Keys to Perception

[H2O Man]

The declassified "key judgements" of the NIE are interesting. I think DUers would do well to compare the parts of the NIE that have been made public, with other sources of information that we have had available for a longer period of time. It may be that while the declassified parts of the NIE are of value in exposing the damage the war in Iraq has done, and the lies that Bush and Cheney cling to, that it is not in and of itself something we should fully endorse as representing the democratic position.

An example of this can be found when we compare the NIE's "four underlying factors" that fuel the jihadist movement, with the six factors that Michael Scheuer lists in his book "Imperial Hubris." My goal is not to focus on the policies of any other nation or nations, other than the United States. In that context, I am curious if other DUers could identify any potentially significant differences between the NIE and the Scheuer list?

From the NIE: "Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessnes; (2) the Iraq jihad; (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims, all of which jihadists exploit."

Now from Scheuer: "Accept that we are hated, not misunderstood. The United States is hated across the Islamic world because of specific US government policies and actions. The hatred is concrete not abstract, martial not intellectual, and it will grow for the foreseeable future. While important voices in the United States claim the intent of US policy is misunderstood by Muslims, that Arabic satellite television channels deliberately distort the policy, and that better public diplomacy is the remedy, they are wrong. America is hated and attacked because Muslims believe they know precisely what the United States is doing in the Islamic world. They know partly because of bin Laden's words, partly because of satellite television, but mostly because of the tangible reality of US policy. We are at war with an al Qaeda-led, worldwide Islamist insurgency because of and to defend those policies, and not, as President Bush mistakenly has said, 'to defend freedom and all that is good and just in the world.'

"To recognize the validity of this point, always keep in mind how easy it is for Muslims to see, hear, experience, and hate the six US policies bin Laden repeatedly refers to as anti-Muslim:

-- US support for Isreal that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall.
-- US and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula.
-- US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
-- US support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants;
-- US pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low.
-- US support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments."
(pages 240-1)

What do you see as the differences between what the NIE identifies as the roots of the militant Islamic people's dislike of the US, and what Scheuer highlights? This isn't a question with "right" or "wrong" answers -- it is, rather, an attempt to help us identify a range of perceptions that may hold some of the keys to presenting the democratic party's grassroots position on ending the US war on Iraq.

Thank you for your consideration.

[Me.]

1. Do You Think * Really Believes They Are After Us Because Of Our Freedoms?

As to the differences, I think the economic aspect is important, a given example is what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon. Who would you side with, the people who are fixing your house, feeding you and providing your healthcare or those that are bombing or bulldozing your house? So many mistakes for such a long time. There is also the problem of our unilateral support of Israel, when it is surely smarter. while supporting Israel, to help the Palestinians to have a real life. You can only kick a dog so often before it turns and bites you, and if the dog is rabid with hatred......

I would also like to suggest that while the US has many sins the militant Muslims aren't completely blameless. We may never be able to have detente with them because their solution to the ills in their society is, so far, limited by violence. Violence will only beget more violence/

[H2O Man]

6. In attempting to

answer your first question, about what Bush believes about "why they hate us" .... I think that the single most important factor in his thinking about the conflict is his religious viewpoint. He believes that he is in harmony with the divine, and that the Muslims are the anti-divine.

Regarding the view of the Islamic world expressed in the four points of the NIE: it reminds me of a clip I saw on Fox News after Chavez spoke at the UN. Fox had an expert on, and this expert said that while Chavez is a clown, the US needs to take him seriously for a couple of reasons. First, he likes Castro, and second, his country is sitting on a significant portion of the world's oil supply.

It doesn't matter if we like Castro or not: it is not our decision to make, if Chavez likes Castro or not. And we need to understand that Chavez's country is sitting on their own oil supply. The part about "the world's oil supply" hints at a misperception, which assumes that there is a shared ownership of that oil. I think the NIE estimate has a bit of that tone to it.

[magellan]

2. H2O Man, you've been reading my mind again

Honestly, it's a scary place, don't go there! lol

Yes, when I heard the four reasons the NIE gives for the spread of terrorism, I was a bit floored. Each touches on the lucid and IMO valid reasons Scheuer gives, but tries to palm all the blame off on the Muslim world.

#4 sums up the lack of candor -- "pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims, all of which jihadists exploit." Okay, fine, but there's a hanging, unanswered question there. WHY is there pervasive anti-US sentiment among Muslims?

Scheuer goes where our 16 intelligence agencies evidently dare not tread. But we must go there. The Muslim world didn't suddenly wake up one morning and decide that today was a good day to start hating the US. There is cause and effect, and the sooner we stop ignoring that the sooner we can stop giving young Muslim men unnecessary excuses to become vicious jihadists.

[H2O Man]

7. An advantage to

Scheuer's list is that it gives people a more accurate view of why the US is becoming hated by such a large portion of the Islamic world. It isn't like we do ourselves a favor by only taking into account the minority of Muslims who might actually join a terrorist group. It is important that we develope an appreciation for why so many others who do not fit the narrow Bush-Cheney definition of "extremists" also hate the US.

[hootinholler]

22. "why so many others" also hate...

THE jihadists can't exist in a vacuume. Fix the hate, fix the terror.

Simple, really.

-Hoot

[kohodog]

3. I would not expect the NIE to stray to far from the imperial worldview

that is at the heart of both parties. That is why is is somewhat remarkable that the NIE slams the Bush mantra that we are safer because of Iraq. The whole concept of safety is kind of weird to begin with. We all engage in dangerous activities every day (crossing the street), but this administration has wielded the sabre of fear quite effectively, to the point that people in middle America are worried that a jihadist attack that will kill them. Frankly they'd do better to look both ways before crossing the street.

The fact is that this NIE, at least the small portion released only addresses very general causes. I would not really expect the intelligence agencies to promote a worldview that might allow us to begin to shift toward a solution. The only solution being promoted by the Whitehouse is to kill all the terrorists, which is, on it's face patently ridiculous. Any real solutions might lie in dialog and education of both sides. A question I would pose is whether a democratic take over of the house and/or senate would substantially shift the dialog.

[H2O Man]

8. Well said.

I'm concerned that a group of democrats who hold opinions on Iraq that are fairly close to that of former democrat Joseph Lieberman will use the NIE to try to justify their position on keeping the American military there.

[Annces]

4. It seems like the difference is that one view

looks at the general Muslim culture, and how they are not as advanced as us, and are resentful about that.

And the other view takes a more political view of things, and specific ways we conflict with them regarding other superpowers or exploitation of oil-rich countries.

We are patronizing toward middle east culture, as the Pope recently made very public. The middle east culture does seem to me, to be very dangerous for women. So in that regard, I do think they are stagnating.

[DemReadingDU]

5. Evening kick

[Straight Shooter]

9. I don't think the Muslims misunderstand the American government at all.

I also don't believe they misunderstand people who fervently support the bush administration.

As for the rest of us, their attitude is probably, "Well, too bad, you're collateral damage if we attack." Ironic, as that's exactly the way bush feels about his enemies. Baghdad's population was over 50 percent children under the age of 15 the night of "shock and awe," yet bush pumped his fist and said "Feels good" when the bombs began to drop.

No, they don't hate us for our freedoms. They hate some of us for our attitude.

[bonito]

10. Cripe, another bookmark tonight

But really, thanks!

[EFerrari]

11. The NIE has a specific audience and it tries to speak in their language.

It's amazing how disemboded it is. "Entrenched grievances" spring full grown from nowhere. The "Iraq jihad" also is born full bodied from nothing? We know better. There was no jihad in Iraq before we incited one. The "slow pace" of economic reform might be near to accurate but as most of us know next to nothing about that culture, we are in no position to judge speed, let alone quality of growth. "Anti American sentiment" is certainly real, and the administration in power has done everything to ensure that negative feeling increases on a daily basis.

If this is intelligence, please bring in the clowns.

[bleever]

15. "Spontaneous generation" is cause

attributed, before there was real understanding, to why maggots grew on meat. They just...grew there, and turned into flies.

Science stepped forward when it was recognized that the maggots grew from eggs planted by flies onto the meat.

In retrospect, it seems like a ridiculously obvious thing. Yet in the 21st century, we are asked to believe that terrorism springs from nowhere.

Great analysis, and thanks.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

17. HI there, bleever!

We've got a whole lot of "spontaneous generation" going on, don't we?

:hi:

[bleever]

19. Bonus: the ideological tie-in to how R's treat the "root causes" of crime

"Hey, who the heck knows why those people are bad! We just need to be tougher than they are! Even if they're hippies, or pacificists, or leftists, or arguable people, or even the mildly contentious, or those that clear their throats at suspicious moments..."

/rant


:hi:

[Spiffarino]

12. Interesting how the Intelligence community's evaluations remain consistent

...and how the Republican Establishment distorts it. Scheuer spent almost three decades studying the ME and South Asia. He may be a warmongering asshole, but at least he gets what is going on there.

Not so the Bushies and their enablers in Congress. They are at war with reality itself.

[ms liberty]

13. Interesting to see those two descriptions side by side, and quite telling

The NIE depersonalizes their four underlying factors so thoroughly that one would think those factors spring from nowhere without any justification whatsoever. It addresses dispassionately the effect of our policies, without any mention of the cause of those policies. The writing itself seems to absolve the US of any responsibility, and in doing so places all responsibility on the Muslim peoples and the jihadists.

Scheuer nails it, by actually pointing directly to the issues that cause the US to be hated and reviled. He looks at it from their viewpoint, not ours.

I wonder if the NIE was written that way in order to be palatable to the members of the administration that would be reading it. Certainly the people who did the research have to understand the events and policies that have led to these beliefs, and I find it hard to believe they would be that lacking in critical thinking and analysis skills.

[EFerrari]

14. Exactly. See my #11. nt

[Fovea]

16. I really think the NIE conflation and imprecision

regarding point 1 in particular I think that it is an overly large brush that says so little specifically about any given Muslim conflict with the west that it is worse than useless. Without greater specificity as to which sectors of the jihadist movement in which branches of Islam, and which national groups are being discussed, it smacks of reductionism.

While reductionism appeals to intellectually lazy presidents, it leads to further frustration and alienation among moderate factions who live in the midst of a great well of frustration, and increasingly cannot rely on the west to support the moderates' jihad, which is a struggle to embrace modernity and the western value of progress.

Looking at Iraq in specific, the policies since the 1972 oil embargo and later GW1 show a profound adherence to the Sunni cause to the great detriment of the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds. The effect of major western policy goals such as the manipulation of oil price and production levels, proxy wars sponsored by the super powers, then both promoting and ultimately punishing Saddam's Sunni based, but socialist inspired secularism created an environment where no faction of Iraqi society could look at the US as an honest broker.

After first selling Saddam chemical precursors, not discouraging his use of force to solve his border/resource disputes with Kuait, using that invasion as an excuse to invade Iraq, telling the Kurds and the Shia to rise up, then abandoning them to Saddam. There is literally no non-criminal element in Iraq that would find America trustworthy, and the British presence there is only slightly less objectionable, as memories of Allenby still echo in the collective Iraqi mind.

And the Marsh Arabs, as the latest victims of Saddam's Ataturk inspired secularism, see their entire way of life destroyed by modernity...not just by western values, but by western engineering that has drained much of their wetland home.

This contrasts dramatically with the Iranian experience, which supplanted Mossedeq's moderate regieme with the Shaw's repressive Savak. The Egyptian anger over western interference over the Suez canal, and their humiliating loss to Israel/US weaponry in the six day war.

My underlying point here is that in the face of western imperialist economic and political manipulation of the middle east and persia in furtherance of 1. Oil price control, 2. proxy war against the Soviets/Americans, 3. Supression of Islamic religious fervor, and 4. Support of the Israeli state, not simply because it was Jewish, but because it was a terrorist state from the beginning-- There is virtually nowhere you could go, save the Levant to a lesser extent Turkey and see an Islamic culture that supported the west without repressive means.


How can this understanding be applied to Democratic policy? Well, up to today we could have shown a bright line between the brutal, intolerant, and xenophobic right wing of the American political landscape, sadly, after a number of our representitives voted to support torture, I fear that is now like pissing into the wind.

But, on a domestic front, we can address the underlying American causes of our horrorific policies.
We can repudiate Xtian fundamentalism. We can demand energy independence. We can draw down our troop numbers to 1/100th of our current standing, with clearly stated missions that DO NOT involve economic hegemony.

All of these are policy platforms well worth discussion. But above all, we can promise that we will stop being, ourselves, a rogue nation. We can respect the national asperations, and create an economic climate that punishes those forces that enslave citizens in oil producing nations.

Key policy areas that would resonate with Islamic moderates are
1. Support of civil liberties..
2. Support of opium interdiction and poppy eradication.
3. Support of nationalization of oil revenues.
4. Replacement of OPEC by a market mechanism that reflects human values.

KEy policy areas that will resonate with American voters are
1. Energy independence/sustainable energy policies.
2. Return to a pre-ww2/cold war defence posture.
3. More butter, fewer guns.
4. Redefining America's place in the world.

I hope this helps.

[bleever]

18. Abraham Maslow

came up with one of the best ways so far of looking at how human needs and motivations stack up.

And he said that until the first basic levels of keeping yourself and your family alive, like safety, food, shelter, and security were handled, nothing else mattered.

Once someone has those things, their intelligence turns to matters like happiness, and following their dreams, and making something that will help people after them.

The idea that poor, desparate people have the time or energy to wage ideological battles against the freedoms of people thousands of miles away doesn't match up with what those people really need, when you look at their lives and their communities from the standpoint of basic human needs, and the value that comes from having a community that successfully cooperates to help each other.

[me b zola]

20. Hey, you're going to confuse the rethugs...

...You're bringing in basic psychology to give context to current events. That requires conceptual thinking, and rethugs are working overtime to reduce the complexities of life to a multiple choice format.

[Fovea]

21. Maslow's Hierarchy

Ok. But humans also need enabling rationales to give themselves permission to step outside socio/religious norms to act in furtherance of perceived self interest.

Think of the reasons that lynch mobs lynch.

I respectfully disagree with your point.

If you consider these points simply the talking points of an ideological struggle, suitable to inspire the petite bourgeois you look at the rationale, not the reasons.

If your point were apt, the Romanovs would still rule Russia.

The rulers and policies we support and have supported have killed a huge number of Moslems, and caused misery that an American is scarcely able to imagine.

The Arab and Persian street is not just informed by propaganda, they are also sufficiently informed by history and suffering that is all too personal.

[StrictlyRockers]

23. I agree that the focus for "fighting terrorism" should be ending poverty.

Once we take care of people's basic needs, with education on that list, then we will start to see greater harmony. We have the ability to end poverty and hunger in the world. We only lack the political will.