I will freely confess a certain amount of ignorance with regard to the work of Dr. Robert A. Pape and I may be giving him an undue criticism here, but based on his New York Times column and this interview he did with the American Conservative.
His central thesis, which Armed Liberal dutifully reproduced, is as follows:
TAC: So if Islamic fundamentalism is not necessarily a key variable behind these groups, what is?
RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.
That's a pretty controversial statement, especially given that it assumes that all of those countries are modern, functioning democracies.
Russia, as has become painfully clear of late, is increasingly sliding more and more into a quasi-authoritarian atmosphere, a trend that events like Beslan have only served to accelerate. Sri Lanka, moreover, is regarded as being only "partially free" according Freedom House's 2004 survey. Particularly in the case of the former, the opinion of the general public towards the war in Chechnya is simply irrelevant to its conduct and has become even more so during the spike in Chechen suicide bombings from 2002-2004. There have also been suicide bombings carried out by al-Qaeda's Uzbek allies against the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan and Musharraf's military government in Pakistan as well as by the Pakistani sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi against Pakistani Shi'ites or the Muslim Ansar al-Islam against the Muslim Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Now I more than agree with Pape that Islamic fundamentalism is not the sole cause of suicide bombings, but attributing occupation as the cause of suicide bombings simply does not work given that there's a lot more cases of foreign occupation in the world than there are suicide bombings, even in cases of Muslim-on-Muslim occupation such as Syria in Lebanon, Morocco in Western Sahara, and (depending on who you ask) Sudan in Darfur.
The idea that suicide bombing is linked to nationalist rather than cultural or religious aspirations also strikes me as similarly wrong-headed. The one thing that all the groups that use suicide bombings as tactic have from the PKK to the Tamil Tigers to al-Qaeda is that regardless of ideology all of these groups maintain the same quasi-totalitarian and almost cultic mindset amongst its members. The PKK's beliefs concerning "Apo" (imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Occalan) and his immediate family result in quasi-deification as its membership live in Year 0-style society and Tamil Tigers supremo Prabhakaran borrows heavily from Mao in managing his fiefdom in northern Sri Lanka.
I also tend to take rather strong issue with the whole idea that occupation causes terrorism and that the only (and inevitable) relief for it is withdrawl. For one thing, this whole idea is ahistorical and is directly contradicted in that Arab hegemony has existed throughout much of the Middle East for over a thousands of years with relatively little resistance for the native populations if one accepts the Crusades as being mostly an external phenomenon. The Republic of India more or less remains the Mughal Empire and its suzerainties administered by other means, the People's Republic of China is more or less the Qing-era empire, and if you want a more contemporary example, is there any serious resistance today to the reintegration of the Confederacy back into the Union by force of arms?
Moreover, it isn't immediately clear to me (or Joe) that terrorists are always lashing out foreign occupation. This is particularly in the case of al-Qaeda, which describes its goals in the same document Pape cites as follows:
"We can describe the international system...as a spider web. And whereas it is also all interlinked like a spider web, even a light wind is sufficient to tear apart this web."
These are not the goals of a separatist, national independence, or anti-occupation movement, which explains a lot if you understand that there were Arabs involved in Beslan and Moroccans and Pakistanis involved in 3/11 and 7/7, which makes even less sense if you believe that occupation causes terrorism and the US occupation of Iraq was the motivating factor in both attacks.
Other examples:
- The kidnapping of Western tourists in Yemen in 1998
- The suicide bombing that targeted German tourists in Djerba in April 2002
- The suicide bombing of the French tanker Limburg in October 2002
- Bangladesh cinema bombings in December 2002
- Suicide bombings against Turkish synagogues in Istanbul in November 2003
And so on and so forth. Pape's thesis strikes me as one of those things that you have to be an academic in order to believe unless you dumb down the term occupation to the point where you accept al-Qaeda's definitions and make the word nothing short of meaningless.
I kind of find it hard to believe that the people who blow themselves up are thinking to themselves 'this is a valid geopolitical goal' and not 'praise god, I'm going to heaven! I hope the honey is sweet and the virgins sweeter!'
Maybe their taskmasters are more rational...?
How many times have we heard "you can't fight terrorism, terrorism is a tactic."
Suicide bombings are a tactic to achieve American withdrawl in Iraq and the Middle East.
So what strategic goal does this support?
Why is that point missing in Papes analysis?
One point to underscore is that Pape studied "suicide" terrorists. That means kidnappings, bombings set with timing devices or radio controls, or murder were not studied. I assume that Madrid and Belsan were not included. If the London bombings were triggered by cell phone, are they of any less concern?
I think suicide attacks are worth independent study, but to extapolate major strategical policies from one area of specialty is the arrogance of expertise.
