I’m proud to be the author of this brief opinion piece about Pakistan, Al Qaeda, Benazir Bhutto and USA television news at the Huffington Post:
Inanity Still Rules the Airwaves
If the Huff Post hadn’t accepted it, I would have posted this here. I hope you don’t mind me going where more readers will read it.
I’ve tried to resist getting too drawn in to the 2008 Presidential Election drama. Give me Hillary, give me Obama, give me John Edwards — any of them will feel like life-saving medicine after 7 years of what’s-his-name. I have been following the debates and the soundbites, but I start to feel disgusted as soon as it all starts to seem like a sporting event. Just give me a President who seems to have the basic skills for the job and who doesn’t lie to me every single day, and I’ll feel a lot better than I feel right now.
So I’m not getting too wrapped up in the Barack vs. Hillary headlines of the last two weeks, but I do want to say that Barack Obama is starting to win me over. I understood both sides of the argument over whether or not a US President should agree to meet and negotiate with a wide range of foreign leaders unconditionally (as Barack says) or whether we should maximize our advantage by seeking helpful preconditions in some cases (as Clinton says). I don’t mind the fact that Clinton chooses to emphasize the importance of pressing for advantage, but I do like it very much that Obama is articulating a larger principle: a simple, honest and open approach to foreign policy expresses America’s ideals best. I like it that Obama risked (and withstood) the criticism of other politicians in order to make this point.
And he risked and is currently withstanding even more criticism for his recent remark about renewing the battle against Al Qaeda — the original Al Qaeda, the one led by Osama Bin Laden, not the separate group that has now settled in George Bush’s Iraq — even if this means violating the borders of Pakistan.
Some find it hypocritical that a candidate who generally stands for diplomacy over war would suggest what could amount to “a war with Pakistan”. Nobody wants war with Pakistan and it’s very difficult to imagine that Barack Obama would act impulsively or recklessly against any other nation. But Obama is reminding us of a simple and important fact: our current administration has failed to weaken the organization that attacked us in 2001 and has credibly pledged to attack us again. Why shouldn’t our next President do what our current President has failed to do and defend ourselves against the group that threatens us the most?
It’s amazing how much criticism a politician has to take for speaking the plain and simple truth. Nobody wants war with Pakistan. But we remain “at war” with Al Qaeda — again, the real Al Qaeda, the first Al Qaeda — and it’s clear that Bush and Cheney, for all their bluster and military posturing, have no idea how to fight that war. I’m glad Barack Obama can recognize a real enemy when he sees one, and I’m encouraged that he can see through all the surreal nonsense of the last six years and talk about the possibility of taking action.
Probably the most dramatic moment during last night’s Fox News Republican debate: Rudy Giuliani criticizing outlier candidate Ron Paul for suggesting that the 1991 invasion of Iraq was a primary cause for the September 11 attacks. Here’s Fox’s record of the moment:
“That’s really an extraordinary statement,” Giuliani said, interrupting FOX News panelist Wendell Goler. “That’s really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I have ever heard that before and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11. I would ask the congressman withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that.”
All the other candidates then clamored for a chance to echo Giuliani’s strong condemnation of Ron Paul. Here’s the only problem: what Paul said is a simple historical fact. It’s not even a contested fact. Every serious history of the events leading up to the September 11 attacks agrees that Saudi rich kid Osama Bin Laden formed Al Qaeda as a direct response to the arrival of USA troops in Saudi Arabia to reverse Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait in 1991. This isn’t something only lefties and Democrats say — it’s something every credible historian is in agreement on. It’s also one of the main points of Lawrence Wright’s bestselling book The Looming Tower, widely considered the most authoritative (and non-partisan) history of Al Qaeda.
So, if Giuliani is standing there with a straight face saying “I don’t think I have ever heard that before and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11″ we must conclude that he has not read Lawrence Wright’s book or any other history of Al Qaeda. And yet he believes he has the ability to lead our country’s absolutely critical battle against this enemy — from a position of ignorance about the history of this enemy, one can only assume.
Fighting an enemy from a position of ignorance about that enemy: I thought that was George Bush and Dick Cheney’s unique style, and I thought our country had at least learned the lesson that we need to understand our enemies better before we engage them in battle.
I guess not. The fact that John McCain and other candidates praised Giuliani’s dramatic criticism of truth-teller Ron Paul is pretty disturbing. My respect for a few of these candidates has just dropped a couple of notches. America cannot afford any more military leadership by politicians too haughty or proud to know the basic facts of their enemy’s history.
Here’s a big scoop: the political phenomenon known as Islamic fundamentalism has nothing to do with religion.
You heard me right — nothing at all. Islamic fundamentalism is a radical political movement that aims to topple governments and redistribute wealth, and if we want to understand the conflicts in the Middle East better we need to take a serious look at what really motivates believers in this cause. Hint: it’s not about virgins in the afterlife. It is about power, territory and money.
