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    9-11: Nine Years On

    By David Seaton on Fri, 09/10/2010 - 4:30pm |
    Seen through a cloud of burning Koran smoke, nine years on and counting, most Americans still have no real idea what happened on the eleventh of September in 2001 or why it happened.

    The big mistake almost all Americans make when contemplating 9-11 is to think that we were attacked, when if fact we were counterattacked. Americans have been just too self-absorbed to ever know, or even probably care what was being done all over the world in their name. We have been blithely pushing ourselves into other cultures, into other traditions and other economies without ever thinking that this might have painful consequences or that those offended could ever really hit back in a meaningful way. And now that the new technologies have made it possible, we are surprised that somebody who drinks the same Coke we do could explode right next to us.

     

    9/11 was basically imperial blow back, as if Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse could have raided Wall Street with a Sioux war party in the 1870s. The seeds for the attacks on Manhattan and Washington were planted when the United States of America took over Britain and France's imperial role in the Middle East after World War II.  The end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union  left the anti-imperialist movement without a superpower patron and overseer and the ideological packaging that went with it.

     

    The anti-imperialist movement has existed since the local (called "native") elites of the European colonies absorbed the western concept of nationalism, it certainly was not invented by the USSR, who used it as a weapon against the "free world". When the USSR went down, opening the way for globalization, the national liberation movements were orphaned and, like orphans, those who wanted to continue to struggle against imperialism had to make their own way in the world.

    "Imperialism" here is taken to mean the domination of non-Christian, non-European peoples, by European or Euro-American-Christians (since roughly the 1950s the Jewish people of the United States under the neologism, "Judeo-Christian" have been given the status of "honorary Christians", in much the same way that the Japanese were considered "honorary whites" under the former apartheid regime of South Africa). Certainly for the inhabitants of Muslim countries the distinction between Zionists (read Jews) and "crusaders" (read Christians) has become rather blurred over time.

    At first the political tools used by "third world" countries to resist this domination were nationalism (emphasizing local sovereignty, UN seat, nationalized-socialized economy, etc.) and in many cases simultaneous alignment with the Soviet block in "national liberation struggles". In order to weaken the allure of left-wing nationalism, the United States and her allies often encouraged Islamic fundamentalism and encouraged the growth of movements such as the Taliban, Hamas and Hizbullah. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the advent of globalization, secular nationalism and socialism lost practically all their usefulness as tools for loosening the grip of aliens on the economies, lives and customs of non-"European" peoples.

    However, by now, many Muslims have discovered that, for better or worse, Islam is the one idea, culture and "way of life" that cannot be dissolved or co-opted by the omnivorous powers of synthesis and the economic and military hegemony of the "New World Order". Thus, as day follows night, with nowhere else to turn, "Islam is the Answer" has now become the default slogan of anti-imperialism among Muslims and may, who knows, begin to resonate among disaffected, heretofore non-Muslims, that find themselves helpless victims of American-led globalization.
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    What makes the situation today more explosive than the cold war is the difference in ideological potency between Islam and Marxist-Leninism. Marxist-Leninism had a great attraction for young, nationalist intellectual elites in the third world and gave them an organizational structure, international connections and financing for forming a revolutionary vanguard and cadres.

    However Marxism never had much attraction in itself for the masses in Muslim countries (or any other for that matter) and neither did proletarian internationalism. A traditional "ultra-nationalist-international" is a contradiction in terms. But, Islam squares that circle: Islam works on the level of the most militant, nationalist chauvinism, while at the same time being totally international constantly searching for common denominators among Muslims everywhere.

    In the cold war equation there was no wild card factor like Israel, which, with the demise of South African apartheid, can be seen as the last "western colony" left standing, something, which at the same time stimulates nationalist and internationalist feelings among the masses and elites alike in Muslim countries. This is what makes political Islam so revolutionary... Really, all that was necessary was to add modern communications (Internet, with its social networks and chat rooms and Satellite TV) to  the Israel/Palestinian/Iraq conflict for the waiting Umma to get to critical mass.

    This is the context that made Osama bin Laden's "super stardom" possible.
    Through the initial spending of a few hundred thousand dollars, training and then sacrificing 19 of his foot soldiers, bin Laden has watched his relatively tiny and all but anonymous organization of a few hundred zealots turn into the most recognized international franchise since McDonald's. Could any enemy of the United States have achieved more with less?  Ted Koppel - Washington Post
    Al Qaeda exists because of a political failure that goes back many years. A political failure born of contempt for a stubborn culture's refusal to bend its neck to "reality".