I think there's another problem with the
Occupation = terrorism
equation. I'm pretty certain that if the situation in Iraq were 100% peaceful the political pressures here in the U. S. to remove our forces would be irresistible. Consequently, if the objective of terrorist attacks were to stop the U. S. occupation, they're perverse and counter-productive.
It then seems likely that the terrorists there have additional goals: killing of Americans per se, restoration of Sunni hegemony, establishment of a Taliban-like (or Iran-like) state.
Internecine suicide bombing was rife in Lebanon long after the US and Israel pulled out, and it was the Syrian presense that ultimately put a stop to it. Explain that one Doc.
Regarding the original post ... I applaud, and bow.
Dan's the man. This post is a good example of why.
Dan as always you are "spot on"
For those wishing to engage the enemy in this war of ideals, culture, religion, and ideology see this comment and follow the links:
We need to drive the story of the Iranian Journalist Akbar Ganji to the Am people and the free world.
OK folks where are the LL and the MSM in showing their outrage re the recent atrocities of this religion of peace as some pretend it to be.
Islamofascism is no different than cult-like religious movements of David Koresch and the CoolAid followers of Jim Jones.
Why can't the LL and the MSM understand this. AQ will shove it up our @#$ where the sun doesn't shine if we don't figure this out soon.
This is not a time for apologists nor the LL and the MSM "rooting" for the enemy in the GWOT.
Do you want to help?
Well here's your chance. See this comment at LGF and drive this story to the American people and the free world. And in so doing ram it down the throats of the LL and the MSM that are so blind they cannot see.
Lord help us and MAY GOD BLESS AMERICA!
[Of course of your choosing or not]
We need to drive the story of the Iranian Journalist Akbar Ganji to the Am people and the free world.
LGF Link
There are other weaknesses with these arguements too. Pakistanis are often some of these terrorists, but there is no foreign power operating from Pakistan. Saudis (including Bin Laden), have groused about infidels on the soil of the two holy cities, but we did not have forces stationed there until AFTER Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia (we went in to PROTECT the holy cities). Footnote to that, we have withdrawn all forces from Saudi territory.
Pape is repeating what he is being told by some "Imams" who support terrorism. However, this position is merely a pretext for sponsoring terrorism and recruiting bombers. The actual goal of the terrorist leaders is restoration of a Caliphate with then as the Caliphs. You don't get many volunteers to sign up so that the leaders can restore haems to the ME.
By the very arguments made by the terrorists (cited by Pape), the goal is to remove "occupiers" based upon philosophical religious reasons. Thus they recruit fundementalist supporters. The shopkeeper in Rhiyad selling gyros would love to have more Americans buying his products. He isn't a suicide bomber trying to end occupation! The terrorist try to appeal to his son using a religious arguement which is merely a cover for their own interest in revolution to replace the existing government with themselves.
Imams in Iran used the same kinds of argument about the Shah. The Shah had to be removed because he was supported by the Americans (there were not troops in Iran) and the Shah was secular. After the revolution, the Imams set themselves up as powr brokers and rule the country through suppression. Iran is the model for all of these terrorists. The Iran model was establishment of a fundementalist rule. Now Iran is trying to export there fundementalism even though there is no more "American" support/occupation.
Dan,
Only an academic like Pape could say something this stupid:
Fundimentally Pape does not want to confront the reality of the Islamist Death cult we face.
Others have faces up to that horrid reality. These are the words of David Brooks September 7, 2004 column on Beslan:
If the Muslim world will not face down and kill the Death Cult. America will do it for them and it will not be careful as to who is and is not a cultist.
The irony here is that people like Pape are making that end game more and more possible by spewing this intellectual insanity to slow the conduct of the war and give the Death Cult more time to get access to WMDs.
The human bombs in Iraq are not Iraqi. You would think if occupation was the driving force behind the human bomb attacks, it would be Iraqi's driving the car bombs.
If occupation were the driving force behind the human bomb attacks, the victims would not be mainly Iraqi non combatants.
The problem that Pape doesnt adress is what suicide bombers and the al-queda would be planning and making without Iraq? first example of swarm terror?
"The human bombs in Iraq are not Iraqi. You would think if occupation was the driving force behind the human bomb attacks, it would be Iraqi's driving the car bombs.
If occupation were the driving force behind the human bomb attacks, the victims would not be mainly Iraqi non combatants."
Exactly. That's precisely where the logic of appeasement starts breaking down. Actually, come to think of it, it's just one of the many places the logic of appeasement starts breaking down.
"Why do they hate us?" is a valid question, but its also a very narrow question. I'm not particularly fond of that question, but let's for a momment address the answer to that question as the people who ask that question usually give it. Namely, we are told that they hate us because of the misuse and abuse that they have suffered at our hands. In other words, it is proposed they hate us because they have valid reasons for hating us.
