Facing a Terrorist Posted by Suzanne Nossel

The story is out today about how one of the London suicide bombers was a beloved teacher of immigrant kids in a primary school.  He is being described as "gently spoken, endlessly patient and hugely popular with children."

This is very tough to square with the mentality driving the Global War on Terror.  Among the 19 9/11 hijackers, there never really emerged a human story that gave one cause to consider them as anything but the face of evil.  It will take time to see what if any impact these revelations from Britain have on how terrorist acts by extremists are viewed, but in the meantime one personal story that I've long struggled with:

During the early 1990s I worked in South Africa for something called the National Peace Accord, a multi-party initiative to curb the political violence burning in the country's townships in-between Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990 and the first elections in 1994.

At the time, one of the notorious political prisoners in the country was a guy named Robert McBride who was on death row for having plotted a 1984 bombing at a beachfront bar called Magoos that had killed 3 people and injured 69.   The incident was part of the ANC's campaign of violence against "soft targets" - meaning civilians.   I had grown up associating the term terrorist primarily with Yasser Arafat and I mentally classed McBride in the same camp.   When I heard or read his name, the image was one of a dangerous deviant.

In my Peace Accord work I dealt daily with the ANC (a signatory to the Accord), but was often frustrated with the party's disorganization.  The ANC lacked a full-time regional coordinator who could help me plan our efforts to mediate disputes, convene local multi-party committees and monitor rallies and funerals.    One day an ANC contact told me that a new staffer had just been hired and put him on the phone.  This man was on the ball, cooperative and helpful.  We finalized plans for that weekend's rally and exchanged phone numbers.  Just before hanging up I asked his name.  I will never forget the feeling in my stomach when he said Robert McBride.

McBride had been pardoned as part of a political deal.  He is now (no joke) a police chief:

McBride is also the subject of a terrific documentary on SA's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

At the time I encountered McBride, I was dealing daily with members of the holdover apartheid era South African police and armed forces, people responsible for razing shanty-towns, brutal interrogations, deaths in detention, and (as we suspected and was later proven) funneling guns and money to stoke the very violence they professed to be trying to curb.  How to compare these men to McBride?

The ANC's cause was what had led me to South Africa - I thought theirs was the great liberation struggle of my time, and (as the daughter of 2 South Africans) I wanted to be part of it in some way.  I gradually understood that the definition of terrorist that covered McBride also probably covered Nelson Mandela, who led the ANC into armed resistance.   

Remember the saying "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"?  That's not something we've heard much since 9/11.  We associate it with another kind of terrorism an older and less menacing (though still deadly) version.  Freedom fighters are not out to destroy whole swaths of society.

What of al Qaeda?   I put them in a singular class:  a nihilistic cult of death with no concrete political aspirations or grievances, no openness to reason, no capacity to engage productively in society.  With many notable exceptions including this piece by Zbigniew Brzezinski, pointing out that some terrorists may be acting in part based on legitimate grievances has been a political no-go zone in America for the last four years. 

We don't know enough about this British schoolteacher to say whether his case challenges any of that.  That he lived a quiet, respectable life and was an ostensibly productive member of society says nothing about what his grievances and goals - real or imagined - may have been.    There's a good chance the primary school job was nothing more than a foolproof cover.  Maybe he was a naive flunky who got lured in to do the dirty work.  Was his effort part of a wholesale assault on the West, an heir to 9/11 or did he see it as something different?

We are a long way from understanding the motivations behind this schoolteacher-turned-suicide-bomber (or was it the other way 'round?), his predecessors, and those who will inevitably follow.    But we shouldn't let ourselves off the hook without even trying.

Comments

[Emma Pilbin]

Hmmmm. Not sure I fully get your point. We do need to spend more time on these questions, whether the politics of the day will tolerate it or not. When it comes to understanding our enemy "no go zones" of thought and analysis are dangerous.

[Ducky]

Wow what a story! I remember reading about this fellow way back when but never heard what had happened to him.

