Unless you've been incommunicado for the day, you know that there were co-ordinated terror attacks in Saudi Arabia. I find myself strangely un-upset about this. I mean, I'm upset, because innocents have been killed, and Americans are targeted again. But mixed with my negative emotions is a strangely positive feeling.
Part of it is, I think, because terror has been noticeably on the decline, and government reports have supported that contention. Part of it is that the attacks are taking place within the Arab world, which indicates that Al Qaeda's resources abroad are diminished and our homeland security people, particularly the FBI, have been doing a good job domestically.
I also take solace in the fact that the attacks took place in Riyadh. This is the sort of thing that's likely to increase the House of Saud's willingness to back away from terrorism and terror-encouraging ideologies. What's happened is horrible, but I strongly suspect that historians may look back on this bombing as the one that turned the tide against the lunatics in much of the Middle East.
* Update * Kate over at Electric Venom has some interesting thoughts on the issue that are probably worth reading. I found myself wanting to argue with her until I got to the end of her piece. Then I shut up because I thought she was probably right after all.
Dean,
Den Beste wrote on much the same theme recently.
While this is all correct commentary, I think, I can't shake the feeling that it's like the "9/11 was a tragedy but..." people that came out of the woodwork to express their glee that finally the united states might be humbled.
Of course, that was a far worse disaster in absolute terms. But still, even though I feel the same way (that this might be a bad event which is a good sign), the similarity troubles me.
But my thoughts on the subject are not fully formed. Are yours any less foggy?
My thoughts on the subject are fully formed, and not foggy at all. If you are an American living or even traveling among a group of Americans in any Arab or Moslem country, or if they can get access to you on a hijackable ship or aircraft, such as happened to the Achille Lauro about 18 years ago, then the odds are you are going to be a dead victim.
Maybe it's because they hate the Jews, and they're frustrated because the Jews have learned how to fight back and kill them. Maybe its because they think McWorld is threatening Islam, which I hope is true. Maybe "they're depraved on account of they're deprived". Maybe they all just had bad shits that day and want to take it out on the world. Or maybe it's just related to what one of the Nazi concentration camp inmates learned when looked around him at a true Hell on earth, and asked the SS guard "Why?" And the guard replied, without turning a hair:
"Hier ist keine warum." (Here there is no 'why'.)
In any case, stay to hell out of their countries. Unless you are carrying an M16, wearing body armor, with buddies to cover your back, and your commander can call down air strikes if the natives get out of hand. That especially applies to Saudi Arabia, the great Wahabbiland pisspot.
Do everything you can to make hydrogen-electric auto and truck fuel cell engines and their fuel supply industry ubiquitous in western civilization. At which time, these bastards will all go back to camel and goat herding, pearl diving, or whatever else they did to support themselves before the Anglo-Persian Petroleum people and the others turned the lever of their world in the early 20th century.
Can they be taught democracy? Maybe. But who can say that a people cannot or will not democratically choose a leadership that will organize gangs of killers to murder other people for the sake of what they think are the dreams of their prophets?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold,
Unfortunately, you didn't really address my question. Innocent people have just been killed. I'm asking about the way we appear to be a mirror image, at the moment, of certain people we despised in the later months of 2001 and much of 2002.
I am not saying that we're wrong or that they're right; evil can be a mirror image of good, and we can easily be the good side of that mirror image.
What I said was that my thoughts are not fully formed on whether or not we are in fact a mirror image of those (particular) people. Do you have any insights on that topic?
(Btw, for the record, I argued in favor of what we did in Iraq for many months before it happened, and I still support it as having been right. I am in favor of using force on people who can't be reasoned with, and I like "green cars" (hydrogen fuel-cell in particular), though more for technical reasons than anything else.)
What keeps coming back to MB is those 19 Al Qaeda folks that "escaped" from being held when the Sauds had "captured" them along with a lot of explosives and ammunition.
Chris,
If you really believe that "evil can be a mirror image of good", than your philosophy is part of the problem and not part of the solution, in the total ideological war in which we are defending ourselves against these monsters.
Or maybe you're being a little too ellipsoidal for an old midwesterner like me. So, in plain English, what in hell are you talking about?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
No, I think Chris is right. Evil can be a mirror image (or a simulacrum, or a shade off) of good. No one is really a fan of evil; most evil people think they're good by some perverted measure. Sometimes, the perversion is very slight.
Parenthood is one of the most beautiful things in the world. Yet a fiercely protective parent can do much to hurt his/her child and others if that protection isn't tempered by a sense of fairness and moderation.
Similarly, we're shrugging at a terrorist attack. Lots of people did that in September 2001, and we didn't think it was very funny then. Chris asks if there's a reason why we're not reacting the same way.
Obviously, the magnitude is different. Also, as some have pointed out, Wahhabi Saudi Arabia has been an unofficial terrorist breeding ground. But I don't think either factor makes that much of a difference to the families of the dead.
