Globalization, Religious Commitment and Non-State Actors
BY Herschel Smith
16 years, 9 months ago
The recent British airport bombing suspect, a highly-educated doctor, was also an eager religious radical, calling into question again the paradigm of disenfranchisement as the motivation behind such terrorists.
Armed with off-the-charts intelligence, Bilal Abdullah entered this world with the kind of family pedigree and privilege few Iraqis enjoy.
But he may have intended to leave this world a martyr in the name of radical Islam.
On Saturday, Abdullah was charged with planting two car bombs in London and riding shotgun in the botched suicide car-bomb attack on Glasgow International Airport late last month.
Investigators in Britain and Australia are questioning seven other suspects in custody.
The case may further dispel a still widely held Western perception that Islamic radicalism is the province of the disenfranchised and uneducated.
Shouts of ‘Allah, Allah’ could be heard as the suspects were apprehended. The view that poverty, disenfranchisement and dislocation is beind global “jihad” is popular and in vogue. The issue of religious motivation is behind the dispute discussed in (1) Religion and Insurgency: A Response to Dave Kilcullen, (2) Smith Responds, and (3) More on Dave Kilcullen vs. Smith. Kilcullen claims that the insurgency in Iraq is “entirely political.” I have argued to the contrary, i.e., that there are at least some of the insurgents who fight due to religious motivation. The seminal thesis that guides Kilcullen’s thinking was outlined several years ago in a monograph entitled Complex Warfighting.
Globalisation, during the last decades of the twentieth century, has created winners and losers. A global economy and an embryonic global cultural are developing, but this has not been universally beneficial. Poverty, disease and inequality remain major problems for much of the world, and the global economy has been seen as favouring the West while failing developing nations. The developing global culture is perceived as a form of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism: corroding religious beliefs, eroding the fabric of traditional societies, and leading to social, spiritual and cultural dislocation. This has created a class of actors – often non-state actors – who oppose globalisation, its beneficiaries (the developed nations of the ‘West’) and, particularly, the U.S.
But the problem with this view is the same as the one with the claim by Congressman Ron Paul who believes that American hegemony, imperialism and interventionism led to the events of 9/11. It simply doesn’t comport with the facts. Prior to 9/11 U.S. forces had armed the Muslims in Afghanistan to enable them to drive the Soviet Union from their midst, saved the Muslims in Bosnia from extermination, assisted the Shi’a in the south of Iraq (due to the Southern no-fly zone), and saved the Kurdish Muslims in Northern Iraq from extermination (due to the Northern no-fly zone).
In an interesting discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal, the subject of religion comes up again, except in (first) pejorative terms, and then in clearer terms. First, commenter Mark O’Neill on justification of Operation Iraqi Freedom as being Jesus telling us to “help the poor and downtrodden.”
I wonder what the large number of non-christian Americans would think about this as a justification for national policy or strategic planning? You wouldn’t last 10 seconds in Australia trying it.
Thankfully, I have never seen anyone successfully argue a conops in our Army or security policy establishment on the basis that “Jesus would want me to do it”. Our mob tend to be a bit secular and stick to the more mundane, rather than the divine… you know, good old fashion simple things like sound military strategic planning principles.
Each man has a right to his own value-system, and O’Neill should study Good Wars by Professor Darrel Cole and expand his horizons a bit. But the comment is tantamount to saying that either (a) there has never been a national conversation in Australia about just war theory or the justification for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq, or (b) there have been such discussions, but O’Neill (and Australia) would allow any value-system into the fray but Christianity, a rather bigoted position. In either case, this is a barren world view. Finally, military strategy is not related to just war theory. It is possible to engage in a discussion of both, O’Neill’s position notwithstanding.
But Steve Metz gets it. Mr. Metz might now claim that he is misunderstood, or had a bad day, or had a little too much wine at the time, but the comment cannot be undone, and his prose is raw, thoughtful and informative.
… that illustrates what I think is THE key dilemma of the “war of ideas” against Islamic extremism: our enemies are offering their followers eternal bliss and we’re offering satellite television. But if we cannot compete in a LTG Boykinesque religious-ideological war because we are multi-faith/multi-cultural nations.
It’s really depressing, but the only long term solution I can see is radical action to wean overselves off of petroleum, disengagement from the Islamic world, and treating people from that region like we treated Soviets during the Cold War, i.e. with no expectation of unfettered rights. We haven’t reached the point of taking such admittedly adverse steps yet, but I think we’re one WMD terrorism incident away from doing so.
Ron Paul believes that we can trade with Iran, Syria and the rest of the Islamic world. But it isn’t about Christianity, per se. Whether the export is pure Christianity, the unadulterated smut and filth of Hollywood, democracy, satellite television or female suffrage, there isn’t any Western export that is acceptable to radical Islam. Not a single one.
It doesn’t have to be about religion to Western eyes for at least part of the conflict to be about religion (or a radicalized form of it). In this case, it doesn’t take two to Tango. It only takes one. Metz is right. For the Ron Paul vision of the world to work, total disengagement (viz. Patrick Buchanan) would have to occur in order to prevent all Western exports, not just religion. While Kilcullen has gotten it wrong about jihad being exclusively about poverty, he has gotten it right about globalization.