[Dan Kervick]

Suzanne, you write:

... "What of al Qaeda? I put them in a singular class: a nihilistic cult of death with no concrete political aspirations or grievances, no openness to reason, no capacity to engage productively in society." ...

The "nihilistic death cult" interpretation of Al Qaeda and similar groups, which is popular and stubbornly held in the US for reasons I find hard to fathom, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, seems to apply more to some of the very young suicide bombers of Hamas, whose actions often seem merely expressive, emotive acts of lonely adolescent desperation with no real political strategy behind them. It doesn't *at all* match the by now well-established profile of the cool, hardened, strategically sophisticated and older mujahideen of Al Qaeda and its ilk. While these groups differ in points of emphasis, they seem to have a fairly coherent ideology, which includes some very definite political goals - namely the eviction of non-Muslim military forces and occupiers from those lands they regard as historically Muslim lands, in the process removing from power governments that are currently backed by these non-Muslim powers, and re-establishing genuinely Islamic rule and Islamic law in these lands.

There is nothing particularly far-fetched about their agenda. They have had many successes: Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon, Clinton's from Somalia, and the really big one: the Russians from Afghanistan. They have also seen a Shiite Islamic revolution in the most important country in the region, Iran, which deposed a Western-backed government. So they have every reason to think they can win.

I suppose to many a resolutely secular mind, the presence of what are seen by some religious as infidel troops on what they believe to be the land of their own people and religious community might seem like a mere pseudo-grievance that is not "concrete". But it seems intelligible to my own secular mind at least.

Many of these fighters have concluded in the present time that the most effective means of forcing the withdrawal of forces sent by democratic governments is to attack the civilian populations of those governments, in the expectation that these civilians will judge the costs of occupation not worth the price, and pressure their governments to withdraw. They believe that the most effective means of carrying out these attacks is often for the explosive to be delivered directly by people who themselves die in the attack. Because they are so dedicated to their cause, they are willing to give their lives in these attacks. These attacks also have the side-benefit, for them, of providing an intimidating demonstration of their commitment to the civilians on the other side - many of whom probably recognize that they, themselves, would be unwilling to make that level of sacrifice.

This account of Al Qaeda and the other similar jihadist groups comes out over and over again, in one scholarly study after another. There is *no excuse* for not knowing this. And yet the "irrational, politically unmotivated, nihilistic death cult" explanation lives on and on and on. It's bizarre.

[Lane Brody]

You'll forgive me but your essay made me rather ill. We do need to understand our enemy. To the degree possible we need to do what we can to make our case for all that is modernity and win over everyone we can in a multi-generational effort. What we also need to do is to keep front and center the notion that those who deliberately kill the innocent, including innocent children, are the epitomy of evil. They are vile and evil mass murderers.

The fact that there is some basic problem with western society clearly instilling this value upon all of it's citizens is fairly clear. What is a bit less clear is multi-cultural moral relativism has not served us well in this area.

Obviously there are specific factors in the UK and with these terrorists. We should try and understand the motivations but we must keep firmly in our mind the notion that anyone who can accept killing children in this manner is an abombination to any just society.

It is extremely difficult to imagine any reconciliation with mass murderers that does not detract from the values of a just society. Indeed part of the problem in our combat of terrorism is the moral relativism of some terror acts being ok, like killing jews in Israel, vs some other acts like London being beyond the pale.

Untill we are are all crystal clear that all terror, defined as the deliberate targetting of civilians, is 100% evil and never acceptable nor even forgiveable we have no hope of ridding the world of terrorism. It can not be ok at one time or place for some people for any reason, ever.

That is the great falacy of one's man terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. The premise that the act of killing the innocent is wrong is simply missing. It is in fact not ok. Calling an actual mass murdering terrorist a freedom fighter has a name- it's propoganda or in other words simply a lie.

Lane Brody

[rosignol]

With many notable exceptions including this piece by Zbigniew Brzezinski, pointing out that some terrorists may be acting in part based on legitimate grievances has been a political no-go zone in America for the last four years.