GWB was in Indianapolis today, and we played part of his speech to the kids. (My oldest was very disappointed that we couldn't get tickets.) I thought his reaction was the best: terrorists are still out there, they're still scum, and we're still going to run them to ground and snuff them out, no matter who they target.
Rereading that post, I thought I should make it clear that Dean's analysis isn't necessarily any less true, or that he's an insensitive clod, because he isn't crying crocodile tears over the dead. If he's right, it could very well be a net positive thing.
But I do think we need to think of the human cost, even if the balance sheet ultimately determines that the cost was justified. Just like in war.
...terrorists are still out there, they're still scum, and we're still going to run them to ground and snuff them out, no matter who they target.
I heard that!
Raise the roof, brother. ;-)
Is it wrong to be relieved that the latest terror attack was on Arab soil? We were naive to think there would never be another terrorist attack, and al Qaida is certainly not dead. This may... or may not show that our security at home is better (although I believe it is). What I know it does is shine a bright spotlight on the Saudi leaders. One they won't be able to escape easily.
No, CJ, it is not wrong for you to be relieved that the latest terror attack was on Arab soil and was not carried out here in the United States.
Unless you drink a teaspoon of guilt cocktail each morning sort of the way kids of my generation were fed a smelly spoonful of cod liver oil before school each day.
And who are the "we" that were naive enough to think there would be no more terror attacks? Certainly not me, fella. I have thought for a long time that the main "we" -- western civilization -- is locked in a mortal struggle with islam in general and its virulent Wahhabi strain in particular, reinforced with an ongoing battle against such forms of Arab nationalism as the baathists, nasserites and Arafat's criminal gang and its spawned offshoots. The assumption that Osama bin Laden is not dead probably is not relevant to this protracted conflict. Some people here think we will not be fighting them much longer. But I think that our enemies KNOW they will be fighting us until we destroy them or they destroy us.
I sometimes wonder about a matter related to this. Why has our government not taken over or destroyed the Arab television station, Al Jazeera? In wartime, the enemy propaganda outlets are prime targets.
I grew up in an era when the United States fought its real wars neither with mercy nor restraint, depending on the nature of the enemy and the conflict.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold,
It may well be that I was speaking a bit too metaphorically. The thing about mirror images is that they look very similar, but they are not the same. Everything is backward.
As a rough example, take the comparison between feeding a man and poisoning him. In both cases you're giving him something to eat; they look similar, but one is a twisted version of the other.
Or take a real hospital in which they inject people with things to cure them, versus an Iraqi "hospital" where they injected people (political dissidents) with things to kill them horribly. They look similar, but they are not the same.
That's what I meant by "mirror image". Similar superficials, different content.
I do like Kate's theory that this will force the Saudis to choose sides. The question is can they survive that choice. If they choose our side they'll have to deal with the radicals in their population and their government. If they choose the radicals, they'll have to deal with us. Either choice is dangerous.
Peter, I will take the liberty of finish your last sentence with an appropriate clause:
" ....which is why they will make no choice at all.
Instead, they will attempt to placate both the United States and al-Qaeda. In the end, al-Qaeda can and will kill the leading members of the Saudi monarchy if these royal worthies try to come to grips with them. The United States, on the other hand, will merely scold them; perhaps make they pay economic penalties, which is as mushy as it sounds.
The war against al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia is probably a battle we cannot win in the overall war against islamicist terrorism. Osama bin Laden and all his key people are Arabs from established and important families in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and other Arab countries.
The terrorists are abetted and sustained by these extended families, and if they as smart as I think they are, al-Qaeda has already developed a sort of Arab 'black hand' similar to the one the Sicialian mafiosi used to terrorize and shake down Italian merchants in the US immigrant communities early in the last century.
In addition, al-Qaeda has the overt support of many of religious imams -- certainly among the sunna communities and perhaps among the shi'a as well, and probably has covert support from even a wider circle of Muslim religious leaders. Regardless of the disclaimers they routinely mouth whenever an Arab-generated atrocity occurs.
So all things considered, the Arab governments -- and especially the one that owns and operates Saudi Arabia as a Wahhabist family enterprise, is no more likely to root out al-Queda than centuries of Italian governments in Rome have been able to root out the Sicilian Mafia. Every dead public prosecutor blown to small bits of manburger by car bombs in Palermo is attestation more to the real power of the Siciliani than to the endurance of the Roman government. I think this is the way it will play out in Riyadh as well.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Damn Arnold, that was a really insightfully depressing point you just made there.
Hadn't thought of those parallels, the family angle does strike me as similar.
Hmmmm, more thinking cap time needed on this one.
With all my respects to all .I think what ever is happening here in Riyadh now is going to far.
Those people don’t relate to Real Islam by any chance. I will not try to defend my religion under any ones account But I will say one thing May God Allah take A good revenge from those basters who are threatening peace and killing soles. I think Who ever is doing this has no case and wll burn in hell AMEEN .