Today at the cardiologist, I listened to other old men babble about the attack on my favorite city London (there, I said it, not New York but London). They babbled on the way we do here at the Eunuch Archive Coffee Shop. One old man complained about Korea where he had served two years. He complained about this and that--no reason to go into the details. If only we could have, then . . . . One old man complained about the American War in Vietnam. Another old man complained about the war in Iraq diverting us from ridding ourselves of Al-Qaida.

Someone has written a book about George Orwell and Burma--the nation that best imitates Animal Farm and 1984, two novels that people in Burma (I know the name changed) say of three that Orwell wrote about the country. (Yes, I know that was not his name.)

Al-Qaida makes us a target because our governments intrude into Islamic society. The strategy behind attacking civilian on our way to work is to dissuade us from supporting the policies of our governments in the Middle East. The terrorists attacked the hated British, a former colonial power throughout the Middle East, and demonstrated that the eight strongest men in the world could not stop such an attack. Should we respond with demands to change policy?

Probably, we ought not do that just now. That the terrorists would probably replace the petty dictatorships we support in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia (and once supported in Iran and Iraq) with even worse tyrannies may seem an adequate excuse to continue our current policies. However, we do our own heritage an injustice by claiming that we fight for human rights and justice when we take sides in what essentially are sectarian wars within Islam and tribal conflicts made bad by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and subsequently the European colonial powers.

Al-Qaida does not need high technology to murder people in the West. Al-Qaida has many supporters living in England and in other places in Europe. There are people living in London and in Newark who would do us harm.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's speech about being tenacious sounded more honest than President Bush's silly remarks about defending human rights in the Middle East. We could at least be honest about what we do.

Having noted all this, I stress that the attacks on London were attacks on our mother country and our closest ally. They were attacks on open, democratic society. This deeply disturbs me. We need to let the Islamic world know in certain terms that we will not tolerate such attacks. In a piece in the morning newspaper, Thomas Friedman says this much better than I can:

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

While I agree with Mr. Friedman, someone posted on the NYT Forum this interesting (to me) response to his opinion:

I find it ironic that someone so bellicose over our nation-building by bayonet approach to Iraq and Afghanistan should implore his readership to limit civilizational fallout from the tagedy of yesterday's bombing in London. True, trust is the basis of an open society, and the greatest restraint on human behavior is culture (including religion). Since 9/11, however, we as a society have exhibited distrust and a lack of restrain, and the result is thousands of dead and injured.

Indeed, the root of jihadism is a Muslim problem, but the notion of influencing the Muslim village through our recourse to arms is laughable. Indeed, we live in a global society, but Mr. Friedman's flawed "world is flat" theory fails to recognize that the only globalization going on is terror. Just as we now consume Chinese- and Indian-produced products, Afghanis and Iraqis have been made to consume our munitions; and as with China now cashing in its dollars on US assets, the Muslim village is calling its IOUs.

It is obvious that Bush's Middle East/Terror policies are an abject failure. Paris' subways are hardly in danger; an Al-Qaeda action in France would be strategically flawed (instead...its synagogues still remain targets). Madrid and London were targeted for an obvious reason: their involvement in Iraq. And the recent and continuing death of our servicemen (and envoys) are further testiment to the futility of the fight.

If indeed we are to showcase our greater morality, we would have showed the restraint that Mr. Friedman cites. Instead, we violate our own standards, resort to the pettiness of fear and armed engagement and opened new fronts in this so-called war on terror. And the result is further death, further destruction and further fear.

There is only one thing a terrorists understands and that's terror. Now are we to give in to it or bite it back?

We could say in five years we will stop making gas powered cars; this would mean we no longer need foreign oil.

Next, we stop right now getting oil from the Middle East.

We cut foreign aid to the Middle East as well.

This is a Muslim problem let them fix it.

Pull our troops out of there now.

It will put those rich families on the spot and make them make a choice.

We must protect Israel at all costs.

Now what do you think, is any of this likely to happen?

Yea right.

Now is this a conservative view or a liberal view?

Be careful I did not make any of this up.

I watched an interesting show on History channel about the Crusades. They touched on the story of Saladin and it really seemed relevant today. At the time, the Crusaders (Hopitalers and such) were being very successful BECAUSE THEY LET THE SUNNIS AND SHIITES FIGHT AMONG THEMSELVES. Out of desperation, Saladin was sent from Syria to Egypt even though he considered Egypt a mortal enemy. He was able to actually take over Egypt then inherit Syria, so became very powerful but HE WAS STILL OPPOSED BY OTHER MUSLIMS.

Very interesting was that the original "assassins" was a Muslim order created to oppose Saladin (they were actually aligned with the Crusaders!).

The Crusaders would have continued to rule except that a ruthless "hawk", the Duke of Antioch, kept breaking truces and raiding friendly caravans. Eventually he captured Saladins sister and raped her. That was enough to unite the Muslims and then the Crusaders were wiped out in subsequent battle.

I think there is a lesson for us here too -- hot-headed people will fight among themselves if left to their own devices and will only unite due to serious outrage. Our policy (in my opinion) should be the same -- try to contain them all without outraging them, and let them fight amongst themselves.

To my point, look at how the Egyptian envoy was just beheaded. That should be sufficient to keep the Egyptian Muslims mad at Al Quaeda ...

The simple solution is to attack the schools and the mullas who teach in them. I still approve of the "Dresden" solution for all Islamist strongholds in Iraq and all other Islamist strongholds in all middle-east/asian countries. Stop trying to "tame" these evil doers. We need a take-no-prisoners policy and the liberal use of neutron bombs. Even though I'm a Democrat I've never forgiven Billy Carter for holding up work on the neutron bomb.

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:52 am There is only one thing a terrorists understands and that's terror. Now are we to give in to it or bite it back?

We could say in five years we will stop making gas powered cars; this would mean we no longer need foreign oil.

Next, we stop right now getting oil from the Middle East.

We cut foreign aid to the Middle East as well.

This is a Muslim problem let them fix it.

Pull our troops out of there now.

It will put those rich families on the spot and make them make a choice.

We must protect Israel at all costs.

Now what do you think, is any of this likely to happen?

Yea right.

Now is this a conservative view or a liberal view?

Be careful I did not make any of this up.

It may well be in our best interest to seize Saudi Arabia. We need the oil. If our Saudi friends want to remain tacky about our need, we can remove them and take whatever we need. We have always taken what we needed when we had to act in our best interest. This is a conservative view and honest.

I do not like this strategy. For one thing, the agents who attack us are often our neighbors, not people from overseas (that is a delightful old term).