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Hey!
Well, I find myself in near-total agreement with David Brooks' latest column. I'm struck, though, by the "gee whiz!" tone of the whole thing. This is more or less what every thoughtful critic of the present approach has been saying for years. I even did an article for TAP Offline about how Jim Turner and the Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee were, channelling all the usual suspects of center-left national security thought, saying just that and no one was paying attention. One thing that makes me optimistic about the future is that from talking to such people and so forth, I'm quite sure that any future Kerry administration will be filled with people who understand this point, and have a reasonable idea of how to get the job done. I'm less sanguine that the American public is actually ready to get behind the sort of proposals that might be needed, a problem that will persist irrespective of who wins the election.
July 24, 2004 | Permalink
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I'm struck, though, by the "gee whiz!" tone of the whole thing.
I'm struck by the "well, duh!" content, myself. Brooks is a complete bonehead.
Posted by: Matt Davis | Jul 24, 2004 11:43:20 AM
I'm also surprised by Brooks's ability to "discover" what has been obvious for quite some time. "When you see that our enemies are primarily an intellectual movement, not a terrorist army," This sentence, however, is mistaken. A terrorist or guerrilla group is always primarily an intellectual movement. It can be small and almost insignificant, but its origin and logic are idelogical. The dual military-politic nature of guerrilla warfare (and its cousin, terrorism) is in fact its essential strenght.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 24, 2004 12:10:57 PM
Brooks is not a bonehead, he is quite smart & subtle. Part of what is going on now is justifying to America, the world, and history why Bush attacked Iraq and stopped. Why Iraq and only Iraq? (Doves & Hawks may divide the question in two).
"a hostile belief system that can't be reasoned with but can only be "destroyed or utterly isolated."
One of the problems with this is similar to the problem of Communism, ca 1945-55. There is a continuum, a spread or range of piety and fervor.
The anti-communists could look at atheists, socialists, Democrats and say they were at the margin of the enemy. There are Muslims who say Jerusaleum must be under total Islamic political
control or war, there are Muslims who don't care, and everything in-between.
I suppose we could define the Islam we want as an Islam that forswears jihad and violence, which is a nice bright line for policy, but perhaps not so clear in the sunna.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 24, 2004 12:43:15 PM
Brooks isn't entirely coming clean...
Yes is it somewhat refreshing to hear a prominent conservative acknowledge that al-Qaeda does in fact represent an ideological movement, and not simply a faceless evil that wishes to do us harm as an end in itself (see O'Reilly for more on that one). And yes it is somewhat refreshing to hear a prominent conservative acknowledge that al-Qaeda is primarily a stateless threat that doesn't require the sponsorship of rogue regimes.
But then he goes on to contradict himself...
Brooks says on the one hand that unlike previous threats (like oh say the Soviet Empire) al-Qaeda has no territorial ambitions, but then goes on to argue that they wish to re-establish the Islamic caliphate. What does he suppose, in real terms, a new caliphate would be, if not Islamist rule from Morrocco to Afghanistan? In other words, territorial ambitions...
But to acknowledge that al-Qaeda has territorial ambitions in the Muslim world would mean ultimately acknowledging why they continue to target America, which is of course because our military presence in the greater Middle East, and our willingness to continue enabling corrupt repressive dictatorships therein are the chief obstacles to the realization of said territorial ambitions. And of course acknowledgement of these things might ultimately lead to a discussion of why we continue to enable repressive Arab dictatorships, which is of course the oil. And maybe, just maybe, it might ultimately lead to a discussion of a wiser strategy, like oh say developing complete energy independence in short order, and fully extricating ourselves from the Muslim world, thus removing any incentive for al-Qaeda to continue targeting us...
But I doubt that's a discussion Brooks is willing to have...
Posted by: The Green Avenger | Jul 24, 2004 3:06:30 PM
Again Brooks trots out the conflation of Islamic fundamentalism with al-Qaeda, and guess what? Again, I'm not buying it. There are a billion Muslims in the world - even if only a small percentage of them are extremist (let's say 1%-10%, which is probably lowballing it to say the least), that means al-Qaeda should have an army whose ranks are ten to a hundred million strong. So where are they - shouldn't the whole planet be in flames at this point?
Al-Qaeda is an intellectual movement, but it hardly represents the mainstream of "radical" Islam. Pundits like David Brooks make it sound like Bin Laden and his ilk enjoy some kind of broad, grass-roots support from the Muslim world. Sorry. Don't see it. And the burden of proof is anyone who would assert such a boneheaded thing. Most hard-core Islamists are less interested in restoring the Caliphate and much more concerned with toppling U.S.-funded police states that currently make up the Arab world.
