NATO warplanes dropped bombs in repeated low-flying raids Tuesday on targets in and around Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s compound in their most intense daytime strikes on the Libyan capital since the aerial campaign began two months ago
What appeared to be bunker-busting bombs laid waste to an area of about two acres, leaving a smoking, twisted mass of the steel remains of six or seven buildings that had stood three to four stories high.
Officials said that 10 to 15 people had died in the attack, but there was no way to verify that number. Western reporters taken to the area late in the afternoon by Libyan government handlers saw one body that had been pulled from the rubble. The authorities identified the remains as those of a man serving as a housecleaner.
Apparently we’re not sure what to do after we “win”:
As NATO airplanes and attack helicopters struck fresh targets in Tripoli and the oil port of Brega on Sunday, senior British and American officials said there was no way of knowing how long it might take for the rebellion against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi — already in its fourth month, and the third month of NATO airstrikes — to drive him from power.
But Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, returning from a brief visit to the rebel headquarters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, hinted at concern in Western capitals about what might come after the toppling of Colonel Qaddafi. Mr. Hague said he had pressed the rebel leaders to make early progress on a more detailed plan for a post-Qaddafi government that would include sharing power with some of Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists.
In particular, Mr. Hague said, the rebels should learn from Iraq’s experience, in which a mass purge of former Saddam Hussein loyalists occurred under the American-backed program of “de-Baathification,” and shun any similar undertaking. The reference was to a policy that many analysts believe helped to propel years of insurgency in Iraq by stripping tens of thousands of officials of jobs.
Not that we know when we are going to win, anyway:
Mr. Gates also said there were increasing signs that Colonel Qaddafi’s grip on power was faltering, a view encouraged by a hastening roll call of high-level defectors, the weakening of the Qaddafi forces by the airstrikes, food and fuel shortages in Qaddafi-held cities, and scattered signs that Qaddafi opponents are becoming increasingly restive in some districts of Tripoli.
Also, the rebels have made significant advances in recent days, capturing small towns in the mountains southwest of Tripoli that have majority Berber populations, a group historically hostile to Colonel Qaddafi.
“I think you see signs that the regime is getting shakier by the day,” Mr. Gates said. “It’s just a question when everybody around Qaddafi decides it’s time to throw in the towel and throw him under the bus.”
We’ll file that under “unknown unknowns.” However, the regime is “shakier,” so I’m sure we’re about to turn the corner. Another six months, maybe.
arguingwithsignposts
Did you ask Mr. Flat World if you had permission to use his Friedman Units(tm)?
mellowjohn
i read in the chicago sun-times this morning that it’s mommar’s 69th birthday. maybe they’re helping him celebrate.
gex
Time for more Friedman Units, I guess. How appropriate that the shorthand for that is FU.
Nemesis
Mission Accomplished v2.0
Yutsano
I’m just wondering: when was the last American sortie into Libya again?
Scott P.
I think 2 years is a reasonable time frame.
KG
I have much more of a problem with the idea that “we” don’t know what we’re going to do after we “win” than the fact that we don’t know when we’re going to win. We have the basic formula in the form of the Marshall Plan, why can’t someone with a high pay grade in either the Pentagon or Foggy Bottom get their shit together and come up with something similar before we start blowing shit up?
Speaking of… I thought the government had all these plans laying around in the event that some unforeseen event happen, like Canada or Mexico invading? How about something more realistic, like “we’re going to get drawn into an internal or regional conflict in the Mideast because we can’t help ourselves”?
srv
John, I’m starting to question your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Keith
Whoever #3 is in the Ghadaffi regime is fuuuucked.
Ian
Canada…invading
Nah, we’re just sitting back and waiting for secessions. Washington, Oregon, Maine, Vermont — they’d all make fine provinces, if a bit right wing by our standards.
srv
We are so completely fucked.
