What Kevin said. Liberals have to realize that they are the only ones who are truly serious about fighting terrorists. Conservatives, and especially Bush Republicans, are profoundly unserious. They are still fighting the last war. This is a new day. Time for new weapons. The President's "bang, bang, shoot em up" approach is of limited value in the broader war for hearts and minds.

I like Harris a lot, but I think that Kevin is right in this post for the most part. There are still libs who say "economic desperation," "Imperialism," "Israel," etc., though.

but in the liberal circles I do participate in, virtually no one subscribes to the "economic despair" argument anymore. What we do believe is that the terrorists themselves usually middle class and decently educated are small in number and limited in capability unless they have broad support among the rest of the population.

Kevin, what you just said is evidence you don't take the threat of Islam seriously. As Pope Benedict has pointed out the problem is Islam itself. Chrisianity is a religion of peace while Muslims "believe in spreading their faith by the sword". Therefore, there is no way to stop the holy war waged by the Islamofascists on us unless we wage a war on Islam itself.

Teaching the Muslims Christianity is the best way to end the jihad against Christians being waged by Muslims. As Pope Benedict also pointed out, Christianity is "tightly linked to reason". That is why all reasonable and rational people believe in Christianity. Only irrational and unreasonable people don't believe in Christianity. By teaching the Muslims Christianity and converting them, we can end this jihad launched by the Islamofascists. There is no other way because the Islamofascists will never end it themselves.

If Harris is right, I wonder what he proposes as a solution? His description of the problem sounds unsolvable--certainly unsolvable with military force. If he is right, then we will need the most clever and intelligent approach to a social problem we have ever had. Yet, Harris swings a hammer around wildly as if he exemplifies a better approach. Idiot. He'd been better off writing a column asking everyone to read "What Terrorists Want." Louise Richardson offers the most informed way forward yet...and I think she is a liberal!

Re; "...namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse."

Public opinion in the islamic world boils down to "Allah is great and infidels are bad". This hasn't changed in centuries. The cause of the problem is that the islamic world has been asking itself, "If Allah is great and infidels are bad, how have they become so much richer and more powerful than we are?" The problem itself is that some who ask that question have decided that the infidels are the problem and that the solution is jihad.

So can we ignore a jihad? No, we must defeat it or isolate it.

I'm so tired of hearing Dems are weaker on fighting terrorism.

Let's compare Dems vs. Pubs.

Dems think capturing or killing Osama is our number one prority. Pubs don't think he's that important.

Dems have voted to fund inspection of all airline cargo. Pubs voted against it.

Dems voted to provide the troops life-saving armour. Pubs voted against it.

Dems voted to secure rail, chemical and nuclear plants. Pubs voted against it.

Dems know that getting warrants after spying, does not hurt the war on terror. Pubs say you have to break the law and have no oversight.

Republicans talk tough, but their actions are weak.

How is the fascination with Jihadism that different with our evangelical fascination with Rapture? IMHO, both of which are fascination to death, although our priests who evangelize these would sermon and want all gullible believers to think otherwise.

They are all a belief in salvation through death, and the mohammeds/priests that preach them are death-dealers.

In this liberal's view, fundamentalism, full stop, is a problem. Maybe economic problems and lack of education feed fundamentalism, but between Islamic fundamentalists willing to kill themselves as long as they can take out some infidels with them, to Christian fundamentalists who blow up abortion clinics or kill gynecologists who perform abortions or provide aid and comfort to compatriots who do so (see Eric Rudolph), I think it's safe to say that true believers are not rational actors, and are therefore a serious problem.

However, I doubt that bombing these fundamentalists is an effective method of doing anything but radicalizing others into fundamentalism.

The web has made it impossible to get away with illogical claptrap by any group. We just pay attention to the nonsense because we need to and the web makes it possible.

Our military action is limited in scope in Iraq where 90% of the murder is Islam vs Islam. This is the obvious fact of life facing the Middle East and the anti-war groups.

Take a similiar situation, has Bush's dictatorial nonsense has radicalized the liberal wing? Not really, it has merely made more people listen to the liberal wing and the liberal wing has had to accompany some logic to their rants as a result. The liberal wing is no longer able to get away with double speak, nor are the neocons.

Consider the recent war against Hezbollah. We finally hear the head of Hezbollah say that he didn't mean for all that to happen. So Hezbollah has discovered that having a separate set of rules for Israel is no longer logical. Hezbollah has been "outed".

Even in Afghanistan, the Taliban are under a spot light as never before and they have to explain why hanging school teachers makes sense in any fashion.

What we see is simply the world spot light put on these issues; and nonsense, either from Bush, the Muslims, or the liberals no longer suffices. People pay a lot more attention, the media is under greater scrutiny.

Any noticable political group is hamstrung by their inability to spew the illogical nonsense for one special interest group without being outed as hypocritical.

Did you hear from the Muslim Brotherhood about the pope's apology? The Muslim Brotherhood accepted. This group has been outed, made legal and subject to the rules of logical consistancy. The same is happening to Hamas, Hezbollah, Bush, Chirac, Putin and the Russians, the liberals. Even Iran has had to explain why it is OK to kill Jews but not Pakistanis.

We are all under the spotlight, we are all, in a sense, legal, outed and subject to logic. (Excepting Limbaugh or course)

I do think that many prominnent non-conservatives (as a libertarian I won't limit it to the left) are reluctant to be as vociferous as they normally would be in challenging something that is as illiberal as radical Islam. Progressives are quick to, rightly, call out instances of emergent theocracy in this country, but back off from publicly going after Islam with nearly the same energy.

I think the fairest explanation of this is that these folks are worried about their criticism of Islam becoming tacit backing for the Administration's policy of tackling problems in the Middle East with a military-first approach. Many on the left who were quick to criticize terrorism and radical Islam soon after 9/11 have gone quieter after the Iraq invasion, at least in public. I know many people who privately have great fear about what the spread of radical Islam is doing to liberal values and individual rights, but are reluctant to speak publicly. This has to end. This is not so nuanced a message, that radical Islam is an enemy of what we value but we aren't going to stamp it out with the army, that we shouldn't be able to express it clearly.