In reality, the pan-Arab meme may sound really good to neocons looking for a boogeyman for the next ninety-odd years, but it doesn't play nearly as well in actual Arab nations. Saddam was the last guy to rally the Muslims around the old Caliphate, and look how he ended up...
Posted by: oodja | Jul 24, 2004 4:36:51 PM
Something disturbing is the need he feels for a coordination on the intellectual level as a form of strategy. The great threat of communism was that anyone could become a communist. In that sense, the engagement between communism and capitalism could be genuinely intellectual, in addition to its other aspects. What he wants is for us to establish a prior criterion for the organization of thought that would evaluate political thought based on its effectivess in battling our enemies. In Shield of Achilles Bobbit writes that we must adapt our "habits of thinking" to the new realities of the market state to bring together our conceptualizations of its legitimation (the state exists to provide/increase opportunities for its citizens) and the strategy it employs (the policies which will allow it to preserve its freedom of action). The idea that we should change how we think in order to preserve our integrity, in a structural sense, independent of concerns of justification just makes thinking propoganda or a kind of engineering. Or, the values that inform that thinking are separated from it, becoming articles of faith in some sense. We have to change the face of Islam (by appealing to moderates) by showing them how good we are, but the good we are is really an issue of our survival, and that is really no demonstration at all. The supreme article of faith seems to me to be that we deserve not to be threatened. But insofar as many people are not direct participants in the US political system, though they are profundly affected by it, it seems unreasonable to expect them to balance the good and the bad in our system in the interest of proper philosophical reflection on what is best for all humanity. Unless we can make them all want to be like us, or simply make them like us.
The problem with ideological engagement seems to be that moderate Muslims are still Muslims and can justify their positions not in terms of Western political theory, but in terms of Islamic conceptions of justice. Or at least the dicussion can occur in the framework of Islamic ethics. What do we have to contribute to such a discussion? I think identifying our intellectual engagement with Islam with our need to defend ourselves from it cannot result in any genuine engagement, and insofar as Islam, unlike Communism, is likely to become a widespread and politically significant internal social force in many countries, let alone ours, will always be one of subtle suppression. Ehrenreich gave a speech and when asked why she mentioned the word "truth", since there is no truth, she replied "we have nothing to talk about" and walked away. But that too is a kind of conversation and it seems to tbe the sort we are preparing for.
To be fair to Brooks, the desire to restore the Caliphate is not territorial in a strategic sense. The idea is the change the game from chess to something else, not to control the chess board.
Posted by: William S | Jul 25, 2004 12:52:18 AM
You should read the thread on this on Kevin's drum blog about this column and see how many of your fellow democrats think that al-qaida is simply a response to the US being in saudi arabia after we interfered with internal arab politics by removing saddam from kuwait. They would go back to being simple peasant farmers if we were just isolationists when it came to the middle east.
Posted by: Dave | Jul 25, 2004 1:25:29 AM
Seems like the same old stuff to me. Our side is stainless and true. Their side is bent on destroying us because we are so perfect. To fix it we only need to make them understand the above.
Some things that stick in the craw of the average conservative Muslim that Brooks, and most Americans for that matter, will never talk about:
1. What an insult our popular culture is to the world. In the ubiquitous American movies, slutty women are always the first to ask for sex and they ask a lot. Our music is sex besotted and crude in language. The Muslim world feels assaulted on all sides.
2. Our unquestioning support for Israel. The Muslims see Israel as an outpost of all that is ugly about the West. It has been forced on them by the Westerners and has never been satisfied to stay within prescribed borders. It continues to gobble land and humiliate the Arab sense of self worth by striking anywhere in Arab countries that it wishes.
3. Our presence near the Muslim holy places. Call them fanatics, which they undoubtedly are, but why should we rub salt in their wounded pride? Our presence is everywhere and the reasons are simple. Oil, oil and oil.
4. Our own brand of fanaticism: Christian missionaries. Wherever our forces go, missionaries follow. Nothing enrages a Muslim like an infidel preaching conversion in his own country.
Not all of this is rational, but it is so. Our best course of action would be to simply leave the Muslims alone. If it weren't for the oil and the need to convert everyone to our way of thinking (which is what Brooks is advocating, is he not?) there would be no terrorism.
I would love to hear the details of Brooks' ideological initiative. What do we have to sell that the Muslims will buy? I repeat. Why can't we simply leave them alone?
Posted by: James of DC | Jul 25, 2004 2:05:45 AM
Didanyone read the Instahack's take on this?
I can't work out whether he doesn't comprehend what a complete repudiation it is of everything he and the warbloggers have been shoving down our throats for the past 2.5 years, or whether he's trying to get away with changing his position and claiming that he was saying the same thing all along.
Posted by: Mork | Jul 25, 2004 5:23:49 AM