Fine. That's possible. But if this is true, why aren't the vast majority of suicide bombers from Central and South America? Afterall, a reading of US history would show that the vast majority of US meddling in foreign affairs have been done in this hemisphere. If anyone could be justly outraged at the oft times clumsy and arrogant behavior of the US government, surely it would be one of our southern neighbors?
And it's with that question, that the whole house of cards starts falling apart. The suicide bombers in Iraq aren't principally Iraqi. Osama Bin Ladin's muhajideen in Afghanistan wasn't principally Afghani; it was principally from the Arabian peninsula, and when the Soviets were driven out with US help, the Arab fighters didn't go home but proceeded to drive out the native insurgency and themselves became the occupation. Whatever the London bombers motivation, it certainly wasn't British occupation of Pakistan. Hezbollah's principal target has never been Israel, but other lebanese. The string of bombings in Turkey weren't protesting Israeli occupation of Turkey.
Likewise, the thesis starts falling apart when you look at where terror isn't happening. The Tibetians aren't blowing themselves up in Beijing to protest the very real occupation of thier country. If terrorism is principally about Western orientalism, colonialism, capitalism, or in other words if terrorism is principally about us and if in fact terrorism as a cultural phenomenom actually has eurocentric explanation, then there is a huge disconnect between cause and effect. If terrorism is principally about Western behavior, shouldn't most suicide bombers attacking the US come from places like the Phillipines, Columbia, Haiti or Puerto Rico? Or heck, why isn't it the Germans who hate us and are sending suicide bombers our way for what could be interpretted as the continued occupation of thier country? Shouldn't Britain live in fear of suicide attack from India, Jamaica, and Belize? Shouldn't Holland and Portugal live in fear of black Brazilians blowing up bombs in outrage over the slave trade?
In fact, the notion that terrorism is fundamentally a manifestation of Western culture and history is an arrogant one. Believe it or not, sometimes it isn't about us. Sometimes other cultures evolve and create ideas and institutions all on thier own. Sometimes things are actually about them, and not us. The West tends to notice terrorism only when it effects the West, but the fact is the attack of Islamics on the West is not central to the story of Islamic terrorism. The Islamic terror groups are perfectly willing to terrorize other Moslems and in point of fact, these are actually their main targets. The West is only the ancilliary target in what is actually an Islamic civil war.
A careful reading of history shows that the culture and mindset of the terrorists actually predates even the Crusades. The word 'assassin' comes to English through arabic for good reason, and the perpetual internal civil of Islam was the primary reason for the collapse of the Arabic empire in the first place.
Every time I'm asked, "Why do they hate us?", the very first thing I try to do is to try to open the mind of the person asking the question by broadening the terms of the debate to include questions that they aren't asking. The very first question I ask them is, "Why don't we hate them?"
BTW Dan, The excerpt on Amazon also lists Turkey as one of the democratic states, subject to suicide terrorism. Freedom House lists Turkey as Partly Free, with a worse civil liberties rating than Sri Lanka, but not as bad as Russia.
So the the Sauds let the U.S. launch an attack on Iraq from its soil and the Turks don't. Both then get hit with suicide attacks.
I was just using that quote from the interview excerpt that AL had posted.
The elephant in the antiwar living room is that OBL and his philosophical forbearers have been very clear that they consider the entire ancient Moslem world occupied, from Spain to India. Of course the appeasers only focus on the demands they deem reasonable (to their minds) while ignoring the demands they dont want to deal with (such as converting the United States to Islam). If they had their way, they would end up learning their mistake quite quickly. Fortunately those people are not in power where it counts.
The only thing Pape is good for is instructing the left that suicide bombing is a form of strategic attack, instead of a result of "oppression by the evil West".
"This is a useful start to understanding the rest, notably that suicide bombing campaigns generally need foreign support and sanctuaries, and that foreign support is rooted in aggression towards the targets of the suicide bombing." - a comment from me to Martin Kramer years ago.
Their homeland is Dar-al-Islam, the entire World, where someday Islam will prevail. There is no other homeland for them because the Koran does not set any limit, and they argue that their only law is the Koran.
To mix limits related to the International law such as borders with Islamic extremists, that only obey Mahoma's, is just a pure and deliberate act of manipulation intended to mislead the Western public opinion.
Moreover, the British withdrew their forces from Pakistan and Jamaica many years ago.
Dear Dan,
It seems that last week’s bombing in London demonstrates what is wrong with the professor’s thesis. These were four guys born in Great Britain to parents from Pakistan. There is no connection of nationality (they are not Iraqi). There is no ethnic connection (they are not Arab). These people have almost certainly never even been to Iraq or the middle east. OIF removed Sadaam and liberated millions of people as exemplified by all those who risked their lives to vote. The Iraqi people are not being oppressed and are no more “occupied” than Germany is where we still have tens of thousands of troops. The only connection between the bombers and the war in Iraq is religion.
This connection of religion is so great that they killed themselves and murdered scores of innocent people.
