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You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Wedge Politics

Wedge Politics

by Tim F|  February 25, 20082:23 am| 34 Comments

This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®

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Kevin Drum:

while we’re on the subject, here’s a data point to suggest that Obama’s position hasn’t led the Arab public (or the Arab elite, anyway) to become wary of him. Marc Lynch just got back from the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha and files this report: “The US elections absolutely dominated the conversations, with Obama the runaway favorite. Most of the Arab participants I talked to seemed fascinated by Obama, and frightened by McCain.” Maybe the Arabs in Doha don’t have a problem with the odd missile attack on Pakistan’s tribal areas either.

Don’t be the least bit surprised if the Arab world looks discreetly away from a few flattened camps in Pakistan. Radical islamists just aren’t all that popular in the Muslim world, and if it weren’t for Iraq and Abu Ghraib and the Bushie tendency to talk like we’re waging the tenth Crusade the phenomenon would be a lot more obvious.

Let the Pakistani elections serve as a useful measure for the actual relevance of radical Islamists among Muslims at large. Indeed given widespread unrest over the Musharraf status quo and seemingly unstoppable expansions of Islamist power in the tribal areas and the cities alike, the situation seemed fairly ripe for those groups. Yet when the people spoke Islamist parties had their asses handed to them. If Bush in Afghanistan raised few eyebrows then I doubt that moderate Muslims will lose much sleep over the idea of a President whom they generally respect rooting out radical medievalists like the criminal gangs that they are.

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34Comments

  1. 1.

    Splitting Image

    February 25, 2008 at 5:44 am

    It’s quite likely that Obama’s foreign policy will move in lock-step with his current campaign policy: bring everybody to the table and build a consensus. This is not always possible, but it’s generally preferable to the Bush policy of declaring that everybody is against him and sending in the bombers.

    I think most Muslims will appreciate an American president who seems capable of understanding that a country’s government doesn’t always speak for its people and that the majority of Muslims, like most religious groups, don’t blindly follow the loudmouths who get the most press. The Bush administration never seemed to have a clear idea of what a “moderately religious” person – Muslim or otherwise – might be like.

    One of the most disheartening things about reading a strongly Democratic message board is the number of people who don’t understand the difference between pandering to the most belligerent Yellow Dog Republicans and opening a dialogue with more moderate Republicans who might be tired of the other group’s control of the party. Obama seems to understand this, and has picked up a lot of independent support because of it. It’s good practise for rebuilding America’s image overseas, and even people who would prefer to see more of a scorched-earth policy where the Republicans are concerned should be glad to see a more conciliatory approach outside the country.

  2. 2.

    Redhand

    February 25, 2008 at 7:08 am

    Makes sense to me, really. I can’t imagine a clearer signal than Obama to the whole world that the US has undergone a sea change. Lord knows we need one after W.

  3. 3.

    myiq2xu

    February 25, 2008 at 7:18 am

    Don’t be the least bit surprised if the Arab world looks discreetly away from a few flattened camps in Pakistan. Radical islamists just aren’t all that popular in the Muslim world, and if it weren’t for Iraq and Abu Ghraib and the Bushie tendency to talk like we’re waging the tenth Crusade the phenomenon would be a lot more obvious.

    Don’t be surprised if they don’t look away and get really pissed instead. George W. Bush isn’t real popular in this country, but if some Islamic group managed to kill him we wouldn’t be looking the other way, we’d be back in the pro-war mode.

  4. 4.

    Chris Huston

    February 25, 2008 at 7:36 am

    Don’t be surprised if they don’t look away and get really pissed instead. George W. Bush isn’t real popular in this country, but if some Islamic group managed to kill him we wouldn’t be looking the other way, we’d be back in the pro-war mode.

    Right, except one instance is killing a bunch of terrorists who want to overthrow Middle Eastern governments like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and the other instance is killing off an actual political official.

    The thing that people often tend to miss is that a lot of Middle Eastern countries are just as concerned about Al Qaeda as we are. Islamic terrorists were bombing locations in Saudi Arabia long before they started hitting US targets.

  5. 5.

    Xenos

    February 25, 2008 at 8:03 am

    One of the most disheartening things about reading a strongly Democratic message board is the number of people who don’t understand the difference between pandering to the most belligerent Yellow Dog Republicans and opening a dialogue with more moderate Republicans who might be tired of the other group’s control of the party.

    Democrats who have tried this have been cut off at the knees by the GOP leadership. There are no moderate republicans anymore – witness the House GOP marching out of the house on the bogus pretense of protecting security over telecom immunity. The pretense is false, and the entire series of communications coming out of the right side is dishonest.

