Liberal traditions in the Middle East
Mary Madigan
In her book Muslim Refusenik, Irshad Manji laments Islam’s lost tradition of independent thinking, called Ijtihad.
According to Manji:
In the early centuries of Islam, thanks to the spirit of ijtihad, 135 schools of thought thrived. Inspired by ijtihad, Muslims gave the world inventions from the astrolabe to the university. So much of we consider "western" pop culture came from Muslims: the guitar, mocha coffee, even the ultra-Spanish expression "Ole!" (which has its root in the Arabic word for God, "Allah")…Bernard Lewis also describes Islam’s lost liberalism in his essay Freedom and Justice in the Modern Middle East. According to Lewis:..Toward the end of the 11th century, the "gates of ijtihad" were closed for entirely political reasons. During this time, the Muslim empire from Iraq in the east to Spain in the west was going through a series of internal upheavals. Dissident denominations were popping up and declaring their own runaway governments, which posed a threat to the main Muslim leader — the caliph. Based in Baghdad, the caliph cracked down and closed ranks. Remember those 135 schools of thought mentioned above? They were deliberately reduced to four, pretty conservative, schools of thought. This led to a rigid reading of the Koran as well as to a series of legal opinions — fatwas — that scholars could no longer overturn or even question, but could now only imitate. To this very day, imitation of medieval norms has trumped innovation in Islam.
The change took place in two phases. Phase one began with Bonaparte's incursion and continued through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when Middle Eastern rulers, painfully aware of the need to catch up with the modern world, tried to modernize their societies, beginning with their governments. These transformations were mostly carried out not by imperialist rulers, who tended to be cautiously conservative, but by local rulers — the sultans of Turkey, the pashas and khedives of Egypt, the shahs of Persia — with the best of intentions but with disastrous results.Of Lewis’ essay, Wretchard of the Belmont Club says:The second stage of political upheaval in the Middle East can be dated with precision. In 1940, the government of France surrendered to Nazi Germany. A new collaborationist government was formed and established in a watering place called Vichy, and General Charles de Gaulle moved to London and set up a Free French committee. The French empire was beyond the reach of the Germans at that point, and the governors of the French colonies and dependencies were free to decide: they could stay with Vichy or rally to de Gaulle. Vichy was the choice of most of them...
...It was at that time that the ideological foundations of what later became the Baath Party were laid..
Of far greater importance at the present are the Sunni fundamentalists. An important element in the Sunni holy war is the rise and spread — and in some areas dominance — of Wahhabism. ..the Wahhabi Saudis now ruled the holy cities and therefore controlled the annual Muslim pilgrimage, which gave them immense prestige and influence in the Islamic world. Two, the discovery and exploitation of oil placed immense wealth at their disposal. What would otherwise have been an extremist fringe in a marginal country thus had a worldwide impact.
Bernard Lewis' view immense and destructive forces crept unnoticed onto modern world stage until they manifested themselves on September 11 upon a nearly blind America. It was a witches' brew, compounded of the worst aspects of Nazism and Communism, which in turn fueled a reaction by political Islam, overlaid by the limitless ambitions of the Sunni Wahabists. Somewhere in all of this, Lewis calls out, like a father seeking a lost child, for the libertarian Islam: the Islam of justice and equality of centuries gone by. Whether he will find it is open to debate; and sadly observes that in the West, both freedom and the memory of its existence in the Islamic world are still being edited away.Wahhabis like the Saudi leaders believe that their role is to purify Islam from the perils of independent thinking and the horrors of innovation. Opposition to innovation and change is the philosophy that inspires bin Laden. It’s the philosophy that the entire Saudi state is built on. One reason why the odds that the government-promoted elections will inspire change in that state are exactly nil.