But because the claim is that the motivation was the Iraq war, the professor would classify this as one of the 95% of suicide bombings that were done, not because of religion but because of the occupation of a country by a democracy.
Dan,
I'd be happier if you gave nationalism it's proper place, or if we could lay out a matrix of causes of terrorism, and then assign (making it up out of thin air, but what the heck) percentages of possible causes.
All of these counter-indications that are cited here to the "occupation equals terrorism" are TRUE and VALID - whether it be Jamaican Islamists (WTF??) or English homegrowns.
Nevertheless - it still remains true that there are idiot cultists and extremists everywhere, of every stripe, as well as the pernicious merging of tribalism and modern cultism techniques.
But an important point remains that:
Occupation of a foreing government DOES attract MORE to the cause.
So let's break it down -
Percentage of terrorism factors - say in Iraq -
1. Occupation by foreign armies (nationalism)- 25%
2. Occupation by foreign armies of a DIFFERENT RELIGION (Islamism) - 30%
3. Baathist domination - 20%
4. Islamic Supremicism - 15%
5. Simple regional power politics/tribalism - 10%
I'm open to changing these percentages, adding new categories, etc - if the 95% value study cited by Pape is correct, then the first percentage would go way up.
But the point is, Al-Queda - who is category 4 - gains converts from 1 and 2, BECAUSE of occupation.
Thoughts?
Pape is one of those guys who fits the facts to his theory.
Do the Palestinians claim they are an occupied people? Check the occupation box. Do they want to drive the Jews into the sea? A mere bag of shells.
Do the Iraqi insurgents want to overthrow a democratically elected government because it is dominated by Shia and Kurds? No. They only want the Americans to leave. Which is why they go around bombing civilians.
And of course they only want force the Spanish to stop their occupation of El Andalus.
Let me vamp for a minute while I think up a strategic reason for bombing London, or Bali, or Istanbul, or Rihyad, or Manila.
The point is that Pape needs to spit out the kool-aid, or maybe have an exorcisim.
First of all, it is great to find a place where ideas and concepts are presented, not a bunch of mindless verbal abuse. Thank you!
celebrim, I had to read your posting twice to get a clearer understanding of you wrote regarding Dr. Pape's viewpoints. It makes perfect sense to me that the West is not the issue. I believe that the conflict witin the Muslim world has been raging for thousands of years. Radical factions have been trying to maintain the status quo and fight to resist any change (Western or otherwise) to their culture and traditions. This "war" has expanded out due to Muslims moving to different regions of the world, therefore, the conflict has moved with it.
Terrorism, in my opinion, is an act of desparation by a radical group to impose their ideas and principles on others. These actions are not unique to radical Muslims, as history denotes. For some reason, that I can not explain fully, radical Muslims seem to view terrorism as their only way to change or stop change in their world. These individuals want to paralzye others with fear that restricts a society's ability to respond or stop a certain action. This "my way or death" thought process is something I may never understand since all human beings will fight to maintain their way of life in the long run.
The banter between conservatives and liberals on terrorism only serves to maintain an imbalance to supporting an overall united strategy in dealing with the issue (i.e., playing into the hands of the terrorists). Frankly, I am sick of the "conservative and liberal" labels being applied to this issue. I also believe that military action is not the "cure all" to solving the problem. The media has not be heplful in presenting this issue clearly and should re-examine what terrorism is and why it is used.
I can not claim to be a conservative or liberal (I served in the Navy for 22 years, strong civil rights advocate) but I understand that if we ever plan to solve this problem, a house divided against itself can not stand (wish I could claim that I thought of that phrase on my own!). This is not something that can be resolved overnight or in a couple of years. Terrorism must be dealt with on multiple fronts with due diligence by all, not just the government.
Dr Pape seems to speak upon a narrow viewpoint and rejects the religion component. That, in my view, is not fair or academic. Religion does play a major role and to dismiss it is to remove one of the prime factor that we face with regards to radical Muslim thought.
It is very interesting that religion seems to play a major role in history with regards to radical behavior. My question would be, "Why has terrorist actions revolve around religious practice and princples?" If we could answer that question, we might be closer to solving the current issues of our day.
Sorry for the long posting, but I felt that I could state my positions and thoughts to gain meaningful feedback and conversation, which is rare on any weblog these days.
Thanks!
_There is no connection of nationality There is no ethnic connection, _
They are part of the world of islam. That is nationalism just as the Irish Americans don't have the Irish nationality but still supported the IRA.
OIF removed Sadaam and liberated millions of people as exemplified by all those who risked their lives to vote.
Bullshit. The only reason that the election was held was because the Shia forced it upon the Americans. I understand why Americans believe that America liberated the Iraqi's but that is simply not true. It is also OIF that made women loose an enormous amount of rights and i don't see how you call that liberating.
