http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/world/asia/25indonesia.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
This NYtimes story is simply astounding in understanding what's taking place within Islam.
Across the Middle East we see a radicalization in Islam occurring. it is freaking people out to the point where they are willing to justify using torture. However, WHY is it taking place.
To start we'll look at the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. attacks like 9/11 had been taking place sporadically across the world and in America for decades. Maybe people forgot that terrorists tried it under clinton as well. the difference was not in a surge of radical islam but in an acknowledged and verifiable intentional failure in the bush administration following through on terror reports from our intelligence agencies. In other words, whether you think it was 17 extremists or the gov with thermite explosives, Bush was responsible for 9/11.
and what was the response. We attacked Afghanistan. Excellent move! large global support and support at home for this move. we attacked a base of radical islam and (honestly) a nest of terrible and repressive human beings that we had empowered decades earlier. but then for some reason insanity came in.
"you're either with us...or you're with the terrorists"
as we invaded a nation that poised no threat to us and actually was a major stabilizer of the region. Consider, Saddam Hussein was fiercely secular because, as the dictator of a nation in which his group (Sunni) were in the minority, he had to keep a fierce hold on religious beliefs, esp with a large shia nation as his neighbor. Saddam was insanely secular and all intelligence pointed to the fact that he basically was securing that flank of our war for us against religious extremism. well the only thing to do is topple him in a poorly planned war that will allow terrorists to enter and go crazy inside the once stable nation. Oh and then we'll try and implement a multiparty gov in which the people (shia) who had been repressed and tortured for decades are suddenly in charge of the minority (sunni). yea...that'll work. oh and up in the North we'll just grant autonomy to the Kurds except oh wait, then turkey will bomb the shit out of the only stable part of Iraq. And while were bullshitting in this once repressive but stable nation that has now descended into a chaotic bloodbath we allowed the taliban to surge into and overwhelm the western provinces of pakistan, which were already largely autonomous. The answer? bomb'em from afar. because the people of pakistan can really get behind a cause when they see us bombing weddings with immunity. yea, that's how win over a people. after the clusterfuck we created in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is it any wonder that radicals screaming about the evil american empire are winning converts? not really.
now here's the best part, add in unchecked support for israel even as it uses thermite powder on civilians, killing 1000 for every Israeli killed and see how the broth gets thicker.
so in other words America; WE ARE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR RADICALIZING ISLAM. let's not forget that the wealthiest country in the region, and our closest ally outside of israel (saudi arabia) has the most radical form of islam of any of the nations, the gov is horrifically repressive of it's people, and it spawned 15 of the 17 terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. confusing, ain't it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/world/asia/25indonesia.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
but look here. in the largest muslim nation on the planet we actually see proponents of radical islam losing ground. losing SIGNIFICANT ground in fact? Why?
Easy. We are not bombing the fuck out them. We are in fact, strongly tied to Indonesia's economic success. It also helps that they aren't arab so they culturally avoid the pan-arab brotherhood that is sparking again all across the middle-east in response to our actions there.
Lessons? bombing the fuck out of a people can suppress radical islam...if you kill ALL of them. otherwise, it just makes more converts (not theory, fact, see the last 8 years). Economically enriching a nation, regardless of it's religion, will decrease radical islam. The number one step obama needs to take is establishing a solution to palestine/israel, which he is doing. This will eliminate the pan-arab cultural rancor, the sense of brotherhood and hatred of israel and the west that is shared by people from iraq all the way to sudan. 60 years have proven that the current strategy in Israel has failed.
second step...stop bombing the shit out of people. if you need more ground troops put'em in there. stop spending massive amounts of money to pay for private contractors and predators and work on policing. I'm actually ok with staying in iraq for years. consider, were still in germany, korea, and japan and these nations are all fantasically successful economic powerhouses. and bastions of democracy. (well, the asian ones anyways). so to some extent there is a good argument here for staying there with limited troops in bases. you prevent militarism in these countries which allows them to focus on economic success. unfortunately, iraq, unlike the other three nations is not homogenous, ethnically culturally or religiously. so you need troops to keep the peace for real. but you have to understand that people see the world in the way they first learned about it. Long after the Soviet Union stopped being a threat the fear of communism was still compelling us to commit to wars and policy decisions that were bizarre. the Right in america still fears public healthcare for fear of socialism (which we already have in the police and fire dep etc.). thus, you can't change people, you have to remain long term so that preceding generations will come to view democracy as normal, and tolerance as acceptable. if we leave now the following generations will lose that. chaos will reign. that's probably the exact reason obama is leaving a contigent force there and will continue to do so. again, history supports this notion with practical examples of success. (I'm still working through my feelings on this issue however, obviously while there are success stories such as Japan and Korea and Germany there are other success stories such as vietnam and china that accomplished the same things in largely different ways independent of US intervention. and we mustn't forget that regardless, america is acting as an economic imperial entity which is bad. it's complicated)
don't believe me....well i've got proof for my theory, deradicalization in Indonesia and all you've got is fail.
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