Fortunately, the extremism of the Saudi state is unique. Lewis has hope for the other nations of the Middle East:
One is the fear that it will not work, a fear expressed by many in the United States and one that is almost a dogma in Europe; the other fear, much more urgent in ruling circles in the Middle East, is that it will work. Clearly, a genuinely free society in Iraq would constitute a mortal threat to many of the governments of the region, including both Washington's enemies and some of those seen as Washington's allies.We could help by acknowledging that the tyrants that are ‘seen as our allies’ are, in fact, the enemies of innovation and freedom worldwide.The end of World War II opened the way for democracy in the former Axis powers. The end of the Cold War brought a measure of freedom and a movement toward democracy in much of the former Soviet domains. With steadfastness and patience, it may now be possible at last to bring both justice and freedom to the long-tormented peoples of the Middle East.
It is the same for violent 'jihad'. Islam has two versions, as does Christianity (I don't know of a violent, KILL 'EM ALL front in Juedaism, but there may be). A moderate Muslim can not say that there is no Koranic support for mass murder and slavery. There is. There is also support of freedom of religion, tolerance and democracy. It is the Muslim themself who chooses the path. No one, not even in theocracies, FORCES people to think a certain way. If that was true, we'd never have won the Cold War because the Poles/Germans/Ukranians...etc would have THOUGH Stalin and their puppets were correct.
In effect, the vast majority of Muslims choose to tolerate, and by doing so collude with, terrorism in the name of their religion. Just as Catholics have tolerated the Inquisition and Baptists continue to tolerate the Klan. One can not divorce oneself from this unless you speak out. (Which at times is your ONLY means of argument.) Just because they may be killed or jailed does not mean you can not speak your mind. It means in Islam, as in the rest of humanity, that the majority is willing to 'go with the flow' and not 'rock the boat'.
Islam did not become a closed hate-filled relgion without the support and collusion of it's believers. It will not rise Phoenix-like without it either.
People who've been subject to government-controlled media their whole lives are supposed to just know when and where they've been lied to?
I can't relate to that kind of thinking at all.
Theocracy and oppresive regiems don't end because we 'want' them to. They end because they are FORCED to.
You can not whine about 'I'm not free' and then do nothing to try to get that way. It is not the job of humanity to free you from your own oppresive governments. No Democracy on Earth, Iraq included, got that way by only a foreign power. The people have to want it, and strive for it. Or, they end up like South Vietnam...Ooops, they don't exist because they didn't fight for their freedom, they expected the US to do it for them!
The people in Tienanmin Square were cut down by bullets and/or imprisoned, never to be heard from again.
The people of Iraq rose up once and were also cut down, with bullets and gas and torture and terror, and we stood by and did nothing (back in the early 1990s). This time we followed through.
South Korea is free because the U.S. helped them be free.
So, for that matter, are the UK and France. And Poland. And most of the Baltic states.
I honestly have no idea what point you're trying to make. If your position is to blame people who are oppressed for being oppressed, that seems wrong. If you talk to someone who actually grew up in such a society, making casual generalizations about what the people there "should" do seems foolish. It's easy for you or I to talk about rising up--not so easy if you contemplate the fact that the secret police may come not just for you, but for your children, your parents, your siblings, even your neighbors or anyone who was ever your friend and cut their throats because you spoke out or you rebelled.
The notion that people can only free themselves is simply wrong. History doesn't show that.
They're rememberd by their familes. Their memories and their deeds for their scrupples still feed the fires of freedom. For true Freedom one must take responsiblity for your own actions, or inactions, that allow such oppresive regimes to flurish or fail. The Poles took the risk, the Ukranians took the risk, our own FFs took the risk (and may ended up bankrupt and with their children dead to show for it) but they were FREE. They didn't moan and whine that the French didn't do it for them, or that the US didn't do it for them, they did it themselves, they are FREE.
On the Iraqi front, we abandonded them, but they died FREE men and women. Saddam could not kill their fire, just their bodies. By doing so Saddam sewed the seeds of his own destruction.
