Follow up - What Do the Islamic Fundamentalists Want?

Following up on my earlier post, the two Jon's in the UK have brought up some interesting points in the comments section. Jon Bartley said this:

As we've previously discussed, one of the most frustrating things for me about attacks by Al-Qaeda supporters is the lack of a clear aim, agenda or manifesto.

At least with the IRA, we knew the motives behind the bombings - an Ireland entirely independent of British control. With these guys (and it's a struggle to use that word, with its implication of a level of humanity), there's no such clarity.

Then Jonathan R. followed up with this:

1. Part of the Terror is the lack off "clear" purpose...at least that we can see.

2. The Terrorists do not need to justify the carnage of those souls, they consider to be unworthy/less than human. To them we are dogs!

This is a great place to start. In my view, al-Qaeda actually does have a purpose to all of this madness, but it is difficult for the Western mind to comprehend. Back in 2002 Lee Harris wrote an excellent policy paper called "Al-Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology" where he said this in context with the September 11th attacks:

The assumption is this: An act of violence on the magnitude of 9-11 can only have been intended to further some kind of political objective. What this political objective might be, or whether it is worthwhile — these are all secondary considerations; but surely people do not commit such acts unless they are trying to achieve some kind of recognizably political purpose.

Behind this shared assumption stands the figure of Clausewitz and his famous definition of war as politics carried out by other means. The whole point of war, on this reading, is to get other people to do what we want them to do: It is an effort to make others adopt our policies and/or to further our interests. Clausewitzian war, in short, is rational and instrumental. It is the attempt to bring about a new state of affairs through the artful combination of violence and the promise to cease violence if certain political objectives are met.

...But is this the right model for understanding 9-11? Or have we, like Montezuma, imposed our own inadequate categories on an event that simply does not fit them? Yet, if 9-11 was not an act of war, then what was it? In what follows, I would like to pursue a line suggested by a remark by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in reference to 9-11: his much-quoted comment that it was “the greatest work of art of all time.”

Despite the repellent nihilism that is at the base of Stockhausen’s ghoulish aesthetic judgment, it contains an important insight and comes closer to a genuine assessment of 9-11 than the competing interpretation of it in terms of Clausewitzian war. For Stockhausen did grasp one big truth: 9-11 was the enactment of a fantasy — not an artistic fantasy, to be sure, but a fantasy nonetheless.

Harris not only changes the calculus, he challenges us by wondering if we are asking the appropriate questions in trying to figure out what al-Qaeda is trying to accomplish. His substantive observation about al-Qaeda is not that they are necessarily trying to "get anything from us," but that they are doing what they think is necessary to gain strength among their own:

The terror attack of 9-11 was not designed to make us alter our policy, but was crafted for its effect on the terrorists themselves: It was a spectacular piece of theater. The targets were chosen by al Qaeda not through military calculation — in contrast, for example, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — but entirely because they stood as symbols of American power universally recognized by the Arab street. They were gigantic props in a grandiose spectacle in which the collective fantasy of radical Islam was brought vividly to life: A mere handful of Muslims, men whose will was absolutely pure, as proven by their martyrdom, brought down the haughty towers erected by the Great Satan. What better proof could there possibly be that God was on the side of radical Islam and that the end of the reign of the Great Satan was at hand?

As the purpose of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia was to prove to the Italians themselves that they were conquerors, so the purpose of 9-11 was not to create terror in the minds of the American people but to prove to the Arabs that Islamic purity, as interpreted by radical Islam, could triumph. The terror, which to us seems the central fact, is in the eyes of al Qaeda a by-product. Likewise, what al Qaeda and its followers see as central to the holy pageant of 9-11 — namely, the heroic martyrdom of the 19 hijackers — is interpreted by us quite differently. For us the hijackings, like the Palestinian “suicide” bombings, are viewed merely as a modus operandi, a technique that is incidental to a larger strategic purpose, a makeshift device, a low-tech stopgap. In short, Clausewitzian war carried out by other means — in this case by suicide. (emphasis mine)

This is purely from memory, but after September 11th, they released a video of Bin-Laden sitting with a cleric praising the attacks. He gloried in its success and immediate began to talk about how the attacks produced a surge in Westerners seeking out Islam (and even converting). Of course, this wasn't true at all. But, these tapes were played all over the Muslim world.

The extremely fundamentalist brand of Islam that al-Qaeda adheres to (Wahhabism) demonstrates very deterministic view of the way Allah controls the world. They believe, in their worldview, that through violence, the West will "submit to Allah" (Islam literally translates as "submission") and after filming each attack, the perpetrators praise Allah for the glory in hitting the infidels. These tapes are then played over and over again throughout the Arab world in order to gain recruits for further operations.

They believe in the submission of infidels to Allah, but mostly they are worried about taking care of the people in their own "house," which, fortunately, is no longer happening to their benefit. For example, when foreign al-Qaeda fighters enter and try to control portions of Iraq sympathetic to their cause, they have brutally oppressed the locals by instituting their extremist version of sharia law. It's been a total disaster, and the people in Iraq don't see brave insurgents fighting the infidels, but car bombs that kill Iraqi civilians. Recently, US Marine divisions have been watching Iraqi insurgents fight against al-Qaeda positions (red-on-red fire), as even the hardcore Sunnis are unable to deal with these monsters.

This is why the "War on Terror" is so enraging (I really hate that name BTW). We are battling against a people who believe in a totally insane worldview. Lots of people believe in crazy religions or ideologies, but very few of them are trying to spread it through attacking innocent civilians through extremely violent means. Tom Cruise can act like a jackass all he wants, but jumping up and down on Oprah's couch is much different from someone like Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. This is what Bouyeri said to Van Gogh's mother in court:

He argued that he did not kill her son, "but I have chopped off his head according to the law that orders me to do so to everyone who offends Allah. I do not not feel your pain as I do not know what it is to suffer the loss of a child"

Any attempts at reasoning with people like this will do as much good as negotiating with a grizzly bear. We cannot just sit on our hands and wait for the next attack (there will be more). Rather, we have to pick our battles and focus on them intensely. What would you do as a leader in this situation? I have an answer in a follow-up post.

UPDATE: Marc Schulman responds to an editorial in the Guardian by David Rieff. David believes we need to begin negotiations with the terrorists in order to defeat them. Unfortunately, in context with Lee Harris's analysis, which I've supported above, negotiating is a completely absurd idea.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at July 12, 2005 07:50 AM | TrackBack