Radical political movements occur when the fault lines between the “haves” and “have-nots” in any society grow too vast, and when large segments of a population feel disenfranchised and abused by their leaders. Let’s take a look at some examples from history:
• The French Revolution
In 1789, hungry mobs began rioting in Paris, spurred on by intellectuals and progressive politicians in their midst. The “enlightened” new government famously killed King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but in fact their real target was the entire French upper class, which was garroted over the course of several bloody years. More than anything else, the French Revolution amounted to a violent attempt at redistribution of wealth, power and influence.
• The Russian Revolution
In 1917, dissenting political parties representing masses of disgruntled Russian citizens finally completed their overthrow of the corrupt Tsarist government. Even more so than the French Revolution (which the Russian intellegentsia had always studied, admired and sought to emulate), the Russian Revolution quickly devolved into state-sponsored violence on a mass scale, as vast numbers of the previous “upper class” were killed or imprisoned. Economic theory and pro/anti-communist propaganda aside, the Russian Revolution amounted to a violent redistribution of wealth, power and influence.
• The Iranian Revolution
In 1979, protests by groups of dissenting religious and secular Iranians reached such fervor that the Shah and his entourage fled the country to save their lives, eventually allowing the Ayatollah Khomeini to emerge as the new supreme leader. The ascent of Ayatollah Khomeini was the first major victory of a new phenomenon known as Islamic fundamentalism. A difficult societal transition followed, and the new Islamic government had to fight many internal battles with various population groups that felt disenfranchised by the new government, including the former upper class. Like the other revolutions above. the Iranian Revolution amounted to a violent redistribution of wealth, power and influence.
I know there are many different ways to look at the kaleidoscopic horror show known as war. But we should always look for the simplest explanations, as a medieval philosopher named William of Occam taught us. His formulation, known as Occam’s Razor, states that the simplest answer to any question is usually the correct one. The simplest explanation for the current strife all over the Middle East is that the populations of various Arab countries wish to overthrow their own governments.
A close look at Osama bin Laden’s career as a terrorist, for instance, shows that his primary enemy is actually not the United States of America and not Israel but rather the kingdom that rules the land of his birth, Saudi Arabia.
In Iraq, unbeknownst to the U. S. Department of Defense which figured this out only too late, Saddam Hussein’s long dictatorship was deeply grounded in Iraq’s historic “caste” system. Saddam is a Sunni, a representative of Iraq’s privileged minority class, and a powerful proportion of the Sunni population favored Saddam’s dictatorship because they feared the alternative: an uprising of the nation’s under-priviliged Shiite majority. This is the fault line George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld foolishly tripped over when they took down the guy at the top.
I find that the mathematics of current Middle East politics work out very easily if I use just two variables: greed and suffering. Conflicts happen either because people are greedy, or because people are suffering. Islamic fundamentalism is no different in kind from Bolshevik Marxism, or Robospierrian Jacobinism. I don’t see how anything would be much different in the Middle East if the populations were romantic panthiests, like the French radicals, or austere athiests, like the Russian insurgents, instead of Muslims. It’s not about Allah, despite all the hype we constantly hear by hysterical and shallow political analysts in the USA. Just apply Occam’s Razor, just look for the immediate causes, and a lot of bullshit falls away.
The next time somebody hits you with that familiar nonsense about “Muslims are devoted to taking over the whole planet and making us all wear burkas”, or “Jews will never share Jerusalem” or any of this other mythical crap, just look them in the eye and remind them that the simplest answers are the best ones. The wars in the Middle East are about power and wealth, and that’s all they’ve ever been about.
More on this in my next post!
You may have seen or heard about the controversial Bill Clinton interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News in which the former President scolded the conservative journalist for suggesting that Clinton did not do enough to combat Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda during his eight-year presidency.
The video is 10:01 minutes long but worth it (it gets real good around 5:47). Once you’ve watched this video, check out Keith Olbermann’s brave words about this altercation. Well said, Keith.
I’d like to add another perspective to the discussion of Bill Clinton’s legacy against terrorism. I haven’t heard others mention this recently, but it’s a fact that Clinton’s record as a peacemaker in the Middle East was second only to Jimmy Carter’s.
When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook the hand of Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat in 1993, that was the inspired work of Bill Clinton and his team, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher and U. S. Envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, whose thick history book The Missing Peace provides an enlightening look at the hard, hard work it takes to end wars.
Do you remember the 1993 Rabin/Arafat handshake? All Americans felt proud at that moment, because our country had helped to bring about a change towards greater global understanding and justice. How far we’ve come since then!
Peace had been a growing trend (though a rocky road) in the Middle East during the years leading up to September 11 2001. The attacks on that day were a strike against the momentum towards peace. Those who loved war found eager partners in the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and the rest is history.
