November 28, 2005

"Flypaper not as sticky as advertised"

Eric Martin comments on a Juan Cole post noting the arrest of "two more graduates from the "world's most expensive school for terrorism". Thankfully they were nabbed before they could carry out their planned attack in Morocco. But it's a reminder of the seriousness of the terrorist threat, and of the unfortunate "blowback" that President Bush's policies are producing.

Posted by armand at November 28, 2005 01:32 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Iraq


Comments

Bro,
I think you misunderstand the meaning of the word blowback. If they hadn't been terrorists (and let's face it, they're more examples of the supposedly rare foreign fighters) before Iraq, and then because of our mission in Iraq they became terrorists, that would be blowback. If they attack us in Iraq, then attack us in Morocco, that's one continuous blow, you can't validly argue that it's because of our presence in Iraq that they're terrorists--they were terrorists to begin with. If your argument is that they became better terrorists because of combat experience in Iraq and that suggests we shouldn't have our military involved, what with terrorists gaining experience by fighting us, then that essentially by extension means we should never use military force ever because someone trying to kill our soldiers might accidentally get away and be better at fighting us later. Your argument is that the weaker we are, the less strong they will become by not fighting us, when if they were so weak to begin with they wouldn't have killed all those people on 9/11. They are strong, and that's why we have to fight them, to keep them from killing all of us. We started out weak against them, and that's how they hurt us.

Posted by: Morris at November 28, 2005 10:47 PM | PERMALINK

"they were terrorists to begin with"

So, like, from birth and all?

Posted by: binky at November 29, 2005 08:26 AM | PERMALINK

Morris - 1st - See Binky. 2nd - Can you honestly believe that what we are doing in Iraq is not creating more terrorists? Maybe you can - but hate to break it to you but even US military officers have been publicly saying that's the result of our actions. 3rd - Uh, do you have any idea of the history of al Qaeda? Any at all? Osama bin Laden is as big an example of blowback as you can find.

I'm certainly not saying don't fight terrorists - I'm saying we should not fight terrorists in ham-handed (oh what the hell - moronic) ways that make our enemies stronger.

Posted by: Armand at November 29, 2005 11:45 AM | PERMALINK

and once again, morris relies on the iraqi terrorists were behinde 9-11. count the saudis on the plane, note the immediately post-9-11 presidential briefing indicating that saddam was as wary of al qaeda as we were, and find a more credible rhetorical strategy already.

Posted by: moon at November 29, 2005 01:22 PM | PERMALINK

Binky,
They were terrorists to begin with, foreign fighters who'd gone to Iraq to kill Americans, which is all we know of their beginnings because the news story didn't say anything about them before that except that they'd originally come from Morocco. If you like, why don't you excuse their behavior because maybe their mom or dad didn't love them enough, and let's just send them to therapy and give them love beeds, then you can let them out and ask yourself why they keep killing people, just like those poor innocent political prisoners at from Gitmo they hooked up with who were also planning on blowing up some other innocent civilians.
Bro,
I fundamentally disagree with this idea that a terrorist is created by anything but a person choosing to terrorize. It is a personal choice that leads to a person becoming a terrorist. It's not that they were poor or deprived of political power, because if it was Osama himself wouldn't be a terrorist, he had a hell of a lot of both. And don't even try to cover your ass. You were talking about blowback from the current President Bush, not the from one fifteen years ago. As you say, stay on the thread.
Moon,
I have no idea what it is in this post you're responding to. Just put the Michael Moore movie down and walk away.

Posted by: Morris at November 30, 2005 08:17 PM | PERMALINK

"excuse their behavior because maybe their mom or dad didn't love them enough, and let's just send them to therapy and give them love beeds,"

That's your territory Morris. Remember, you're the individual psych person. I'm all about systemic explanations. If you want to explain it all away talking about feelings, enjoy!

Posted by: binky at November 30, 2005 11:30 PM | PERMALINK

Binky,
If you explain a behavior because of the actions of the members of their family, that is a systemic explanation, explaining an event because of the effects of their family system. And therapy only works for people who want to change. What is key is the choice of the person, not the choice of the system.

Posted by: Morris at December 1, 2005 01:17 AM | PERMALINK

This is kind of a poor definition, but it's enough to give you an idea:

Central to neorealist structural theory is the levels-of-analysis question—i.e., the question of whether international inquiry should be focused at the individual, state, international-system, or other level. Introduced in the 1950s as part of an attempt to make research in international relations more scientific, the levels-of-analysis question provided a conceptual basis for addressing issues such as the effect of structure (bipolar or multipolar) on the behaviour of states or other units. At the same time, it offered a means of distinguishing between different sources of explanation and different objects of analysis.

