Nothing Aside

Terrorist 3.0

It has long been clear to me that arguments that suggest that Islamic terrorists are motivated by the poverty of their situation are bogus.  Bin Laden was a billionaire.  Many of the September 11 terrorists were well educated and had real prospects for success in engineering careers or the like.  And now with the London bombings, we are seeing that today's terrorist was yesterday's teacher's aide, yesterday's husband of a pregnant wife, and yesterday's university student.  What motivates Muslims of such promise to give it all up and take as many people as they can with them?  Thomas Friedman has some ideas:

Why are young Sunni Muslim males, from London to Riyadh and Bali to Baghdad, so willing to blow up themselves and others in the name of their religion? Of course, not all Muslims are suicide bombers; it would be ludicrous to suggest that.

But virtually all suicide bombers, of late, have been Sunni Muslims. There are a lot of angry people in the world. Angry Mexicans. Angry Africans. Angry Norwegians. But the only ones who seem to feel entitled and motivated to kill themselves and totally innocent people, including other Muslims, over their anger are young Sunni radicals. What is going on?
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Clearly, several things are at work. One is that Europe is not a melting pot and has never adequately integrated its Muslim minorities, who, as The Financial Times put it, often find themselves "cut off from their country, language and culture of origin" without being assimilated into Europe, making them easy prey for peddlers of a new jihadist identity.

Also at work is Sunni Islam's struggle with modernity. Islam has a long tradition of tolerating other religions, but only on the basis of the supremacy of Islam, not equality with Islam. Islam's self-identity is that it is the authentic and ideal expression of monotheism. Muslims are raised with the view that Islam is God 3.0, Christianity is God 2.0, Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0.

Part of what seems to be going on with these young Muslim males is that they are, on the one hand, tempted by Western society, and ashamed of being tempted. On the other hand, they are humiliated by Western society because while Sunni Islamic civilization is supposed to be superior, its decision to ban the reform and reinterpretation of Islam since the 12th century has choked the spirit of innovation out of Muslim lands, and left the Islamic world less powerful, less economically developed, less technically advanced than God 2.0, 1.0 and 0.0.

"Some of these young Muslim men are tempted by a civilization they consider morally inferior, and they are humiliated by the fact that, while having been taught their faith is supreme, other civilizations seem to be doing much better," said Raymond Stock, the Cairo-based biographer and translator of Naguib Mahfouz. "When the inner conflict becomes too great, some are turned by recruiters to seek the sick prestige of 'martyrdom' by fighting the allegedly unjust occupation of Muslim lands and the 'decadence' in our own."

This is not about the poverty of money. This is about the poverty of dignity and the rage it can trigger.

It has never been about money per se.  Perhaps that is the case with suicide bombings in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but not in the suicide attacks that we face in the streets of Western cities.  It is about something more.  They seek revenge against the power framework that has left Islam suffering from its own inabilities to reform and evolve.  How else can young Muslims reconcile the two facts taught to them: that Islam is superior to all other religions and yet the Muslim world lives at the economic, intellectual and cultural mercy of a Western society with lesser religions?

Standing For Freedom

I like this.  It's time we stop looking the other way while our "allies" ignore the rule of law and basic human rights.  Democracy should always be a core value of the United States because, ironically, in the long run freedom breeds more security than our past focus on stability.

CAIRO, June 20 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday criticized autocratic U.S. allies and praised democratic reformers throughout the Middle East in a policy speech laying out the principles and goals of the Bush administration's democracy campaign.

Speaking to an invitation-only audience at the American University in Cairo, Rice mixed tough rhetoric with assurances that the United States is not planning to impose democracy. The United States, she said, "has no cause for false pride and we have every reason for humility."

Calling the ideal of democracy "universal," she noted that "for 60 years, my county, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region . . . and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people."

Across the Middle East, "the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty. It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy," Rice declared.