That being said, both we libertarians as well as the the "reality-based community" on the left need to achnowlege that a wholly disproportionate number of 9/11 conspiracists come from our ranks. We of the libertarian/left rightly criticize things like the teaching of intelligent design as pseudo-scientific garbage, and then have huge portions of our community latch onto conspiracy pseudo-scientific garbage.

How is the fascination with Jihadism that different with our evangelical fascination with Rapture? IMHO, both of which are fascination to death, although our priests who evangelize these would sermon and want all gullible believers to think otherwise.

They are all a belief in salvation through death, and the mohammeds/priests that preach them are death-dealers.

If we can't control our evangelicals rapid growing fascination with Rapture, how can we control Jihadism?

Look into your own backyard first, before pointing fingers at others.

My only comment is that while you claim to have changed your positions on the causes of Islamic terrorism, this change has in no way affected the solutions you advocate. Your original response was economic engagement, winning hearts and minds, etc. That hasn't changed.

Invariant solutions are suspect. Whether it's GW's tax cuts or the war on Iraq with its various justifications, if the context changes and the solution doesn't it is hard to argue that the latter follows from a reality-based assessment of the former.

For the sake of argument please consider this: the instability in the middle east is the result of internal processes which we have very little control over. While things we do may shape the outward expression of those internal processes, those expressions really aren't directed towards us at all. All politics is local. Your concern and desire for good relations mean nothing to the politicians stirring things up over there.

What I don't understand about your position is this: you (Kevin Drum) instantly comprehend that something like "Justice Sunday" or the gay marrage stuuf is bs, driven more by politics and the internal dynamics of the Christian Right. Can't you see that people are the same everywhere?

I read Harris with my corn flakes this morning, and thought "WTF?" for exactly these reasons.

Plus this one - I'd bet that more than 16% of conservatives believe all kinds of crackpot bullshit, including a belief in, and encouragement of, Armageddon by actual leading lights of the conservalooney movement. But I don't see huge op-eds by conservatives decrying fellow conservatives as unserious because of it.

Darn those liberal media...

This is off topic but I wanted to share this.

You know when ol George said he was a uniter not a divider, well at the time I was skeptical but now I am a believer.

See this article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5354812.stm

He has successfully unit everyone that hates the US to team up against us. If Kim Jung Ill joins that group it will not surprise me at all.

Matt

Are you arguing that the Republicans are the last group for whom logic doesn't apply?

Kevin quotes Sam Harris: "...liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism."

First of all, to say that terrorism -- Muslim or otherwise -- "springs from" economic despair, lack of education, and/or American militarism is not the same thing as saying that the specific individuals who engage in terrorist acts are themselves economically disadvantaged or poorly educated. Relatively well-off and well-educated individuals within a society may choose to engage in terrorism in response to poverty, lack of education or militarism which affects others in their society.

So what does motivate terrorists? Sam Harris has made a career out of his jihad against religion, but research shows that religion has little to do with motivating terrorists:

Nationalism, Not Islam, Motivates Most Suicide Terrorists
by Gary Olson
September 5, 2006
The Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania)

Excerpt:

In his recent book, DYING TO WIN: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,, University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape has provided an indispensable public service by collecting data from all 315 suicide terrorist campaigns from 1980 to 2003, involving 462 individuals.

His overall finding: The major objective of 95 percent of suicide attacks is to expel foreign military forces from territory that the terrorists perceive as their homeland. There is little connection with Islamic fundamentalism or any of the world religions. The taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism and it's "mainly a response to foreign occupation." The objective is political self-determination.

The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a secular, clearly anti-religious movement, have committed 76 of the 315 suicide attacks, the most of any group. Their specific goal was an independent homeland in Sri Lanka.

Pape, who has also taught at the U.S. Air Force's Advanced Airpower Studies, convincingly demonstrates that "suicide terrorist groups are neither primarily criminal groups dedicated to enriching their top leaders, nor religious cults isolated from the rest of their society. Rather, suicide terrorist organizations often command broad social support within the national communities from which they recruit, because they are seen as pursuing legitimate nationalist goals." Absent these goals, suicide terrorism rarely occurs.

Only 6 percent of the perpetrators have come from the five countries with the world's largest Islamic fundamentalist populations (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran and Nigeria). He notes, "Prior to America's invasion in March 2003, Iraq had never experienced a suicide bombing in its history." Further, Pape's demographic profiles of individual suicide terrorists reveals they are not uneducated, poor, mentally unstable, lacking in prospects, or young men expecting to spend paradise in the company of 72 virgins. Almost exactly the opposite is true. The data indicates they have higher incomes, intelligence and education, are deeply integrated into their communities, are highly politically conscious and from widely varied religious backgrounds.

The empirical evidence indicates that suicide terrorists are not motivated by religion, but are overwhelmingly motivated by nationalist resistance to foreign occupation of their homelands -- i.e. militarism.

Sam Harris has his own agenda, namely his disapproval of religion. He certainly has every right to advocate against religion generally and Islam specifically, if he wishes, but he ought not to conflate that agenda with the fight against terrorism, which is overwhelmingly political violence, not religious violence.

Matt

Are you arguing that the Republicans are the last group for whom logic doesn't apply?

We of the libertarian/left rightly criticize things like the teaching of intelligent design as pseudo-scientific garbage, and then have huge portions of our community latch onto conspiracy pseudo-scientific garbage.

What should "we" do? I know people - actual real people, not someone I met once in line in the grocery store, but people I spend time with - who believe that 9/11 is a government fraud. These people, however, are not liberals - they are conservatives! Apart from telling them they are nuts (which I do), what else do "we" do?

More to the point, how is that these crackpot theories are automatically "liberal"? I just don't see it.

This is a rhetorical stunt Hitchens uses a lot - set up the straw man of the capital-L "Liberal," who spends all day reading Michael Moore books and lamenting anything the American military ever does, has done or will do. Do these people exist? Sure. But they represent the tiniest fraction of a microcosm of the left. We stand ready to fight - yes, fight, with guns and everything - fundamentalism in all its forms. We just think - if we're going to ask our troops to risk their lives in this fight, they should be given every advantage we can give them. We are reasonably sure "a tax break for the wealthiest 1% of Americans in the middle of this fight" isn't one of those advantages. Neither is 130k troops where 500k are needed. Or sanctioned torture. Et cetera. Ad nauseum.

eb wrote: "If Harris is right, I wonder what he proposes as a solution?"