Villago Delenda Est
@KG:
Waaaaaaaay too soshulist for the modern American establishment to even think of implementing. It’s “nation building” without the huge private contract payouts to the usual outfits like Halliburton. Won’t work, can’t work, no precedent for it ever working. (Kindly ignore the entire history of post-war Europe while mulling over the previous sentence.)
cbear
Why so sceptical Cole? I think things have gotten so bad inside
IraqLibya, from the standpoint of theIraqiLibyan people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.srv
Whut? Maybe there is a sliver of light. WTF, is the disaster that Austan always has been and always will be escaping before it gets too bad or does this presage a policy change?
beltane
@Ian. Canadian utility companies are buying up all our little Vermont utility companies, which is OK with me as our experience with a certain Louisiana energy company has been less than gratifying.
Yutsano
@Ian: Seattle couldn’t possibly be as bad as Manitoba. Then again we do have some right-wing loonies east of the mountains who would lurve them some Stephen Harper. But Boeing and Microsoft are worth the trade alone.
AdamK
Military geniuses like Mr. Gates have ways to quantify degrees of shakiness that ordinary folks don’t know about.
DBrown
Only one issues matters: money. When that runs down to a specific low level, he loses – period.
El Cid
I don’t think it really matters; whatever might happen afterwards just wasn’t something people were that interested in talking about when it was time to approve the military intervention.
Lol
Except for the fact we have no troops in combat now and there’s an actual rebel group with popular support doing the fighting, our involvement in Libya is just like Iraq.
taylormattd
What is your point here? Honestly, I can’t figure it out. What is your position? That there can never be a NATO action? If not, I’d like to know when you think such an action is ok.
Because this post is nothing but a series of blockquotes, with a couple of contentless, snotty segues.
I assume (had you not been a total wingnut at the time) you would have been making the same snotty, “oh-look,-we-are-still-bombing-weeks-later,-SUUUUURE-this-action-will-end” type of posts about Clinton’s actions in Serbia and Bosnia?
Does this not occur to you? Have you never thought that it is possible this NATO action in Libya is not like Iraq or Afghanistan?
Fred
Still waiting for John Galt Cole to write an article about the predator missile strike that took out one of the top 5 Al Qaeda. Reportedly the guy who was going to replace Bin Laden as the leader.
Funny how war stories that don’t fit Coles “all war is bad and we should stop all of them forever” agenda never get mentioned.
Lol
Also, my guess is gadhaffi is gone in a month.
Trurl
You’ll be pressing for Obama’s impeachment over this illegal war, yes?
Just Some Fuckhead
Whatever happened to Joe From Libya?
Morbo
@Lol: Russian diplomats are meeting with rebel leaders, and China is “reaching out” to them. I’d say the fix is in.
Gustopher
I can only assume that the bunker was violating the no-fly zone.
Unless we were dropping bunker busters on plain old buildings, in which case I guess the buildings were too tall and violating the no-fly zone.
Les Warner
B52 baby way up in the sky…
Virginia Highlander
I like comparing John Cole’s take on Libya to that of Prof Juan Cole, especially since the latter actually seems to have some knowledge of ME and NAf affairs.
Ghanima Atreides
Look Cole. How about after “we win” we just GTFO and quit having delusions about shaping the rebel government once they take power? WE CANT PUSH MISSIONARY DEMOCRACY ON MUSLIM STATES.
Its impossible.
When muslims are DEMOCRATICALLY empowered to vote, they vote for Islam.
We abdicated ANY moral authority and influence over their style of government when we propped dictators and occupied Iraq and droned wedding parties and children gathering firewood.
lemme ax you, how many churches and synagogues have been built during the Epic Fail of the Manifest Destiny of Westernstyle/Judeoxian Democracy in Iraq aka Operation Iraqi “Freedom”?
NONE!
How many converts to westernstyle democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion?
NONE!
Iraq has shariah in the constitution and is planting a boot in America’s fat white judeoxian ass in December. The three largest airbases ever built on foreign soil by the US (at a ginormous cost in taxpayer dollahs) get TURNED OVER TO THE IRAQIs.
Wake up dude.
We spent a TRILLION dollahs and 7000 soldier lives FOR NOTHING.