If we view their tactics as being based on legitimate grievances with us, and that excuses their tactics and choice of targets, what might become acceptable on account of our legitimate grievances with them?

Al Qaeda must remain beyond the pale. I understand where that line of reasoning ends, and I do not want to go there.

[Dan Kervick]

Lane Brody wrote:

... "What we also need to do is to keep front and center the notion that those who deliberately kill the innocent, including innocent children, are the epitomy of evil. They are vile and evil mass murderers." ...

and

... "Until we are are all crystal clear that all terror, defined as the deliberate targetting of civilians, is 100% evil and never acceptable nor even forgiveable we have no hope of ridding the world of terrorism. It can not be ok at one time or place for some people for any reason, ever." ...

I agree with this sentiment. Whether or not one has legitimate grievances, whether or not one's cause is just, the tactic of terrorism is unacceptable. It is wrong to target non-combattant civilians in the pursuit of war aims. We shoud insist upon this as a fundamental principle governing human conflict.

I don't agree with this assertion, however:

... "Calling an actual mass murdering terrorist a freedom fighter has a name - it's propoganda or in other words simply a lie." ...

It seems possible to me that a person can be both a terrorist and a freedom fighter. To say someone is a freedom fighter is to say that he is engaged in a fight to liberate someone; to say that he is a terrorist is to say that he employs in that fight the immoral tactic of targeting civilian non-combattants. I don't see any either illogical, dishonest or wrong about saying that someone is engaged in a fight for freedom, but has stooped to using immoral terror tactics in the fight. To decribe someone as a freedom fighter does not carry the automatic implication that whatever tactics they use are justified.

And of course, the fact that *some* terrorists are also freedom fighters doesn't mean that *every* terrorist is a freedom fighter.

[Dan Kervick]

rosignol wrote:

..."If we view their tactics as being based on legitimate grievances with us, and that excuses their tactics and choice of targets, what might become acceptable on account of our legitimate grievances with them?

Al Qaeda must remain beyond the pale. I understand where that line of reasoning ends, and I do not want to go there." ...

To regard some of a person's grievances as legitimate is not the same thing as excusing their tactics and choice of targets. The tactics can be illegitimate, even wicked, while the grievances are not. And the same intellectual capacity for separating the moral judgment of tactics from the moral judgment of grievances can be applied on our side as well. So I myself don't see where the line of reasoning to which you allude leads. The fact that our grievances are real and legitimate doesn't mean "anything goes".

[doc]

“We are a long way from understanding the motivations behind this schoolteacher-turned-suicide-bomber (or was it the other way 'round?), his predecessors, and those who will inevitably follow. But we shouldn't let ourselves off the hook without even trying.”

let me note right now that this is NOT an apologia…

here are a very few things to consider when trying to understand people who so dislike us that they want to kill us…

20,000 dead and 500,000 injured in Bhopal due to union carbide’s carelessness: another 100,000 people still suffer a variety of ailments from the spill . the world believes that the US allowed union carbide off the hook. To make matters worse, it now appears as if the WTO is going to make it easier for companies to repeat and get away with this nonsense, with america’s full support.

the US has also historically trained, installed and supported dictators across the globe to do our bidding –we then remove them when they are no longer useful to us. a recent example would be bush’s daddy who, while head of the cia, created what he thought was a tame pet in noreiga: when that pet slipped its leash american troops got to drill in the tropics.

We often react before we think. creating consequences we turn a blind eye to.

