8 posts tagged “terrorism”

I just finished the PBS series on the  history of the Supreme Court tonight. Naturally, I learned way more than I will have time to detail in a vox post (and who would read it anyway?) but I have to say that I have become a fan of the great dissenters of the court ... the people who stand their ground on an issue long enough to get the others and the country to catch up to their way of seeing things. It is also interesting to see how Justices can also cave in to political pressures after enough of it is applied to them.

In some ways, the court serves as a keel, keeping the nation from being blown from port to starboard but ... it cannot serve as an anchor indefinitely. Enough wind will eventually take it right or left with enough time, enough death, and enough resignation. Ironically, just yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in a close decision that Al Quaeda prisoners on Guantanamo have a right to trial.

Justice Scalia in dissent writes:

"My problem with today’s opinion is more fundamental still: The writ of habeas corpus does not, and never has, run in favor of aliens abroad; the Suspension Clause thus has no application, and the Court’s intervention in this military matter is entirely ultra vires. [Latin for "beyond the powers"].

Scalia blazes on:

"The Court today decrees that no good reason to accept the judgment of the other two branches is “apparent.” Ante, at 40. “The Government,” it declares, “presents no credible arguments that the military
mission at Guantanamo would be compromised if habeas corpus courts had jurisdiction to hear the detainees’
claims.” Id., at 39. What competence does the Court have to second-guess the judgment of Congress and the President on such a point? None whatever. But the Court blunders in nonetheless. Henceforth, as today’s opinion makes unnervingly clear, how to handle enemy prisoners in this war will ultimately lie with the branch that knows least about the national security concerns that the subject entails."

Scalia then carries the mantle of strict Constructionism  with vigor:

"It is nonsensical to interpret those provisions themselves in light of some general“separation-of-powers principles” dreamed up by the Court. Rather, they must be interpreted to mean what they were understood to mean when the people ratified them. . . . What drives today’s decision is neither the meaning of the Suspension Clause, nor the principles of our precedents, but rather an inflated notion of judicial supremacy . . . The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent."

Chief Justice John Roberts makes it clear in his dissenting opinion that this decision is a power grab whereby the Judiciary wrests control of the trial of prisoners from the Executive and Legislative branches.

"All that today’s opinion has done is shift responsibility for those sensitive foreign policy and national security decisions from the elected branches to the Federal Judiciary."

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-1195.pdf

Question for Comment: So ... if I am a prisoner at Guantanamo, I will no doubt be happy about this. the system I may well have been trying to bring down has functioned in such a way as to better protect me. And I understand that it cannot be assumed that a prisoner is, by being taken prisoner, admitting to guilt. Anyone ought to know that being arrested is not synonymous with deserving to be. I guess my question is, if the rights of American citizens can be extended to non-citizens, what rights should non citizens not have that we have? Are there any

A controversial new anti-Koranic video was recently produced and banned in Holland. It demonstrates the problem that Islamic people are having everywhere.  It is called FITNA. I will let you go find it if you want. It essentially superimposes specific verses from the Koran advocating violence against unbelievers with images and sound files of Islamic extremists advocating the same in contemporary society.

Interestingly, the film was mentioned by a student in the Netherlands who is taking one of my online classes right now. This week, we are studying McCarthyism.You can, I think, see the connection:

"Take a walk down the street and see where this is going. You no longer feel like you are living in your own country. There is a battle going on and we have to defend ourselves. Before you know it there will be more mosques than churches!" Geert Wiliders.

This guy so reminds me of Dr. Pfander in my Masters Thesis:

"AMSTERDAM – Faction leader for the Freedom Party Geert Wilders is not considering making any apology to Saudi Arabia for his recent comments on the Koran. He said this on Sunday in response to a report in the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, which wrote that the Islamic country has complained to the Dutch government about the comments.

A spokesperson for the ministry of foreign affairs in The Hague said on Sunday that the Saudi ambassador had in fact done so “informally.” There has not been any official complaint however, he said.