When Qaddafi falls we are gunna open a bigger embassy in Tripoli and offer advice, aid, and trading partnerships.
Because after the Arab Spring, the American Fall.
We dont get to TELL everyone in MENA what to do anymore.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: I dunno. Maybe he took my suggestions literally and is “in country” as we speak.
Boy, am I going to feel foolish if he shows up back here with Gaddafi’s balls in his pocket. Prolly never hear the end of it.
cbear
@Lol:
“Lol”, huh?
You’re not very inventive, are you?
Corner Stone
@Ghanima Atreides:
I’m ok with this as long as some time in the middle we still get to have Bikini Summer.
Corner Stone
@cbear:
Knowing joe from LoL as well as I do, I feel pretty confident stating he’s in a command bunker somewhere, exhaustively lecturing NATO on the accepted and proper way to deliver ordnance on target.
Tsulagi
Would be nice if they’d given that a little more thought in advance before rushing to whack their new Saddam.
Mike in NC
Fixed
Corner Stone
Dang Cole, you woke up with a few hard core “It’s OK If It’s Your Guy Doing It” commenters.
cbear
@Corner Stone: Our psyops guys prolly have Joe in some secret location making audio tapes they’ll use to drive poor Moammar to suicide once they trap him in a spider hole.
El Cid
@Lol: I thought (wrongly, I presume now) he might have taken the AU proposal already, I mean, in person.
It still might be the route, given that the US and 4 of the 5 UNSC countries (not China) appear to be backing the AU as the organization through which next moves should be taken.
Many African nations (well, at least governments and military though often rebel forces) received Libyan largesse, and the leadership greatly fears Western military and economic intervention and see things like Libya as a precedent whether or not such direct civilian threats are present.
But by now they realize that this is not going to ever be resumed by Qaddafi, and they’ve never actually liked him. Independent and defiant of the West, sure, and Libya often blamed for things it didn’t do. But he was also pompous, megalomaniacal, and just plain loony on a big stage.
So many more of the AU nations think it’s time for him to go.
The AU was the major force involved in negotiating peace and a currently holding independence for Southern Sudan from the Sudanese leader al-Bashir, charged (maybe convicted, I’m not looking it up) by the ICC of crimes against humanity for slaughtering civilians in SS / Darfur.
And the Sudanese forces were backed by Qaddafi, by the way.
So at least one interminable situation was able to be negotiated to settlement, though if this example were followed in Libya, it would likely include some type of partition as an option. I guess.
El Cid
@Tsulagi: Reporting before the initiation of the UN (US-UK-Fr) military intervention held that one of the major concerns of the Obama administration was a fear of the sort of chaotic Northern African civil war raging on like so many which happened in the last several decades, since they are would hugely destabilize the entire region.
Nutella
Or what “win” even means in Libya, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. How will we know if and when we won in any of those wars?
We won’t. There is no such thing as ‘winning’ an invasion of a country on another continent except a) making it a permanent colony, or b) declaring victory and going home.
If we don’t want to do the colony thing then we can go home RIGHT NOW.
Anyone who has any ideas about other end games needs to define ‘win’ in detail in a way that can be used to make a yes/no decision about ending the thing. They haven’t done it and they never will. Perpetual violence is our only policy.
4jkb4ia
@Just Some Fuckhead:
He was seen at LG&M the other day.
Just Some Fuckhead
@4jkb4ia:
Good to know he can still access the internet from whatever forward post he occupies in the war on brown people.
BigSwami
And no mention yet of the Cult reference in the title today? I personally enjoyed it. War, she’s a whore, indeed.
Ghanima Atreides
@El Cid: and also al-Qaradawi and the Muslim Brotherhood issued a death fatwa on Qaddafi’s ass.
Some brother is going to want to collect on all that hasanat.