We flat out hose our supposed allies to further our own interests…
“George Bush's administration yesterday blasted another lethal hole in the vital structure of multilateral arms agreements that has so far protected most of the world from the worst dangers of the modern military age. America's lone, wanton wrecking of long-running negotiations to enforce the 1972 treaty banning biological or germ weapons is an insult to the pact's 142 other signatories, a body-blow for the treaty itself and a major setback for international efforts to agree practical curbs on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

By this action, the US suggests that its national security interests, narrowly defined, and the commercial interests of its dominant biotechnology sector should take precedence over responsible global collaboration to meet a common threat. By rejecting the proposed inspection regime, it further, dangerously, suggests to others that the US is not really worried about germ-warfare controls and wants to develop its own, advanced biological weapons.”
The Guardian

We preach the ‘right’ way to do things, then refuse to do them…

we are the major source for arms worldwide, responsible for 45% of all arms trading…"Our Global Neighbourhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance", 1995, Oxford University Press

we pollute the world and snub those trying to clean it.

finally, we are are blind to the results of our behavior.

and there are still portions of the world who feel we screwed up by killing several hundred thousand Japanese with an abhorrent weapon; were wrong about korea; were wrong about vietnam; were wrong were wrong were wrong…

i suppose the list go on forever.

the US has responses to all the above - some reasonable, some not. it seems clear, however, that not everyone in the world accepts those responses.

so, when someone says…

“We however, differentiate between the western government and the people of the West. If the people have elected those governments in the latest elections, it is because they have fallen prey to the Western media which portray things contrary to what they really are. And while the slogans raised by those regimes call for humanity, justice, and peace, the behavior of their governments is completely the opposite. It is not enough for their people to show pain when they see our children being killed in Israeli raids launched by American planes, nor does this serve the purpose. What they ought to do is change their governments which attack our countries. The hostility that America continues to express against the Muslim people has given rise to feelings of animosity on the part of Muslims against America and against the West in general. Those feelings of animosity have produced a change in the behavior of some crushed and subdued groups who, instead of fighting the Americans inside the Muslim countries, went on to fight them inside the United States of America itself.
…
The Americans started it and retaliation and punishment should be carried out following the principle of reciprocity, especially when women and children are involved. Through history, American has not been known to differentiate between the military and the civilians or between men and women or adults and children. Those who threw atomic bombs and used the weapons of mass destruction against Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Americans. Can the bombs differentiate between military and women and infants and children? America has no religion that can deter her from exterminating whole peoples. Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. ... We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind…”
1998-May Interview with Osama bin Laden by ABC reporter John Miller

…is it then really that surprising that someone might be mad enough to act on those words?

okay, so the above reasons give us an idea of why we are hated. however, understanding the terrorists and recognizing that many of their claims are legitimate is sadly almost beside the point. more, apologizing to the world and promising to ‘never do it again’ not only will not work, but in a world of dwindling resources would be baldly hypocritical: in iraq the US has already shown how far it will go to control depleting resources - iran may soon discover the same.

i think this administration accepts terrorism [while mouthing outraged platitudes to sooth the masses] as simply the cost of doing business around the world.

and i believe the terrorists understand that.

[Jeff Medcalf]

You have heard, I assume, the phrase "the banality of evil"? It was middle-aged German accountants, who wore socks with sandals when they went to the beach, and had children they adored and would sacrifice anything for, that planned the Holocaust as an exercise in profit and loss: how many gold fillings, how many shoes at what price, how long could a man be worked before he died, how much medical improvement would come from experiments like throwing people in cold water and seeing how long it takes them to die? That is the banality of evil.

So is the kind of terrorism practiced by jihadis in lands that are not already overwhelmingly Muslim: it is the banality of the teacher who hates, the chemist who wants to see Islam the religion of everyone in the world, and so on. And the only response is to kill them or convert them. We've chosen to convert them to democracy, if we can, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hopefully elsewhere by example.

If we fail, we will have to kill them.

The alternative is stark: they will kill us.

[Jay.Mac]

So a British citizen blows up random people in London because of Bhopal? Or Kyoto? You seriously need to get a grip on reality.
"in iraq the US has already shown how far it will go to control depleting resources"- if the US masterplan is to get Iraq's oil they've done a pretty bad job of it- liberating 25 million people from a dictator, establishing free elections and then handing control of the oil back to the Iraqi people?

How about the billions of dollars in aid the US gives to countries around the world? I suppose that's why America is hated too?

Seriously- this attack was carried out by a British man, on British soil, against British citizens? Why the hell do you even begin to think this is about America?