Harris is not right, as I wrote above. The primary motivation behind the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts is nationalism, not religion.

Having said that, Harris ultimately proposes the same "solution" that he's been proposing to all problems of human existence, in all his writing, for years: eliminate all religion from human life, everywhere and forever.

Charlie Lawrence posting as "Thomas1" wrote: "I wish our party would recognize that you just can't trust Muslims."

I wish you would drop your fake, phony, absurd, idiotic pretense of being a Democrat. Everyone who reads these pages knows who you are and what you are. Your pretense of being a Democrat just makes you more of a laughingstock than you would be anyway.

It's not Islasm that's the problem, but religion per se and the hucksterism that comes with it.

Religion has been made utterly irrelevant by the scientific and technological progress of the last century. Religion in any of its forms is, if you will, in its last throes.

I say pox on all their houses.

It's not because liberals don't understand the threat, it's because liberals seem to be the only ones who do understand the threat these days — namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse.

This is the kind of thinking that generations of Americans have been schooled to call 'appeasement'. Few if any elections will be won by such talk. That may be a big part of the reason for the tension between the Democrats' base and their professional politicians.

It's not because liberals don't understand the threat, it's because liberals seem to be the only ones who do understand the threat these days — namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse.

Amen, Kevin!

Islam seems scary and violent because it's the youngest of the world's great religions. It's still a teenager. Give it another millenium or so and it ought to mellow some.

As a liberal, it scares the hell out of me that Christianist religious loonies have given Islamist religious loonies a new lease on life.

PS. Al has never read the Bible.

I read a couple of reviews of Mr. Harris' book and saw him lecture on C-SPAN. I went to his website and the first endorsement he put on it was from the torture advocate Prof. Dershowitz. I was taken aback and re-watched that C-SPAN lecture. Mr. Harris, while correctly identifying religion as an informing philosophy that sanctions violence against the 'other,' fails to see it operate in religions he admires, like Buddhism, or other belief systems.

As a left handed 'liberal' I do not think religion or economics plays much of a role informing some Muslims to embrace terrorism. What informs anyone, Muslim or otherwise, to decide to use violence is retaliation against an overwhelming force being used indiscriminately against their families or nations. Terrorist violence is the logical form that type of retaliation assumes.

What infuriates me is Mr. Harris' moral hair splitting. Suicide terrorists are the very worst kind of violence advocates to him, but violence against civilians carried out by a nation-states is somehow more legitimate, regardless of how many more people it destroys.

So, the question must be asked: what philosophy informs Mr. Harris to condemn those who act out violence with meager resources, which often means sacrifice through suicide, while implicitly endorsing torture, the use of anti-personnel weapons, and the use of state of the art weapons systems to destroy apartment blocks with people sleeping in them? His beliefs are informed by a hysterical objectivism.

Mr. Harris should have been a biologist. He has the perfect philosphy to permit him to create the most horrific types of biological weapons. From now on I will refer to him as Santa Clauswitz.

Kevin quotes Sam Harris:

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are [...] we are not fighting a "war on terror." We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise [...] liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.

Harris is just plain wrong. In reality, "abundant evidence" shows that the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks -- in particular, suicide terrorism which is responsible for nearly half of all fatalities caused by terrorist attacks -- is rooted in nationalism and resistance to foreign military occupation of what the terrorists consider to be their homeland, and has little or nothing to do with religion.

When Harris complains that "liberals" are "soft on terrorism", what he really means is that "liberals" are tolerant of Islam, which Harris -- for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism itself -- finds morally reprehensible.

But Harris finds all religion to be morally reprehensible. In a recent article in the Buddhist magazine Shambhala Sun, Harris praised Buddhist thought and Buddhist teachings -- but then condemned Buddhism as a religion as morally reprehensible, writing nonsensically that "the continued identification of Buddhists with Buddhism lends tacit support to the religious differences in our world" and that "merely being a self-described 'Buddhist' is to be complicit in the world’s violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree."

How can "merely being a self-described Buddhist" -- and therefore, by definition, a person who practices nonviolence and compassion -- make one "complicit in the world's violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree"? Such is Sam Harris's thinking.

What Harris is really trying to do here is to falsely equate terrorism with religion and hijack "liberals" into his personal jihad against all religion. That is profoundly dishonest.

Small in number? What percent of the Muslim population would you figure are extremists? 10%?
That still equates to about 10 million angry jihadis.

Kevin is right that Harris does a poor job of supporting his thesis. Unfortunately, his thesis is correct.

Kevin himself gives the game away when he admits that libs want to "focus our efforts on things like public diplomacy, economic engagement, and multilateral institutions." Kevin merely disputss the reasons Harris states.

Let's set theory aside, and look at the real world. Where have economicic engagement and multilateral institutions worked against Islamic terrorism?

Whether we like it or not, military action worked against Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan. Miltary action has partly worked in Iraq. There's still a lot of terrorism inside Iraq, but Iraq no longer supports terror attacks outside the country, as they did under Saddam.

It's unfortunatel that defeating Islamic terrorism will require force, sometimes applied in ugly, unpalatable ways. Libs who ignore this reality are reghtly distrusted on security.

You all are only proving Harris' actual point - which is that religion is sheltered from criticism in virtually every culture on the planet - and thus, it continues to grow and thrive in a time when it should be waning in influence.

Note Bill Maher's recent experience on CBS's new evening news segment - "Free Speech." CBS informed him "religion" was off the table for discussion.

Imagine...

And a quick note to the poster who mentioned "nationalism" as the root cause of terrorism. That study focused specifically on suicide bombers, not terrorism in general so while the data of the study is fascinating and believable, you're stretching it out beyond the original study to include all terrorism.

Though for my money, I'm betting the idea of being occupied or controlled by an oppressive force IS a prime motivator for terrorists in general - From Osama to McVeigh.