The Iraqi people are not being oppressed and are no more “occupied” than Germany is where we still have tens of thousands of troops.
Shake head.
Pape's Silly Putty logic in The Washington Post:
Get that? "Backing" a government (for example, our friendliness with Egypt inspite of the venom that spews from their state-run media) is the same thing as "occupation", apparently.
This comports nicely with the leftist view that the United States should effectively disband, and the rightest view that we should retreat into total isolation.
That's why Pape is being headlined everywhere from Indymedia to the holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Research.
"a", you are grossly misrepresenting history again. We did not have an Iraqi election "only" because the Shia "forced it". There was some give and take on timing of the election in the months leading up that you are grossly distorting.
T. J. DeLaine:
I don't recall having seen you comment here before—welcome! Winds of Change has some of the best discussions in the blogosphere. Joe Katzman, the owner of the blog, runs a taut ship. Be sure to check the archives. There's an enormous amount of great stuff there.
"These are not the goals of a separatist, national independence, or anti-occupation movement, which explains a lot if you understand that there were Arabs involved in Beslan and Moroccans and Pakistanis involved in 3/11 and 7/7, which makes even less sense if you believe that occupation causes terrorism and the US occupation of Iraq was the motivating factor in both attacks."
I suppose it depends. If you grant al Qaeda's premise that all Muslims are part of one state, it makes a bit more sense.
Without the shia the elections wouldn't have happen in years. The Shia held one large demonstration and after that the US caved in. Sensable because you don't want to mess with the Shia. AQ is childplay compared to them.
Jeff, that's why I think that Pape's claim is just semantics.
a,
The Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) specified the timetable and nature of the elections. It was approved by the governing council and the CPA. Everything seems to be going as planned, so your assertion that the US was "forced" to hold elections is another distortion of history like many of your posts.
Like others have suggested, you really should learn that Google is your friend.
JC:
Nationalism certainly has its element to all of this - heck, a good chunk of the Iraqi insurgents appear to be motivated by a species of "Sunni nationalism," but you'll notice they aren't the ones carrying out the suicide bombings. Terrorist and guerrilla groups alike regularly appeal to nationalism, but nationalism in and of itself doesn't seem to be enough to convince large numbers of people to strap bombs to themselves and head to the nearest bus stop.
As for the occupation issue, I'll readily accept it as a contributing factor (or even a major one), but keep in mind that a lot of times occupation is ultimately a matter of perception. Is the US "occupying" the territories we took from Mexico in the Mexican-American War? Is Russia occupying Siberia? Maybe, but the perception simply isn't enough for the inhabitants or their descendants to try and rectify the situation using guns and machetes. Conversely, the US is not occupying Saudi Arabia and France has long since given up trying to control Algeria, but the perception of both nations as occupier/puppetmaster is still more than enough to motivate people to carry out acts of terrorism against either state.
Like I said, I have no real problem with occupation or the perception of occupation being regarded as a contributing factor to al-Qaeda recruitment. However, I am exceedingly wary of any solution to suicide bombings or terrorism that attempts to knock everything down to one issue, whether it be occupation, religion, poverty, etc. The real phenomenon is a lot more complex and diverse than any of these caricatures.
Dave,
Thanks for the welcome! I plan to be here and learn for others. It is great to be in place where your opinion is not something that creates personal abuse but discussion. I look forward to responding in the future.
Thanks!
Lurker, don't you know how politics work. TAL was mostly written and aproved in the end by America. It wasn't like the CPA could write a TAL that said This invassion was illegal.
I am exceedingly wary of any solution to suicide bombings or terrorism that attempts to knock everything down to one issue, whether it be occupation, religion, poverty, etc.
Too true. I'm reading this description of one of the London suicide bombers :
Now, the football longings might be dramatized in retrospect, but it reminds me that these are mostly kids dying in these suicide attacks (in more ways than one). Passionate, easily dissapointed, and easily corrupted. Youth is certainly one piece of the puzzle.
but you'll notice they aren't the ones carrying out the suicide bombings.
It is in the best interest for all side that the suicide bombs are officially done by, prefereable, foreign fundi's.
Zarqawi and gang get more fame.
USA can claim that it is fighting foreign fundi's and not nationalists
Nationalists (read Baathlike parties) can make better deals after the retreat off the USA if they can act asif they don't have blood on their hands.
But this simply doesn't mean that the nationalists don't do suicide bombs
Apparently not. Look at Zarqawi's attempted chemical plot in Jordan - one of the perps was well into his 30s.
"a", you are abandoning your own claims faster every day. And now you are insinuating weird conspiracy theories which will no doubt be abandoned within minutes. If you have evidence about the Ba'athist holdouts using suicide bombers, present it. Otherwise, learn the difference between reality and your wishful thinking.
Dan,
I don't believe I am in disagreement with anything in your last comment. And you are right to point out that the specific subject here was suicide-terrorism. That narrows the purview and range of the violence that is looked at.
