| "Among Democrats and even many Republicans, it is by now accepted wisdom that the war in Iraq brought huge numbers of holy warriors to the anti-American cause. But is it true? I don't think so. Muslim holy warriors are a diverse lot, reacting with differing intensity to the hot-button issues that define contemporary Islamic militancy. For many fundamentalists, what is seen as an unrelenting Western assault on Muslim male honor and female virtue is the core infuriating offense. For others it may be the alienation that second-generation young Muslim men encounter in an immigrant-unfriendly Europe. And for still others, Iraq, Afghanistan, the tyranny of U.S.-backed Muslim rulers and the Palestinian resistance can all come together to convert individual indignities into a holy-warrior faith." |
I assume that the AEIdeologue has listed his buttons in descending order of temperature, which makes it striking that Palestine should come last. Wouldn't almost any anti-GOP Arab or Muslim (without some direct personal grievance) start from there? Come to think of it, wouldn't most of direct personal grievances be filed under the next-to-last finisher, "tyranny of U.S.-backed Muslim rulers"? Is somebody's whole megillah upside down and backwards, then?
Though this spook actually knows quite a bit about the Middle East, the ambience at AEI (plus perhaps the Pentagon/WTC attack) has rotted his mind sadly of late. It is therefore possible that he is not up to anything more interesting here than disseminating a familiar Party line to the effect that the Arabs don't really give a hoot about the things they blame Uncle Sam for. Precisely because the fiends talk more about 1948 and all that than about anything else, Wingnut City analysis feels entitled to put it far down the list.
Dr. Gerecht sins technically here, he violates an obvious canon of analysis by mixing causes with reasons, Soc. Sci. (or Freudianity) with politics. He also sins extremely tendentiously, in that all the causes come first and all the reasons only afterwards. The objective of that maneuvre is easy to conjecture: if The Arab Mind™ is what makes them be like that, two ideological benefits are instantly available: (1) none of it is the fault of Wunnerful US, and (2) the patients are unlike to get better for generations or centuries, which helps enable Sen. McCain and the jihád careerists to have their Kiddie Krusade or Hundred Years' War Redux. Blaming social conditions in Eurabia™ [2] is almost as satisfactory from the tank-thought perspective: nobody in the holy Homeland is culpable, and probably Dr. Rowan Williams will keep right on leading the Old Euros straight to Jahannam/Gehenna, no matter what Uncle Sam says or does. I.e., the same twin advantages are obtained for Wunnerful US in only a very slightly diluted form: no burden of guilt for AEI and GOP and DoD to shoulder, plus a vista of Huntin’tonian Clashin’ ahead as far as the eye can see. (Now there's a twofer for 'em!)
Back in the Greater Levant, few of Them frankly say "We loathe Yank so-called civilisation because it outrages male honor and female virtue" or "I just can't help terrorizing them, Doctor Gerecht, not after that godawful immigrant childhood in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises."
As as not uncommon, the AEIdeologue thinks he is risin’ as he sinks -- risin’ higher than "many secular Westerners," at least, for whatever that may be worth:
| These complexities [sc. the previous quotation] may help explain, at least in part, why so many secular Westerners seek relief in more easily understood explanations for jihadism (the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the usual favorites) -- explanations that don't probe too deeply into Islamic history and the militant Muslim imagination. |
("Deep Probe, allow me to introduce Deep Throat!" Islamic history does not come in at all, actually, but perhaps the Washington Post dropped a passage out. And God knows best!)
Anyhow, Deep Probe is not difficult to satisfy with himself, assuming the wares he just displayed are thought to be other than easily understood. I guess DP hopes to bully the customers of the Washington Post Company into accepting him as an expert first and then into accepting his Big Party apologetics as expertise. An old song, that one.
After a tolerably sensible exposition of the well known fact that Peaceful Freedumbia is not awash with outside faith-crazies, Dr. Gerecht turns to unabashed dubyapologetics:
| In Iraq, as we have seen with the anti-al-Qaeda, Sunni Arab "Awakenings," Sunni extremism is now in retreat . . . . [T]he much-quoted statements made by former Sunni insurgents about the positive actions of the United States in Iraq, have caused a great deal of intellectual turbulence in the Arab world . . . . If bin Ladenism is now on the decline -- and it may well be among Arabs -- then Iraq has played an essential part in battering the movement's spiritual appeal . . . . Iraq could well become America's decisive victory over Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and all those Muslims who believe that God has sanctified violence against the United States. |
AEIdeology rots the brain. That's the simplest explanation of this sudden derailment. Deep Probe began rather elegantly, setting up that nifty twofer we remarked, but then he rushes to throw half of it away. If AEI and GOP and DoD have already achieved decisive victory, why, even the Big Management Party base and vile are likely to wonder whether the Long War of the jihád careerists or a perpetual state of Huntin’tonian Clashism is really obligatory.
Rear-Colonel R. M. G. Spook shoots his own argument in the foot, for reasons not easily understood.
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[1] "Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former case officer for the CIA."
[2] The first trademark belongs to neorabbi R. Patai, the second to Mme. Bint Yeor.
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