But I think Harris' main point is that religion has benefitted from a protected status. And it is time for that protection to go away...thekeez

Regarding Harris's End of Faith -- I can't recall another book in which I went from nearly complete agreement after the first three chapters to mostly strong disagreement in later chapters. It was disappointing to discover that Harris, who writes persuasivly about the absurdity and harm of religious dogma, then loses his reason and becomes dogmatic when writing about Islam and the West's response to Muslim terrorist and States. I was particularly disappointed that Harris argues in support for using torture and for nuking Iran.

I can't believe that someone would say such deplorable things about an entire religion, but i suppose i shouldn't be suprised with him.
I agree that the economic despair theory is tired and proving to be untrue.
Agreed, though, that we need to move forward with finding a base way to rid the world of terrorism; one idea is actually getting our representatives to push forward with the Millenium Development Goals, which to eradicate many of the problems that cause people to become terrorists.

...between Islamic fundamentalists willing to kill themselves as long as they can take out some infidels with them, to Christian fundamentalists who blow up abortion clinics or kill gynecologists who perform abortions or provide aid and comfort to compatriots who do so (see Eric Rudolph), I think it's safe to say that true believers are not rational actors, and are therefore a serious problem.

"Serious problem?" Run up a murder count in both of those columns and see which of those two categories is really the "serious problem" today.

In the last thirty years, 7 innocent people have been murdered in anti-abortion crimes. The last two in 1998.

There is much disinformation being distributed about, for example, Al Qaeda. No one seems to have assessed what they are doing, how many people there are, where they are located. This is simple stuff, raw intelligence stuff. Hm, I wonder why. You may want to look into this. Is it possible they are so small, so weak, that they couldn’t attack us if they really wanted to?
Isn't it smarter to make them so mysterious that we can't assess them, so that people can be AFRAID, really AFRAID of them all the time? After all, they're connected to ... um, Saddam and Iraq ... Iran ... maybe Pakistan ... the Taliban in Afghanistan ... and under your bed.
One assessment shows them as a very small fragmented minority, which got lucky, remember, only because the cabin doors of the airliners weren't secured and pilots couldn't carry guns. I repeat this, One assessment shows them as a very small fragmented minority, which got lucky, remember, only because the cabin doors of the airliners weren't secured and pilots couldn't carry guns.
Now, whether or not that's true, I'd like to have some facts. Otherwise, as I'm fond of saying, there is no such thing as a "global war on terrorism"; it's like a "war on laziness", so vague it distorts the picture and is designed only to make you afraid.
Being afraid is not what intelligence gathering is about; precisely the reverse, so you can take the proper action. And Bush may not want to take that action. After all, Pakistan has already shown us that.

Is anyone surprised that Andy Sullivan thinks Harris is making a profound insight? That's pretty much the kiss of death for Harris, right there.

Like I already said, you can't trust Muslims.

I'll start to mull over the idea that Islam itself is dangerous when people begin to treat innocent Muslims deaths at the hands of dictators and occupiers with the same righteous indignation that they display when a few thousand Muslims stage violent protests.

Or when General Boiken is condemned by Al. Whichever comes first.

Secular Animist wrote:

Having said that, Harris ultimately proposes the same "solution" that he's been proposing to all problems of human existence, in all his writing, for years: eliminate all religion from human life, everywhere and forever.

I was being rhetorical, but thanks for the response I was looking for. This is exactly my point. Harris' solution is to eliminate religion! Hahahahahaha! I'd like to see his 10 point plan for implemnting that policy across the globe. It is ridiculous. I've got a solution for the energy crisis--how about we build turbines on the surface of the sun and run a power cord from here to there.

OCPatriot wrote: And Bush may not want to take that action. After all, Pakistan has already shown us that.

IMHO Bush deserves critcism for many things, but his handling of Pakistan has been masterful. This Islamic country is not a natural ally of ours, but we needed their cooperation to attack Afghanistan. Maybe OCPatriot think we should have attacked Pakistan. I think Bush was wise to maintain good relations with them.

We didn't let Hitler and the Nazis define Christianity and we won't let Osama bin Laden and Sam Harris define Islam.

It's that broad support that we need to target, and that's why we should focus our efforts on things like public diplomacy, economic engagement, and working seriously with multilateral institutions. It's not because liberals don't understand the threat, it's because liberals seem to be the only ones who do understand the threat these days — namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse.

Kevin, I generally regard you as one of the more reasoned voice on the Left, and so I ask you in all sincerity: how will “public diplomacy, economic engagement, and working seriously with multilateral institutions,” force change in an Islamic belief system that holds Jihad—both violent and spiritual—to be core tenants of the faith?

For diplomacy to work, there has to be compromise by both sides, and a millennia of practical experience shows us that Islam has no interest in compromising its beliefs. Perhaps you can show me examples to the contrary? I would be very encouraged if you could find some examples of a widespread call within Islam to denounce violent Jihad, but the simple fact of the matter is that this has not manifested, not in the wake of 9/11, and not in the widespread and on-going Muslim riots against Pope Benedict that call only for his compromising of principles, and not their own.

The public opinion in Muslim populations—which even a cursory review of Islamic news sources and religious edicts will reveal—is that Islam is infallible. That is a core tenant of their belief system, and neither diplomacy, nor economic engagement, nor a use of multi-lateral institutions are going to begin to address this basic fact.

So please, please make a sincerely attempt to tell us why your ideas of dealing with Islam, which have been tried in centuries past in one variant or another, will achieve success now when to date they have only encountered failure.

I look forward to a reasoned response.

Why do you classify believers in an unexposed 9/11 conspiracy "fringe"? In the early run up to the current Iraq war what percentage of the population was willing to state unequivocally that every last claim of the President was a calculated lie or alteration of intelligence? Every claim about WMD's, aluminum tubes, mobile bio labs, nuclear capabilities, munition stockpiles, cost of the war, every single utterance an outright fiction? I'd say someone making that declaration was labeled extreme, off-base, out of touch, in denial, disloyal. You know, fringe. Christopher Columbus was probably fringe until he returned not having fallen off the end of the earth. Do I believe this government could have played a role in 9/11? Well, seeing as Bush and many of his supporters are Satan's spawn I suppose anything is possible.