The newspaper claims that the Saudi embassy in The Hague demanded that Wilders recant his comments and apologize to Muslims. The MP said he would not even consider it.

“Are they completely mad? It is scandalous that a country that does not recognize freedom of speech is telling me what to do. They had better learn that as an MP here you are allowed to say what you want.”

Wilders said earlier this week in an interview with newspaper De Pers that Muslims should tear out and discard half the Koran if they want to live in the Netherlands."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1787609/posts

Would the Dutch tolerate the forced censoring of large portions of the Christian Bible in the Netherlands? W hat is the difference? I suspect that Christians have, whether they admit it or not, come to the place where they no longer think that King  David's conception of God was entirely accurate. Muslims are still, apparently having that argument. I suspect that it is very unfair to produce a video that pretends that they are not and FITNA may be that video.

Questions for Comment: have you ever read the Qur'an for yourself? How does one balance its advocacy for jihad with its advocacy for peace? Is it in a different category altogether from the scriptures that Christians appeal to?

Tonight's movie was Goya's Ghosts. I will just say with a critic at Rotten Tomatoes that it is a movie that should have been "put to the question" before being released. The sets are cool. The art is cool. The inquisition reminds one of the bumper sticker "Mean People Suck", and the moral of the story may well be, unlike Goya's art, too obvious to be artistic: Karma works only once in a while but if you find it working on you, the effect can be quite arresting. You just never know when that wheel of fortune will turn.

I also learned that Goya, when he did portraits, could be "visually undiplomatic" - In short, sometimes he painted powerful people somewhat too much as they are for his own good.

All criticisms aside, one cannot watch this movie without an awareness that it is a movie that is about more than a period and place in time. It is about Nazi Germany and it is about Abu Ghraib. It is as much about Guantanamo as it is about Madrid. It is as much about the Patriot Act as it is about the Inquisition and the French invasion of Spain under the guise of liberte'. The opening scene  shows us the Inquisition determining that "desperate times demand desperate measures" so to speak ... and it is a reminder that anyone who is going to be the sort to take a job torturing people, is going to be the sort of person that is not going to care about the morality of going beyond what is permitted.

For all sorts of reasons, torture and brutality in the cause of some sort of "good" is just a bad idea and artists like Goya (and no doubt this film director) did the right thing when they exposed it in all its ugliness.

"Goya's causes for discouragement were not confined to personal misfortunes [He had lost his wife and his hearing]. In 1808 his beloved country was overrun by the hordes of what was possibly the most ruthless invading army of modern history. He has left notes in letters, and in his works, of the scenes of which he was an eye-witness-murder, and rape, and cruelty to children. "I saw this," he writes on the margin of his sketches. He saw his fellow citizens shot down, unarmed, without trial-by platoons, one crowd after another. He saw the mutilation of the dead. He saw the heroic and desperate resistance of his people, "ferocious and admirable," beyond all telling, where women fought as savagely as men and died resisting. And his soul was filled with despair, and pity, and with horrible, demoniac laughter at the senselessness of war-and of mankind."

A Self-Portrait by Goya

Alfred Vance Churchill
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 13, No. 1. (Mar., 1931), pp. 4-11

Question for Comment: Why is it that some movies simply do not fool you - that that you see actors playing parts - not characters when you watch them?

The past few days, I have been reading The Al Qaeda Reader edited and translated by Raymond Ibrahim. It is a rather courageous attempt to give Western readers a better idea of just what the vision of radical jihadist Islam is for the world. If you read an "epistle" like Osama Bin Laden's "Moderate Islam is a Prostration to the West or Ayman al-Zawahiri's Loyalty and Emnity or Sharia and Democracy you find yourself looking into the Mein Kamf of radical Islam. The assertions are clear and unmitigated.