Ghanima Atreides
@Nutella: well, since we are gettin kicked out of Iraq in December and may have to leave A-stan via helos from the rooftops of Kabul, I think Obama is just trying to build a good relationship with the only incoming Arab Spring government he can. We are kinda screwed in Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, etc. because of the war on
terrorislam, and because all those governments have or will have islamist majority parties.Turkey and Iran already doan liek us, and Pakistan is burning American flags in the street.
Libya is our only hope.
;)
Ghanima Atreides
@Corner Stone: well…are you ok wid this kind of Bikini Summer?
Because that is the only kind we are likely to get.
Corner Stone
@Ghanima Atreides: For what little it is worth, Gaddafi is vowing to stay in the country alive or dead.
He’s vowing to fight it down to the last drop. Showmanship, bluster, or crazy real idea.
Corner Stone
@Ghanima Atreides: Boobs, not bombs.
mechanical jacobin
The last ten years have made me skeptical as hell of war efforts, even flirting with outright pacifism. But from everything I’ve seen (and granted, this is primarily through Al Jazeera and arab dissident blogs), the vast majority of the Libyan people support these air strikes. And from what I can tell from reports in the past few days, Qaddafi’s regime is really teetering on the edge.
Is it so insane to think Libya really is fundamentally different from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Ghanima Atreides
@Corner Stone: he’ll be dead then. al-Qaeda bombed Saleh’s headquarters and almost killed him. IMHO, even the Saud monarchy will fall to democracy eventually.
Social media will empower the people.
There are two reasons the arab spring is stalled for a while in KSA.
One– Mecca and Medina. The legitimacy of islamic history and the House of Saud as the legacy of the title Defender of the Faithful.
And two– KSA has as much as 25% of the worlds oil reserves and can pretty much set the price of oil.
@mechanical jacobin: yes Libya is really different from Iraq and A-stan. Because this time the islamists are on the same side as America. Qaddafi outlawed the MB just like Mubarak.
Obama is trying to be on the right side of history this time.
Corner Stone
@Ghanima Atreides: You forgot to mention KSA proactively bribing the hell out of their populace to the tune of thousands of dollars.
No one is tossing the House of Saud out of power. You want to see someone bring the rain?
mechanical jacobin
@Ghanima Atreides: Why do you keep talking about the protestors in every Arab country like they’re jihadis? Evidence seems to show these movements have been overwhelmingly secular, even in Libya (lesser so in Yemen). Where’s your evidence to the contrary?
slightly_peeved
So, anyone answered Yutsano’s question yet? Any examples of US pilots flying over Libya, or US troops in Libya, in the last couple of months?
I don’t get why people talk about what “we” are doing in Libya. If you’re not British or French or Italian (or maybe Canadian), it’s really more of a “they” than a “we” at this point.
Ghanima Atreides
@mechanical jacobin: BULLSHIT
Every Arab Spring prostest is a combination ot students and islamists seeking common cause.
Tunisia.
Egypt.
Ghanima Atreides
@slightly_peeved: dumbass, we have a joint training Spec Ops training mission with Egypt.
Read al-Jazeerha sometime instead of the useless american fight-promoter press.
Ghanima Atreides
@mechanical jacobin: Yemen
Jordan
mechanical jacobin
Well of course there are Islamists involved. But they’re in the minority. Do they make the entire movements illegitimate?
Ghanima Atreides
@mechanical jacobin: Syria
Morroco
Ghanima Atreides
@mechanical jacobin: they are not in the minority, retard.
77.2% of egyptians just voted for shariah law.
Yes, the movements are LEGIT. When muslims are democratically empowered to vote, THEY VOTE FOR SHARIAH.
Consent of the governed, dude.
Ghanima Atreides
@Corner Stone: crazy.
Qaddafi cannot survive without patronage.
The Arab League, Russia, and China have already rejected his overtures.
Chad and the Norks are not going to save him.
mechanical jacobin
@Ghanima Atreides: Dude, calm down.
El Cid
@Ghanima Atreides: One problem with citing the March referendum vote as a demonstration of support for Shari’a law is that it was a yes or no vote on an entire list of Constitutional reforms, including such things as requirements for Presidential candidates, who would review elections, and so forth.