There is not just a 'victim' and 'abuser' class in this Dean. Far too many, Americans as well, are content to let the state do as it chooses as long as they aren't bothered personally. These people aren't free, they're sheeple, they're kept FREE by better men and women than themselves.
This is how it has always been in the world Dean. No matter how much you want to claim otherwise, millenia of human recorded history has proven you wrong. It was not the common Romano-British that rose up against the Romans for their crimes, it as those that were willing to sacrifice. It was not the 'average' colonial that gave the US birth, but people willing to RISK IT ALL.
It is the same today. Only today everyone who isn't free whines about how it's not their fault, and someone needs to come 'save' them in effect.
Muslims can, of their own volition, do the same and turn the wheel of Islam back to its original concept of openness -- ijtihad. What they need to do -- all that they need to do -- is to start reading their own Q'uran and, at the same time, begin ignoring the crowds of ignorant, closed-minded and bigoted imams and their commentaries of backwardness and hate that have developed over the centuries since the khalifs of Baghdad -- the islamic popes -- destroyed the vitality of islam itself.
This is precisely what they need, and nothing short of that. An islamic protestant reformation. One in which an increasingly literate population of Arabs, Iranians, Kurds, Turks, Paks, Bengladeshi, Malayans, Indonesians, Moros and other islamic nations, will be able to read for themselves what the prophet Muhamad actually had to say to them. That means reading it, not listening to somebody ritualistically chanting selected parts of the great Q'uran to them as if they were mindless idiots.
That is Step 1 for what could become the islamic Protestants. Step 2 would be the dis-establishment of official religion from their societies. In other words, the gradual but total disenfranchisement of sh'aria and its replacement by civil law codes, written constitutions, and other aspects of an appropriate civil order that is precisely what the nations of the world need, now that we are all so crowded in on one another and with more of the same expected until the world population tapers off at about 8 billion. Hopefully.
And for real believers in a single deity, why cannot people freely choose between Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or all of these put together, or none at all? Islam, with its simplicity of dogma, is one of the grandest and noblest schemes of religion ever put together by the minds of mankind. Why must it all warp into human slavery, as it so frequently has done?
This slavery, and the hatred that perhaps is connected with it, in itself is an insult to Islam and to Muhamad. An insult so great, that a fatwa ought to be issued condemning to great punishment all the scoundrels who have put it into place. Because they -- and not the Christians, Jews, members of other faiths, or those with no faith at all, are the true enemies both of Islam and of the sole god that Islam celebrates.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Christian ideals like "turn the other cheek" and Catholicism’s masochistic glorification of saints and martyrs, the promise of heavenly rewards for earthly suffering were very effective tools for keeping the masses from rebelling against their leaders - and from rebelling against priests who preached the benefits of poverty while collecting huge sums for indulgences.
As a political brainwashing tool, religion outclasses the most sophisticated and modern brainwashing techniques. Political Catholicism managed to keep the believers in line for centuries by using standard religious tools. They also managed to gather a huge fortune without oil wealth or a real military force. The power of religion to maintain the status quo and keep people from working in their best interests shouldn’t be underestimated.
Political Islam, as represented by the Saudi &the Iranian governments, and by shariah laws, can be fought using political &military means. Despite the religious basis, this political/apartheid system is equivalent to fascism. These states and the paramilitary groups they support can be fought using traditional means (if we'd bother to make the effort).
But even if terrorism and Shariah states were eliminated, it's a fact that most Muslims have lost the habit of questioning authority. Since their faith does have a liberal tradition, there’s hope that this situation can change. This is an issue that has to be worked out by Muslims, not by us, but our alliance with and our support of the Wahhabis doesn't help anyone at all.
Even if I didn't explicitly point it out that reconstruction of Islam must come from within its communities, I meant to imply what you have warned about. Although you did a better job than I did in pointing out that most Muslims have lost the habit of questioning authority.
And I completely agree that must terminate our present alliance with the original source of all the wahhabist misery that has been brought down on the islamic nations and their non-islamic neighbors. And that source is the rotten wabbabist saudi regime that runs the arabian peninsula to the extent that the country is now named after their family, and no longer by its original and sufficiently noble name -- Arabia.