In my points about that specific violence, you would be looking at a different skewing -
1. Occupation by foreign armies (nationalism)- 10%
2. Occupation by foreign armies of a DIFFERENT RELIGION (Islamism) - 45%
3. Baathist insurgents - 10%
4. Islamic Supramacism/Extremism - 25%
5. Simple regional power politics/tribalism - 10%.
I am separating out 2 from 4 (where 4 is the danger that must be met head on, with absolutely toughness, resolve, and no surrender), because I am thinking that this explains stuff like English homegrowns. Those english homegrowns - truthfully - don't want anything to do with a "real" islamic totalitarian state. As was cyncially pointed out by the first Iraqi blogger Salam Pax when talking to some European Islamic youths enthusiastic about "the movement against the western oppressors", when he offers to "go live in a fundamentalist country then" it's NOT like they are going to LIVE in a fundamentalist society- they have NO wish to do so. There isn't an interest.
But to "take arms against the western oppressors who humiliate my religion by occupying Muslim lands" - yeah, that's something these distorted violent kids will do. Like a version of German skinheads, trying to "bring back the German supremacy" but more violent. (A friend of a friend of mine, 10 years ago, when in Germany with his black girlfriend, was attacked by these skinheads.)
So Al-Queda (the real extremists) gains new recruits from people sympathetic to 2 above.
Now, does this mean the US change behavior JUST BECAUSE of this?
Of course not - but we need to recognize the causes.
I think that we can all agree that only groups that desire to impose totalitarian rule of some kind use suicide attackers in the mold of the jihadis (Islamist) and the Tamil Tigers (Maoist). I've certainly never heard of attempts by non-totalitarian states to try this kind of tactic.
The second apparently necessary component to using suicide attacks as a tactic is a culture that says that suicide attacks are noble in and of themselves. In such a culture, the suicide attacker is revered purely for his sacrifice, and not for the results.
The third apparently necessary component is that those who sacrifice must not be members of the ruling/guiding elite, but of the next tier down, which are those who are fanatically devoted to the cause/culture, are educated and intelligent, and are comparatively well off, but not rich (middle class, basically). Otherwise, the movement/culture would die out as its guidance failed with the deaths of the elite. The poor and stupid are, simply, not worthy of the idolization necessary for reverence: the poor and stupid could be desperate, misguided, or just unadmirable, because they do not sacrifice a "good" life, just a life.
If all of that is true, and I think it is, then Pape's suggestion (retreat) is not a workable strategy for obtaining peace: as long as the culture requires suicidal sacrifice (as far as I can tell, in each suicide attack culture I am aware of, the requirement is for a divine cause, but that is not a requirement of the theory I am proposing here), there will be suicide attacks. Even once currently-stated goals are obtained, there will be a requirement for an outlet to create heros and further legitimate the elite. And as long as there is a possibility of expansion, the attacks will be outside the culture, rather than inside it, as a civil war.
In other words, a culture that would countenance suicide attacks as a matter of course, must also be maximalist as a matter of practical survival. "We have always been at war with Eastasia." And as long as that is the case, you cannot retreat far enough to get away from that culture.
Moreover, this theory, if correct, suggests that there are only two ways to end the killing culture: destroy the culture, or destroy the elite that guides it. In the case of Japan, we both minimally altered the culture and removed the elites. Note the success the Israelis and we have had in killing enemy leadership, and the relative lack of success the Israelis and we have had in negotiation, accommodation, and stopping the attackers before they strike.
I don't see nationalism as a factor really, unless you grant the premise, as I noted above, that there is one Arab/Muslim society, and I think that the attempted pan-Arabist union between Egypt and Syria (was Iran involved in that, too?) puts paid to that notion.
I don't think I'm totally off track here, but if I am, you all are the ones to spot the flaw in my reasoning.
I think we need to take a moment to recognize the ultimate utility of suicide bombing as a weapon of war. Its pretty crappy and its record of success very poor. Experienced suicide bombers are by definition either nonexistance of terribly inept. Yeh, its a nasty weapon used only to terrify people. But it is nowhere near as frightening as an enemy who badly wants to live and badly wants you dead. Combine that with discipline, industry, courage, and audacity and you have an enemy that might actually be able to accomplish the mad goals of the islamo-fascists. As terrible as the jihadis are, they arent a patch on the Nazis or the Japanese. The truth is our enemy is pathetic. Its a lot easier to die for your cause than to establish the tools and conditions to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his. Pathetic, hopeless, and doomed to a lower place in history than the meanest nazi or roman. There will be no great morality plays built about battling these wretches, you dont make movies about squashing roaches.
I'll agree that Bremer and the CPA had a huge role in drafting and approving the TAL. Is this the same TAL that specifies when elections are to be held? Are these the same American's that according to your theory didn't support elections?
a, Your arguments are self-negating. Do you just randomly make this stuff up?