Posted by: binky at December 1, 2005 08:58 AM | PERMALINK

you continue to spout the party line, the unequivocally discredited, mendacious, utterly ridiculous party line.

Your argument is that the weaker we are, the less strong they will become by not fighting us, when if they were so weak to begin with they wouldn't have killed all those people on 9/11. They are strong, and that's why we have to fight them, to keep them from killing all of us. We started out weak against them, and that's how they hurt us.

the iraq-had-anything-whatsoever-to-do-with-9-11 meme is dead as an objective matter, and has been for some time. i was simply objecting to your continued reiterbootstrap your ridiculous endeavor to absolve the united ation of a blatant falsehood as a way to states of any culpability in creating the petty tyrants (and their terroristic exponents) we then send thousands of our young people to their death to fight.

i don't pity the terrorists, nor do i excuse their conduct. my heart bleeds for american poor to the extent that the american rich -- citing their christian backgrounds, like as not -- piss on them. but that's a wholly separate matter.

recognizing historic antecedents to get at causation so, as a pragmatic matter, we can learn not to keep making the same mistake seems to me an intrinsically wise endeavor.

michael moore doesn't say that, or anything else terribly interesting. which is why i grimaced through farenheit far more than you probably grimace when you listen to or watch the conservative-windbag-of-the-week, be he limbaugh, or o'reilly, or matthews, or black-helicopter-fearing-joe-smith-from-montana. i've never cited moore for anything authoritative, nor have i defended him on any point. i only wish the same was true of you with regard to his conservative counterparts, whom you all too often cite as though they have anything legitimate to say, and whom you defend.

Posted by: moon at December 1, 2005 10:59 AM | PERMALINK

But Michael Moore is FAT!

Posted by: binky at December 1, 2005 11:11 AM | PERMALINK

Morris - Do you honestly believe every terrorist in the world jsut woke up one morning and thought - hmmm what to do today, maybe I'll take up terrorism after my shower and shredded wheat. People tend to make choices in REACTION to something. Human beings are hugely reactive beings, particularly when it comes to political behavior. And to drop out what leads to a choice as being a key part of the choice happening is overlooking quite a lot.

Posted by: Armand at December 1, 2005 11:11 AM | PERMALINK

Bro and Binky,
I understand there are precipitating events and predisposing variables for an individual to act in a certain way. But so many times if you put two people next to each other(like brothers, for instance), when faced with the same decision, one will choose one action and the other will act in another way. So to explain terrorists from Morocco trying to kill Americans in Iraq as being the result only of a specific contextual event that happened a thousand miles away from ignores putting the responsibility where it belongs, on their heads. What about the 99% of people in Morocco who didn't fight Americans in Iraq, who didn't join Al Queda, who weren't planning on killing a bunch of innocent civilians in their own country? If the problem is a systemic one, then why isn't it more of a systematic problem?
Moon,
I've cited you the links between Iraq and Al Queda supported by the 9/11 commision which you continue to ignore. I've cited you a great article explaining all the very coincidental connections between Iraq and Al Queda before 9/11. You continue to ignore them, then accuse me of supporting a party line, when you're the one who isn't open minded here.

Posted by: Morris at December 2, 2005 08:12 AM | PERMALINK

And I guess I remain a little confused as to why you suggest that when holding a system responsible for terrorism it is our system you choose to hold responsible, rather that the actual terrorist organizations that these individuals pledge allegiance to, rather than these organizations that advocate terrorism and killing of innocents. You want to hold responsible a system that advocates a more just world, where the Iraqi people can govern themselves, where each human being of voting age has an equal say (as much as is possible in a political system).

Posted by: Morris at December 2, 2005 08:30 AM | PERMALINK

Morris - Uh, are you trying to ignore what we are actually saying? Do you prefer just making shit up?

#1 we are not saying that the creation of a "more just world" is likely to encourage terrorist. Speaking for myself, what I'm talking about as an outside effect precipitating terrorism is this - the US invading another country and killing and torturing a lot of people that others (including potential terrorists) identify with. And who knows, maybe even love. If you kill somebody's friends or in-group, do you really expect them to care that it was done in the name of democracy? Or what about if you put a bunch of torturing thugs and religious zealots in charge of a country, with the predictably nasty results - you're surprised that a lot of people are going to be pissed as hell?

That said of course not everyone who suffers those losses and indignities will turn to terrorism (thank god or we'd really be fucked), and you know better than to think that everyone will respond in the same way to the same events - so don't say that's what we are saying. But it's not surprising that some people will. Are they responsible for their own choices? Absolutely. But it's really rather silly to assert that our policies didn't have anything with them making that choice.