The referendum and the Amendments within were written by a hand-appointed committee from the Army’s Supreme Command, the body which has been the power behind the government of Egypt for decades.
The Committee openly announced that it would not be touching the issue of Article 2, that this referendum would be focused on matters regarding primarily qualifications for office, limits on governmental power, judicial processes so related, and elections and voting.
To portray this vote as merely a referendum on keeping Article 2 intact is ridiculous, either here or by various Islamist organizations there. Maybe beyond ridiculous.
Did anyone really imagine that with no government and a bare ability to organize governmental agencies outside the army there would spontaneously be an amendment repealing Shari’a law on the referendum aimed at actually trying to lay down the rules of how a government could be formed?
If this referendum had been used to settle a key and extremely contentious religious issue, do you think there would now be the slightest chance that any system of new governance regulation and elections would now be in place?
No, there would be chaos, no rules, divisions, battles in the street, and so on. But, you know, since Article 2 wasn’t removed ZOMG EGYPTIANS JES VOTED TO LOVE SHARI’A LAW AND HAVE ITS BABIES.
Many, many people worried that this might be the only opportunity in who knew how long to impose rules and processes and more trustworthy governmental authorities which could lead to a stable Egyptian government out of what is in so many ways post-revolutionary chaos.
Voters did not choose what Amendments were or were not included. There was no option to vote for anything which would repeal Article 2 on Shari’a law.
Here is some of what was actually on the referendum people voted yes or no on, the one available for them to vote on, the one which existed:
Article 77: Limiting the terms a president can serve to two consecutive terms, each four years only.
Article 88: The juridical system is responsible for monitoring the election process.
Article 93: would give the highest appeal court the power to rule on challenges to disputed parliamentary races, whereas before only the parliament could decide.
Article 139: The president must appoint a vice-president within 60 days of the start of the term
Article 148: would impose new restrictions on the president declaring a state of emergency, including requiring the approval of a parliamentary majority, and says it cannot exceed six months unless it is extended through a referendum.
(Article 179): would be canceled. The article allows the president to use military courts for “terror” cases even for civilians.
(Article 189): Require the newly elected parliament to write a new constitution within 60 days.
Ghanima Atreides
@El Cid: yeah, but the clergy TOLD the population to vote for the referendum or risk secularization and missionary invasions.
Egypt is 90% muslim. 84% of egyptians favor the death penalty for apostasy. 95% of egyptians believe there should be moar Islam in government.
shariah is the law of the land in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Egypt, all countries that VOTE.
i know it hurrts you fee-fees to be so rejected but when muslims are DEMOCRATICALLY empowered to vote, they vote for shariah.
How many converts to either missionary democracy or xianity has OIF and OEF netted?
ZERO.
I know this is difficult for you to understand, but the Generous Quran forbids the proselytizing of the poor and ignorant. Freedom of speech legalizes proselytization of all, including the poor and ignorant.
Therefore freedom of speech and shariah are not compatible, and therefore freedom of speech and al-Islam are NOT compatible.
Islam is EGT immune to xian proselytization, because of how it evolved.
Islam is an uninvadable strategy.
The xian killer-app of preaching and evangelizing for converts DOESN’T WORK on muslims.
Just look at Iraq and A-stan.
Ghanima Atreides
@mechanical jacobin: i gave you evidence.
im sick of christian triumphalism and western culture evangelists.
sure it would be great to have freedom of speech and freedom of religion in islamic countries.
BUT IT CAN’T BE DONE.
And if you want proof, we are gettin’ booted out of Iraq in december without building even a single saddleback megachurch…after 8 years, a trillion dollars and 7000 dead american soldiers.
They. Don’t. Want. Our. Culture.
and they would rather die than have it crammed down their throats.
El Cid
@Ghanima Atreides: Listen, Makewi:
You have a terminal problem of literally not understanding sentences.
I challenge you, actually, to find in my comment where I would be opposed to Shari’a law in Egypt.
I mean, in that comment.
Show me.