USA President George W. Bush appeared dejected and defensive in tonight’s televised address to the nation. The fight against Islamic fundamentalism, Bush said, will be the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century, but many viewers will wonder if the struggle against the type of antiquated chauvinism this president represents won’t be just as difficult.
“Incompetent” remains the best word to describe the presidency of George W. Bush, but “antiquated” is rising in the ranks as well. Evidence:
• Bush speaks of the children who lost parents on 9-11 as never being able to “hug their daddies”. Umm … mommies too, George?
• Bush urges Arabs to “leave the desert of despotism”, as if he doesn’t realize this type of quaint “Lawrence of Arabia” stereotyping has got to go.
• The man who barely knew the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims when making the decision to invade Iraq now says that we will not leave the war until “the extremists” are defeated. This shows that he is still not well-informed about the situation in Iraq, in which “extremism” plays a minor role behind territorial and political confrontation.
• Our beloved president evokes World War II yet again, despite the fact that if he had been President in World War II he would probably have attacked Quisling or Petain instead of Hitler (that’s what his record against Bin Laden shows, anyway).
I recently posted a suggestion pleading with George Bush and Dick Cheney to just stop giving speeches, because the experience is incredibly painful and frustrating to those of us who have to listen. The decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century will be against militarism, chauvinism and stupidity of all kinds, and George Bush better think about which side he’s on.
I’m not impressed with an article in the New York Times, 9-11 Polls Find Lingering Fears, which describes the citizens of New York City as jittery about the prospects of future terrorism.
This doesn’t describe any New Yorkers I know. Fear? We all face hazards every day, whether we live in cities or towns or off the grid completely. Our individuality and strength comes through in the way each of us react to these hazards. Fear does not describe the looks I see on faces when I walk down the streets of New York City.
As the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001 approaches, I have a feeling I’m going to be annoyed by many of the cliches I’m going to hear. I’ll try to avoid spouting any myself. What makes me angriest about the September 11 attacks was how incredibly successful they have proven to be for Al-Qaeda. We’ve been living in an Al-Qaeda world since that day. My own country, which I was once prouder of than I am right now, seems to be playing a grisly role in the cosmic comedy Osama Bin Laden and his associates orchestrated.
Fear? No.
Disgust? Anger? Strong, strong desire for change?
That’d be a yes.
The 61st General Assembly of the United Nations is going to convene in mid-September, and since I live in New York City I thought I’d pop on to UN.org, the official United Nations website to check out the session agenda and plan a possible visit.
I was about to be taken on a surreal trip. After spending two and a half hours reviewing various sections of this website, I am disgusted that such an important website is being run so shabbily. Does anyone in this organization realize that internet communication is an important, growing trend? I state above that Al-Qaeda has better websites than the United Nations. How do I know this? Well, I am a professional web designer, and I follow my field enough to know that there are numerous webmasters who support Al-Qaeda’s operations who have demonstrated basic competence in their field. Based on the evidence, that is more than can be said for the operators of UN.org.
I know that Al-Qaeda has a better website than UN.org because — no joke — my 15-year-old son’s MySpace page is a better website than UN.org.
Here’s what you’ll find if you dive into this mess. The most important documents are only available in PDF form — not secure documents, but simple press releases and agenda announcements. This indicates that the site does not have a working web content management system at all. This is bad, but it gets worse: many attempts to download these documents (over, say, my 99/9% reliable cable modem connection) don’t work at all, but instead spin forever, or else they deliver this familiar friend:
I tried many different paths through the multi-lingual, multi-platform and multi-broken website, and found myself looking at .jsp pages, .asp pages (Microsoft began phasing .asp out in favor of .aspx about four years ago), .shtml pages (totally archaic) and many, many custom extensions followed by frightening, endless strings of encoded parameters that clearly were not delivering the right codes.
The only common architectural principle behind most of the paths was that they all ended in sudden crashes. Oh yeah, webcasts are promised, except they often end up looking like this:
Even if the site were not broken in so many places (and maybe I caught it on a bad day), the lack of inspiration behind the technical architecture is staggering. Sure, this problem is an amusing metaphor for the UN’s general lack of effectiveness, but I don’t think we should laugh it off too easily. Digital communication is more than just a metaphor in 2006. It’s a key competency, and UN.org doesn’t have it.
I’m a professional web developer (my work has included PearlJam.com, WordsWithoutBorders.org, LitKicks.com, BobDylan.com and BruceSpringsteen.net) and I am willing to offer my services to the United Nations at a fair price, if they promise to first fire the bozos currently running these pizza boxes, as well as the pencil-pushers who determine the site’s layout and structure. I trust somebody in the organization understands email enough to contact me at levi.asher@gmail.com.