    At the heart of the GWOT is a rebellion of the most proactive, hard core and daring of the Muslim world against Western domination of their space. Once that political failure connects with a plan to attack it, organizations will spring up spontaneously to continue that attack.

    Religion in itself is not really the only driving force here, but rather serves as the ideological adhesive to articulate a cultural rebellion that cuts across nationalities and ethnic groups and welds them into a force for violent change. Osama's Islam replaces Marxist-Leninism and nationalism, all of which have failed to free Muslim countries from their perceived oppression. Tied to the newest technologies the ancient concept of the Muslim Umma is proving more potent than any imported ideology ever was.

    I agree with Harvard professor, Niall Ferguson, who thinks that Osama Bin Laden is in reality more a "Leninist" than a religious leader. Just as Lenin was first a revolutionary and second a Marxist. Bin Laden's Islam structures his proud rebelliousness. Bin Laden shares with Lenin the rather unique ability to see revolutionary possibilities where others see only backward and illiterate masses and then to craft an organization and an ideology to fit that vision... and he also shares Lenin's "just do it" insistence on action instead of endless talk.

    Americans love to personalize things, but important as they are, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are more symptoms than causes.

    Today in countries like Egypt even moderate Muslims, people that don't plan on ever putting a bomb in their jockey shorts, are wearing beards and hijabs and chorusing, "Islam is the answer": They see it as a vaccine against being digested and assimilated and then excreted by the dynamics of globalization.

    Are Muslims just being insanely paranoiac when they accuse the United States of trying to "destroy" Islam?

    In my opinion, yes and no. "Yes", from the American point of view, where we think it jolly nice if some people go to church on Sunday, others go to temple on Saturday and, what the heck, others can go to mosque on Friday if they want to... but for the rest of what is left of the week, it is business as usual or else.

    "No", from the point of view of many Muslims, if by "to destroy" means "to trivialize" their religion, which, in their view, is a seven day, 24 hour a day project, which is the arbiter of all human affairs. This is contrary to the rules of our economic system: within globalization the "market" has taken on the role that Islam assigns to God. Therefore Islam being indigestible in its present form must be reshaped or "Disneyfied" if you will. Except it can't be and still be Islam.

    More than confronting the American people themselves, it seems to me that Muslim fundamentalists are confronting history's most powerful exponent of a system that was once described as turning "all that is solid into air", leaving commerce as the fundamental activity of all human beings. If we consider in what shape our economic system has left the teachings of Jesus Christ, perhaps the Muslims aren't as far off target as they appear at first glance.

    If you stop and think about it, every traditional relationship between human beings that ever existed anywhere, clan, tribe, nationality, religion, family authority, has been either dissolved or degraded by our economic system: this is what we have lost in exchange for our standard of living. We happen to be cool with that, but not everybody else is.

    Be that as it may, the principal objective of Muslim fundamentalists, in my opinion, is to eject an alien civilization (us), and all those who empower it (ME, American client regimes), from the spiritual-emotional center of Islam. At heart this is just an continuation of the dismantling of the Euro-American (white) domination of the world that began at the end of WWII, a domination which globalization has given a new breath of life.

    So basically this is yet another "national liberation struggle". If we look at the cost-effectiveness of everything Al Qaeda have done since the attack on the USS Cole and the African embassies and compare it with the sacrifices made by the Vietnamese people to finally gain their independence, I imagine that sooner or later the Muslim fundamentalists are going to succeed in driving us out of the Middle East.

    What happens then?

    Obviously if there is a general Islamist revolution in the Middle East followed by the Magreb, with America's client regimes falling like dominoes, it would have the immediate effect of pushing the price of oil through the roof and that alone would bring on a major economic crisis. It would be every man for himself as Europe, Japan and China scrambled to assure their energy supplies. This might bring protectionism roaring in, if it didn't start a series of wars. Israel, of course, might always do something crazy, but I think that in such a situation, observers might be amazed at how "prudent" the Israelis could be, if Egypt, Jordan and Syria, for example, fell to the Muslim Brotherhood in short succession.

    Whatever finally happened, the period of transformation would be a harrowing, violent roller coaster ride, however, when the transformation had been completed, we would find the resulting situation:
    • The new rulers would immediately have to find some way of feeding their populations
    • The only thing they would have to sell to feed them would be oil. 
    • The thirst of the developed and developing nations for oil would be as great as ever.
    In those three points we have the makings of a workable peace.