SecularAnimist wrote:

"The primary motivation behind the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts is nationalism, not religion."
______________

As may be true, but don't we need to find some other descriptive word? The terrorists zeal seems to cross national boundaries and the only word I can think of is Pan-Islamicism. But that brings religion into it, so there must be some sort of connection there.

Likewise, poverty might not have much to do with the motivations of the movement, however, I doubt very much that the typical suicide bomber is from among the middle class, educated types.

Kevin, answer your own challenge: if we are not at war with Islam itself (but only with certain whackos who all themselves Muslims), what IS the Islam with which we are not at war?

I wrote about this a long time ago (NRO, February 22, 2002, "The Theology's the Thing"), and so far as I can tell, nobody has moved the needle past that point.

So, you bought the ticket, take the ride: what is the Islam with which we are not at war?

DJ in Jesusland: "We didn't let Hitler and the Nazis define Christianity and we won't let Osama bin Laden and Sam Harris define Islam."

I'll let the Muslims worry about who defines Islam. Mainstream Christians should be concerned with not letting George Bush, Pat Robertson and other militant fundamentalists speak to the world on their behalf.

Bob Owens wrote: "I look forward to a reasoned response."

Where is your evidentiary argument that Islam is the source of the terrorism problem to begin with, as opposed to nationalist opposition to foreign occupation and oppression? The evidence -- see my previous post above -- indicates that suicide terrorism, at least, is overwhelmingly motivated by nationalism and desire for political self-determination, and has little or nothing to do with Islam or any religion.

You offer little more than a litany of vague, hyper-generalized condemnations of Islam, and no evidence that any of your generalities have any basis in fact. You offer little or nothing that anyone could make a "reasoned response" to.

Trashhauler wrote: "poverty might not have much to do with the motivations of the movement, however, I doubt very much that the typical suicide bomber is from among the middle class, educated types."

Or, the opposite might be true.

As the article I linked to above said, University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape's demographic studies of suicide terrorists found that "they are not uneducated, poor, mentally unstable, lacking in prospects, or young men expecting to spend paradise in the company of 72 virgins [...] they have higher incomes, intelligence and education, are deeply integrated into their communities, are highly politically conscious and from widely varied religious backgrounds."

This suggests that "the typical suicide bomber" is, in fact, "from among the middle class, educated types", but that by virtue of being "deeply integrated into their communities" and "highly politically conscious", these people are quite likely to be motivated by poverty as well as political and military oppression afflicting their societies.

Terrorism is a reaction to overwhelming force being used by technologically superior adversaries, who are almost always invaders, to destroy their nations.

Religion, as philosophy, tries to explain the volition that is required by the individual to act out political violence, whether the actor is on the side of the superior force or on the side of the oppressed. Religion informs both actors in the righteousness of their cause.

Mankind has a problem rationalizing its behavior and resorts to religion or ideology to explain its will to act. Germans killed Jews, not to appropriate their wealth, but because they were an inferior race. Bolsheviks killed the bourgeois, not to eliminate a political foe, but because of the historical dialectic. Puritans did not give typhoid infected blankets to Native Americans in order to steal their soon empty land, they did it because they were predestined and were fulfilling God's plan. A few Palestinian's do not become suicide bombers in order to lash out and kill anyone connected with the deaths of family members, they do it to fulfill the writings in the Koran. Zionists do not bulldoze houses with families inside in order to seize more territory and increase the size of the state, they do it because YWH has deemed them the chosen people. Oil companies do not offer the natives of the Ecuadoran forests a box of beads in order to steal the oil they live on top of, they do it because the invisible hand of the market dictates that only the laws of supply and demand be observed.

Haven't read the comments yet. Wanted to say this first.

Kevin's critique doesn't go anywhere deep enough. Doctrinally, suicide in the name of jihad is actually quite proscribed and limited to circumstances of open warfare; only out-of-the-mainstream interpretations of Islam allow for it save under the most desperate of circumstances. Even in conservative interpretations of Islam, it is a last resort, not a means of conventional warfare. The suicides we hear about in the Mideast not pertaining to jihad are much more rightly considered the result of tribal, shame-based culture, where honor equates to life (suicides of rape victims, etc.)

Otherwise, it is at least as much a sin to commit suicide as a Muslim as it as at a Catholic. The NYT Mag piece this week on Gitmo is instructive. It covered the events around last year's three suicides, but of Islam were really a "death cult," you'd have to ask yourself -- why not a whole lot more serious attempts? Wouldn't 72 virgins be preferrable to being held indefinitely in what amounts to a concentration camp?

The inmates discussed the issues with the imams among them, and they had to look far and wide to find an exception to the Islamic suicide prohibition. Only if your death can directly aid the group in a desperate situation.

Bob

>what is the Islam with which we are not at war?

Pretty much all of it we aren't. Not a lot of action on our part in Indonesia, for example.

>Run up a murder count in both of those columns and see which of those two

Notice how Janice, typical American, seems oblivious to the fact that the world extends outside US borders.

And to people like Janice the "real" world is not only confined to US borders but also what happened recently.

Got a passport? Get one.

Crank it back 60 years and you find 6 million Jewish corpses at the ugly end of Christianity.

One thing that is clear from this thread is that Americans are depressingly stupid. Although it makes many people, including the pope, feel all tingly pontificating on the true nature of Islam, you don't need to go back 1500 years to figure out what is going on.

Gamal Abdel Nasser
Hassan Al-Banna
The Muslim Brotherhood
Anwar Saddat
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
Ayman Al-Zawahiri

Read this and you will know who you are fighting and why. So put down that fourteen volume Arabic Tafseer of the Quran for a second and you might actually learn something.

Bah, you missed a perfectly good opportunity to use the word "nutpicking" in a sentance.

During the rule by the Mughal dynasty, India retained its dominance as the leading economy in the world.

However, during the British rule, India's economy declined substantially, from being the country with the highest GDP in the world in 1800s to a basketcase when the British left in 1947.