What becomes clear to me is how much of a threat these guys are to moderate Islamic states. Much as these might resent American interference in their affairs, they would NOT want Al Qaeda to succeed  in defeating the US. They stand indicted themselves as infidels in these writings. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri insist that a Muslim leader who is oppressive must still be obeyed ... but a Muslim leader who A) allows democratic processes to supplant the enforcement of Sharia (Islamic law based on the Koran and example of the prophet) or B) Who opposes Jihadist conducting offensive warfare against infidels or C) Who even disparages Jihadists or who D) does not use his State's resources for offensive Jihad or E) who allows women to usurp hierarchical power over men or who F) Does not demand that minority religious groups pay an extra tax or G) Makes friends and alliances with those who are attacking Muslims or help those who do ARE THEMSELVES infidels ... and all Muslims are required to war against them until true Muslims are placed in power.

... And they are aiming at the young in every argument they make, working on the assumption that the Islamic world to which they appeal still holds the Koran and the Sunna of the prophet and the Haddith and the Sharia in highest regard.

What is especially intriguing to me is the DEMAND that Muslims not make friends with non-Muslims. Business contacts are OK as long as the non-Muslim is not in conflict with Islamic hegemony. If they accept a submissive role in an Islamic world, they may be tolerated but never befriended. It makes me wonder how important what we are doing at our College is. And what we may be up against.

Zawahiri: "The Reinstatement Of Islamic Rule … Is The Individual Duty Of Every Muslim … With Every Land Occupied By Infidels." "Supporting the jihad in Palestine with one's life, money, and opinion is the individual duty of every Muslim because Palestine was a land of Islam that was occupied by the infidels. This means that its liberation and the reinstatement of Islamic rule there is the individual duty of every Muslim as unanimously decided by the nation's scholars. And such is the case with every land occupied by infidels." (Al-Zawahiri's June Video Message Supporting Palestinians, Posted On Jihadist Site, 6/11/06)

"Victory for the Islamic movements . . . cannot be attained unless these movements possess an Islamic base in the heart of the Arab region. . . Every Muslim in Pakistan must do his or her best in getting rid of this government, which cooperates with the enemies” Ayman al-Zawahiri

These guys define democracy as idolatry ... opposition to offensive Jihad as heresy, the elevation of women to places of power as unnatural, and the existence of Israel as blasphemy.

I can't even describe how important it is that SOME of us be making friends with those Muslims who disagree with these guys. We have to deprive Al Qaeda of the human material with which they plan to put their ideas into action. Al Qaeda is TARGETING young people, college students in particular. They are trying to convince young Muslims that there is not an honest friend among the lot of us. That we are all nothing but faking crusaders aiming to take their land and expropriate their resources.

We can't let that happen.

Question for Discussion: What would you do if your religion told you that there HAD to be enmity between you and those who rejected your faith?

In a few weeks, I will be engaging in another Global Module with a group of students in Jordan. In preparation for it (and in preparation for an upcoming graduate course on the Middle East I will be teaching) I have been rereading some Middle Eastern History and perspectives and renting movies on the subject. Last night I watched WALL, a documentary on the "security fence" the Israelis are building in the "seam zone" through the West Bank. There is one segment where you see how the security fence cuts a Palestinian village off from its own olive orchards in what seems to be a pretty blatant attempt to force the village to relocate (as olives are its principle source of income and livelihood. Even if you sympathize with the Israeli need for security,  it can make you mad.

But then I sit down to read excerpts from the Al Qaeda Reader (edited by Raymond Ibrahim) and it becomes clear why the Israelis are creating this boundary for themselves. If America ever were to run out of money to support them, this fence is going to be the closest thing they will have to a defensible boundary. I can see why they are taking no chances.  In Ayman Al-Zawahiri's book The Bitter Harvest: The [Muslim] Brotherhood in Sixty Years, he insists that Islamic regimes that A) make laws by democratic consensus and or B) Do not use their resources for Jihad against Israel must be regarded as infidel. Muslims, according to him are obligated to war against those "Muslim" rulers who are not thereby "faithful" to the Will of the Allah.

If those guys were to get their hands on a big fat country with running streams of oil money ... and if America is too broke to lend a hand ... its not going to be pretty. Long stretches of that movie are dedicated to just watching the construction. You get the idea that the Israelis are seeing something coming that they don't like.  Ironically, they increasing the list of injustices that future attackers will use to justify an assault on that boundary.

The painful irony is that many Palestinians are being hired to work on the hard labor going into the building of the things. One man (off camera) notes that he would be killed for doing so if his face were to be filmed. It all makes the first week of the Global Module discussion more riveting:

Week 1: Robert Frost’s Mending Wall and Introductions: We would like to make it clear in the first week that the objective of this experience is not primarily to better understand literature with each other but rather to better understand each other with literature. So rather than just study a piece of literature this week, we would like to give you the chance to introduce yourselves to one another by making use of piece of literature. It seems to me that Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall would make as good a means of introduction as any. It is a poem about two neighbors separated by a boundary that they both inherited. One neighbor, Frost, would like to see the boundary slowly disappear though he respects his neighbor’s wish to maintain it. The other neighbor would like to keep the boundary intact so that his property (culture) is not influenced by that of his neighbor’s.

So … this week, we would like you to introduce yourselves to the group by responding to the following question: “In Frost’s poem Mending Wall, two people sharing a part of the planet go out to rebuild a wall built by their ancestors. One of the men believes that it is important to maintain the boundary between their respective properties (cultures) and the other would like to see the boundary dissolve so that their two properties (cultures) can relate to each other without a sense of fear. I suppose we have all been raised to see ourselves as members of groups who have been bequeathed traditional ideas about how they should relate to certain other groups. (These group identities may be based on nationality, ethnicity, family, gender, class, religion, political affiliation, educational attainment, or any number of other of the distinctions that humans use to differentiate themselves as members of “clans” and sub-clans).  Take a moment to talk about Frost’s poem and what you learn from it and then introduce yourself by telling us just a little bit about at least one cultural boundary that you were raised to protect … or to think mattered. Which of the men in Frosts poem have you been more like thus far in your life? Have you been a cultural boundary protector or a cultural boundary remover? Why? Can you give us one specific story from your life that would illustrate?”

Mending Wall: http://www.ketzle.com/frost/mending.htm

Question for Comment: So, are you a wall builder/maintainer or a wall decontructor/destroyer?

Tonight's movie was one that I think everyone should see before engaging in rhetorical skirmishes about tactics in the war on terrorism; The Cult of the Suicide Bomber. One of the most frightening things to me as a Western observer of the suicide bomber phenomenon (and to be fair, it is a phenomenon referred to as martyrdom in the society that nurtures it) is how little kids are raised to see these people as heroes. They are like baseball heroes or rock stars or movie stars. IT is THE ticket to immortality AND fame and society, peers, religious leaders, family, parents, educational systems ALL seem to grant the martyr the highest status in communal regard.

One of the most riveting moments in the movie is when an Iranian Mullah being interviewed complains about the inhuman use of suicide bombs against Shiites in Iraq. It doesn't seem to cause him a single blink to say it. He is furious at how the Sunni use of the tactic is bringing ill repute to a tactic his country basically invented and celebrated as martyrdom. All of a sudden, the glory goes out of it when the cause is one of your enemy's I guess.

I cannot help but wonder, how is it that the people who idealize this form of resistance and dissent do not see the ultimate implications. Lets say that Israel removed itself from the West Bank entirely. Some "martyrs" would the set up to attack Israel itself .... presumably until Israel disappeared altogether. That must be seen as a given. Israeli departure from the West Bank would cause thousands of these kids to interpret the event as a sign of Allah's approval on the tactic. Lets say that the tactic resulted in the destruction of the Israeli State (just hypothetically). How long would it be before the tactic would then be applied in a wider context ... Would these same people not also want Spain, the Balkans, and other regions of the world once under the rule of Islam? And then what? How long would it be before divisions in the Islamic community itself caused branches and sects of Islam to label other branches enemies? Would elections become suicide fests where winners were declared on the basis of how many psychopathic suicides they could inspire in the name of their truth?

Here in America,  Martin Luther King gets a holiday and Malcolm X doesn't.  One of the enjoyable side effects of policies like that is that we replace our leaders, hundreds and thousands of them every year without a  single person dying. Its an idea worth celebrating more.

And so I do so here.

One of the golas of the neo-martyrs is symply to create tension between Islamic  communities and the host people  that presently have welcomed them into their systems. It is an attempt to make the line between US and THEM clearer by "forcing" western cultures to begin treating Muslims suspiciously. It is the opposite of Peace making.

And I reject it here.

Question for Comment: If the solution to terrorism is not counter-force but a change in cultural ideals, how does the world proceeed to interfere with cultures that glorify martyrdom as a worthy aspiration? Must we simply contrive ways to martyr yourself without killing others?

Tonights movie was PARADISE NOW. In one of the scenes one of the Palestinian terrorist/martyrs talks about what drives him to his desperation. He says that the worst part of the situation for him was how those who he regards as the exploiters/victimizers claim to be the victims. So not only does he feel victimized but he is not allowed to claim the victim status. He is exploited AT THE SAME TIME that he is accused of wanting to exploit. Thus he gets neither the benefits of exploiting nor the empathy that normally goes to the exploited. They are wounded and accused of being the one who wounds. There is no consolation prize. Bad things happen and the world is led to believe that they are all deserved. Nothing makes a person angrier than this. To be told, WHILE hurting, that they are the cause of the hurt.

The main character in the movie is clearly reacting to the ways that his family has been torn apart by the occupation. This is where human instincts are being overtaxed. People, and men in particular, can be wrecked by broken relationships. In this movie, this man's relationship with his father is deeply impacted by the conflict. His father becomes an informer (collaborator) and is later killed by his own people for having become so. The rest of the main character's life, he lives with separation from his father AND the separation from his community that results from his father's act. His fundamental family and social bonds have been wrecked. And there is a nuclear power plant of anger to be manipulated as a result.

I don't think the anger alone would cause a person to become a suicide bomber but ... combined with the heady brew of radical Islamic theology about rewards in heaven for martyrs, I can see the process of death unfolding.

Dr. EYAD SARRAJ, a Palestinian psychiatrist and director of the Mental Health Community Center in Gaza, says that "most of [suicide bombers have had personal experience with serious traumatic events in their lives and particularly witnessing the helplessness of their fathers and the humiliation of their fathers." From an NPR Intervie

Question for Comment: So what is the key to preventing suicide attacks? Along with a reform of religious education, perhaps the best advice is, "don't humiliate a father of an Islamic boy".

Golda Meir: "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values"

Avner: "There is no peace at the end of this."

The poetic irony is that the movie ends with a shot of the New York skyline, camera centered on the World Trade Center towers. Steven Spielberg knows what he's doing with a camera. There was no peace at the end of his movie or Gold Meir's plan for revenge. Does that necessarily mean that there was peace at the end of the passivist course of action that was not taken? Spielberg has done too many movies about the holocaust (Schindler's List and the Last Days) to be absolutely sure about that either.

"What course of action does have peace at the end of it?" That is the question I was left with after this movie was over. I suspect that it is the course of action that is based on the conviction that human beings desperately want to have safe homes in which their children can grow up happy. It is what Avner desperately wanted (and for the lack of which, he suffers severe emotional pain). It is also what the Palestinian terrorist he converses with wanted as well. The problem is that they both find themselves in the way of the others' non-negotiable desire for home". A classic case of "colliding entitlement".

Avner the assassin is a cook. The movie ends with an invitation to break bread. Ultimately we have GOT to recognize the legitimate "hunger" for safe homes where people can be nurtured. Everyone has to have them. Thats the solution. When Habitat for Humanity gets the same budget as the Department of the Defense gets for blowing homes up, we will begin to see progress.

Question for Comment: Is terrorism the result of a low domestic happiness quotient in the societies that breed it?