This is the rhetoric I'm a fan of.  And it is great to see the Bush administration taking this talk to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.  I hope it continues and begins to show some results.  The people in these "allied" countries deserve it.

Iran's Unfortunate Choice

Maybe this is a horrible analogy, but I think it points out some interesting contrasts:

In 2002 French President Chirac was reelected after defeating right-wing extremist Le Pen in the run-off.  Socialists had to hold their noses and vote for the Conservative Chirac because the alternative was so right-wing that he would have destroyed the country from the inside. 

If Iran were the same as France, moderately more conservative former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani would also win in a landslide.  But I don't expect that to happen.  Yes, he probably will win (if only because throwing an election that dramatically would be way too obvious and the mullahs have a known quantity in Rafsanjani), but if the Supreme Council pulls its weight, the overwhelmingly reformist-minded Iranian people will magically "elect" the super-conservative mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In Iran, the young, reformist population will have to hold its nose and vote for Rafsanjani.  There clearly is a strong resistance to the idea of a sharp, dramatic show of popular opposition against a conservative government.  The Iranian people have experienced too many sharp changes of political direction in their lifetime to push for yet another.  While reform will not advance much with another Rafsanjani presidency, at least it wouldn't get more oppressive.

At least that's the hope.  Here's hoping Iranians can get the best that what has been left for them by the powers that be.

Iranian Women Fight Back

And it's not just in China.  Oppressed people worldwide know how to take the initiative if there are enough people with a common complaint.  And I'd say that the oppression of women in Iran would definately produce a sizable pool of potentially pissed off people.

TEHRAN, June 12 - Hundreds of women staged an unauthorized demonstration in Tehran today, protesting sex discrimination under Iran's Islamic leadership just days before the June 17 presidential elections.

The protest was the first public display of dissent by women since the 1979 revolution, when the new regime enforced obligatory veiling. "We are women, we are the children of this land, but we have no rights," they chanted. More than 250 marched outside Tehran University, and about 200 others demonstrated two blocks away after hundreds of riot police swarmed in and barred them from joining the main protest.

There were reports that the police clubbed several women, though there were no hospital reports of injuries. Demonstrators said they saw some women being detained and dragged away by officers. But the situation appeared to stabilize, and after about an hour of demonstrating, the women disbanded without further incident.

"We will continue such protests because it shows that women are aware of their rights," said Roohi Afzal, 52, a translator who was at the protest. "It seems that our presence today really hurts the government, that it has deployed so many forces. Maybe it will react and respond to our demands."

Maybe.  This coming presidential election will probably not produce a big surprise like we saw in 1997, but you never know.  Here's hoping that reform can grip Iran and hold for once. 

Something To Cheer About

When it comes right down to it, we all want the same basic freedoms.  American, Iranian, French, Korean and Bolivian.  Sometimes I get wrapped up in the bubble of politics and forget that most people just don't care about a lot of the stuff I spend a lot of time reading about.  And that's fine.  In fact it's probably much healthier.  Witness Iran:

TEHRAN, June 8 - People across this city took to the streets in joy on Wednesday after the Iranian soccer team qualified for the World Cup finals by beating Bahrain, 1-0.

Drivers poured onto the streets honking their horns and shouting, "Iran! Iran!" In Africa Street, thousands of people danced to loud music played over sound systems in cars as the police watched in silence. Women took off their mandatory head scarves and danced with men who apparently were strangers. In another area, Ressalat, shopkeepers closed their stores and distributed flowers.

Women also scored a victory when about 200 of them forced their way into the stadium to watch the game. Women have been barred from viewing stadium events since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. The women were allowed to enter after they chanted for hours, "My right is also a human right." One woman's leg was broken when security guards tried to shut the gate to keep them out.

The celebrations remained apolitical even though Iranians will go to the polls in less than three weeks to elect a new president. Some people in cars that carried flags with pictures of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful politician and presidential candidate, said they did so only because they wanted to wave Iran's flag at other cars and the flags were given to them free.