So the British are bigger assholes than Muslims.

Where is your evidentiary argument that Islam is the source of the terrorism problem to begin with, as opposed to nationalist opposition to foreign occupation and oppression?

How about 1,400 years of shouting "Allah Akbar!(God is Great!)" while carrying out military assaults, terrorist assaults, reprisal killing, Shaira court decisions and sectarian violence as evidence? I could point out that these same cries of “Allah Akbar!” were heard as Muslims slaughtered their way across Afghanistan a thousands years ago in a war of Islamist expansion against peaceable Hindu kingdoms, that, by the way, were not occupying nor oppressing Muslims.

Please, do not try to apply a very narrowly defined modern study of 315 suicide bombing over 23 years to the entire history of Islam. It clearly does not apply to the whole, nor does it excuse it.

And please, answer the questions I sincerely asked instead of formulating excuses to avoid an answer.

What is this "cult of death in the Muslim world" business? And even if said cult exists, why should we be so afraid of it?

The US and Israel have killed far more Muslims than vice versa over the last six years.

Consider:

Americans/Israelis killed by Muslims since 2000:
Approximately 6000 (about half of those in Iraq)

Muslims killed by Americans/Israelis since 2000:
At least 60,000+.(Iraq, Afghansitan, Lebanon, etc)

We're ahead in this game by at least a ten to one advantage. What's to worry about? We're kickin' ass here, and we always will.

Jason:

I wasn't making an enemies list. I was attempting to show how we got from A to B.

It's that broad support that we need to target, and that's why we should focus our efforts on things like public diplomacy, economic engagement, and working seriously with multilateral institutions.

That isn't going to work if the militants are successful militarily.

Besides, what economic engagement and multilateral institutions do you mean? The WTC was both, as are the world bank and the WTO. Investment, high technology and trade work, but not the UN or most NGOs. Most of the "broad support" that you seek is indifferent to the insitutions of modern western society that work. There is is Dubai, and a few others, but they are already on our side, engaged in the world economy and multilateral institutions.

I don't see multilateral insitutions and economic engagement having a lot of positive effects in Egypt, Syria, or Iran.

Someone has to defeat the militants first, or the "broad support" will swing behind the militants.

So, you bought the ticket, take the ride: what is the Islam with which we are not at war?

Is this meant as a serious argument? Isn't it pretty obvious that, at worst, we are "at war" with a radical stripe of Islam?

Likewise, there are all kinds of Christian fundamentalists who say that abortion is murder, but the only ones we are "at war" with as a society are the ones who take the Eric Rudolph tack of killing "abortionists".

Is this kind of distinction hard to comprehend?

I agree with eo.

In the US we have nuts like John Hagee who raise money and hire lobbyists to make sure that the ME is in perpetual war, because that is what his bible says to him is necessary for his messiah to return. He is even taking credit for keeping the US from preventing Israel's recent slaughter of 1500 Lebanese civilians (that's half the civ deaths on 9/11, for those keeping score).

Harris' analysis all boils down to racism and cultural bigotry. Someone should tell him that some terrorists are white and wear suits and ties.

the government is withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from others planets.

How else do you explain George Bush?

Sam Harris makes me uncomfortable because he represents a strain of leftism -- often a hangover of formerly committed Socialists -- that I'd call secular atheist dogmatism. In here you'd put Chris Hitchens Orianna Falacci along with many regular commenters on this blog. Many lefties became deranged after 9/11 and decided to seek explanations in a one-dimensional slashing critique of all things Islamic, as part of their more broad scourging of religion generally.

Now I'm hardly more confortable with, say, Pope Benedict's clueless quotations of a 9th century Byzantine emperor to the effect of "my religion is better than yours, pbbbbbbt!" But at core, the atheist dogmatists share with Benedict and the traditionalists a fundamental support/belief in the idea of a cultural telos. That there is such a thing as "progress" out there, and various cultures can be rank-ordered in terms of their progressiveness.

Two of the great pillars of 20th century science are evolutionary biology and quantum physics. Both essentially underline the idea -- exceedingly threatening to determinists of all stripes -- that chaos plays a lot greater role in life and the universe than anyone would have previously cared to imagine. Deterministic paradigms have taken a severe beating in the past half-century or so, and reinforced the value of skepticism about any form of schematic explanations for broad phenomena. Man is evolving to be sure -- but towards what, exactly, we can't say. This is why there's another strain of agnostic leftism that sniffs with a very crinkly nose at the self-certainties of Harris and Hitchens and all other "progressives" who think they have a genuine handle on what entails a universal notion of cultural Progress.

Bob

Bob Owens you seem to forget European armies marching to Jerusalem, singing, "Onward Christian soldiers..." swearing to take back the holy land from the savage muslims. There's enough violent religious extremism throughout the history of christianity to make the arguement that Christianity is a violent religion.
Look, people use religion as a way to justify their own selfish needs and immoral actions. As Hostile pointed out above, Christianity has it fair share of historically brutal behavior.

Silly D.

Obviously the savage Muslims started it. They were trying to overthrow the world with all their crazy ideas, like bathing for example.

So much to say...

But if Mr. Harris is going to slam liberals for failing to propose a robust alternative to Mr. Bush's "war on terror" why doesn't he do so himself?

#1) Like too many atheists, he comes awfully close to essentializing religion - specifically Islam - in this essay. There are to be sure pathologies inherent in Islamic doctrine that are playing themselves out in geopolitics today, just as there were pathologies inherent in Christian doctrine that were playing themselves out 500 years ago. This is another way of saying that a certain amount of historicism is appropriate to understanding the present conflict between the Islamic world and itself, and the present conflict between the Islamic world and the West. Reform is possible, and the most likely outcome.

#2) Mr. Harris like Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan falls for the incompetence canard. Like the neoconservatives and liberal hawks, I believe that that broad and deep political (as well as economic and cultural) reform in the Arab-Muslim world is the best hope for radically diminishing the threat of Islamist terrorism. But apart from the fact that there was no causus belli to invade Iraq under international law or traditional rules of war, sectarian civil war and ultimately the dissolution of the country was always going to be the most likely outcome; it didn't matter how many troops sent (although the level of corruption and nepotism in administering contracts and appointments was even more than the war itself an impeachment-worthy offense).

