felipe rodriquez on Sat, 15 Sep 2001 12:17:45 +0200 (CEST) |
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RE: <nettime> Re: Islamic Jihad, what is next? |
Brian, Thanks for your respone and questions. > Why do you say this global ideological and religious conflict begins with > the Gulf War, and not the Iranian revolution? The Iranian revolution was an important turning point in creating Islamic consciousness. And it is probably the source of many organizations and movements. Other historic events have also contributed to the shaping of hatred and anger in the Islamic world; the creation of Israel, the occupation of Jerusalem, the massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, and the continuing US corruption and coercion of autocratic rulers in arab countries. The reason I placed the start of this conflict at the Gulf War, is because this is where Bin Ladin points to as a motivation for his declaration of war. He, and other Islamic scholars and activists, believe that the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia represents a hostile occupation of the Holy Land. It is what is mentioned in the Fatwa that Bin Ladin co-authored, and it is what he refers to in his declaration of war on the US and their allies. > Could you expand on your statement that "a growing group of Islamic > scholars and activists feel that... most Muslim nations are victims of > neo-colonialist exploitation by the capitalist western world?" One has only to look at the success of organizations like Hizbollah and Hamas to understand this. These organizations combine radical anti-western ideology with practical social support systems and religious doctrine. We in the West see these organizations as radical terrorist organizations. Yet in the Arab world they are respected by many people, because of the practical social services they provide, and because they have broken the image of impotence and victimization of Muslims in their struggle against Israel and the West. But we do have to be careful in how we assess this; the Islamic world is not a unified front. There are many groups and many different opinions. There certainly are a lot of moderate Muslims that reject violence, and strongly protest against terrorist activities. Yet we can also not deny the fact that there are organizations in the Islamic world that believe they have no alternative but to radicalize. Maybe neo-colonialism was not the best word to use, others would call it imperialism or globalisation. There is no denying the fact that the US and its allies have played many geopolitical games in the Middle East, with the intention of stabilizing and controlling the region. The US had solid economic reasons to do so, but these where selfish reasons with the ultimate goal of protecting its own interests and the interests of its allies. The Gulf war was not initiated because one nation invaded another, but because of the economic motivation of maintaining stable oil supplies. If Kuwait and Suadi Arabia where not such important elements of the global economy, they would most likely have been left to their own devices to fight Iraq. Going back in history we need to realize that the economic foundation of western society, and the enormous prosperity we have today, have their origin in conquest and colonization. The ways in which the western world engages in colonization have changed, but the concepts and goals have stayed the same. And it is this process of colonization, or imperialism, that has caused millions of people to live in impoverished conditions. A fertile base for religious and ideological activism. There are many instruments that the Western world uses to engage in neo-colonialism. Economic persuasion and coercion, overt military activity, diplomatic sanctions, and covert intelligence activities are the most important of these instuments. Diplomatic sanctions have left the population of Iraq starving, economic persuasion and coercion have created incredibly wealthy minorities and large masses of people that live in poverty. Covert intelligence activities have led to the assassination of a great many people, and has created violent organizations that served the geopolitical goals of the moment. One of the complaints of the mujahedin in Afghanistan is that the US backed them with money and equipment to fight the Russians, but when the Russians retreated in disgrace all US support was cancelled and the mujahedin was left to its own devices to fight the local communist regime. Similarily in Lebanon minority factions such as the maronites where supported by Israel and the west, with the goal of dividing and ruling that nation. These selfish and respectless manipulations in foreign policy are the principle causes of agression in the arab world, and Islam is the banner under which this protest manifests and unites. > Who believes > that, and where do they make their opinions known? How do they > analyze this > neocolonialist, capitalist exploitation? There is a substantial body of literature that adresses this topic. Edward Said, Robert Fisk and Noam Chomsky have written a lot about this. Of a more anecdotal nature are numerous articles in the arab/english newspapers and websites. It would take me several hours to compile an adequate list of sources, I do not currently have several hours to do so. > Your prescription for facing this situation runs directly opposite to the > reasoning of someone like Robert Kagan, ironically of the "Carnegie > Endowment for International Peace," who wrote in Le Monde and the > Washington Post that, just like after Pearl Harbour, the US should now > ignore all those who say it somehow had a hand in creating the conditions > for the attacks, it should not seek to resolve any mysteries, but instead > retaliate massively and victoriously, against one or several countries if > need be. Ofcourse there is a feeling that some sort of retaliation is needed. But against who are we going to retaliate ? The US military's awesome war machine is capable of destroying any nation in the world, but it is not capable of destroying ideas. The US and its allies have demonstrated its military proficiency in Iraq, Serbia and Panama. But it has also demonstrated its incompetence in Somalia and Vietnam, where it was confronted with non-traditional warfare. The enemy in this case is not a state, it is a diverse group of radical Islamic organizations and individuals that have their origin in various nations around the world. The US and NATO war machine is not prepared for that kind of enemy. Modern western warfare doctrine is based on preservation of life; in the Gulf war only a few American lives where lost, in Serbia the only losses came from accidental plane crashes. How do we fight diverse organizations that are based around the world, and that are willing and able to recruit martyrs that sacrifice their lives as human bombs ? How many soldiers and civilians can the US afford to lose before anti-war protests start gaining momentum ? Irael has been fighting terrorism for decades, and what has it achieved ? Israel has by far the largest track record in fighting terrorism. It has assassinated hundreds, if not thousands, of known terrorists around the world. Is Irael a safer place today than it was twenty years ago ? And what success has Russia achieved in its war against Islamic Chechen freedom fighters ? Russia destroyed Grozny, killed a great many people, yet they're still there trying to defeat these warriors, losing more and more Russian soldiers along the way. Remember how President Putin promised that the war in Chechnia would be swift and precise, and would only take a few months ? That was two years ago. Russia has the second most powerful war machine in the world, and unlike the US it is willing to lose a great many soldiers to win a conflict. And what has it achieved in Afghanistan and Chechnia ? Putin made the same promise as Bush is making today; "make no mistake, we will hunt and destroy these terrorists". I say we should remember Afghanistan, Chechnia, Vietnam, Somalia and Israel. There is little hope the US can win this war; but when it starts it, much more violence should be expected. It is not unlikely that the US will invade Afghanistan, with the aim of arresting Usama Bin ladin and prosecuting him in a US court. It is also not unlikely that once there the US will face the same problems as Russia has faced in Afghanistan and is facing in Chechnia, and will be humiliated by a sticks and stones army that defies conventional warfare doctrine. A war against these radical Islamic organizations will not be fought in some remote place; we may send armies to these remote places, but we will be hit where it hurts most; at home. We attack them in Afghanistan, they attack Washington or Rome. We blow up some insignificant Taliban army base, they blow up a large hospital in the US. As I wrote in my original article, retaliation is a mistake at best, and in the worst case it could be catastrophic. Regards Felipe Rodriquez # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net