"Is this better now?" asked Amir Hossein, 21, as he made a hole in the middle of his flag to cut out Mr. Rafsanjani's portrait. "I don't care about any of the candidates. I am just happy that we made it to the World Cup."

One young man, who introduced himself as Asghar, 19, and held a poster of Mr. Rafsanjani over his chest, was approached by a middle-aged women who grabbed the poster and tore it up. "You are not a real man if you vote for any of them," she shouted, as a crowd applauded in joy. "Don't ruin our happiness tonight with this."

They couldn't care less about which theocrat will be running their country.  Perhaps they have given up hope that things really matter (after the Khatami bailout a few years back, it's easy to see why), but I think it is much simpler than that. It's the World Cup. That's definately something worth dancing in the streets about.

Syria's Street Cred

Syria isn't going to sit around and take it anymore.  First there was the blowback from the Hariri assassination in Lebanon which evolved into an anti-Syrian-occupation revolution.  Then more recently there have been missions by U.S. troops in Iraq that have ventured into the border area near Syria where foreign fighters have been known to leak across.  Oh, and of course, there's always Israel, which has won every battle in which it has faced Syrian forces since its founding nearly 60 years ago.  Given all of these emasculating events, it's no wonder that the regime of Bashir al-Assad wants to show it won't get beaten up on the playground.

TEL AVIV, June 2 - Syria test-fired three Scud missiles last Friday, including one that broke up over Turkish territory and showered missile parts down onto unsuspecting Turkish farmers, Israeli military officials revealed Thursday.
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The Israeli military officials said they interpreted the launchings as a gesture of defiance to the United States and the United Nations by the Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, who has been pushed in a humiliating fashion to remove Syrian troops from Lebanon since the assassination of the anti-Syrian politician, Rafik Hariri.

"This is really putting your fingers in the eyes of the Americans, saying, 'I'm not dancing to your flute,' " a senior Israeli military official said. "The tests are probably needed for the missile project, but this is Bashir taking a risk here and sending a message."

No doubt this missile test was about regaining a strong domestic hand, as well as a bolder international face.  I see little reason why Syria would provocatively use a missile test as a threat against its neighbors more explicitly. 

It is interesting though, that the one missile happened to go over Turkish territory - appropriately the province of Hatay.  Syria considers Hatay - or as they call it Alexandretta - part of greater Syria.  This claim isn't completely unfounded historically since the region is majority Arab and only became a part of Turkey because Vichy France was anxious to dump its excess territory and decided Turkey would be the only possible customer.  I won't get into all that, but suffice it to say, Syria disagrees.  In fact, Syrian maps still show the province as a "disputed territory."  It is little wonder then that this missile that happened to go over Turkey went over Hatay.  Very convenient.

Assad wants to prove he's still a tough guy after having to remove his troops from Lebanon.  He wants to prove that he isn't a wimp who will just let U.S. troops run around on his border.  He needs to show that he has the capability to strike Israel (even though he would be annihilated immediately if he tried such an attack).  This was all a big show.  An interesting one, but all show.

The Saudi Trump Card

Why is the Saudi family in Saudi Arabia so important to American foreign policy?  The best reason has often relied on the idea that their constant and consistant supply of oil keeps our industrial economy smoothly running and we would be in a tight spot without them.  But why put up with them?  Why should America allow the Saudis to hold such a strong blackmail card?  It is the Saudi regime which has flourished based on its promises to look the other way when its radical Wahhabi brand of Islam produces the very terrorists who threaten America every day. 

Why not push for a democratic revolution in Saudi Arabia?  For one, there is a pretty strong chance that any "revolution" will only produce a regime rooted even more in Wahhabism and a misguided interpretation of shari'ah.  Really, it could only get worse.  But even before we can concern ourselves with how a revolution might look, the Saudis are determined to have something to say about it:

Based on National Security Agency electronic intercepts, the Saudi Arabian government has in place a nationwide, self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and dirty bombs strategically placed at the Kingdom’s key oil ports, pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks, offshore platforms, and backup facilities. If activated, the bombs would destroy the infrastructure of the world’s largest oil supplier, and leave the country a contaminated nuclear wasteland ensuring that the Kingdom’s oil would be unusable to anyone. The NSA file is dubbed internally Petro SE, for petroleum scorched earth.