    What would that peace look like?

    The best model I can think of would be some Muslim/post-Christian version of the Treaty of Westphalia, a miracle of diplomacy whereby Protestants and Catholics managed to end the "Thirty Years War", religious conflict in Europe, and perhaps most importantly enshrined the idea of state's non-meddling in the internal affairs of other states. This idea of inviolable sovereignty had managed to limp along for hundreds of years until Bush and Blair under aegis of the neocons trashed it... with the results we are living with today.

    In some perfect neo-Westphalian world, the Muslim minority of Europe would be allowed to practice their religion in peace and the Christian and Jewish minorities in the Middle East practice theirs. Too good to be true? Well, the part about Christians and Jews being able to practice their religions in peace in the Middle East is a workmanlike description of how the Ottoman empire worked, otherwise how do you think that 19th century Zionist settlers under the patronage of the Rothschilds were allowed to settle in Palestine in the first place?

    The bit about the Ottoman empire being a place where the three religions "of the book" lived in peace is why, contrary to many commentators, I view very favorably Turkey's moves to cool their relations with Israel and reclaim a prominent place in the world of Islam. Turkey's role in the post-American-hegemony, multipolar world of compartmentalized and case by case globalization is a key one.

    Of course the joker in the deck is Israel. There is always a possibility that Israel, finding itself "eyeless in Gaza", might Samson-like pull the whole thing down around their ears, but I don't think so. I imagine rather that there will be a series of tipping points, where American public opinion visibly sours on Israel's involving the US in an endless, fruitless series of wars that deteriorate America's power and endanger American lives, combined with the aforesaid rise of Islamic republics in the Middle East and the Magreb... not to mention Iran's future possession of the atomic bomb, followed closely by Egypt and Saudi Arabia (then probably called the Islamic Republic of Mecca and Medina). These tipping points will send many Israelis with double nationality heading for the doors and make it obvious to those who stay that a more accommodating manner of behavior, shall we say, is now required.

    Summing up, the years ahead will surely be horrible and dangerous, like the period of the above mentioned Thirty Years War, but the peace that may follow it, like the peace that followed that endless religious war, could be very stable and last for quite a long time.

    Comments

    That is one meaty post, David, and one of your best. Shorter Seaton (if you'll permit): Those in the West lusting for a death-match Clash of Civilizations should be careful what they wish for. There's no guarantee "our side" wins.


    by acanuck on Fri, 09/10/2010 - 7:09pm

    I think you vastly overestimate the strength of a Islam, David, and its more fundamentalist form in particular. This piece reminded me of the way Rightwingers used to write about Communism, about how Communists never changed their spots. It was as though the usual rules of humanity didn't apply. Islam already has shown it can take on many forms, and most of them line up pretty comfortably with a world of universities, consumer goods, mass retailing, mass media, "modernization," etc.

    As you note, capitalism and the modern world have eroded the Christian church, male/female differences, hierarchical societies of every stripe, tribes and their elders, nations, races, you name it. So, people who think Islam is some magically powerful religion - stronger than Christianity for instance - I just regard as.... ignorant. A bit too caught up in the hype of the day. Not wanting to be rude or anything, but Christianity survived Islam quite well thanks, and then ate the entire world thanks, and is still kicking around. Just because we're not used to seeing deeply barbarian religious figures within our own tradition doesn't mean the mullahs are somehow uniquely stronger. I've met a fair number of these guys. They're not made of some magically sterner stuff. More like... these guys and their world were largely irrelevant to the modern world, which will now apply its usual tools to chew it up.

    And the fact that the fundamentalist wing of Islam has, in places, become allied to national liberation struggles, or various class or ethnic struggles, does not say to me that this is somehow the likely winner of the Islamic flag. Just look at Afghanistan. We - the US and the West - had to go in and pump billions into the Fundamentalists for them to grow to their present status. In and of itself, Fundamentalist Islam has an extraordinarily poor capability to deal with the needs and demands of the world today. That is, it only looks like the top contender and a growing force in the world's most obviously failed states. Anywhere else, it looks - and is - fairly nutbar. 