    There is no-one to reach out to anymore. I wish that were not the case, but it is. Reid has been reasonable and conciliatory – not always, not constantly, but often enough. Pelosi took impeachment off the table, avoiding a scorched-earth war of the sort that Republicans would never have avoided. What does that get her from the Republicans? Civility, or a willingness to work out differences?

    You expect the people who impeached Bill Clinton, and then burned every chance for bipartisanship for six years under Bush to get a welcome, helping, friendly hand? I know you think liberals are stupid, but damn! That is asking a lot.

    Obama will make peace, all right. He will build a popular movement that will leave the GOP a shell of its former self. The GOP may even go to less that 40 senators -now that would be peace!

  6. 6.

    jake

    February 25, 2008 at 8:08 am

    here’s a data point to suggest that Obama’s position hasn’t led the Arab public (or the Arab elite, anyway) to become wary of him.

    This same data point will lead the fRightened Kneepadists to become even more certain that Barak HUSSEIN Obama is a stealth mooslim out to kill us!1

    It really comes down to money. A business owner in Lahore has the same wants as a business owner in Indianapolis: Cash. Terrorism is disruptive and I wouldn’t be surprised if those goons have a very efficient extortion branch. So unless you’re in a line of work that supplies something they want, they’re bad for business and you’re not going to shed tears if someone drops a bomb on them.

  7. 7.

    Wilfred

    February 25, 2008 at 8:23 am

    I think most Muslims will appreciate an American president who seems capable of understanding that a country’s government doesn’t always speak for its people and that the majority of Muslims, like most religious groups, don’t blindly follow the loudmouths who get the most press. The Bush administration never seemed to have a clear idea of what a “moderately religious” person – Muslim or otherwise – might be like

    An astute comment. Moderate seems to have become a metaphor for any Muslim willing to see his or her less moderate fellow Muslims flattened for not reacting worshipfully enough to having modernity shoved down their throats. The Islamist parties have become the only form of nationalist based resistance to American incursions into Muslim countries. It is that resistance that has become the common cause of moderate Muslims and Islamists.

    I spent some time in the NWFP. It is a deeply traditional and conservative place with or without Islamists. Pashtuns have come to hate Americans not because of Islam but for flattening the villages of their fellow tribesmen.

    Don’t be the least bit surprised if the Arab world looks discreetly away from a few flattened camps in Pakistan

    The Arab world? Arab leaders look away from Israeli cluster bombs dumped on Lebanon for fuck’s sake, do you think they care in the least what happens to Pakistan? Arab people hate their so-called leaders because to a man they are munafik – that’s why Mubarak can incarcerate thousands of members of the Muslim Brotherhood while Rice et al. wank on about democracy.

    If Bush in Afghanistan raised few eyebrows then I doubt that moderate Muslims will lose much sleep over the idea of a President whom they generally respect rooting out radical medievalists like the criminal gangs that they are.

    Why don’t you start worrying what moderate Jews think about the collective punishment and cruelties inflicted on moderate Muslims in Gaza? How about a post or two about that, hypocrite?

  8. 8.

    Lavocat

    February 25, 2008 at 8:50 am

    Obama’s foreign policy shows all the signs of being based on RESPECT, as opposed to Bush’s foreign policy being based on arrogance.

    Other nations don’t necessarily mind the Big Stick, so long as a little respect is involved. After all, someone has got to be the Big Stick.

  9. 9.

    El Cruzado

    February 25, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Two comments for Wilfred:

    What does “munafik” mean?

    Would you agree with me that the debate about Palestinians is a lot wider (and livelier) among Israeli Jews than among the US policymakers? (never mind that the end result is the same, but that’s as usual related to the control of the decisions by the usual loudmouth morons).

  10. 10.

    Neal

    February 25, 2008 at 9:52 am

    Anybody see the “scary” pic of Obama on Drudge this morning?
    Clinton campaign at its finest. They claim: If Hillary dressed like this it would be everywhere!
    Bullshit. If we saw Hillary in African clothing we’d probably giggle and understand, like Laura Bush in Saudi Arabia. With Obama it is completely different…just a horrible to tactic to play on the fears of the uneducated…

  11. 11.

    4tehlulz

    February 25, 2008 at 9:56 am

    Pic “Where are the white women at?” text. Fail.

  12. 12.

    demimondian

    February 25, 2008 at 9:56 am

    Hey, Neal, you do realize that the only source for that photo is Drudge? And that no other news org has reported that the Clinton campaign is circulating it?

  13. 13.

    Zifnab

    February 25, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Why don’t you start worrying what moderate Jews think about the collective punishment and cruelties inflicted on moderate Muslims in Gaza? How about a post or two about that, hypocrite?