Iraq like so many Arab-Muslim countries is an immature historical and geographical fiction that never had time to cohere around a strong set of national institutions or national identity. Given even a modicum of democracy most if not all of these countries will likely dissolve along sectarian lines; the process may often be bloody. This fact should have been understood by the administration (and certainly was by any number of junior officers; the realities of the post-Cold War era are understood much better by the military than the civilian leadership), and should continue to be taken into account as we talk about and act on the need for "reform".

#3) This mischling understands Israel's concerns about Iran and the continued threat of Arab terrorism. But if poverty is not so much a root cause of radical Islamist political violence against the West (which resembles 19th and early 20th century anarchism more than anything else...its leaders are often wealthy, prominent men and its operatives often the middle class...read "the Possessed") it is almost certainly a root cause of Palestinian terrorism (as well as the continuing irresponsibility of the Palestinian leadership). If Israel can't open its borders to Palestinian workers and entrepeneurs (poverty is above 70% in the territories), why can't Israel work with America and the international community to create a fund for the full employment of every Palestinian head of household. Put them to work rebuilding their own country. Give them the dignity and security of a middle class job until there is a final peace. Despite the Mohammed Attas of the world, the middle class *is* less likely to engage in terrorism. This seems to me not only a good idea, and the mark of a mature Israel, but a responsibility.

#4) There should be little question that the Bush administration has abused its power in innumerable ways, including using new (and old) powers to hound progressive and anti-war NGOs. There should be little question that no provision of the Patriot Act is liable to prevent a major attack, or contribute in any serious way to winning the so-called war on terror (anymore than the suspension of Habeas Corpus helped the Union win the Civil War, or the radical curbs on civil liberties in the 1940s help America defeat Nazism and Japanese imperialism).

On other hand, the real problem with the Patriot Act is the one liberals aren't talking about. Federal law enforcement agencies had been seeking the powers in the act for decades, and close to 100% of the instances those power have been employed since the act was signed into law have been related to criminal case that have nothing to do with terrorism. Crime is at multi-decade lows, and America's prisons are its great and unacknowledged shame, warehousing a greater percentage of our population than any other country on earth, and in conditions worse than anywhere in the West (as well as some developing countries). The only places one finds out what is really happening in our prisons, and with our criminal justice system, are in leftist and libertarian publications; this is more than offensive.

My response here.

Bob, nicely put. My one quibble is with your use of the term "chaos". In lay-speak, you use it correctly, but mathematically defined "chaos" is indeed deterministic (ie, not "random").

My take on radical religious fundamentalists is that they're basically a new violent strain of turn of the 20th century Luddites. They are bewildered by the head spinning pace, change and progress of modern society and wish to define the world through a midieval worldview; it's a sort of 'stop the world, I want to get off' view.

Secular,

I read the article by Pape. a couple of questions I have are, what percentage of the suicide bombers are muslims, especially if you drop out the Tamil Tiger events? Where are the suicide bombers in Iraq coming from...all local?

Have there been polls taken amongst muslim populations on their views of suicide bombers? What do they say?

It's not because liberals don't understand the threat, it's because liberals seem to be the only ones who do understand the threat these days — namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse.

I think that people who write that do not understand the threat. You haven't apprehended the nature of the attackers, or of the undecided in the middle.

Imams around the world have called for the assassination of Pope Benedict. The people in the middle are lots more interested in the question of whether the assassins will succeed or be defeated than they are interested in economic engagement or multilateral institutions. They view the interest in economic engagement and multilateral institutions both as our decadence that must be obliterated, and as our fatal flaw that will enable the Islamists to obliterate us. They will follow whoever wins the wars.

Imams around the world have called for the assassination of Pope Benedict.

Pat Robertson, Hugo Chavez. Idiot.

Linus:

Nice post. Agreed.

Like Linus and SecularAnimist, I believe that suicide terrorism (the moral existentialist horror that the West simply cannot wrap its mind around because it cannot be deterred) is more the result of a *tactical* calculation in primarily nationalist struggles that people use religion to justify *after the fact*. Suicide is forbidden in Islam. For a Muslim to throw away his or her life for a cause, s/he needs a persuasive justification. So the doctrines are bent to fill this void and give the would-be martyr a sense of righteousness before committing what s/he knows would otherwise be a mortal sin.

Again, if the religion of Islam were a "death cult" and 72 black-eyed virgins such a motivating force -- where are the mass suicide attempts at Gitmo?

Bob

After 9/11 Tim McVeigh caused the largest loss of American lives from a terrorist event on US soil. McVeigh was neither a Muslim nor a nationalist, and he certainly wasn't a Christian.

Broad generalizations about terrorists often merely serve to re-affirm personal biases and lead to poor public policy.

While it's fine and good that Harris wags his finger and thinks dark thoughts, I would respect him more if he followed his logic to its necessary conclusion--namely, that Muslims must be eradicated. Of course, that would constitute a reasoning far more awful than anything in the Islamic faith we're attempting to combat, but at least it would be honest.

Disputo:

That's precisely the paradox. It's micro-level determinacy (think fractal iterations) producing macro-level uncertainty. It's the simple leading inevitably to the complex -- which is, of course, one of the biggest mental stumbling blocks the argument-by-design folks just can't get over when they consider how such brute and simplistic elemental forces lead to something as complex as a human being -- or global climate.

Bob

Bob:

One of the biggest shocks in my life as a Muslim was when I heard that Yusuf Al-Qaradawi ruled that suicide bombings were lawful against military targets in Israel. He had been against it previously.

He was one of the most respected scholars at the time and considered fairly moderate. I've always felt that this was a political, rather than religious decision.

You know, if someone invaded my country and completely destroyed it and didn't accomplish thing one to put it back together again I would probably (no, definitely) become a terraist.

And I'm not Muslim.

Oh wait, I suppose there is one other avenue besides extermination: conversion. But who believes that the conversion of billions of Muslims is possible? No, if Harris takes his own words seriously--if he believes that aggression is endemic to Islam and that the security of the West is an uncompromisable objective--than he is advocating nothing less than a Holocaust.