I could be arguing you were an idiot in your analysis of the vote — and you were — but you need to prove that my comment contained any condemnation of Shari’a law, or of Islam.
Or for that matter, show where that comment recommended a secular government.
You can’t, and won’t, except for the fact that as always you’ll answer some other question which appears to you in your head, and you’ll use as evidence some sort of internal finger painting which makes you think it was something I said.
Is it your contention that if one does not see the March referendum as being about Shari’a law in Egypt that one is therefore anti-Islam?
Then what would one do in the case of a Muslim who says he voted for the referendum, but because of its actual contents, not because of its lack of change to Article 2?
Is that Muslim suddenly an anti-Islam crusader?
Where in my comment do I explicitly — in words, not in your head — oppose Shari’a law?
Where in my comment do I explicitly — in words, not in your head — endorse secular government in Egypt?
Don’t worry about what’s in my head. Just answer the question based on what’s on the page, right here, right now.
Ghanima Atreides
alternatively and possibly preferably, they would like to kill as many crusaders and crusader servants and crusader allies as they can.
Ghanima Atreides
@El Cid: im not Makewi.
where did i say that? shariah law is the consent of the governed in egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood TOLD the electorate that a vote against the referendum was a vote to overturn shariah.
I do not care if you like or dislike shariah.
ca m’ete egal.
Islamic jurisprudence (shariah) is simply what muslims want, and what they will vote for when given the chance to vote.
Mandramas
@Ghanima Atreides: You should play Assasin Creed I, sister.
slightly_peeved
@Ghanima Atreides:
I’d say the dumbass is the person who doesn’t know what “couple of months” means.
Ghanima Atreides
@slightly_peeved: you asked if there were boots on the ground. WTF is the CIA and Spec Ops? Sneakers?
Ghanima Atreides
@Mandramas: salaams brother.
It is is incredibly frustrating how westerners think about Islam.
In evo theory of culture Islam evolved FROM christianity, and proselytization resistance EVOLVED as a response to the xian killer-app of proselytization.
But defense against proselytization reflex also renders Islam uninvadable as a CSS (culturally stable strategy), and that is why missionary democracy failed to take hold in Iraq and A-stan.
Western culture evangelists can rave about the glories of free speech and freemarket capitalism all they want, but as long as Iraq is 97% muslim and A-stan is 99% muslim, missionary democracy cannot penetrate the electorate in either country.
And n/e ways freemarket capitalism is a lie, and it is killing the west.
THE
@Ghanima Atreides:
I think there is a lot that could be said about this both positively and negatively.
Let me say that I can understand why you see it that way, but to me, it is a product of the particular slice of time you are living in.
To those of us who knew the Islamic world, in the years after decolonization, and who saw how much secularism and socialism became dominant themes in the MENA region, it’s just not as convincing to us, as it is to you.
Think of Egypt with Nasser, or even Ghaddafi or Saddam — that first generation of post-decolonization radical leaders, they were all secularized socialists. They sided with the Soviet side in the Cold War. Many of those first generation of leaders were educated in the West, and/or in Moscow, and they seemed to absorb the most radical revolutionary ideas of the Left.
I think two things changed. The first was the fall of the Soviet Union. It discredited the socialist revolutionary model.
The second thing was the rise of the superconservative, superwealthy, Islamic petrostates, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In their own ways both of these two states have used their oil wealth to spread the influence of their own brands of “revolutionary reaction”. So, for instance, everywhere you get Salafist-Wahabi influenced mosques and madrasses, rejecting non-Islamic models.
So, I would argue, the current world is not really anything innate in Islam. It is a product of a particular set of circumstances. The oil boom in these superconservative states, and the fall of the Soviet revolutionary model.
A mere generation ago, the Muslim world was far more open to foreign ideas. People like Yasser Arafat were thought of as quasi-communist revolutionaries, long before they became “Islamic”.
A cynical person might say: As long as Moscow funded them they were Marxist. As the funding switched to KSA they became “Islamic”.
THE
Whoops I forgot about the Soshulist word I am being moderated. Help.