Posted by: Armand at December 2, 2005 10:37 AM | PERMALINK

I don't remember what articles you link, but if they're not fairly mainstream I know that I rarely click through.

That said, you're in a shrinking minority that still tries to maintain the connections relied upon by the Bush administration, and that's what's important: what did Bush know, what did he have cause to worry about, and did he speak the truth about his legitimate knowledge and worries to the United Nations and the American public.

Bush knew that the intelligence linking al Qaeda and Iraq was shoddy, unreliable, and in some cases patently wrong. Bush had cause to worry about al Qaeda, which was a group Saddam plainly was suspicious of, but no reliable reason to link the two. Bush represented differently to the United Nations and the American public.

If you want to try to convince me otherwise, send me links. I promise to look at them if they're not from the Good-God-Let's-Blow-Up-the-Whole-World-Because-They-Hate-Our-Freedom Brigade. Or FOX news. Which, by the way, is with us on the supposed Iraq al Qaeda links.

I'll be shocked if you can convince me that Bush is not, and has not always been, utterly full of shit on this, like really (in fact, just to hammer home the point, let me link a second time to Powell's retraction), but feel free to remind me again on what sources you're basing your support of this claim.

I'm more open-minded than you think about Republicans generally. I just wish we could trade in the guys masquerading as Repubs for real ones. They wouldn't be preferable to Democrats, for my dollar, but at least they would make some sense, and manifest some workable ideology not tied to the aggrandizement of their own power.

Posted by: moon at December 2, 2005 12:20 PM | PERMALINK

You know what Morris, I can't save you from denying the nose on your face, so believe whatever you want.

But just remember that Colin Powell, who sang that al-Qaeda-Saddam song so sweet to the UN General Assembly, recanted, and Cheney, by definition, is full of shit.

If someone like this was trying to sell you a car, you'd go elsewhere. How about when he's trying to sell you the wholesale death of a bunch of people on both sides who want nothing to do with this?

Charlatans and scoundrels, Morris. These evidently are your political allies.

So what were those sources again?

Posted by: moon at December 2, 2005 02:25 PM | PERMALINK

Bro,
What you're forgetting is the example of our own American Revolution. The French came in to help us, and no doubt not all of their cannons hit their targets. But how righteous would it have been for Americans to see a French cannon round hit what they believed to be an English camp, or an English ship, then turn around and blow up a bunch of French people just because an American lost one of his "in group" (although you're straying way off the thread here, because this example was about Moroccans who went to Iraq to kill Americans. And to my knowledge we haven't recently started a war in Morocco in which one of their "in group" might have been killed). You're according to the terrorists an ethical sense when their particular brand of ethics is based upon the idea that random killing of innocent civilians is the best way to go about solving their problems. I don't agree.

Moon,
What all those downing street memo conspiracy theorists ignore is that the Germans had the same intelligence we did about Iraq developing WMDs.
"August Hanning, the director of the German intelligence service BND, told Hamburg's 'Welt am Sonntag' on 22 April that Iraq is developing a new class of chemical weapons. He said that several German companies have delivered to Baghdad components needed for the production of poison gas. And he warned that Iraq is now working on missiles that could reach as far as Germany in the future. He said: 'We must assume that these weapons will be ready for use by 2015 at the latest.' Hanning said that Germany has handed over its data to the United Nations."

Just in case this doesn't click in your head, what it means is that even if Britain and America wanted a war with Saddam, the intelligence on WMDs on which they based their explanation for war was coming from other well respected intelligence agencies, even if Colin Powell hadn't seen it yet. Bush didn't lie any more than the Germans. Or do you think the Germans were somehow involved in concocting evidence for a war they ultimately would not support? It wasn't Bush who lied, it was Michael Moore.
Here's the URL I've cited before about 9/11 and Iraq:
nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200406010821.asp
As far as WMD's in Iraq, here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/236jmcbd.asp
As far as the co-chair of the 9/11 commission saying there's no doubt about a connection between Iraq and Al Queada, here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/357lnryy.asp
If you read these, I'll get you some more.

Posted by: Morris at December 3, 2005 01:48 AM | PERMALINK

Morris - Whether you agree with the terrorists' ethics or not isn't relevant (though it's nice to know you don't). We are talking about why the terrorists are doing what they are doing. And they themselves (or some of them) are saying that a lot of it has to do with our actions in the region. Why do you insist on not listening to them and presuming to know their actions when you've never laid eyes on or talked to them?