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According to the NSA intercepts, Petro SE was devised by the Saudis because of their overriding fear that if an internal revolt or external attack threatened the survival of the House of Saud, the U.S. and other Western powers might abandon them as the Shah of Iran was abandoned in 1979. Only by having in place a system that threatened to create crippling oil price increases, political instability and economic recessions did the royal family believe it could coerce Western military powers to keep them in power.

It's a brilliant plan, really.  The Saudis have been playing a dangerous game of Risk rooted in blackmail and threats for so long with both Western powers and their own internal Islamic fundamentalists that these sorts of "last straw" options have become a dangerous reality.  The example of the Shah in Iran is a very pertinent example here.  With "Petro SE" on record, the Saudis can be assured that the United States would intervene if the Saudi regime faced any internal threats which threatened its hold on power.  The corrupt Saudi regime has ensured its own long-term viability. 

Ignoring the environmental catastrophe of this type of infrastructure bombing, the only way to change the Saudi regime would be to free the American economy from its dependency on oil so a sudden loss of 25% of world oil would not be crushing.  That always seems to be the answer here, but it is always the right one. 

The Saudis have a great plan.  Now we need a better one.

Images That Speak

President Bush, January 20, 2005:

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom. We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion:  The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.  The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

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In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.

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When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, "It rang as if it meant something."  In our time it means something still. America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. 

President Bush, April 26, 2005:

Coddling corrupt, fundamentalist tyrants is our new definition of freedom and liberty?

Religions of the World Agree... On Intolerance

Finally!  We all knew it would happen some day, right?  Yes, today is the day that leaders of Christianity, Judaism and Islam got together to unite for a common cause.  Today sectarian differences were put aside in order to speak with one voice.  Years of conflict between Israelis, Palestinians, Arab Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Sufis, Alevis, and Armenian Orthodox Christians have finally come to an end! 

What was it that brought them together?

International gay leaders are planning a 10-day WorldPride festival and parade in Jerusalem in August, saying they want to make a statement about tolerance and diversity in the Holy City, home to three great religious traditions.

Now major leaders of the three faiths - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are making a rare show of unity to try to stop the festival. They say the event would desecrate the city and convey the erroneous impression that homosexuality is acceptable.

Yeah, we definitely wouldn't want to show that love between two people is a good thing.  No way, no sirree!  The slippery slope would just lead to a cycle of violence in the end.  Before you know it homosexuals will be starting territorial wars and throwing rocks at each other in the streets of Gaza.  We can't have that, right? 

Geez, what a bunch of hypocrites. 

"They are creating a deep and terrible sorrow that is unbearable," Shlomo Amar, Israel's Sephardic chief rabbi, said yesterday at a news conference in Jerusalem attended by Israel's two chief rabbis, the patriarchs of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches, and three senior Muslim prayer leaders. "It hurts all of the religions. We are all against it."

Abdel Aziz Bukhari, a Sufi sheik, added: "We can't permit anybody to come and make the Holy City dirty. This is very ugly and very nasty to have these people come to Jerusalem."

The millennia of conflict and suffering by all sides have apparently not been seen as harmful to all the religions.  Wow.

What this says: suicide bombers who blow up cafes and spray their flesh across a 100-foot radius aren't reason enough to bring the religions together in recognition that conflict is making their Holy City legitimately dirty in reality and in conscience, but two individuals loving each other is cause enough to drop ancient grievances and quibbles?  It simply makes no sense. 

It seems that American Christianity isn't alone in letting its right-wing elements hijack its morality.  While hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East go without clean drinking water, adequate educational opportunities or much hope for the future, the region's religious leaders are busy denouncing one of the principles that every side could use some more of: love.  Where are the priorities?