    Look, a jackalope!
    Um… we’re talking about Obama and Pakistan. If we were talking about Obama and Palestine or Obama and the West Bank, you might have people willing to chase the bait. As it is, Jews haven’t begun to approach entering into the discussion.

    Back when Lebanon was getting clusterfuckedbombed and Bush stood around with his thumb up his butt talking about talking about peace talks, we had a few very passionate posts and comments on the subject. Don’t get all huffy cause we’re not talking about the Duke Lacross Rape Case Isreal/Palestine relations every time the world “Muslim” gets dropped in a conversation.

  14. 14.

    4tehlulz

    February 25, 2008 at 10:01 am

    *lacks

  15. 15.

    taodon

    February 25, 2008 at 10:20 am

    Well, this is just silly. We all know that anyone who’s Muslim is a sleeper terrorist. The very notion that there may be Muslims opposed to it is laughable at best.

    /snark off

    Good article Tim – if only the powers that be actually looked at the gray of it all for a change.

  16. 16.

    Zifnab

    February 25, 2008 at 10:20 am

    Hey, Neal, you do realize that the only source for that photo is Drudge? And that no other news org has reported that the Clinton campaign is circulating it?

    Am I the only one who – on every visit to the Drudge site – finds himself re-evaluating the definition of the term “Worst website on the internet”?

    Mother of god! CSS has been out for, like, 15 years! Learn yourself some internets! If I ran out and got a girl pregnant right now, in nine months she would give birth to a child who’s coding ability was several degrees of magnitude higher than Drudge’s webmaster.

  17. 17.

    Dork

    February 25, 2008 at 10:38 am

    I prefer Wedgy Politics

  18. 18.

    Wilfred

    February 25, 2008 at 10:46 am

    yesterday the NY Times Magazine ran a long article about US military activities in Afghanistan. Now when Tim writes:

    I doubt that moderate Muslims will lose much sleep over the idea of a President whom they generally respect rooting out radical medievalists like the criminal gangs that they are

    it’s necessary to understand what that really means, which is this:

    I went to Afghanistan last fall with a question: Why, with all our technology, were we killing so many civilians in air strikes? As of September of last year, according to Human Rights Watch, NATO was causing alarmingly high numbers of civilian deaths — 350 by the coalition, compared with 438 by the insurgents. The sheer tonnage of metal raining down on Afghanistan was mind-boggling: a million pounds between January and September of 2007, compared with half a million in all of 2006

    Now why on earth would a moderate Muslim mind that? Or this?

    “We saw people moving weapons around,” Kearney told me. “I tried everything. I fired mortars to the back side to get the kids to run out the front. I shot to the left, to the right. The Apache” — an attack helicopter — “got shot at and left. I kept asking for a bomb drop, but no one wanted to sign off on the collateral damage of dropping a bomb on a house.” Finally, he said, “We shot a javelin and a tow” — both armor-piercing missiles. “I didn’t get shot at from there for two months,” Kearney said. “I ended up killing that woman and that kid.”

    The Captain manfully accepted the murder of a ‘radically medievalist’ woman and a child. Is that correct?

    Those murders are as routine as what happens in Gaza, that’s why they’re invisible. I take offense with the tone of the post since collateral damage in Af and soon to be Pakistan involves dropping a million pounds of high explosives on this war’s version of gooks, oops – radical medievalist gangs.

  19. 19.

    ThymeZone

    February 25, 2008 at 10:47 am

    McCain is not going to win, the Arabs can relax.

    I just watched him speaking live in Ohio, and his audience looks like a bunch of people who are having colonoscopies. They look miserable, and the more he talks the more miserable they look.

    Have you watched an Obama rally lately? Those people are having fun, they are happy, they are pumped up.

    The stage is set for an historic political year here, folks. Forget McPain, he is about to become a footnote to history.

  20. 20.

    mark

    February 25, 2008 at 10:54 am

    OT: I want BJ to get this Mental Health Break before Sully. :)

    Here’s the link if the embed doesn’t work.

  21. 21.

    TheFountainHead

    February 25, 2008 at 11:03 am

    Looking for the turrurists under every rock and realm?

  22. 22.

    Neal

    February 25, 2008 at 11:05 am

    Uhh, it’s not just Drudge.

    Time, too…and Obama has responded.

    And Fox. Like that means anything.

  23. 23.

    4tehlulz

    February 25, 2008 at 11:15 am

    Hillary’s campaign issues nondenial denial of Obama pic circulation.

  24. 24.

    OriGuy

    February 25, 2008 at 11:20 am

    From the Time website: “Campaign manager Plouffe takes fabled Internetist at his word….” Interesting neologism; the Urban Dictionary defines an internetist as “To be extremely against a internet browser(Internet Explorer/Older Alternatives).”
    Here Time is apparently using it in contrast with journalist.
    I can’t find any other English use of the word that means that.