    As for oil, I think the discussion around oil "running out" and the West facing some massive turmoil is a bit of a trainwreck discussion as well. e.g. Both China and India are also dependent on that oil. So at least enlarge the picture to paint them in. How does that change things? 


    by quinn esq on Fri, 09/10/2010 - 7:59pm

    I'm not sure I've expressed myself that well. What the Islamic movement has done is to harness and give form to the very real anti-imperialist movement which was orphaned when the USSR went down. This is part of what Putin meant when he said that the collapse of the USSR was a "geopolitical disaster". The irony of course is that the USA and Israel encouraged and financed the Islamic movement: the Israelis as a tool against Nasser and then Arafat who were aligned with the USSR and the USA against the USSR in Afghanistan. The Balkan wars also gave the movement focus and prestige.

    We now have lost one war with them and are in the process of losing a second. They have done this with little or no money, while we have spent trillions over nine years. This is certainly a movement which leads men and women to sacrifice themselves for a cause.

    It is also worth noting that the 9-11 terrorists were mostly university graduates, this is not about helpless, hopeless,ignorant or illiterate young men. What the Islamic movement does crosses class and national lines.In this way it is more powerful than Marxist-Leninism ever was, because there is no superpower behind it. It is about throwing us out of their space.

    Another Irony is how a movement that is some 1,400 years old has been able to get more use out our invention, the Internet, than we have. That alone should prove how deep all these waters run.


    by David Seaton on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 10:16am

    I just think there is a real danger in attributing too much power to militant or fundamentalist Islam. I see very very little evidence that this wing of Islam is more powerful than Communism, for instance, and think that buying this storyline may turn out to be the greatest victory the Hard Right Military-types in recent years.

    Look. The Soviet Union was massive. Incredible. Developed weapons of extraordinary power. Armies, subs, bombers. Nuclear power. Went into space. You name it. Like us, they stole a whack of scientific knowledge/scientists, but to compare their record to, say, Iran's, is farcical. And yes yes, they - like us - got driven out of Afghanistan. Big whoop. In world-historical terms, Afghanistan is going precisely nowhere. Whereas the Soviets changed the map of the world. 

    Or take Communist China. 

    As for being willing to die for a cause and sacrifice, are you kidding David? Come ON man, this is your own history, as a man of the Left we're talking about here. It's like you're running some Islamofever! What about the wild-eyed fanatics we faced in the Vietnam war, that the Russians threw at the Germans, and that populated pretty much every single war of lefty-led national liberation going, for 70 years or so? You might want to say the Communists fed off of local nationalism, but... HELLO?! That's also what Islam is feeding off. e.g. In Afghanistan. 

    As for your bottomline, that it's about throwing us out of their space - so WHAT? So were ALL those wars of national and regional and continental liberation. That says nothing about the extra sticking power or imagination of Islamic-backed efforts. I mean, so far they've managed to blow up a few buildings and buses and trains and such, and run guerilla operations that have dragged us out long enough that e no longer feel occupation is worthwhile. That's it? And outside Iran, how many countries do they even run? And how long does anyone think they'll last in power? 

    To compare this to the Soviet Union and Communist China and the dozens of 3rd World socialist/communist nations there were at one point, and the power of the DOMESTIC parties of the Left in the West, including their ability to force through enormous social welfare changes such as the New Deal, strikes me as absurd. No worse, it's complete malarkey.

    FDR, driven by an agenda from the political Left, rebuilt an entire nation. A bunch of extremists blew up the WTC. Therefore, they are the more powerful force. Nonsense meets Stilts.


    by quinn esq on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 11:25am

    All you say is cool, but they've done more damage to the USA than any enemy ever has and we have been fighting and losing two wars with them for nine years (that is longer than we've ever fought anybody) and we have spent over a trillion dollars and they have spent peanuts. They have struck a nearly terminal blow to America's military prestige, which was so painstakingly rebuilt after Vietnam. I could go on and on.

    What I don't think is that they want to "conquer the world". We are an empire and I think they are an anti-imperialist movement and they want to kick us out of their space. And by the form they and we are showing, I imagine they'll succeed.

     


    by David Seaton on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 12:11pm

    Islam is imperialism, not the opposite of it. Just not very effective imperialism anymore. It's own young women will bury it.


    by Rootman on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 11:55am

    You and Krushchev, always with the burying.


    by quinn esq on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 12:38pm

    and the shoe banging.  always with the shoe banging.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 7:33pm

    Turkey is the miracle nation in all of this, that is for sure. A secular if not sometimes cruel government.

    All I know is that there are one billion Muslims in the world and a billion and a half Christians.

    We better learn to live together.


    by Richard Day on Sat, 09/11/2010 - 2:01pm

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