I've read a lot of stupid things about 7/7 but this takes the bisuit as being the most ill-informed pile of drivel yet.

[doc]

Jay.Mac -

graph one: we haven't handed iraq back to anyone.

graph two: the US does give billions in aid. that does not seem to make difference to the terrorists.

graph three: briton sided with america in the iraqi invasion, more than reason enough for the terrorists.

graph four: i read that as confirmation of the "no-go zone" theory

[Jay.Mac]

I think you'll find that the Iraqi people held an election and are currently drafting their constitution. They have an operating government at national and local levels. American troops still being in country does not mean that Iraq hasn't been handed back. Furthermore, you'll know that the control of Iraq's oil was handed back to the Iraqis some months ago.

No, terrorists do not seem to appreciate American aid to the Palestinian Authority or to Egypt or Yemen. Perhaps that's what Osama meant when he said that treatment of the Palestinians by America was despicable. Must be awful being given billions of dollars for nothing.

Your argument was a diatribe against America- you didn't mention Britain at all. Yes, Britain did side with America on the issue of Iraq. However, that alone does not explain why a British citizen feels it is necessary to detonate a pack of explosives in the underground or on a bus and kill his fellow citizens. That has nothing to do with Iraq, or Israel, or Afghanistan or any other grievance. It's murder plain and simple, fueled not by politics but by religious fanaticism to kill infidels. There is no "legitimate" grievance for a British citizen to behave in such a way.

"Britain sided with America more than enough reason for the terrorists." That's an easy thing to say, particularly given your obvious hatred for the USA, but is it really? The man in question was an English school teacher. He decided to slaughter a group of unknown Londoners and himself in the process. Does the war in Iraq explain that at all? No. If he felt that he needed to do something about the war he had ample opportunity to campaign/protest here in Britain as a free citizen. Or he could have gone to Iraq to fight there. Instead he murdered his fellow citizens. Iraq does not explain or justify that and no matter how much you might hate America, the USA's actions do not explain it either.

Perhaps as a Muslim he could have celebrated that his fellow Muslims were freed from a secular dictatorship in Iraq? Perhaps he could have launched a campaign against Al Qaeda in Iraq which has been slaughtering Muslims wholesale these past months?

Your assumption that 7/7 had anything to do with Iraq is a stretch. There is no evidence to suggest that the war there motivated these men in any way. The WTC attacks both took place before the war in Iraq. If you want to blame America for this (and it appears that you really do), then look not to their foreign policy but to the fact that it is the most prosperous, free society in the world- it is anathema to everything that radical Islam stands for, from the freedoms of women, tolerance of homosexuality, the rights of all to vote and to express themselves. As such, it is the greatest threat to the totalitarian mindset of the Islamofascists. In the same way the freedoms of the UK and Western Europe are all in opposition to the ideology of the Islamofascists.

Just another point- America was wrong about Korea? Why not take a look at the state of North Korea today where vast portions of the populace seem to be starving. Compare that to South Korea, which is a flourishing society. I think that's proof that America got that one right. You could also argue that America's only mistake in Vietnam was to abandon the South Vietnamese to the communists, resulting in a purge of some million people.

[doc]

Jay.Mac –

let me clear up some points to see if a useful dialogue is possible…

a) “We are a long way from understanding the motivations behind this schoolteacher-turned-suicide-bomber (or was it the other way 'round?), his predecessors, and those who will inevitably follow…”

I was not speaking specifically to 7/7; rather I was responding to Suzanne’s thought about ‘knowing’ terrorists in general.

b) obviously my opinion – iraq will not be ‘handed back’ until the last foreign troop leaves the country: the rok would notbe the rok if it weren’t for the us troops stationed there. i feel
the same to be true of iraq for the foreseeable future.

c) my post listed a few possible reasons for folks who hate us to take to terrorism in general. as i carefully stated at the beginning of the post, it was NOT an apologia. which should indicate that those reasons are NOT something that i believe justifies terrorism. nor something i would use to incite others to terrorism.

why, then, did were these possible reasons listed? back to the original post:

“…pointing out that some terrorists may be acting in part based on legitimate grievances has been a political no-go zone in America for the last four years.
...
We are a long way from understanding the motivations behind this schoolteacher-turned-suicide-bomber (or was it the other way 'round?), his predecessors, and those who will inevitably follow. But we shouldn't let ourselves off the hook without even trying.”