I frequently find myself wondering if we might have served the west and world democracy better by lending active support to overthrow the saudi monarchy before getting rid of the baathist dictatorship in Iraq. In failing to do just that, we have plainly informed the world that our country is less interested in instituting democracy among the Arabs than in using a religious and political dictatorship to stabilize the price of oil in the western or westernized countries that that rapidly draining the mideast oil reserves.
Without a proper and level foundation, a house cannot be built that will stand for long. Similarly, without appropriate political and constitutional frameworks established among the Arabs and other islamic nations, there will be no foundation for reform of the ugly way of life and the social monstrosities that take place in the name of religion, throughout that region.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
It is the height of arrogance for someone born in freedom and guaranteed certain inalienable rights to condemn those not born in freedom, who grow up taught fear and with a controlled media, who live in a world where even speaking out of turn might have your children executed before your eyes, to condemn them for not acting against their oppressors.
Sometimes an outside agency is the only thing that can change.
Try actually reading the biographies of people like Havel, Walesa, Sharansky, etc.
Every step toward what Westerners would consider "progress" in Saudi Arabia has been a top-down decision, from the advent of radio and TV, to instituting education for girls, to now--and belatedly--bringing different manifestations of Islam into the Saudi political fold.
And every one of those steps has been taken in opposition to considerable public opinion. Riots followed the introduction of radio; King Faisal was assassinated following the introduction of TV. Tens of thousands appealed to the Crown Prince to retract his decision taking education out of the hands of the Ministry for Religious Affairs.
But since the Al-Saud do not hold absolute power--they very much depend on concensus support for their decision-making--they cannot reorder Saudi society single-handedly.
They have begun a reform in their political structure with the recently concluded municipal council elections. Yes, those elections are minor league and women weren't permitted to vote. But important things were achieved anyway.
For the first time, the Shi'a of the Eastern Province do hold political power, because they were elected to seats on their councils. And, as Khaled Batarfi, editor of the Arabic-language Al-Madina newspaper pointed out, the typical Saudi won the elections.
They elected religious conservatives, because Saudis are religiously conservative. They didn't elect extremists--liberal or conservative. Instead, the selected people who had a demonstrated history of civic accomplishment. We should be applauding that.
It's truly a pity that Mary has to reduce everything to simple concepts that don't fit the facts, but do fit her point of view.
John, I agree with you. The Saudi/Wahhabi government is one of the foremost reformers within the country.
According to this Freedom House report, Saudi Arabia under the guidance of the Royal Family is one of the least free nations in the world. They are the nadir, the absolute bottom. Primitive tribes in Africa and in the Amazon have a better record on human rights and freedom.
According to you, and according to all polls and all other indications, the Saudi population wants fewer freedoms than the government offers, not more. They are worse than the worst. Which proves that the state of Saudi Arabia is uniquely bad, in the Middle East and in the world. It also proves that the state of Saudi Arabia is, in its present form, irredeemable.
According to my numbers a very small percentage of Saudis are gainfully employed. Most of the available jobs in the kingdom are filled by more than 6 million foreign workers. An Arab News editorial says that Saudi society is bored. They have "more than 50 percent spare time."
The government has tried to get people to work with their Saudization initiative, but most refuse to take any job that's beneath them:
It may not even be a young man's own parents, but other parents who wouldn't consider tradesmen appropriate husbands for their daughters. "I wouldn?t feel shame of working in such jobs, but it's like the community would be embarrassed for me if I accepted the job, especially when it comes to marriage," said Salem Al-Bakri. "Some parents reject giving their daughters to a craftsman because it doesn't pay enough money."
The Saudi people support bin Laden's ideals, but they don't want him to govern because if he did, they would probably have to work. They don't want to.
The Saudi government knows this. Like another totalitarian supporter of terrorism, they want to keep their people happy.