THE
@Ghanima Atreides:
I’m reposting this because I’m stuck in moderation.
I think there is a lot that could be said about this both positively and negatively.
Let me say that I can understand why you see it that way, but to me, it is a product of the particular slice of time you are living in.
To those of us who knew the Islamic world, in the years after decolonization, and who saw how much secularism and socia1ism became dominant themes in the MENA region, it’s just not as convincing to us, as it is to you.
Think of Egypt with Nasser, or even Ghaddafi or Saddam — that first generation of post-decolonization radical leaders, they were all secularized socia1ists. They sided with the Soviet side in the Cold War. Many of those first generation of leaders were educated in the West, and/or in Moscow, and they seemed to absorb the most radical revolutionary ideas of the Left.
I think two things changed. The first was the fall of the Soviet Union. It discredited the socia1ist revolutionary model.
The second thing was the rise of the superconservative, superwealthy, Islamic petrostates, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In their own ways both of these two states have used their oil wealth to spread the influence of their own brands of “revolutionary reaction”. So, for instance, everywhere you get Salafist-Wahabi influenced mosques and madrasses, rejecting non-Islamic models.
So, I would argue, the current world is not really anything innate in Islam. It is a product of a particular set of circumstances. The oil boom in these superconservative states, and the fall of the Soviet revolutionary model.
A mere generation ago, the Muslim world was far more open to foreign ideas. People like Yasser Arafat were thought of as quasi-communist revolutionaries, long before they became “Islamic”.
A cynical person might say: As long as Moscow funded them they were Marxist. As the funding switched to KSA they became “Islamic”.
Chris
@Ghanima Atreides:
On dit “ça m’est égal,” ma cocotte. Si tu tiens tant a épater la galerie avec tes langues étrangères, je te conseille vivement d’approfondir tes connaissances. Parce que pour ceux qui savent vraiment les parler, ça ne nous épate pas du tout!
Chris
@THE:
I think you’re missing the biggest piece of the puzzle: the repeated defeats of the Arab regimes in their wars with Israel.
Nasser and the other Arab nationalists were popular because the people felt that they gave them their dignity back (much like many, many other nationalist movements, from Sun Yat Sen to Fidel Castro and from the Jacobins to the Nazis). That popularity faded when their nemesis, Israel, continued to kick their ass.
The 1967 war, especially, was eagerly anticipated as the one where the Arabs would finally right the wrongs that had been done to them (not unlike France in the buildup to World War One). This time, they wouldn’t be hindered by the corrupt monarchies who failed in 1948, and this time, they wouldn’t be caught off guard like they were in 1956; this time, Israel would fall, and the secularized, soshulist new governments like Nasser’s would be the ones who led the Arab world to victory.
But then, something inexplicable happened: they lost. And in 1973, they tried again and lost again. Arab nationalism hadn’t kept its promises, and that did a lot to discredit it. That’s where political Islam stepped in. People started whispering that if a tiny, puny state based on religion could defeat the powerful armies of modernizers like Nasser, then maybe the Arab world should start looking to religion rather than politics as the answer. That opinion became much louder after the Lebanon wars in which Hezbollah, a religious fundamentalist movement, had more success against Israel than any of the regular armies (a lesson reinforced again after the 2006 war more recently).
So over the 1970s, Arab nationalism fell and political Islam rose. Other factors mattered too: Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel, the way Arab regimes slowly seemed to turn into Western puppets rather than the anti-colonial revolutionaries they’d once been, and their failure to deliver the prosperity, equality and efficiency they’d promised. But emotionally, the 1967 war was probably the moment when it all started coming down, and the failure to deal with Israel was the single biggest contributor to Arab nationalism’s downfall.
Mandramas
@Ghanima Atreides: Except for the reconquista in Spain, Sicily and the Balkans, I don’t remember any other case of the de-muslinization of the population, and even those case were more or less muslims withdrawals.
THE
Yes, perhaps I shouldn’t exclude the influence of Israel Chris. Point taken.