JC:
While I think there's certainly much room to criticize the hypocrisy of Islamists and al-Qaeda members living in the West who freely indulge in our freedoms and liberties while planning to kill us. Most of them don't want to live in an Islamist theocracy because those that exist, like all human societies, have recognizeable flaws whereas the idea of a global Caliphate as a utopian concept still holds wide appeal. If you want a better example, most European communists didn't emigrate en masse to the USSR and I doubt that many of those kids who flirted with Mao during the 1960s would have wanted to live under the Cultural Revolution. This is one of the reasons (and I think Fukuyama has written on this) why even an Islamist victory would not ultimately be sustainable as we're seeing now in countries like Iran.
Also, like I said I'm more than willing to believe that al-Qaeda gains recruits from #2, but what needs to be understood (and I think you recognize) is that that isn't really nationalism. As various people have noted, Pakistani Britons trained by groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (which is purportedly focused on Kashmir) can't make much of a nationalist argument (or much of any in my opinion) for attacking British civilians out of retaliation for Iraq. If they want to kill Britons because of Iraq than they're already thinking about themselves as Muslims first rather than British or Pakistani, which goes back to some of al-Qaeda pseudo-Trotskyite "smash the state" mentality.
I'm also quite interested in learning more about this Egyptian who was apparently the cell leader, as that seems to me to be more important if he was the bombmaker since he and people like him are the real threat rather than all of the amorphous cannon fodder. These guys might well have been pissed about the Iraq war, but they would never have blown up London without the bombmaker's expertise and the training they received at Lashkar-e-Taiba camps. This is one of the reasons that I believe that dismantling the infrastructure (see Rohan's recommendations a little while ago) is vital to our success.
Also, dare I point out that the fact that these guys were part of an active cell that had received terrorist training and was apparently acting at the behest of a larger network and mounting a sophisticated attack completely blows away the Burkean idea that al-Qaeda was "just a brand name" that was the analysis du jour following the attacks?
And as far as I can tell, Pape didn't study or concern himself with the role of people like the Egyptian cell leader, just the inglorious cannon fodder.
"Those english homegrowns - truthfully - don't want anything to do with a "real" islamic totalitarian state. As was cyncially pointed out by the first Iraqi blogger Salam Pax when talking to some European Islamic youths enthusiastic about "the movement against the western oppressors", when he offers to "go live in a fundamentalist country then" it's NOT like they are going to LIVE in a fundamentalist society- they have NO wish to do so. There isn't an interest. "
while i appreciate the analytic distinction between those who actually want to live in either a taliban state or a universal caliphate on the one hand, and those who simply adopt "islamism" as ethnic identity, and oppose non-muslim occupations of muslims on quasi-nationalist grounds, im not sure it really applies in this case. At least one of the 4 bombers DID go to visit an extremist madrassah in pakistan. In years past a significant number of guys like this DID go to live in Afghanistan. That they cannot go there now is due to the new regime in Afghanistan. There is, currently, no state that is ruled by advocates of their philosophy. KSA is similar RELIGIOUSLY, but is allied to the hated Americans, and hunts down the radicals friends. Iran is Shiite/heretic. The closest place on earth to their paradise is the state of NWFP, hemmed in as it is by Paki federal authority. And when they can, they DO go their - but come back to do what they are called on to do.
The analogy is NOT so much to rank and file western commies during the cold war - its more to actual KGB operatives, folks like Kim Philby, who were living in the capitalist west cause thats where their entree could do the most for the cause.
I am new to this blog, but the level of discussion is fantastic. Since I work in the same field as Pape and have diseccted his argument before, I can say all of you are doing well at finding the internal contradictions in this piece. For my part I will trow out a couple more:
First, they way he counted things obscures reality. While 40% of suide terror may be perpetrated by non-Muslims, 14 out the 16 suicide terror campaings WERE conducted by Muslim groups, and 10 out of the 16 by highly Islamicized groups. So the Tamil Tigers (non-Muslim) did a lot of suicide bombing, but take this one small part of the world out, and suicide bombing is synonymous with islamo-fascism.
Second, why look only at suicide terror? Thsi is only one tactic amongst many for the groups studied. Pape tries to infer both motive a strategy from focusing on one small part of the the options open to terrorists.
Finally, and sorry to those who hate the study of statistics, he has selected on the dependent variable. That is he posits that occupation leads to suicide terrorism, and then looked at cases of suicide terrorism ad ...magically found occuption. This is a MAJOR problem. Imagine I conduct a study where I calim that eating lots of hamburgers causes heart attacks, and I then look at thos who have heart attacks and find yep, they ate lots of hamburgers. Seems to make sense. But what if I looked at the rest of the populationand found that they ate lots of hamburgers as well? Then my claim looks bad, because how can hamburgers be the cause if most of the people who eat them don't have this problem?