From a German report on Hitler, the Feel-Good Fuhrer:
Hitler not only fattened his adoring "Volk" with jobs and low taxes, he also fed his war machine through robbery and murder, says a German historian in a stunning new book. Far from considering Nazism oppressive, most Germans thought of it as warm-hearted..
..he gave them huge tax breaks and introduced social benefits that even today anchor the society. He also ensured that even in the last days of the war not a single German went hungry. Despite near-constant warfare, never once during his 12 years in power did Hitler raise taxes for working class people.
Saudi oil revenues have been going up steadily since "insurgents" have been attacking Iraq and Iraqi oil fields. The Saudi government has told young Saudi men to fight in Iraq. Saudi money finances other insurgents, and insurgencies around the world. Supporting terrorism increases profits and makes the Saudi people and their government feel better about themselves. And they don't have to work. What a deal.
They won't stop doing this until they have to.
I feel sorry for the royals, dealing with this nation of upper class twits, but I feel more sorry for the many victims (and potential victims) of Saudi supported terrorism.
Yes, the Saudi people are extremely conservative--something one sees noted regularly on my blog. But some of them realize that they do need to change, that they cannot close the windows to the outside world and expect to survive.
Among those that realize the need for change is the Saudi government. But as you seem unable to comprehend, the rulers of Saudi Arabia are not--repeat not--absolute monarchs. They cannot say, "Do this" and know that it will be done. Rather, they rule by concensus. While they can suggest directions in which the country could go, in most instances they cannot make it go that way. Unless they can also convince a majority of the opinion makers that it is in their own interests to go that way. The government wins some arguments and loses others.
A quick example: The Crown Prince suggested, in 1993, that women be permitted to drive. That got shot down immediately, by popular demand.
You're being simply dishonest when you say, "The Saudi government has told young Saudi men to fight in Iraq." That is not true. But you like to blur distinctions between the government and individuals; you do it all the time.
Nor does the Saudi government fund insurrection in Iraq. Do, perhaps, some individual Saudis? Maybe. Maybe even probably. But it is absolutely not a part of government policy.
Your suggestion that they do so to keep the price of oil high qualifies you for a large tinfoil hat.
The Iraqis WANT IT; the Chinese cruely executed while the West twiddled it's thumbs, WANTED IT; the Ukrainians WANT IT. They're willing to fight along side us for it. They want HELP, they're not saying (as you are suggesting) 'DO IT FOR US; MAKE US FREE'. You are BORN free. You can stuff your 'free born people have no right to comment or censure thost not born free'. EVERYONE IS BORN FREE! Don't for a second think Democracy doesn't 'brainwash' it's adherents (and their offspring) into how great freedom and government of the people is. They do. As adults we all must look at our situations and find out if they need changing (which includes looking at other forms of government, all of which are corrupt dictatorships in one form or another). When a human whine "I want it, but I don't wanna do it myself", they can't expect the rest of humanity to jump on board and help out.
THAT is the problem with your statements on religion. The Catholic Church wasn't brought low by the generosity and kindness of the Pope, it was a person that WANTED THEIR FREEDOM and went out to get it (and got persecuted for it, but he did it anyway). The US didn't get free because King George decided 'let's let the colonies decide', the Americans WANTED THEIR FREEDOM and GOT IT by FIGHTING FOR IT. The Ukranians, the Poles, the South Africans...every free nation got that way because of a ground-swell of the people wanting it. In the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq we HELPED but we did NOT do it for them.
[You realize, of course, that in this context, "conservative" means followers of a doctrine based on genocide, hate, slavery and apartheid. That is the doctrine that the Saudi state was built on, and you're defending the followers of those beliefs]
Saddam didn't rely on the goodwill of his people. Like other dictators in the area, he relied on terror, brutality and his omniprensent secret police to keep the Iraqis in line. To a lesser degree, that's how the Syrians ruled Lebanon, and to all appearances, that's how Kaddaffi rules Libya. The majority of the people resent the rule of these dictators, but the presence of the secret police and a general climate of fear keeps them from speaking out. If the dictatorship falters, or if the structure falls apart, people can express their hatred of the regime. We've seen that most of the people in the Middle East are much less "conservative" than their rulers.