  25. 25.

    Chris Johnson

    February 25, 2008 at 11:27 am

    Our fundamentalist leaders are munafik too, if that helps.

    Sometimes they’re munafik in a wetsuit, even O_O

  26. 26.

    curtadams

    February 25, 2008 at 11:57 am

    George W. Bush isn’t real popular in this country, but if some Islamic group managed to kill him we wouldn’t be looking the other way, we’d be back in the pro-war mode.

    More like killing the Unabomber when he was on the loose. IF we get the right guys they won’t mind. Blowing up random monasteries will tick them off, of course.

  27. 27.

    Ted

    February 25, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    I wonder how useful elections are for measuring popular support for radical groups. Participation in elections means (among other things) (1) that you think elections are a valid way to choose leaders and (2) that you think your vote will be counted fairly. I imagine that many of the members of radical groups would reject at least one of those two propositions.

  28. 28.

    BobN

    February 25, 2008 at 1:15 pm

    Uh… let’s not poison the word “medievalist”, please. I know some medievalists, and they’re very nice people. Quite bookish, a bit nerdy, but quite nice.

  29. 29.

    empty

    February 25, 2008 at 1:29 pm

    Don’t be the least bit surprised if the Arab world looks discreetly away from a few flattened camps in Pakistan. Radical islamists just aren’t all that popular in the Muslim world, and if it weren’t for Iraq and Abu Ghraib and the Bushie tendency to talk like we’re waging the tenth Crusade the phenomenon would be a lot more obvious

    .

    Let the Pakistani elections serve as a useful measure for the actual relevance of radical Islamists among Muslims at large.

    Wilfred and myiq2xu have addressed several of the problems with the first quote above. And the problems are connected with the second quote above. The MMA (alliance of religious parties) came to power in the provinces bordering Afghanistan in 2002. They got wiped out in the elections of last week. However, remember that they were also pretty marginal before. In the previous elections in 1997 the religious parties won two (2) seats in the National Assembly. So what was special about 2002? The elections were held around the time we had mistakenly “flattened” a wedding party and were continuing a bombing campaign with a pretty high “collateral damage” rate. This “flattening” in turn led to the success of the MMA who made it extremely difficult for the federal government in Pakistan to go after the religious extremists on the Pakistani side of the border who in turn were a source of support and supply for the Taliban fighting the US and NATO – who are still fighting in that other war.

    People just don’t like getting killed. We lost 3000 in the WTC and we have killed numbers several orders of magnitude more in response. “Other” people are not that different from us.

  30. 30.

    4tehlulz

    February 25, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    So what was special about 2002?

    You failed to mention the political crackdown against Musharraf’s more-secular opponents, leaving the religious parties as the only means of showing displeasure with the government.

    Realistically, that’s the only difference between the ’02 and ’08 elections.

  31. 31.

    empty

    February 25, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    You failed to mention the political crackdown against Musharraf’s more-secular opponents, leaving the religious parties as the only means of showing displeasure with the government.

    And how was the crackdown different in the Punjab and Sind from the crackdown in the NWFP and Balochistan? There were four elections (there are four provinces in Pakistan) held under similar conditions. Two resulted in victories for the religious parties. Both containing people related to the Afghans being bombed. In Punjab the religious parties won about 3% of the seats. In Sind about 4%. The crackdown was the same if not worse in these two provinces. Also, if you examine the detailed election results from 2002 you will find the MMA in many cases won against the PML-Q – Musharraf’s party. So, it would be very difficult to argue that the unprecedented MMA victories in Balochistan and the NWFP were not a direct result of the “flattening” going on at that time

  32. 32.

    travis

    February 25, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    Munafik means a hypocrite: Arab leaders pretend to be Muslim, while betraying its actual ideals. This attitude of can be extended to the elites, too, not just the leaders.

    Nice word – I could apply it to many GOP politicians, as well as parts of my own family. :-)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munafiq

  33. 33.

    Innocent Bystander

    February 25, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Hard to believe that invading and breaking a ME country would marginalize the moderates in the region. But how can one make obscene war profits without committing a few war crimes? Oh well, when Cheney, Bush, and Co. are counting their Euro’s (you don’t think they’re investing their money in dollars, do you?) in some country without extradition treaties, we can attempt to put this busted country back together again.

  34. 34.

    Frank

    February 26, 2008 at 4:50 am

    That lack of extradition may not be as much protection as they think. The unitary executive doesn’t pay any attention to namby-pamby stuff like extradition treaties anyway. Just grab em and send them to secret prisons in eastern europe to be tortured#^^^^^^\ I mean rigorously questioned.

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