconservative whose opinions – like many of his high level, early administration’s neocon contemporaries – regarding Iraq have been well of the mark, and which have unfortunately led to our current Iraq conundrum. Moreover, he seems to cherry picket and adjusts facts to support his preconceived opinion, rather than allowing the facts to suggest more logical and thoughtful conclusions.
The mind of a terrorist is understandably an enigma for the average American. Thus unable to understand terrorist leadership or their followers’ socio-economic background, their religion, their fanaticism, their training, their strengths and weaknesses, their fears, values, and their motivation, we can only try to over-simplify all this into something that we actually can understand in Western terms …. i.e., they hate freedom, they want power, or they want to kill us.
But trying to describe and understand an inscrutable and amorphous, yet formidable, evil and deadly adversary with one’s own knowledge and personal experience, rather than the terrorist’s is to lead to serious errors in trying to combat, overcome or kill him.
Sun Tzu and others wisely tell us we must “know thy enemy” in order to defeat him. But six years after 9-11, and nearly 25 years after the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, we still have an incredibly woeful lack of real understanding our enemies. . . and it is costing us dearly.
To hunt and kill big game, it is best to actually know well their habits, motivations, routines, etc. Likewise, to hunt, capture and kill terrorists – or even domesticate them, – it is necessary to understand them in their own environment and habitat…. And not just what we only think or imagine makes them tick – a mistake that Hanson and many others continue to sorely make.
fliterman, start your own blog, please. You are obviously well read, have a defensible point of view and are prepared to expand upon it. I’ll even link to you, I swear.
And then starting from fresh, without anyone else’s efforts to condescend to, you’ll be relieved of the apparently irresistible temptation to weave agreeable tapestries from random, disconnected threads, the better to demonstrate your erudition and superiority.
But let me offer this little hint: If you really want anyone to read to the end, eschew wiggling your toes in the soft mud of moronically reductive, sneering sarcasm up front. Save it for the end.
Or else people tend to skip ahead, and all of your best stuff goes unread.
lex – Thanks for the debrief. And for your fair if rather pointed but accurate summation.
Of course I must admit it is far easier to pick and chose my comments and critiques on another’s blog, rather than expose my thoughts on my own, for others to critique. But to have my own blog would unfortunately blow my cover, something I am not quite able to do for several reasons.
I am sorry if I may sometimes come across as condescending or supercilious. That is not my intention, nor is it my normal real-life personality. While my opinions may certainly differ from many here, they are hardly superior. They are simply opinions that I believe.
However like you, I am highly competitive by nature and intellectually curious. Thus, I not only enjoy competitive and even pointed debate (including an occasional ‘gotcha’), but I also enjoy the learning and exploring of new ideas involved therein. But I do make mistakes, like as you point out, leading with sarcasm rather than ending. I guess the target this time was so good, I just got buck fever. Sorry. I’ll try to do better.
Filterman, I like having you around because of the First Law of SWO Thermodynamics: heat on you is heat off of me.
Brother, you missed the point on Mao, though. To quote Aristotle, Men don’t become tyrants just to get out of the rain.
But at the same time, a great part of UBL’s prestige in his part of the world is that he was born a very rich man, could have quietly indulged in the sybarite life of the Saudi rulers, but instead he gave it all up for Allah. He lives the life of a poor, hunted man in the sticks of the NWFP, denied all comforts, for the sake of Allah. That gives him a lot of “street cred.” And it is the result of a religious understanding on the part of our enemy that, as you noted, we (our leadership) still have not tried to understand or respond to. And here’s an excellent example of how truly screwed up our response has been because of that: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/189476.php
VDH likewise still repeatedly demonstrates his lack of understanding of Islam, but his instincts are sound–this is a power struggle, and those who are not willing to defend their own with all they have will lose. Strategically, however, his lack of understanding of Islam leads him to repeat the White House’s mistake–all democracies are not equal, and the quest for a democratic Middle East is bringing us nothing but misery because in the ME, democracy is not the honored form of a sacred individual’s ineluctable right to self-determination, but the enshrinement of mob rule, the mob being the vast hyper-religious nightmare known as the Ummah. With every drumbeat for democracy, we play into UBL’s hands, and make our own problems harder.
re- “The truth is that bin Laden and al Qaeda want power for themselves, and use religious grievances and shifting political demands to try to achieve it.”
Insert “Hillary (etc.)” for bin Laden, “Democrats” for al Qaeda and replace religious grievances (being generous) with “class warfare”.
Allies?
About true, wouldn’t you say? How’s dem apples Flit?
b2
B2, although I would agree that your Hilary/Dem comment is accurate, couldn’t the same insertions be made for the Pubs, if they had a front leader worthy of note? And if not “class warfare”, then perhaps “fear of al Qaeda”…
And if not “class warfare”, then perhaps “fear of al Qaeda”…
Only if you’re willing to believe that the danger of al Qaeda is illusory or overblown.
*sitting back to watch developing fireworks show put on by Michelle and B2*
I don’t see why the fear can’t be legitimate in that scenario, FbL. Even a legitimiate threat can be manipulated by a group of people for their own potential benefit.
“Developing fireworks show”?
Why, FbL, my dear, whatever could you mean??
Why of course they they could be Michelle…but a smokin hole and 3000 dead is something to be “afraid of”……ain’t it?
Did that surprise ya FBL?
b2
Hillary and her ilk are the disease. AQ and their ilk are the opportunistic infection. Kind of like AIDS and Kaposi’s Sarcoma.
Zane- re your analogy. Dammed APT son.
Michelle-
As bad as the ‘Pubs field of candidates may appear, every one of ‘em, with the exception of that loon Paul, would not cut n’run from the fight with the terrorists…Unlike EVERY one of the Dim candidates has avowed publicly, for the record, to do…
Simple. Machine. Logic. K.I.S.S.
BTW, that last “S” is for me, not you dear.
b2
I will give you that last one b2. And its no small point.
But I guess my simple point is that when it comes to politicians…on a lot of levels they certainly appear to be all the same. Certainly when you look at party politics anyway.
I’ll give you that point- gladly. I agree. The politicians who are elected from representative democracy in most cases aren’t worthy of the process that made them… Examples abound.
Personally, I think that ‘unworthiness’ is derived from the meglomania of those attracted to politics in the first place multplied x time in office divided by how much begging for bucks between elections they’ve done!
Representative democracy requires political parties. That’s why they developed so fast in the US and Canadian experience after our common variety of government was established. “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is fantasy…..
Bad as it is though, I still wouldn’t want any Pale Rider to supplant the buffoonery we call politics. We’ve gotta admit, there is some entertainment value in the present system at least!
b2