Chris
@THE:
I do think there’s a lot to this as well:
The one part of the ideology that doesn’t change? Nationalism (or tribalism, depending on what you call it).
This was one of the better insights in the movie “Munich.” When the Israeli team are pretending to be Euroterrorists and talking to a Palestinian in a safe house, the man admits to Avner that nationalist movements like the Palestinians, the Irish, or the Basques pretend to care about Marxism, worldwide revolution and all that, but they don’t. They’ll say whatever they need to go to get money and arms, but all they care about is their own homeland.
And I think you can make the same distinction today between Islamist movements based in a particular nation or community (like Hamas or Hezbollah), and the stateless, internationalist ones like al-Qaeda.
Ghanima Atreides
@Chris: tant pis, j’ai suelement ‘schoolgirl french’, parce-que j’ai etudie la francais a ma lycee.
merci mille fois pour votre gentillements des corrections.
;)
No, that is wrong too. Wahhabism IS Arab nationalism. al-Q are Arab nationalists, not a “global terrorist” movement. They want the fucking crusaders out of MENA, out of muslim lands. Islamic terrorism is a defense against proselytization reflex against colonialism.
There is no sucha thing as ‘political islam’ because there is no separation of church and state. The only jurisprudence is islamic jurisprudence, there is no secular law, its all shariah.
What to stop islamic terrorism? GTFO the arabian peninsula.
Big White Christian Bwana go home.
Ghanima Atreides
@THE:
Spock.
Doesnt matter, really. The proof of my statement is Iraq. 8 years, a trillion dollars, 7000 dead american soldiers and 750000+ dead muslim Iraqi civilians later, where are the converts to missionary democracy?
There aren’t any.
Where are the infrastructures to support secular democracy?
There aren’t any.
Where are the new megachurches and synagogues?
There aren’t any.
Where are the secular universities and lawschools?
There aren’t any.
And Iraq is planting a boot in America’s ass in December and keeping the airfields.
Islamic culture is immunized against western culture because of defense against proselytization response. it is what it is. it doesn’t matter if you view it positively or negatively.
THE
@Ghanima Atreides:
In 2000-2010 it can’t happen.
In 1950-1970 or so, it did happen.
Secularism and Socialist ideas spread widely through MENA and beyond.
Look — let me show you an absolute wonder:
Women in Kabul University in the 1950s and 1960s.
Freakin’ Afghanistan Ghanima.
You have no idea how different and more-progressive the Muslim world was in the post-colonial era.
Not democracy, no. But socialism and secular-progressivism.
THE
@Ghanima Atreides:
(reposted, moderated, I keep forgetting Soshulist)
In 2000-2010 it can’t happen.
In 1950-1970 or so, it did happen.
Secularism and Socia1ist ideas spread widely through MENA and beyond.
Here Look—let me show you an absolute wonder:
Women in Kabul University in the 1950s and 1960s.
Freakin’ Afghanistan Ghanima.
You have no idea how different and more-progressive the Muslim world was in the post-colonial era.
Not democracy, no.
But socia1ism and secular-progressivism.
Ghanima Atreides
@THE: but so fricking what?
Egypt has soc1al1sm in the constitution to this day.
You CANNOT change the religion of 1.7 billion people by force when that religion is EGT immune to proselytization and proselytization is the only tool you have.
Which is what that fucking WEC retard Bush tried to do.
Soc1al1sm is far more compatible with al-Islam than missionary democracy.
THE
@Ghanima Atreides:
I’d go further than that, GA.
I’d say democracy is almost irrelevant to progress in early modernizing states.
It is social revolution (the overthrow of feudalism),
and secular revolution (the emergence of rationality over magical thinking),
that is the key to modernization.
The right in America has it exactly the wrong way round.
DPirate
It’s OK. Methamphetamine, SuperMarts and poisoned water for everyone!
@THE: No. It is an exploitable workforce that is most key to modernization. That means making more poor people and keeping them from supporting themselves somehow. Just like we did here.
THE
Whatever you say DPirate.