…they were listed to open a dialogue that Suzanne correctly noted has been wrongly assigned as taboo, at least in the US. your response to my post is what I believe she was talking about.

d) finally, i happen to love the US, probably as much as you love ireland: i have served twice in our military and have since worked for our federal government a couple of decades: I care enormously how my country behaves, both world wide and domestically.

it is, however, safe to say i am not a fan of the current US administration.

[Dan Kervick]

Jeff medcalf wrote:

... "So is the kind of terrorism practiced by jihadis in lands that are not already overwhelmingly Muslim: it is the banality of the teacher who hates, the chemist who wants to see Islam the religion of everyone in the world, and so on. And the only response is to kill them or convert them. We've chosen to convert them to democracy, if we can, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hopefully elsewhere by example." ...

Jeff, I think you are right to some degree, but mistaken to lay such stress on democracy. Our ambitions in the realm of conversion should be much more modest and realistic.

We don't have to convert jihadist terrorists to Christianity; we don't have to convert them to democracy; we don't have to convert them to "modernity"; we don't have to convert them to liberalism, or capitalism, or individualism, or rationalism, or secularism, or get them to accept other "enlightenment values".

All we have to do is convert them into non-terrorists.

Nor should we deceive ourselves into thinking that we Westerners have it in our power to *actively* convert jihadist terrorists and their moral supporters. Few of us speak the language of Islamic moral philosophy, and so our efforts will be non-starters. But we can try to create conditions that are favorable to their conversion by others who do speak their language.

Jihadist terrorism is sustained by the conviction on the part of the those who commit it that they are engaged in a struggle that is virtuous, and that the purity of their ends also sanctifies the means that they use. This moral sense is sustained by the surrounding community. Even the mother who begs her son not to go off to join jihad may, when asked by her neighbors where her son has gone, boast proudly that her son is a mujahid who has gone to join to fight the infidel, in submission to the will of Allah. His father and brothers and cousins and friends may feel the same way. Even those who disapprove may only disapprove on pragmatic grounds, believing that the attacks on Western powers are bringing retaliation down upon Muslims, while still admiring the courage and stoutness of the fighter, and lacking true sympathy for the infidel victims.

It is only when the vast majority of those around him, in his own community, believe his actions are not just misguided, but deeply shameful, that this most dedicated kind of fighter will be dissuaded. We will win the war on terrorism when that mother, refuses to say where her son has gone, and when his father hides his sons actions in shame.

And those mothers and fathers will be converted by the authorities they most trust. It is a mistake to look mainly to so-called Islamic liberals, reformers, modernists or postmodernists to bring about the needed change. These thinkers are too Western in their outlook and lack credibility among many in their community. The most persuasive will be those who are devout and traditional, but who elevate the the traditional Islamic teachings against the killing of innocents to a pre-eminent place in the moral thinking of the community.

There is an interesting article in the current issue Legal Affairs about efforts in Yemen undertaken by the Yemeni government to peruade terrorists to abandon the path they have chosen. The tool is respect, and direct argument based on traditional teachings, rather than brute force, emotional harrangues or modern innovations in doctrine.

The article begins with an account of what caused one jihadist to turn to terror in the first place:

... "NASSER AHMED NASSER AL-QADHI WAS LIKE MANY A STUDENT, quick to feel passion and eager to better the world. When reports of ethnic cleansing—the Serbs' massacre of Bosnian Muslims—filtered through his neighborhood in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, al-Qadhi resolved to defend his fellow believers. In 1994, the 22-year-old hopped a bus 550 miles to Yemen and then went on to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he was soon leading a 450-soldier battalion against the Serbian army. In a small village, he came upon a 6-year-old Bosnian boy whose right hand was missing.