**UPDATE**: How did the New York Times miss these choice quotes?

"This is nothing less than the spiritual rape of the Holy City," said Rabbi Yehuda Levine, from the Rabbinical Alliance of America, describing the 10-day festival, known as World Pride 2005, as "moral terrorism".

"Moral terrorism"!!!  Have these religious leaders no shame?  They live in the land of terrorism and do nothing of substance to stop it.  But as soon as two people who love each other show up, they stand shoulder to shoulder to fight the "moral terrorism".  If this is "moral terrorism," these leaders are guilty of moral bankruptcy.

But there's more:

"This is not the homo land, this is the holy land," he told a news conference in Jerusalem convened by religious leaders from the three faiths.

Nice touch with the word play there.  Well done.  It almost makes me believe this is a joke.  Almost, but not quite.

Archbishop Sambi, the Vatican ambassador to Israel, warned that the festival could provoke disturbances among the religious communities in Jerusalem.

"Making this parade would not only be an offence, but a provocation to the Jews, Christians and Muslims of Jerusalem and all the world," he said.

A "provocation"?  A provocation of what?  To fight?  Too late guys, they're already fighting.  That is kinda the whole point.

"Don't anger our God. If we let people who follow the wrong way (come here) we will lose this city... and there'll be no holiness left here. We will stop it," said Sheikh Abed el-Salem Menasra, deputy to the Grand Mufti.

Oh, I see now.  "Our" God.  Not yours or mine, but theirs.  Have you heard this before?  It's the same line you will hear from any fundamentalist, regardless of religion.  To them, God belongs to one side: their side.  Therefore, anything you do that they do not approve of, by extension God does not approve of it either.  Get it?

A Few Absurd Things

This week saw a few amazing things.  Lebanon is on its way to true independence for the first time since the early 1970's.  And the freedom bug must be contagious because it's catching on elsewhere in the region.  But that wasn't all that happened this week that forced a double-take.

- A private equity firm has offered to buy every team in the NHL for $3.5 billion.  Every single team.  One owner.  I didn't even know that was something that happened in real life.  It's like when The Onion jokes that the Yankees just signed every player in baseball.  Of course, that's not so untrue either.

- Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden for the first time in years.  I thought we had forgotten about him!  No, turns out we're just making sure he's hidden:

Bin Laden has eluded U.S. efforts to hunt him down, and he occasionally surfaces in a video or audiotape to show followers he is still alive. U.S. intelligence agencies believe he is hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We're on a constant hunt for bin Laden. We're keeping the pressure on him, keeping him in hiding," Bush said.

Hmm.  That's good, right?

- The Saudis told Syria to get out of Lebanon.  The Saudis of all people! 

Until last month's assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, the Saudis served as behind-the-scenes players in the cooling relations between the United States and Syria. They backed efforts by Mr. Hariri to mend relations between the two countries, while helping to maintain Arab support for Syria with the Arab league, said Hazem el-Amine, a columnist with a pan-Arab daily, Al Hayat.

"As long as the Saudis had organized to protect Syria, Syria could survive this," Mr. Amine said. "That's what makes this so important."

Awesome.  The influence of the Saudis is completely unwarranted considering their origins, but this seems to be one instance when it can be of substantial use to the cause of freedom.  How ironic that the most corrupt and autocratic regime in a corrupt and autocratic region is now telling an ally to be do the liberal thing. 

- Speaking of that, oil prices are still above $50 and the world economy hasn't imploded yet.  A miracle, no less.  As world demand catches up with world capacity output in the next few months or year, I'm going to reserve my spot in the government bread line now.  This price level is simply unsustainable.

- Bill Gates was knighted by the Queen of England.  Huh?  You don't even have to be British??  That's so cheap.  That totally demeans the longstanding honor of the award for those true knights like Paul McCartney, Elton John and uh... umm, right.