Most object to the current Arabist/Islamist campaign of ethnic cleansing, slavery and oppression.
In contrast, the very "conservative" Saudi people want more of it. They've enjoyed the benefits of ethnic cleansing, slavery and oppression, and they have every intention of maintaining the status quo.
The chief justice of the KSA, Sheik Saleh Al Luhaidan, encouraged young Saudis to go to Iraq to wage war against Americans. The mullahs who have been preaching jihad for years are government employees. Their government is willing to spend billions to maintain their standard of living, and they're willing to go to great lengths to keep their people happy.
I understand the Royals' motivations, and I understand where the Saudi people are coming from. They've grown up in an apartheid system, they're used to it. They don't want to be kicked out of their 5000 sq ft house, they don't want to lose their slave maid and live in a grubby tent in the desert. Makes sense.
I just don't understand our government's motivation. Our defense of our Saudi Allies is costing us more money than they earn from oil sales. "Cheap" Saudi oil is costing us hundreds of billions.
Most muslims, even Sunnis, despise the Saudi regime. They think they're equivalent to the Beverly Hillbillies, or they call them 'parasite usurpers'. Our relationship with the Wahhabi cultists is costing us respect in the Muslim world.
Dhimmifying ourselves towards the Saudis who are responsible for 9/11 makes us look weak to the non-Muslim world. It makes our government look weak to the American people.
This relationship already humilitates us. If the Saudis decide to dump us and start holding hands with China, we lose even more.
You used to work for the state department, John. Can you tell me what the American people are gaining from our alliance with these fascists?
You're absolutely wrong in your suppositions of what the formation of the Saudi state was based on. It's your rabid view of Saudis as the incarnation of all evil that colors your argument, not anything remotely related to fact.
"Genocide, hate, slavery, and apartheid" are not and were not elements of Saudi state policy. They're just buzz words that you toss around because they make you feel warm and fuzzy and on the "right side" of history.
I have never said that the Saudi take on life was a great one. In fact, I point out very serious problems they have, including anti-Semitism, intolerance, a restricted view of human rights. But I've also said, repeatedly, that by taking the worst instances of behavior by a Saudi, then extrapolating it to the entire Saudi population, you provide a pale imitation of reasoning. You then jump to the conclusion that if a Saudi does something, it must be "government policy".
Why does the USG care about Saudi Arabia? What do we gain from it? Oh, a few billion things... if we're looking only at dollars.
The US, for instance, is the largest importer into Saudi Arabia. That runs in the $20-$30 billion/year range.
The Saudis have demonstrably and reliably kept oil prices from spiking over the past 50 years. Until the current fuel problems--which are not driven by supply, but instead by refining and distribution--they played the moderating role in fighting off oil price increases championed by other OPEC countries like Iran, Algeria, Libya, and Venezuela.
But the US air wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were conducted out of Saudi Arabia--Pr. Sultan Airbase, in Al-Kharj. I don't put a monetary value on that, but the Pentagon could.
The Saudis grant the US overflight privileges for military aircraft. That has both a strategic and monetary value. It'd cost a whole lot more to fly around the Arabian Peninsula, but the USAF can't do it anyway... not enough tankers or places to put them.
And while it's a fact sure to drive you up a tree, the Saudis do play a moderating role in Islam! Even if they are ultra-conservative, perhaps because they are ultra-conservative, when they condemn terrorist acts, when they take action against terrorists, other Islamic countries--and Muslims in general--take note.
When the Riyadh Accords condemn terrorism--including defining terrorism in a way that we like and support--it makes a difference to the USG in its ability to enlist world support in fighting terror.