"Who cut your hand?" he asked.

"My Serbian uncle has cut my hand," came the response.

The Serb was a soldier, not an uncle, but the title conveyed the boy's respect for elders. "Sir, you've killed my brother and my family," the boy recalled telling the soldier. "Why do you want to cut my hand?" The soldier had answered, "Today, you're an innocent child named Murad. But in the future, you'll be a Mohammed."

Of hatred grew hatred. Al-Qadhi's compassion for the boy was so overwhelming that it drove him to fight the enemies of Islam wherever he could find them. "One believer to another is like one body," he said, noting that he was paraphrasing a saying of the prophet Mohammed. "If one part of the body is sick, then the whole body is in bad shape." Al-Qadhi resolved to save the body by defending each of its ailing parts." ...

Later, while in prison in Yemen, al-Qadhi was brought in to see Hamoud al-Hitar, a cleric and Supreme Court judge:

... "ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2002, AL-QADHI AND FOUR OF HIS FELLOW PRISONERS were led to a room at the Political Security prison. Al-Hitar and his panel of three ulama sat at a table, and the prisoners were invited to sit before them.

The prisoners were combative, challenging the authority of the clerics. Their anger, however, belied an instinctive respect for the clerics' religious status. Politicians, intellectuals, and international thinkers held no sway with the prisoners. "We launched jihad at the instructions of the ulama," said al-Qadhi, "so ulama had to be the ones to change our minds." What he likely meant was that clerics had used fiery sermons to encourage young followers to take up arms against the West, and only the clerics had standing to order the arms put aside." ...

The clerics go on to patiently debate al-Qadhi, and by a kind of Socratic questioning, elicit traditional Islamic moral teaching from al-Qadhi that amount to a condemnation of terrorism. But there was more than discursive, intellectual persuasion at work:

... "Al-Hitar's words were having an effect, but something else was also at work. Al-Qadhi had gone to jihad on behalf of clerics who had preached that, "Anyone who is not with me is my enemy." Yet here was his enemy, allowing him to read the Koran. Torture he thought he could handle, if it came to that, but kindness was disarming. His thinking began to shift, he said, as he contemplated a future with more possibilities than "you kill me or I kill you." " ...

Ultimately, the changes we wish to see will only occur if we open up a space for the work of conscience and respectful persuasion to operate. The blunt tools of force will never effect "conversion". They can be effective nevertheless, against those who employ *conventional* military force, in suppressing violence - because they destroy the tools and capacity to fight. Conversion is not needed in such cases. But against terrorism conventional military tools will never work, because the terrorist fights with his own body, and slides in and out of tight social spaces that conventional forces cannot penetrate.

And we cannot just kill them all and win by attrition, because each death produces a new recruit to the cause. Remember the story of the young Bosnian boy Murad.

[Jay.Mac]

Doc-Thanks for the reply. I've been commenting on a few "left leaning" sites lately and it seems that the problems we liberals and conservatives have is in the language we use. Seems to get each other riled up.

The main reason for suicide bombers has to be Islamic jihad. Yes, the Israel/Palestinian question is routinely used as an "excuse" but there are Islamic suicide bombers all around the world. The one key element joining them together is Islam. The concepts of jihad- of killing and terrorizing the infidel are clearly laid out in the Koran. So too is the notion of killing and being killed. If we're going to debate the reasons why these attacks take place, that's where to look. If Iraq had never taken place, the excuse would be Afghanistan. If that hadn't taken place it would be Israel-Palestine. If that hadn't happened you can be sure that some other "grievance" would be laid down. The Crusades perhaps? I honestly don't think that US Foreign policy has anything to do with it. What exactly did the US do that caused 3000 people to be murdered on 9/11? Is there really any justification or explanation for that? If it was- for the sake of argument- Israel- how exactly does that explain murdering nearly 3000 innocent people who have nothing to do with the government? There is no rational explanation for such butchery.