And Andrew "let's not torture" Sullivan agrees. How bizarrely inconsistent.

Frankly fumbles: "isn't it obvious that at worst, we are at war with a stripe of Islam?"

If that's how you think, it'd help if, yanno, you actually added a THOUGHT or two to the process.

It's easy to say 'we're at war with the Islam that(or if you're delicate, 'with those Muslims who')sends suicide bombers to kill ordinary people on airplanes, in office buildings and pizza parlors.'

But that says nothing about Islam itself, and it especially skips the critical part, which is whether folks who do such crimes are acting properly as Muslims, or not.

If they are, then we are at war with the faith of 1.2 billion people, the fastest growing religion on the planet.

If we're not, then -- we should be able to answer my question.

That's why I asked Kevin the question in the way I did: what is the Islam with which we are NOT at war?

The fact is, we are trying to fight a war against ... "a stripe of Islam", as Frankly puts it, without a clue about the theology.

We didn't win the Cold War without ideology. We won BECAUSE our ideology was better than theirs.

Take the hint, Kevin. Then answer the question.

-- where are the mass suicide attempts at Gitmo?

You're such an ignorant tool...

Between January and March 2003, 14 prisoners at Guantanamo tried to kill themselves, according to Pentagon figures. That's more than 40 percent of the 34 suicide attempts by 21 inmates since the prison was opened in January 2002.

Inmates at the US "war on terror" detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba tried to prevent US forces from helping one of four detainees who tried to commit suicide, a spokesman said.

Quit drinking bongwater and try to post something that doesn't reveal just how far your head has been shoved up your rear end, mmmkay?

I've always wondered about the virgins. Will they all get their own? - or will they have to share? Cause honestly, a couple million martyrs with only 72 virgins doesn't sound like a great deal - especially not for the virgins. And what about the female martyrs? Wouldn't they be better off with one guy who knows what he's doing?

republicrat:

You know, your posts have such a *tone* of reasoned, moderated civility -- but every once in a while you let loose with such an egregious whopper that you need to be thwacked every bit as hard as we thwack Jay or rdw or GOP.

"Imams around the world have called for the assassination of Pope Benedict."

BULL FUCKING SHIT. Back this up, or fucking *apologize* for the libel. Muslim imams around the world have expressed displeasure and discomfort, called the "apology" fake or impartial (which it was) -- but they have also called for *restraint.*

Show me your links to all of those death-to-Benedict fatwas recently penned out there -- or, with all due respect, S.T.F.U.

Bob

Al said: "all reasonable and rational people believe in Christianity. Only irrational and unreasonable people don't believe in Christianity."

Wow, Al, you just smeared 75% of the world's population.

I don't think I've ever seen a more blatant example of unabashed bias and/or rank stupidity.

My apologies if Al is being ironic or sarcastic.

You know, if someone invaded my country and completely destroyed it and didn't accomplish thing one to put it back together again I would probably (no, definitely) become a terraist.

All true patriots would.

Most Republicans, however, would certainly become collaborators.

I would argue with Harris' initial assumption that a huge portion of Muslims are violent and want to "kill all the infidels." He makes this assertion with nothing more than anecdotal evidence.

ad-hom persecution troll:

Read the NYT Mag article, it's fascinating and deals with precisely that history. Three successful suicides last year. And a large-scale hunger strike -- which the camp in large part ameliorated by communicating with sheiks and detainee leaders and negotiating for better conditions.

Sure, there are going to be fanatics. Of those 14, I'd imagine they referred to the inmates who hoarded psych meds and then all tried to OD simultaneously. None of them were in jeopardy of losing their lives.

But of a population of @ 400 inmates, most of them sharing hardcore Islamist beliefs if not necessarily guilty of actionable offenses -- you'd certainly think that number would be far greater if Islam were a genuine "death cult," no?

Consider the circumstances of Gitmo. Nearly all of these guys haven't a clue of how long they'll be there, or even if they'll ever get out at all. A substantial number of them are "security detainees" who are being held without charge for the duration of "the war on terrorism."

Tad bit more demoralizing that doing time for Grand Theft Auto. Given Harris' beliefs about Islam, a reasonable person (of which you're obviously not) should certainly be surprised why there isn't more.

Bob

I really got a kick out of the pope's "apology". Something along the lines of being very sorry that people were upset by what he said - but not that he was sorry for saying it.

But that says nothing about Islam itself, and it especially skips the critical part, which is whether folks who do such crimes are acting properly as Muslims, or not.

Many Christians believe that abortion is murder, and that "abortionists" are murderers.

So was Eric Rudolph "acting properly" as a Christian when he killed "abortionists"?

Answer the question!

BULL FUCKING SHIT. Back this up, or fucking *apologize* for the libel. Muslim imams around the world have expressed displeasure and discomfort, called the "apology" fake or impartial (which it was) -- but they have also called for *restraint.*

A HARDLINE cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam.

Here are two quotes from the Harris screed that leave me confused:

First, "This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims."

But later, "The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists."

So, liberals fail to realize the "threat that Islam poses" and thereby risk becoming "irrelevant" (note that Harris is an alleged liberal using these frames). And it's the fascists who have the most sensible approach?? So what the hell exactly does Harris propose? Is he in favor of invading Iran and Syria? Does he want to round up all Muslims in the US and Europe and put them in camps? Should we invade all Muslim countries and forcibly convert them to Christianity?

I favor redeploying our forces against al Qaeda and trying to capture Bin Laden instead of having them play referee in the Iraqi civil war. I favor getting serious about non-proliferation efforts instead of ignoring the problem (Russia) or exacerbating it (Pakistan). And I favor enhancing our domestic infrastructure with cargo screening and more funding for first responders to detect and respond to terrorist threats.

How the fuck, Sam Harris, does that make me soft on terrorism?

Fuck Sam Harris, he's just a crazy-ass wingnut.

Red State Mike,

Your big quote seems to indicate that there's ONE cleric calling for the Pope's assassination.

Do you understand that one is a very small number?

Christians around the world have called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez....