Not With A Bang But A Whimper?

Is this the way al Qaeda’s decade or so of terror pre-eminence ends? The details are still coming out but from what I’ve seen so far, the latest attempt to attack an American jetliner was done by a wealthy scion of a Nigerian banker who had explosive underwear that he was unable to detonate.

Now it is impossible (and stupid) to say that terrorism is over, but this sort of pathetic, bumbling attempt on a single jet in the US is a far cry from the massive synchronized assaults that were the trademark of al Qaeda’s perverse spectacles. Part of what makes a terror group successful is the perception of it as fearsome and daring – the sort of appeal that villains like Jesse James have accrued at other times. The pampered son of a banker setting his pants on firing and failing at it is not fearsome and daring, it’s lame. Recruiting disaffected young men in the wake of the 9/11 spectacle was surely easy for al Qaeda, doing so in the wake of this latest clusterfuck is surely a different matter.

I am confident that al Qaeda will continue to attempt to launch attacks and I think it even reasonable to expect some of them to succeed, but I also think this latest incident is indicative of their current capabilities. This will snowball, no one wants to join a group that is a shell of its former self.

I should also like to note that this plot could have been foiled with some good police work and some information, the father of this young man reported his suspicions – no waterboarding was necessary. I eagerly await Cheney calling to invade Nigeria though, perhaps he’s awaiting his large payments from that nice Nigerian general who he met through his email.

Actions Have Consequences

I know that any attempts to have the authors of the American torture regime answer for their crimes will be politicized and blocked by all manner of Bush apologists. The Ann Coulters and Rush Limbaughs of the world will attempt claim that the Bush White House and its legal, medical, political, and military accessories are martyrs and true patriots. People will get angry, it will be divisive. Yet having read about the torture memos today, I cannot reasonably say that this should just go away. If the rule of law is to mean anything, if no one is truly above the law, then there must be investigations, and given the evidence so far, likely trials.

Don’t like this generalization? Here, try another one!

Over Celestial Junk there’s much head scratching. It seems Mr. Junk’s step-son submitted a paper on Islamic terrorism and the outcome was not quite what was hoped:

“The essay came back with a lower mark that his other submissions, despite the fact that it was likely my step-son’s most thoughtful and best structured so far. The professor made a number of structural suggestions; but in conclusion, he stated that one cannot blame terrorism on a religion … period.”

Okay, first off, it’s curious that he thinks this is his step-son’s “best structured” essay and yet part of the low mark was a result of the professor needing to make “structural suggestions.” Of course all parents are delusional when speaking of their children, mine think I’m good looking! But of course the essay structure is not the real problem, the real problem is that this academic is proving resistant to gross over-generalizations:

“So, look what we have. We have a university political science professor who is unwilling … ever … to consider the effect of religion on any given population. He will blame every conceivable thing on Jihad, except religion.”

I think Mr. Junk got the last bit backwards, but okay, I get his point. But if you’re talking about the effect of a religion, it’s difficult to explain why millions of Muslims seem to be able to lead peaceful, productive lives without blowing shit up. But this isn’t just a problem with one misguided prof, this is a problem with all “liberals” and “progressives.” To Mr. Junk they are all self-hating anti-Westerners who inexplicably hang around in that most Western of institutions, the academy.

The roots of terrorism are complicated, and this frustration on the part of Mr. Junk over the inability of more reflective people to jump on the Islamofascism bandwagon reminds me of H.L. Mencken’s words:

“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.”

Don’t like this generalization? Here, try another one!

Over Celestial Junk there’s much head scratching. It seems Mr. Junk’s step-son submitted a paper on Islamic terrorism and the outcome was not quite what was hoped:

“The essay came back with a lower mark that his other submissions, despite the fact that it was likely my step-son’s most thoughtful and best structured so far. The professor made a number of structural suggestions; but in conclusion, he stated that one cannot blame terrorism on a religion … period.”

Okay, first off, it’s curious that he thinks this is his step-son’s “best structured” essay and yet part of the low mark was a result of the professor needing to make “structural suggestions.” Of course all parents are delusional when speaking of their children, mine think I’m good looking! But of course the essay structure is not the real problem, the real problem is that this academic is proving resistant to gross over-generalizations:

“So, look what we have. We have a university political science professor who is unwilling … ever … to consider the effect of religion on any given population. He will blame every conceivable thing on Jihad, except religion.”

I think Mr. Junk got the last bit backwards, but okay, I get his point. But if you’re talking about the effect of a religion, it’s difficult to explain why millions of Muslims seem to be able to lead peaceful, productive lives without blowing shit up. But this isn’t just a problem with one misguided prof, this is a problem with all “liberals” and “progressives.” To Mr. Junk they are all self-hating anti-Westerners who inexplicably hang around in that most Western of institutions, the academy.

The roots of terrorism are complicated, and this frustration on the part of Mr. Junk over the inability of more reflective people to jump on the Islamofascism bandwagon reminds me of H.L. Mencken’s words:

“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.”

9/11/07

There’s a great deal that can strike one about this day. That bin Laden is still taunting the West through his video releases is perhaps the most significant detail. So many people were convinced that he’d have been captured or killed by the end of 2001. Now instead he’s metastasized as sort of extremist folk hero to those that buy into his world view. He can’t accomplish much directly, but he’s now a symbol, an idea. He cannot set up a large-scale terror-training regime, but he doesn’t have to.

Guantanamo: Eternal Prisoners

Whenever some new, invasive measure is introduced in the name of public safety or national security invariably, someone will say something about how the innocent have nothing to fear. So it was Gitmo – this would be a place where those thought to be Very Bad Men (are there any women in Gitmo?) would be sent to face a kangaroo court justice. Of course if you were innocent, you’d be cleared and sent on your way. No harm, no foul.

Right?

Wrong.

In a CBC News item today it comes out that several Uighur detainees have been turned down for asylum by the Canadian government. I find it significant that they are Uighurs as the current Conservative government seems to have a soft spot for anyone running afoul of the Chinese government (not a bad thing, mind you) – as the Uighurs often do.

In another case, Mr. Ahmed Belbacha is being forced to return to Algeria after having been cleared of any wrongdoing at Gitmo. Algeria has its own problems with Islamic militant groups and therefore may arrest and torture Belbacha anyway. The mere fact that he was picked up an sent to Gitmo seems to be the only evidence they need.

How many people are going to face this kind of fate? How many were just truck drivers or tourists or whatever who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is not a crime to travel to Pakistan or anywhere else that gets labeled as a terrorist hot spot. And yet it appears that once you are put in Gitmo, you are, in the minds of too many, forever a terrorist.

"Terrorist" means whatever they say it means

In labeling a branch of the Iranian military as a “specially designated global terrorist organization,” the Bush administration seems to have decided to stretch the word “terrorist” to the point of meaninglessness. George Orwell said in the 1940s:

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.”

Surely the same could be said for the word “terrorism” today. In this instance it seems to signal those that do not-nice things in other countries. If the Revolutionary Guard gets this definition, then surely it applies to the CIA, Mossad and host of other government and military agencies. Why not stop there, see if you can incorporate the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” into your day-to-day vocabulary. Here are some examples:

• That idiot on his cellphone cut me off! What a terrorist!
• Someone’s dog shat on my lawn, this is an act of terrorism!
• Out of pineapple yogurt? This grocery store is a terrorist cell!
• Those guys down the street are playing loud music outdoors again, it’s an act of terrorism!

So you see, the possibilities are endless! I’ll leave with this, a video for the song Gift Shop, it has the line “and if it’s a lie, terrorists made me say it” which seems to capture the amazing vagueness of the word terrorism and the way that vagueness makes for perfect scapegoats and bogeymen every time.

The Free Market is Magic!

Apparently that was the thinking going into Iraq on the part of those in the US that were tasked with planning its post-invasion economy:

“Brinkley said early economic planners had made the understandable mistake of assuming that a free market would rapidly emerge to replace what he described as Saddam’s “kleptocracy”, and create full employment.”

One can only imagine that these same people think they can put a watch in a bag, smash it with a hammer, and pull a much better watch out of the bag. This is more of the Underpants Gnomes-type thinking that has characterized this invasion:
Step 1: Invade country, overthrow old order.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Stable, united, prosperous, market-economy, pro-US, pro-Israel, cheap oil-selling Iraq.
For all of their pro-market posturing, I’m wondering if the Bushies have any understanding of how markets are supposed to work.

Guess who’s back!

I guess this may be getting lost in the midst of the war on terror, but, uh, the terrorists of al Qaeda are doing better organization-wise than they have since 2001. The response of the West and NATO in general and the US in particular to terror threats in the first decade of the 21st century may long be studied as the textbook case of what NOT to do.

Surprise! Public Healthcare Does Not Cause Terrorism

There had been some noise from the usual suspects about how the fact that a group of foreign born doctors working for Britain’s NHS were behind the latest terror plots somehow indicates the evil of public healthcare. Well, now it appears the very same doctors were attempting to get into the private American system too. They simply had yet to write an aptitude test. There would appear to be lots of “bureaucracy” in which one can “hide” in the American medical system.