humanities.philosophy.objectivism

"Gordon Sollars" wrote in message
news:MPG.224351e0c4543d7c989a2c@news.killfile.org...
> In article <778467cc-ace9-42f8-843c-c72cbfde6d23
> @n36g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, mark_sieving@yahoo.com says...
>>
>> Here's the quote with a little more context:

> I couldn't tell if the author of the quote was guilty of a post hoc
> fallacy, but Bill presented the quote in the context of how "we're
> winning the war on terror".

I posted a reply to your context question, but see that it didn't take (like
many others going through AT&T's servers.) My killfile server account
hasn't updated this group for months. I assume the service is discontinued.

> Some good things seem to be happening, but
> the idea that "we" have had anything to do with Muslims rejecting
> fundamentalism at the polls is absurd.

I don't understand how you can conclude that our military campaign is not
responsible for radical Islam's popularity downfall. The evidence appears
overwhelming to me.

The Islamic terrorist "business model" that once appeared so resilient is
demonstrating a weaknesses beyond the "veteran retention problems"
of suicide bombings. Documents recently recovered in Iraq
indicate that al-Qaeda has some of the same bureaucratic rules of
traditional organization such as standardized pay rates and family
allowances. But being essentially Stateless, they have no dependable tax
base and are largely dependent upon donor contributions and "foreign labor".
And for that support, they constantly need success or at least the
propagandize perception of success in States they don't control and often
can't identify themselves in. They can't afford a perception of being
eclipsed by more reformed or democratic movements or to be viewed as
loosing or on prolonged defense. Even if al-Qaeda is relatively inactive,
their membership and capabilities evaporate.

Radical Islam saw relatively steady growth in the 20 years prior to the War
on Terror. Then the US led coalition removed one of their two safe havens
and tax bases (Iran being the other). Now al-Qaeda's not safe in even the
most remote regions of Afghanistan, and Iran is largely contained by both UN
sanctions and the threat from massive US forces on all its borders. When we
then overthrew one of Islam's most menacing and antagonistic dictators (a
documented supporter of terrorism), we pumped it with tens of billions of
dollars and democratized it (at least by Islamic standards) rather than
"stole their oil". Although our troop presence was helpful to Islamists,
leaving with those results could not have been good for al-Qaeda's
recruiting or "fundraising events". Al-Qaeda and neighboring terrorist
regimes could not tolerate that kind of overwhelming shift in momentum.

So al-Qaeda, the most volatile terrorist group by that time, bet the
farm or rushing in to roll Iraqi democracy back. Islamists everywhere
supported them. Al-Qaeda leaders called driving the crusading infidels in
Iraq their highest priority (meaning defeating the coalition nations' will
to fight). They briefly outmaneuvered the US coalition by rapidly pouring
in money mujahideen and suicide bombers (claiming 12,000 fighters prior to
the US surge) and by quickly organizing tribes dominated by dispossessed
Baathists and thugs. Iranian Quds supported fundamentalist militants in the
south. But by 2004, captured letters of Zarqawi's showed how al-Qaeda was
increasingly pessimistic, especially with the prospect of loosing public
support following elections. Zarqawi's letters confirm their strategy shift
to drive Iraq into civil war after they were faced with the likelihood of a
second successive defeat. So after their initial upped auntie to drive
Western forces from Iraq failed, with US troop draw-downs planned for 2006,
they upped it again and began a genocidal campaign to turn all three major
Iraqi societies against each other. Up until that point, Islamist
sympathizers widely rationalized killing other Muslims, but what al-Qaeda
did in Iraq was without president. It was two steps beyond some Salfist
takfiri justification by 1) targeting innocent Muslims so that their Muslim
allies would broadly retaliate to 2) kill non-apostate Muslims of al-Qaeda's
own sect. That was not takfiri, it just threw out any consistency with Islam
altogether.

Now I'm sure Muslims around the world don't generally share my "enlightened"
interpretation of the events leading to their greater condemnation of
Islamists, but Iraqis now personally understand the horror of Islamists. I'm
sure it'll be a hot night in Hillary's bedroom before they credit Western
military intervention. But even as Western denunciations of Islamists are
ignored, condemnations by an overwhelming number of Iraqis are not.

Reduced public support of Islamists in Pakistan did not occur in a vacuum
either. Al Qaeda's increasingly self-destructive aggression there is also a
result of NATO and US military confrontation. Safe havens in Afghanistan
were destroyed, pushing them into mountainous regions along the Pakistani
border, then into Waziristan and now beyond - where they are increasingly
forced into confrontations with a wider Pakistani society. They can not
just sit idle for years as societies around them reform and prosper and
expect their support to continue. So they're reduced to bombing things like
Bhutto relays despite her popular support.

I'm unaware of any plausible theory other than our WOT and its military
policy for the self-destruction of al-Qaeda. But if you know of one, jump
in.

I suppose it could be claimed that any Muslim society run by al-Qaeda would
eventually reject their brutally Sharia law, but until we militarily pursued
them, they were a growing movement, targeting primarily Western institutions
while gaining worldwide recognition and rock-star like support among the
poor. I'm not aware of evidence that al-Qaeda promoted such widely
unpopular and indiscriminate attacks like the one on the Bhutto rally or any
such un-Islamic attacks as their initiation of Iraqi genocides prior to
their military defeats.

Maybe some could claim that falling Islamist support is the result of 9-11,
but I don't recall it falling immediately after the attacks, at least not on
the Arab street where 9-11 still is simultaneously blamed on US policy and
attributed to clandestine western organizations.

Still, maybe some could claim that Islamists' falling popularity among
Muslims was inevitable because it is so against human nature, and that our
military policy only briefly propped its support up. But that doesn't
explain the lengthy survival of fascist movements and regimes in
other regions that were not militarily challenged.

I can understand some skepticism in crediting US military policies for
shrinking Islamist support, but I don't know where calling it "absurd" comes
from.

Bill Carson