In Pape's case, the proper research method would have been to compile a list of all the occupations that have occured and see how many result in suicide terror. Of course this would not have suited his purposes because the US andits allies have occupied Germany, Japan, Italy, a coupl eof Balkan countries (with majority Muslim populations) all with no suicide terror. Add to that the hsitory of empires and their occupations, or the Soviet occupation of Eastern European and Baltic states (yeah the USSR is not democratic, but Pape only infered the part of democracy from his bad data set, and yep, no suicide terror.
Any resonable examination of the sources of suicide terror must examine two things. Why the people whom organize it do so, and how thy motivate the poor folks who actually carry it out. I suspect we will see a lot of startegic rationality in the former, and a lot of religiously-based fervor in the later.
Anyway, thanks for a great forum.
The US was forced into elections by a Shiite demonstration in 2003. After that they delayed it as much as possible. But the they were not planning to have elections so soon when they invaded Iraq.
#41
It is like claiming that the communist in Poland wanted free and fair elections. They also said yes to them.
RE: #46. That's true. The USA believed it would require more time to get a post-Saddam Iraqi society to the point where elections were feasible, and everyone's rights would be respected. Iraqi human rights activist Kanan Makiya is an excellent source re: the scars and difficulties that had to be overcome there.
As it happens, the Iraqis did push the timetable, and the US adapted accordingly, and the whole thing went surprisingly well. The Iraqis themselves deserve a lot of credit for the outcome, which is one of the most encouraging things in the whole picture.
a & Joe, I would just like to point out that negotiating the timing of elections is not the samething as being against elections. Nor does the timing originally preferred by the CPA imply that the US is not interested in the establishment of a democractic Iraq.
"a" would like to have it both ways. 1) He asserts that our goals do not include the establishment of democracy and 2) if the Shia were to gain power under such a democracy then that by definition would mean that the US has lost in Iraq.
Isn't it clear that "a" wants to be able to point to a negative outcome no matter what happens? Actually by De Morgan's theorem, this can be logically reduced to "a" wants to point to anything negative.
Dan:
I've a now-ancient post that fisks his NYT article. (How's it going this summer, btw.)
The essence of Pape's misreading of the situation is that he conflates the rationality of pursuing an objective through terrorist means with the rationality of the objective of worldview. It's a confusion that derives from conventional views about economics which assume that people pursue rational objectives only through rational means and irrational objectives only through irrational means. (Public Choice economics, on the other hand, doesn't have this limitation.) He also, to some extent, fails to recognize that some secular ideals are religious in every sense other than a belief in God. That is, it's not the belief itself that is "religious" but the kind of commitment it evokes, and whether or not it's subject to falsification.
Basically, because of the confusion between method and goal as well as the notion of a secular religion Pape's analysis is incoherent. Surrendering to terrorist demands that we pull out would not lead to a resolution, because that's only a proximate goal. Their real goal is the establishment of a mythological ideal state: a conception which, like the "worker's paradise" of Marx contains internal contradictions that make its establishment impossible.
I am also struck by the methodological naivete' of presuming that you can gauge the religious conviction of a large number of subjects without even asking them any questions about their beliefs. He really has no idea what the content of those beliefs actually are.
#49
A Iraq under the same kinds of rules as Iran and in alliance with Iran would in my opinion be a definition under which the USA has lost in Iraq.
This looks a lot like the situation in Iraq. The US has still a large number of troops in the country but they are more there to help start the civil war than to quall the marquis. Besides the US has to decide in 2006 to retreat from Iraq because they don't have the soldiers to further occupy it. Everybody knows this and Iran is just making sure that their allies are the ones that will take over after that.
#50
You are right but they would be more forced to solve their internal problems and it is just simpler to attack terrorists when they have a clearly recognised base. In this case you will fast evolve to a state in which they can't use terrorisme on you because you would terrorisme on them and visa versa. See for example the Argentina, hezbollah, Israel affair.
Lets put it this way Lurk, a hopes for the worst but if he has to settle for half a rotten loaf he wants to be able to frame it in the worst possible light. On the other hand his lunatic conspiracy theories cover his bases if things really go to hell.
I hope for a world so liberal and good (and non muslim) that the first thing the Iraqi goverment will do is allow gay marriage.
That ain't gone happen.
But i can hope for a world were Iraq lives in peace. Sadly the US has to go for that to happen because they want things the US absolutely doesn't want. Like an army and no foreign occupation
ps. Can you give an example for one of my lunatic conspiracy theories?
Your candy theory is pretty lunatic.
That the US army gives its army candy so its soldiers can give it to kids and thus make friends with the locals (and use the kids as human shield).
Do you mean that theory?
It is not lunatic as it is obviously true.
Thanks KLE for the insight. I suspect Pape will make more money doing it his way though.