On July 10, 2007 at 5:12 pm, Dave said:
As you disagree with Ron Paul with the reason for 911, what is the reason you believe caused it. In the 911 Report by Congress http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/appendices.pdf
there is this “The Fatwa is jihad against the U.S. and British government, armies, interests, airports,and instructions and it has been given because of the U.S. and British aggression against Muslims and the Muslim land of Iraq.” dated 1999. (Caution this is not a finding but is a report by the FBI concerning its interrogation of SOUBRA a source.) And from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in May 2003 said the following,
“Their presence (troops in Saudi Arabia) there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It’s been a huge recruiting device for al-Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina.”
What caused 911?
On July 10, 2007 at 10:15 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Radical Islam caused 9/11. We could have all been sitting on our hands inside the contiguous 48. It would have made no difference. There isn’t any Western export that is acceptable to radical Islam. Their stated desire is to create worldwide Islamic rule. This means us. If we believe that the only thing we have to do to get a pass from this belief system is to leave them alone, they we aren’t listening to the words that come out of their own mouths.
On July 11, 2007 at 3:59 am, Dominique R. Poirier said:
Hello, Herschel,
I am reading Understanding Terror Networks, by Marc Sageman. Marc Sageman is former C.I.A. psychatrist and his book is a psychological study of terrorist based on the biography of 172 terrorists. I learned a good deal of things from this book.
It is a must-read likely to shed further light on the matter at hand, in my opinion.
Maybe, Knowing the Enemy, by Mary Habeck, might be an enlightening reading too (I bought it already and it will be one of my next readings). Knowing the Enemy is a very serious book, accordingly. Mary Habeck is Associate Professor, School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University.
On July 11, 2007 at 7:34 am, Dave said:
Herschel,
I agree radical Islam is offensive in nature. It is like the bully picks on his neighbors, but if someone sticks a stick in his eye, they get special attention. There were 35,000 troops in Saudi Arabia (their holy land) and 15 hijackers came from SA.
On July 11, 2007 at 11:21 am, Herschel Smith said:
Dave,
I don’t find radical Islam particularly offensive. I find that they are true to their beliefs and practice what they preach. The house of Saud apparently didn’t mind the troops there in the Gulf war, so there is a difference between radical Islam and otherwise. But this is off point, like so much of this discussion. With all due respect, your failure to grasp the main point of the commentary proves my point.
I will leave the debate about whether Islam, in its essence, contains a seed of violence, to Robert Spencer and others who do a better job than I could hope to. My main thrust is the Wahhabist brand, and your fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of them is the same as Ron Paul’s misunderstanding.
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether we had troops in SA during the Gulf War, or how many, or whether we spend enough American lives and money saving Muslims around the globe from extermination at their own hands or the hands of others. To engage the discussion in this manner is to see things through Western eyes.
To believe that if we had only been better playground partners, sticking to our side of the sand box like good little boys, 9/11 would never have occurred and everyone would be getting along just fine, is utterly to miss the point of Wahhabist Islam. It isn’t about sides of the sand box. In fact, we could give them our side of the sand box, and the problem would still not go away.
Again, I am not speaking to Islam in general, for that is a far more complicated discussion for another time. But speaking to radical, Wahhabist Islam, it is not just about your and my land. It is about our laws, our behavior, and whom we worship.
See Dave, Wahhabism is not on the defensive, and nothing will change if we were to bring every troop home from every deployment on earth. It is on the offensive. It doesn’t care that Ron Paul wants to exchange goods, services and other stuff with them, playing nice in the sand box and treating them as nice trading partners. They don’t want our stuff, and they don’t care about Ron Paul or the fact that he wants to be friends. There is nothing that the West produces that Wahhabism finds acceptable. They want to eradicate us and the society that produces the things that are so offensive to Wahhabism. Wahhabism wants to move radical Islam forward by the “power of the sword.” Globalization simply gives them more impetus and opportunity. It reminds them that sticking to their corner of the sand box isn’t protection against the influences of the West.
It isn’t about land, or troops or borders, Dave. Until you grapple with this, you will not understand the main thrust of the commentary.
Update to this comment. The following words come from Mohammed of Iraq the Model, and I couldn’t possibly say it better: “Islamists do not believe in a homeland, they believe in a ‘Dar al-Islam’ (House of Islam) that will eventually encompass the whole world. If we look at the articles written by Mr. Marwani (the consultant at the Cultural Supervision Committee of the Martyr Sadr office), and these are frequently published on the web, we see that his signature is followed by the words “From Baghdad, the occupied capital of the world.
On July 11, 2007 at 6:53 pm, Dave said:
Hershel,
I meant radical Islam is offensive in that they are on the offense. We agree in that. They hate all infidels. The House of Saud welcomes American military because they are a minority tribe and need American military equipment, training and protection to maintain control. They allow the Wahhabist
some latitude to keep some of the pressure off. All the Saud
family cares about is oil, money, and power. You need to look at the history of how the Royal family came to be. Just
gangster.
On July 12, 2007 at 12:01 am, Herschel Smith said:
On that we both agree, my friend.