As many studies have shown the notion that terrorism springs from poverty is incorrect. Islamic terrorism is an ideological threat. No amount of trade treaties, or aid or the US putting other countries first will help that. And why is it that America is expected to alway do what's best for the world and not itself? Do we continually ask France or Germany or Spain or Australia (insert contry of choice here) to put what's best for their own citizens behind some perceived "international good" (i.e. what's best for some other country). No of course we don't, and any President or Congress that decided to would quickly be voted out of office.

I firmly believe that trying to "blame" terrorism on America's actions is futile. The only way the United States could act that would please the jihadis would be if it were to become part of the Caliphate, to be submissive to Islam and, most likely, to have its citizens pay the jizyah. In other words, become the opposite of the great free society it is today. As many commentators have been saying since 7/7, it's not why they hate us, but that they hate what we stand for.

The "no go zone" of discussion, is simply the threat that the Koran poses. Now, I know that comment will no doubt get me branded a "racist" by the foolish, but the point is that Islamic terrorists base their actions/beliefs on that book. It's all very well to say that it's a "religion of peace" but that doesn't prevent someone from reading Qur’an 8:59, Qur’an 60:5, Qur’an 9:112, or Qur’an 9:5 and then going out to kill and mutilate infidels. The only way forward is if the automatic calling of Islamophobia of those who actually question the theological roots of terrorism ceases- and the open debate begins.

As news reports have indicated, the men in 7/7 did not seem to be terribly political, but they had all become very religious. As the terrorists themselves use purely religious terms, it seems foolish to ignore what they are saying and to try and think- "well, they say they want to kill infidels, but perhaps if we did more for the Middle East they would like us". Remember the beheadings in Iraq? There was a reason they were chanting "God is great" while they were doing it.

As for Iraq, I think that the complete removal of US troops is a poor indicator of Iraq not being "handed back". By that standard, Germany has still not been handed back either. Is Germany still under American occupation? How about Japan?

[Jay.Mac]

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200507150804.asp

A good piece by Victor David Hanson that has some bearing on the discussion at hand.

[PTate in Mn]

A visitor here. I just want to observe that about 16% of the population has at least one episode of clinical depression at some point in their lives, and approximately 19% of people with depression die through suicide. Sometimes depression is characterized by sad mood and sometimes by anger. Sometimes it is triggered by life events and sometimes it just seems to be a neurotransmitter problem.

This thread is trying to comprehend how a person who seems to have every reason to live--a "gently spoken, endlessly patient and hugely popular" man such as Mohammad Sidique Khan, with a wife and child and job--would take a day off to kill himself and many innocent Londoners in a senseless attack.

So, put yourself in the shoes of someone who is deeply depressed. Maybe he has reason to be hopeless, but more likely he doesn't. He is just not reasoning very well about his life: He is so nutty that he seeks begins to believe that he would be better dead. Give him a heroic cause--defense of Islam--and some explosives--and suddenly you have a suicide bomber.

You don't need to generate elaborate hypotheses about why someone would do this. It is sufficient that the US and Britain are perceived to be enemies of Islam and that suicide bombings are an effective way to terrorize modern societies. The volunteers will follow. The solution lies in defusing the perception that the UK and US are enemies of Islam.

[doc]

Jay-Mac et al...

it's been a while - i've been away for both work and play - since i've looked at these threads and i noticed the dialogue Suzzane wanted to open expired (as i expected)rather early: everyone made their points and went home. this seems to be true of the blogosphere in general and, more to the point, the attempt at an open discussion on the posted topic...

i originally posted some thoughts that seem to hit some buttons and got a few hot replies when i departed. not wanting to let this drop, i will butress my theory with this link.

is part of the issue that americans tend not to look backwards at all?

[doc]

....the answer is seemingly, yes - americans don't look backward, or reflect on prior statements: it's as if once said, all statements are final.

smae with discussions. or maybe it's just a national case of add.

whatever.

in any event, donny "let's rumble!" rumsfield decided i didn't know what i was talking about today; fun read...

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