And your comments on Morocco betray how little you know about both Islamic militant and US-Moroccan relations. There have been terrorist attacks their before, their is an Islamist opposition in the country that has on occasion turned to violence to achieve its ends, and the US and Morocco have very close ties. So it's no great shock that people who want to damage the government of Morocco would target those who support it.

And congrats on the US Revolution analogy - it would be hard to find a more irrelevant comparison (you present nothing that remotely resembles current affairs), so that would seem to deserve some kudos of some sort.

Finally, you're not doing yourself any favors here by linking to those 2 Weakly Standard stories. The first one, for example, omits any date as to when these WMDs are obtained (and of course there was a time when had no problem at all with Iraq having them - blowback anyone?). And that's just the first of its flaws. And in the second - the one you provide for support from Tom Kean on an Iraq - al Qaeda link Kean says the following: "We have found no relationship whatever between Iraq and the attack on 9/11," asserted Kean. "That just doesn't exist." And yet the author, Stephen Hayes, who should already have lost all credibility on this subject for trumpeting bad intel that was funneled to him by people in the administration who have gotten virtuarlly everything that matters re: Iraq wrong, is in the rather stunning situtaion of supposedly being an objective reporter, yet building his "case" by saying arguing that just b/c we haven't found and evidence doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Posted by: Armand at December 3, 2005 01:22 PM | PERMALINK

Ah, I started to write much in the same vein as Armand, and now I see he's pretty much covered my response. I don't think a singularly martial foreign policy should be tied to the opposition's failure to prove a negative. That's a little too Star Chamber for me.

In any event, I reviewed your citations under protest, because while the Standard and Review are "mainstream" in the breadth of their circulation, they are not media outlets with any claim to objectivity or a non-partisan orientation, which is what I had in mind. Your sourcing continues to come only from the mouthpieces of the right, whether in the administration or the media.

I find it especially ironic that the Standard article accused a Post article as reflecting the author's "cynicism" about an Iraq-al Qaeda tie when the Standard's (and the Review's) unaccountable credulity about same (and everything else Bush says) is unequivocal. Cynicism is the proper province of the media's oversight of authority; credulity compromises the democratic role of the Fourth Estate as a check on power. I'll take a cynic over a lapdog any day.

Oh, and just for the record, in my last two comments (which were duplicates, by the way, because the link-heavy one went for administrator review, I forgot, and then banged out a second comment a couple of hours later), I didn't say a thing about WMD's, which topic I think is pretty ridiculous to keep flogging in light of the Downing Street Memo and the failure to find anything very incriminating in all of Iraq in three years. I said only that the al Qaeda Iraq meme you keep falling back on is bunk. Everyone except you and Cheney knows this. And I'm thinking Cheney knows too. Just don't ask him to admit it.

Posted by: moon at December 3, 2005 01:46 PM | PERMALINK

Bro,
Most people in jail for murder in our country espouse certain reasons for what they did. Maybe it's faulty parenting, or a jilting lover, maybe anything but them is why they killed somebody. What you're suggesting in you're "why aren't you listening to them?" is like saying why doesn't a jury listen to someone on trial for mass murder. But what you're saying isn't why aren't you listening to them, but why aren't you believing them? And my answer to your question is why should I believe them? If the Iraq war is the reason they're attacking us, then why did they attack us before the Iraq war on 9/11. Why was it not unusual for terrorists to blow up or hijack a plane well before even the first Persian Gulf War? The terrorists are giving our responses to their original attacks as the reasons for all their attacks, and it doesn't work that way. You can't say our military action, even all Bush Presidents' military action is the reason for their attacks, because they tried to set off a WMD in New York while Clinton was President. They blew up our embassies in Africa while Clinton was President. They attacked the Cole before Bush II had ever sent troops in to attack them in Afghanistan or Iraq. It isn't our aggresive military policies they seek to destroy, because they seek to destroy us even when our military isn't attacking them.

As far as Morocco goes, yes, there have been terrorists attacks there before. But you were saying in this post that this is blowback from the Iraq war, not from our close ties with Morocco.

You think the American Revolution is irrelevant because it's not current? What's that they say about people who don't learn from history?

You completely ignore that the 9/11 commission found ties between Iraq and Al Queda, a relationship that was ignored by virtually all US media outlets. And it's completely inconsistent for you to argue that the US military creates creates more terrorists via the Iraq war, and conclude that ergo US military is responsible for promoting terrorism (blowback, you called it), then for you to turn around and argue that just because Iraq supported terrorists doesn't mean that Iraq is responsible for promoting the acts carried out by those terrorists.