That's just a few of the facts that you haven't had the time to hunt down. Perhaps if you spent less time on LGF you'd have more time to find out what's actually going on. But just in case, I'm upping my holding in ALCOA. Clearly tinfoil has a great future.
Under a typical totalitarian government, your waiter, your kid or your grandfather can report you to the government for criticizing the regime. We're not talking about Redcoats, we're talking about leaders who regularly destroy entire villages on a whim and put people in shredders for the crime of dissent.
This tends to keep people from expressing their opinions or organizing revolutions.
Have you ever lived under a totalitarian government?
Yes, that's a good working definition of fascsim. And you're right, an alliance with fascists has never been a sign of being on the 'right' side of history.
Opposing fascist murderers does give one a warm fuzzy feeling. You should try it sometime.
So, according to you, we're allied with these fascists because they buy our stuff (like military supplies - selling weapons to fascists - there's a plan).
According to Cheney, quoted in this New Yorker article, we went to war in Iraq to protect our Saudi friends from Saddam:
Many of our fascist Saudi friends responded to this generosity by joining the "Iraqi" insurgency. Members of their government, employed by their government, told them to do so.
The war in Iraq has cost the American people more than 200 billion dollars.
The Saudi sponsored attacks of 9/11 cost the American people more than 100 billion dollars.
Our investment in Saudi Arabia is already a net loss.
Islamist terrorism has increased significantly since the Saudi fascists "condemned" terrorism. I'm not saying that the Saudi condemnation caused the terrorist attacks, but it certainly didn't help.
This information comes from the National Counterterrorism Center, the New Yorker, Dick Cheney and Saudi Sheik Saleh Al Luhaidan. Are they tinfoil hatters?
More than 70% of the American people believe that the government and the people of Saudi Arabia are not our allies. Are they all tinfoil hatters?
I haven't seen any recent proof of any Saudi "moderating" force within OPEC. If fuel prices are driven, not by supply, but by "refining and distribution", then what exactly have the Saudis done to expand "refining and distribution" capabilities? Do you have any reliable sources that describe, in detail, Saudi efforts to expand refining and distribution?
You haven't explained why we should continue to be allied with fascists, why our government should continue to be on the wrong side of history, or why we should throw good money after bad. You want us to continue this alliance despite the fact that it's currently draining our economy.
You want us to maintain it because of these extremists have some mythical "moderating" force that can't be quantified, and because this pathetically militarily weak nation "lets" us fly over their airspace. And you think I need a tinfoil hat?
People who've been subject to government-controlled media their whole lives are supposed to just know when and where they've been lied to?
From what I've seen, they just assume that everybody is lying. Across the board.
Yes, people have to want freedom. Then again, they have to have some clue what it is and what it entails and what it costs. You also continue to seem to utterly ignore my point that in a truly totalitarian system, it's ridiculous to expect people to throw off their shackles all by themselves. Most of the time, they need help--sometimes, quite a lot of it. And even with much help, it often takes decades of hard work.
Please do not accuse me of "bleating" or put words in my mouth, by the way.
I guess I don't even know what this argument is about anymore; it's my own belief that most people want freedom, but many of them simply do not know that that is what they yearn for, or don't know what it is, or even if it's possible. They need help--and it's hard to do when they know that just speaking out of turn might cause goons to show up and execute their children.
Unfortunately, John is right - the ultraconservative Gulf states are not like the rest of the middle east. Most of the people are more conservative than the totalitarians who rule them.
Not coincidentally, the most conservative populations are also the wealthiest. These ultra conservative Gulf Arabs will do anything to preserve the status quo, including supporting terrorism.
If we fight them, we can't say that we're "liberating" them or bringing them democracy, because they clearly don't want it. They're not the oppressed, they're the oppressors, and they're at war with us and with most of the world.
The goal of a war with them can only be the old fashioned kind - victory over an enemy that wants to kill us. It could be a military war, but it might not have to be. Their strength is mostly economic.