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| Britain |
| Guardian columnist gets a clue(TM) |
| 2005-07-10 |
| The instinctive response of a significant portion of the rich world's intelligentsia to the murder of innocents on 11 September was anything but robust. A few, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, were delighted. The destruction of the World Trade Centre was 'the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos,' declared the composer whose tin ear failed to catch the screams. Others saw it as a blow for justice rather than art. They persuaded themselves that al-Qaeda was made up of anti-imperialist insurgents who were avenging the wrongs of the poor. 'The great speculators wallow in an economy that every year kills tens of millions of people with poverty, so what is 20,000 dead in New York?' asked Dario Fo. Rosie Boycott seemed to agree. 'The West should take the blame for pushing people in Third World countries to the end of their tether,' she wrote. Article continues In these bleak days, it's worth remembering what was said after September 2001. A backward glance shows that before the war against the Taliban and long before the war against Saddam Hussein, there were many who had determined that 'we had it coming'. They had to convince themselves that Islamism was a Western creation: a comprehensible reaction to the International Monetary Fund or hanging chads in Florida or whatever else was agitating them, rather than an autonomous psychopathic force with reasons of its own. In the years since, this manic masochism has spread like bindweed and strangled leftish and much conservative thought. All kinds of hypocrisy remained unchallenged. In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come; that indiscriminate murder would be Tony Blair's fault but there wouldn't be indiscriminate murder because 'the threat' was a phantom menace invented by Blair to scare the cowed electorate into supporting him. I'd say the 'power of nightmares' side of that oxymoronic argument is too bloodied to be worth discussing this weekend and it's better to stick with the wider delusion. On Thursday, before the police had made one arrest, before one terrorist group had claimed responsibility, before one body had been carried from the wreckage, let alone been identified and allowed to rest in peace, cocksure voices filled with righteousness were proclaiming that the real murderers weren't the real murderers but the Prime Minister. I'm not thinking of George Galloway and the other saluters of Saddam, but of upright men and women who sat down to write letters to respectable newspapers within minutes of hearing the news. 'Hang your head in shame, Mr Blair. Better still, resign - and whoever takes over immediately withdraw all our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan,' wrote the Rev Mike Ketley, who is a vicar, for God's sake, but has no qualms about leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban and al-Qaeda or Iraq to the Baath party and al-Qaeda. 'Let's stop this murder and put on trial those criminals who are within our jurisdiction,' began Patrick Daly of south London in an apparently promising letter to the Independent. But, inevitably, he didn't mean the bombers. 'Let's start with the British government.' And so it went on. At no point did they grasp that Islamism was a reactionary movement as great as fascism, which had claimed millions of mainly Muslim lives in the Sudan, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan and is claiming thousands in Iraq. As with fascism, it takes a resolute dunderheadedness to put all the responsibility on democratic governments for its existence. I feel the appeal, believe me. You are exasperated with the manifold faults of Tony Blair and George W Bush. Fighting your government is what you know how to do and what you want to do, and when you are confronted with totalitarian forces which are far worse than your government, the easy solution is to blame your government for them. But it's a parochial line of reasoning to suppose that all bad, or all good, comes from the West - and a racist one to boot. The unavoidable consequence is that you must refuse to support democrats, liberals, feminists and socialists in the Arab world and Iran who are the victims of Islamism in its Sunni and Shia guises because you are too compromised to condemn their persecutors. Islamism stops being an ideology intent on building an empire from Andalusia to Indonesia, destroying democracy and subjugating women and becomes, by the magic of parochial reasoning, a protest movement on a par with Make Poverty History or the TUC. Again, I understand the appeal. Whether you are brown or white, Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist, it is uncomfortable to face the fact that there is a messianic cult of death which, like European fascism and communism before it, will send you to your grave whatever you do. But I'm afraid that's what the record shows. The only plausible excuse for 11 September was that it was a protest against America's support for Israel. Unfortunately, Osama bin Laden's statements revealed that he was obsessed with the American troops defending Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein and had barely said a word about Palestine. After the Bali bombings, the conventional wisdom was that the Australians had been blown to pieces as a punishment for their government's support for Bush. No one thought for a moment about the Australian forces which stopped Indonesian militias rampaging through East Timor, a small country Indonesia had invaded in 1975 with the backing of the US. Yet when bin Laden spoke, he said it was Australia's anti-imperialist intervention to free a largely Catholic population from a largely Muslim occupying power which had bugged him. East Timor was a great cause of the left until the Australians made it an embarrassment. So, too, was the suffering of the victims of Saddam, until the tyrant made the mistake of invading Kuwait and becoming America's enemy. In the past two years in Iraq, UN and Red Cross workers have been massacred, trade unionists assassinated, school children and aid workers kidnapped and decapitated and countless people who happened to be on the wrong bus or on the wrong street at the wrong time paid for their mistake with their lives. What can the survivors do? Not a lot according to a Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He told bin Laden that the northern Kurds may be Sunni but 'Islam's voice has died out among them' and they'd been infiltrated by Jews. The southern Shia were 'a sect of treachery' while any Arab, Kurd, Shia or Sunni who believed in a democratic Iraq was a heretic. Our options are as limited When Abu Bakr Bashir was arrested for the Bali bombings, he was asked how the families of the dead could avoid the fate of their relatives. 'Please convert to Islam,' he replied. But as the past 40 years have shown, Islamism is mainly concerned with killing and oppressing Muslims. In his intervention before last year's American presidential election, bin Laden praised Robert Fisk of the Independent whose journalism he admired. 'I consider him to be neutral,' he said, so I suppose we could all resolve not to take the tube unless we can sit next to Mr Fisk. But as the killings are indiscriminate, I can't see how that would help and, in any case, who wants to be stuck on a train with an Independent reporter? There are many tasks in the coming days. Staying calm, helping the police and protecting Muslim communities from neo-Nazi attack are high among them. But the greatest is to resolve to see the world for what it is and remove the twin vices of wilful myopia and bad faith which have disfigured too much liberal thought for too long. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #17 Israel has actually been fighting this war since the 1920's. But let's not quibble. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-07-10 22:42 |
| #16 #14 - I just realized this a few days ago. Israel's been fighting this war since 1948, but even after 1979, or 1993, or 2001, no one else realized the connection. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-07-10 15:24 |
| #15 Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit for nine years, sees a different way out -- through U.S. foreign policy. He said he resigned last November to expose the U.S. leadership's "willful blindness" to what needs to be done: withdraw the U.S. military from the Mideast, end "unqualified support" for Israel, sever close ties to Arab oil-state "tyrannies." He acknowledged such actions aren't likely soon, but said his longtime subject bin Laden will "make us bleed enough to get our attention." Ultimately, he said, "his goal is to destroy the Arab monarchies." Anybody care to explain to me the difference between Scheuer's idea of a "solution" and bin Laden's definition of victory? Ummmm.....Scheuer's way is our way and... Waitaminute, I think Dan is on to somehting! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-07-10 15:21 |
| #14 notice the sense here is that he sorta sidesteps the pali terror. as if THAT terror and murder is ok...it's this OTHER terror and murder the left is wrong about. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2005-07-10 14:17 |
| #13 I no more care what the excuse was for 9/11 or 7/7 than I care what the excuse was for Pearl Harbor. A war of aggression is being waged against our countries and our culture by a homicidal sixth-century blood-feud culture that needs to be exterminated. If the Islamic communities in the west can not or will not rout out the festering barbarians among them, then they will all be damned. |
| Posted by: Neutron Tom 2005-07-10 10:56 |
| #12 Dan Darling has a good followup to Cohen's article, here. RTWT, as they say... |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-07-10 10:27 |
| #11 Mike, the synonyms for "plausible" that came to mind when I read it were "valid", or maybe "persuasive." It seemed more like he was critiquing the justification for the actions, not the actions themselves. After re-reading the comments of that waste of skin Stockhausen, I was not in a charitable frame of mind. |
| Posted by: Darth VAda 2005-07-10 10:04 |
| #10 I didn't read the "only plausible excuse" paragraph as some of you obviously have. It is the first of three paragraphs that first set up the deluded argument / point of view, and then demolishs it... That's the way I read it, too. Unfortunately, the author's writing style invites misinterpretation. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-07-10 09:48 |
| #9 My favorite paragraphs - I feel the appeal, believe me. You are exasperated with the manifold faults of Tony Blair and George W Bush. Fighting your government is what you know how to do and what you want to do, and when you are confronted with totalitarian forces which are far worse than your government, the easy solution is to blame your government for them. and There are many tasks in the coming days. Staying calm, helping the police and protecting Muslim communities from neo-Nazi attack are high among them. But the greatest is to resolve to see the world for what it is and remove the twin vices of wilful myopia and bad faith which have disfigured too much liberal thought for too long. I think he's catchin' on. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-07-10 09:21 |
| #8 Whiskey, you may be right. What this reminds me of is what it is like after the death of a loved one. That complete and total understanding of what is truly important in life, and an ability to see things in a clear light, free of petty grudges, money and other mortal cares. It's life changing, but it quickly wears off as life gets back in the way. At the time, you think it will change the way you live your life, but in truth, you have to make a real effort to hang onto that moment of wisdom. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-07-10 08:47 |
| #7 a moment of clarity, but he can't let go. His whole sense of worth depends on the fact that he and his dinner party friends could see what the peasants could not. To let go means to give up his power and turn in his VIP pass. There is no wizard behind the curtain, he's just a smuck like all the others. He probably wrote the first half, and then after a good night's sleep, the moment wore off. Still, I like this line as it means that this man no longer owns the day: In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-07-10 08:35 |
| #6 I didn't read the "only plausible excuse" paragraph as some of you obviously have. It is the first of three paragraphs that first set up the deluded argument / point of view, and then demolishs it with the stark fact that follows in the rest of the paragraph. He does this with 9/11, Bali, and East Timor - sets up the cherished meme (the willful delusion), then destroys it with factual statements from the Islamist actors themselves that completely undercut the delusion, show it for what it is. He could have added others, but the three made his point quite well. If we listen to what the islamists actually say, self-delusion becomes non-operative. I think he has come around. I think the 9/11 paragraph is being misread. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2005-07-10 08:31 |
| #5 I actually had hope for this dolt until I got to the "only plausible excuse." I'm trying to come up with a plausible excuse for that sentiment. I'll have to get back to you. A clue? Nah. Half of a clue at best. *golf clap* |
| Posted by: Darth VAda 2005-07-10 07:50 |
| #4 I am tired of the pathetic excuse of 9/11 coming of injustice in the world and of Palestine being the only one in the world. Injustices far gretater there were in Afghanistan, in Soudan or in Kurdistan all perpetrated by the Arabs/Islamists. With that logic jets should have crashed on Mecca, Medina and Ryad. 9/11 wasn't causedc by injustice but by an ideology who sees Muslims in general, Arabs in particular and specially Arabians as HerrensVolk while the others are untermenschen and can be put to death whenever the herrensvolk need the space. Just like the Jews in the death camps but also like it would have happenned to Slavs if Hitler had won. That is why according to Bin Laden Palestine is a horrible crime, not having Arabs ruling the world is an abomination and that is why it is legitimate to treat Afghans (Muslims) ted as inferiors, that is why it is legitimate to gas Kurds (Muslims) whenever the HerrensVolk want their oil and that is why it is legitimate to rape, enslave and exterminate Black Soudanese be they Christian and animist like in the South or Muslims like in Darfur |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-07-10 05:27 |
| #3 It's an improvement but: The only plausible excuse for 11 September was that it was a protest against America's support for Israel. Unfortunately, Osama bin Laden's statements revealed that he was obsessed with the American troops defending Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein and had barely said a word about Palestine. It appears that old habits die very hard. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-07-10 04:51 |
| #2 The only plausible excuse for 11 September was that it was a protest against America's support for Israel. Guardian columnist gets a clue? |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2005-07-10 04:24 |
| #1 Wow. He must've duct-taped his head before he sat down to write this piece. Oh, and he prolly took half a bottle of aspirin, too, or maybe a month's supply of methadone. *applause* Regards his audience - who he correctly refers to as suffering from "the twin vices of wilful [sic] myopia and bad faith" and rather charitably describes their perverted mindset, against a solid wall of readily available facts, as "resolute dunderheadedness" -- I can only say that he's had an epiphany, but how many will listen? A few? Many? Hell, he's probably endangered his position at alG with this, unless he's now to become their token "conservative" - as they would stupidly define the term. Regardless, it was a brave and honorable act - and he did it publicly. Well done, Nick. The desire to maintain a view, regardless of the overwhelming weight of contrary facts, is obviously a very powerful force. It is a direct challenge to both the intellect and integrity - and the number who fail to set aside their dreamworlds for reality is disturbing. We see them around and amongst us - those who will go to their graves still insisting, for example, that law enforcement is the right response to the Muzzy campaign for dominion or that America is a danger to anyone except those who seek her ruin - seeking a thousand shades of gray in which to hide their most cherished illusions. 'Tis the danger of mixing your world view with your personal identity, it seems. They seem dully unaware how foolish and shallow this reveals them to be. Nick is not such a fool, nor is he shallow. I worry that these self-deluded dolts, those who can't part with their "position", will take some or many of us down with them. Otherwise I'd happily let them stew and fall in their time. They define fuckwits, IMO. Willful fuckwits. So, we have Nick Cohen, now, to add to Chris Hitchens and a few others - exemplary models of liberals with a brain, able to adapt as information and events burn through the fog - thus worthy of surviving, the brass to think autonomously and put aside the comfortable for the true, and the personal integrity to follow through publicly. Pretty good shit, there, gentlemen. Since I came from the feel-good zone, myself, awhile back I know it wasn't easy. Welcome, Nick. You and the others now threaten the lesser among your previous tribe - and your words will bring these trolls and fools and tools out in hateful force. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-07-10 03:03 |