And the dates Saddam produced those WMDs were irrelevant because he never accounted for destroying them, and then he kicked out the inspectors looking for them despite admitting to their existence. What if you knew someone who had a grudge against your university had produced a bunch of weapons in the past, you heard from other people this guy was looking for more weapons, and he hadn't accounted for their destruction. Then the cops show up at his house wanting to search for them because he was still under probation from the last time he'd used his weapons on somebody, but he kicks the cops out of his house. I'd want the cops to kick the door in and search the place, personally, which is exactly what we did.

Moon,
You're completely ignoring the fact that your arguments about the Bush administration lying aren't based on whether or not there were WMDs in Iraq, but rather on whether we had reason to believe they were. The Downing Street Memo means absolutely nothing because the Germans who opposed the war also had intel that Iraq was getting WMDs, so you can't argue that somehow all the intelligence supporting Saddam's having WMDs was manufactured by governments eager to go to war in Iraq when Germany provided no support for this war. The President went to the American people and the Congress and made his case for war based on the links between Saddam and terrorism (found to be true by the 9/11 commission) and Saddam's continued pursuit of WMDs (found to be true by the Duelfer report). Bush didn't lie. Get over it.

Posted by: Morris at December 4, 2005 01:21 AM | PERMALINK

OK Morris - Let's take your points. I'll start at the bottom.

As to your last one - uh, the inspectors were IN Iraq. We WERE searching the place before deciding to break international law ourselves and invade.

If what the 9/11 commission found constitutes a "relationship" that's one of the thinest relationships imagineable. Some of our close allies had vastly closer ties to al Qaeda than a couple of meetings that didn't go anywhere. And, btw, I'm not saying the US is responsible for the terrorism - but I am saying that our actions lead to terrorists feeling the need to act. What exactly are these mythic Iraqi-supported al Qaeda attacks that you think I'm not blaming Iraq for?

The American relvolution and the France thing are irrelevant b/c they have nothing whatsoever to do with what we are talking about. You are just dreaming up non-events and hypotheticals that you are choosing to set in that time period - but have no relation to actual events then. So, yeah, it's irrelevant.

If you don't think that American behavior in place A has an effect in place B you are just being silly.

And we were doing things these groups didn't like long before even Bill Clinton was president. Though as it happens we are doing a lot more of those things now. Why not believe their stated reasons for their actions? They have been very consistent for years.

You are, as usual, simply choosing to disregard statements, actual actions and facts which don't fit with the pack of lies that the Vice President tells on a daily basis.


Posted by: Armand at December 4, 2005 01:42 PM | PERMALINK

As for WMD's and supposed ties between al Qaeda and Saddam, we'll just have to agree to disagree. It doesn't make sense theologically, it doesn't make sense socio-politically, and the evidence that suggests that notwithstanding these impediments ties were forged anyway is thin, conjectural, and widely discredited. If that's not enough for you there's nothing I can do to change your mind.

We don't let murderers entirely off the hook because of whatever causes they can cite legitimately for their behaviors (heat of passion; severe abuse in childhood), but states, in imposing capital punishment, must as a matter of law allow the defendant to submit mitigating evidence to a jury before a capital sentence is imposed. This process leads juries not to impose capital sentences in many cases.

I don't propose that we let murderers off the hook where their backgrounds offer rational explanations for their behavior, but your argument, extended to the analogy to terrorists and their antecedents, suggests we should do nothing as a society to attend to the antecedent conditions that tend to lead to criminality. That's plain silly.

We do both. We do our best to reach out to young people who are on track, demographically, to present a serious risk of criminal conduct and we punish those who stray from the path as harshly as our democratic majorities see fit (within constitutional limitations).

I think Armand and I both agree that while we must address the terrorists who attacked us, as we did in Afghanistan and as we should be doing in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (instead of mollycoddling those in power in those countries, which provide safe harbor for current terrorists and breeding grounds for future terrorists), we cannot afford, in the national interest, to pretend we have never behaved, or never do behave, in a way that encourages terrorism. We should be working at once to prosecute terrorists and ensure that fewer terrorists and the conditions that lead them to act are engendered. THe Bush administration, however, has no patience for considering larger cultural forces. which explains all there is to know about the debacle in Iraq. Even if the war was justified, the absence of realistic planning, and the willful disregard of the many skeptics within government who foresaw this outcome in favor of the few neo-con idealists who imagined a tickertape reception for our troops manifests a reckless indifference to reality and the brute unwieldiness of occupation.

Posted by: moon at December 4, 2005 05:52 PM | PERMALINK
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