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| Yet Another Take on "Root Cause" Dogma |
| 2006-09-03 |
| Yes, this article is well written and challenges conventional wisdom. However, I don't reject "root cause" dogma because it is plain and obvious that prescriptions in the unholy-Koran, form the peverse cause of Muslim terror. Muslims who agitate for the isolation of Israel - or any of the front-line states - are really advocating for Hizbollah/Hamas/Fatah/al-Qaeda aggression. And very few Muslims stray very far from the jihad party line. That is why I would criminalize ALL jihad advocacy and material support. The Leftists link Islamic-terror to so-called national-liberation movements, because Western governments won't link terror to Islam. That omission allows the Left to fill the political vacuum. The Islamic ideology is the mortal enemy of liberty and democracy, and Leftists use it to shake Western political foundations. Peaceful-islam dogma is a rhetorical prison. ...If you want to find fault with the foreign policy of the West, you do not need a PhD in international relations. It is a layman's job. The perversity of the logic which assumes for western foreign policy the complete cause of terrorism lies, in actual fact, in its complete "emptiness." For a start, we have to admit that terrorism is not limited to the Islamic variant. So that, Tamil suicide bombers cannot possibly be reacting to "Western foreign policy." Joseph Kony who professes himself a Messiah of the Jungles is an obvious East African terrorist whose appalling deeds can clearly not be linked to "Western foreign policy." The Millenarian Japanese sect that poisoned the Tokyo subway had no anti-western grievance to nurse, nor even a Western audience to ponder the meaning of its acts. Having thus agreed that terrorism across the world comes in different shapes and sizes, we are forced to focus solely on Islamic terrorism to justify our stance that Foreign policy is the causal agent in the dynamic of international terrorism. It is here that the logic completely falls apart. Why should it only be "Western foreign policy"? Presumably, Russian foreign policy is behind Chechnya? Indian foreign policy is behind Kashmir; and Philippine foreign policy is behind the Abu Sayaf insurgency in the southern archipelagoes, and its vicious manifestations in central Manila? Yet all these nations will strongly protest that these issues are matters of "domestic policy" and some will indeed balk at the idea that some notion of "foreignness" is in operation. Indeed, China, unlike Russia, so abhors that notion that the Government simply refuses to acknowledge the possibility of foreign influence on the Muslim Xingjian secessionists who have frequently resorted to the deliberate civilian targeting we usually refer to as "terrorism." Malaysia, increasingly the target of South Asian regional terrorist movements, often adopts the same insular approach. Are we then to conclude that the "foreign policy" of every country, in so far as it involves Muslims is likely to incur the wrath of international terrorists regardless whether that country designates the matter as internal or external? When faceless Islamists blow up resorts in Egypt, Turkey or apartment buildings in Saudi Arabia, as they invariably do, is it of any use to devise a long chain of causal linkages until "Western foreign policy" is reached? And even if we were to accept that logic, that international terrorists will avenge the lives of any Muslims endangered by the foreign policy of any country, in what category should we place Darfur? Here, we have a supposedly Islamic regime that kills other Muslims, admittedly of a different color, in their thousands. Where are the bombs going off in Sudanese chanceries abroad? What happens when different Islamic regimes clash? As was the case with Iran and the Taliban? How does our international terror "foreign policy" analysts determine their loyalties, and, even more crucially, how does that translate into violent action abroad... ...We should learn to see terrorism as a criminal enterprise and attack it as ruthlessly as we will any other such criminal activity that has the capacity to cause so much devastation. Else, we will soon discover that groups, of all sorts, similarly claiming to hold some grudge against East, West, North and/or South, are embarked forcefully on the terrorism business, and succeeding mightily in fueling useless disputes amongst their victims over their motives. Terrorism is what it is; let's deal with it. |
| Posted by:Snease Shaiting3550 |
| #5 Mark Z The root cause of terrorism is islam It didn't take me 5 years to learn that. It boggles the mind that we are in the minority. |
| Posted by: Snease Shaiting3550 2006-09-03 19:42 |
| #4 The root cause of nearly all of the worlds problems is the fact that Islam is childish. What is mine will always be mine. Doesn't matter if I grabbed it unfairly its mine! its mine! its mine! This applies to Andalusia, Israel, and Indonesia. Islam does not play with others. It is the spoiled brat religion that really needs a spanking and then to sit in the corner for a few centuries until they grow up. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-09-03 15:55 |
| #3 I don't reject "root cause" analysis either: one merely needs to recognize that a "root cause" analysis that doesn't mention contrary facts, or treats them with distain, is immediately suspect. IMHO, most talk about a "root cause" is just an excuse to substitute the speaker's policy preferences for those of the people they're speaking about. Thus, you had idiots claiming that the cause of 9/11 was rejection of Kyoto. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-09-03 11:59 |
| #2 The root cause of terrorism is islam. I'm still waiting for western leaders to clearly speak this inconvenient truth. |
| Posted by: Mark Z 2006-09-03 10:12 |
| #1 We should learn to see terrorism as a criminal enterprise and attack it as ruthlessly as we will any other such criminal activity that has the capacity to cause so much devastation. Good up until the above quote: The Law Enforcement model is kaput, useless, with "nation building" being the equivalent of "rehabilitation". I don't reject "root cause" analysis either: one merely needs to recognize that a "root cause" analysis that doesn't mention contrary facts, or treats them with distain, is immediately suspect. Most libs indulge in this sort of "pseudo-cause-effect analysis" because it is a pale imitation of the engineering-based real thing. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2006-09-03 08:35 |