If We Can't Ask The Right Questions, We'll Keep Stumbling In The Dark

Calling all intelligent Democrats!


I really don’t know where to post this. The current conversation about who are adversaries are and what to do about them in one of the forums here is discouraging in its lack of real content and the extent of personal invective.

On a personal note, before I decided to earn my daily bread in the world of commerce, I was a Professor of Philosophy. One of the ideas I tried to impress upon my students is that, when examining an issue, the most important thing we can do is to ask the right questions. The questions are much more important than the answers. Because if you can’t ask the right questions you can’t get the correct solutions. Let me try and follow my own advice and pose some questions about the so-called war on terror.

Issue One: How important is the role of corrupt, authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes that prop themselves up with religious ideology and of Saudi-financed Wahhabism in promoting Fanatical Islam? And, along with this, how important are lack of job opportunities for the educated and widespread poverty in the Middle East in promoting Jihadist Islam?

Issue Two: Is it true that democratic regime transformation in the Middle East will not address the problem of Islamist extremism and terrorism, because they are phenomena not principally of the Middle East, but of Muslims in the West confronting the loss of identity? The refusal of some European countries to assimilate Muslims, it can be argued, has caused identity loss, resentment ,and outrage against the “host” countries. Even assuming that the transformative strategy managed to stabilize Iraq, it wouldn’t matter. That’s because Hamburg, London, the Parisian banlieues are where the terrorists are.

Issue three: Just how powerful is the global political vision of some powerful Jihadists of a rebirth, a resumption of the long march of Islam, stalled by centuries of Western expansion but reinvigorated by contemporary global demography.

A few comments: I think the United States is fighting against Zealot Jihadist terrorists. This is why the U.S. Invasion and occupation of Iraq was amazingly stupid. Saddam held these zealots in check.

Progressives such as myself like to say that if chronic ill health, disease, poverty and misery are eliminated, then democracy has a better chance of flourishing. Even Bill Clinton, in his Fox interview yesterday, argued that Bush was right in pushing for democracy in the Middle East. But historically, Jihad has been an implacable foe of the west. It is foolish to remember New York, September 11, 2001, and never once think about Vienna, September 11, 1689, or Malta, September 11, 1565; or even Constantinople, May 29, 1453 or Tours, October 7, 732.

Getting sidetracked about how evil Christians were in fighting Muslims is off the point. Fanatical Islamic Jihad is a potent force. Whether actual democracy or improved economic conditions would cause a fanatical theology/ideology to lose its power is the issue. Bill Clinton, for example, thinks so. I’m not so sure. We might be fighting against the same Muslim fanatics some of our forefathers fought against, and events of 2006 are simply a continuation of a thousand year old struggle. Islamists don’t want a secular, democratic, capitalistic society. Islamists have an end-time ideology the worldwide umma, as prescribed in the Koran.

Regardless, two things are clear: 1) We’ve got to get the hell out of Iraq yesterday and stop fueling the resentments of Muslims, which causes their radicalization and 2) We have to become energy independent. Bush admitted recently that our so-called war in Iraq is about oil (he probably also thinks God has commanded him to get the oil for the land where God dwells - you know, the U.S., where the people love justice, Jesus, torture, and Cheap Gas).

I see I’m starting to become very polemical so I’ll stop.