Iran 'fires satellite into space'

[n0mad23]

Murdering hundreds of thousands of women and children because some guys might hijack a plane is so evil it's beyond words to describe. Keep in mind that this attitude is what drives people in Iran and North Korea to hurry up and get the Bomb in order to fend off people with murderess attitudes like this, and leads people to see Americans as self-rightous clowns who think they can kill whoever they want.

Right you are. It's really sad how the world united behind us after 9-11, and how we became despised after targeting Iraq. Unless you're a total isolationist (or an apologist for empire building), national reputation is important for diplomatic reasons. It's also really hard to break cycles of violence when everyone's playing the tit-for-tat game.

 

[Andy44]

Well, it's not often I agree with you, nomad, but there you have it.

Interesting you bring up the "i" word, isolationism.

Those of us who followed the Ron Paul phenomenon last year were often accused of being "isolationist" by both the left and neo-con right, but Paul's answer was that the real isolationism was those who believe in a policy of aggression, which tends to isolate us from our friends and allies. He made a clear distinction between isolationism and noninterventionism. The former means building a wall around your nation and cutting off contact, while the latter means leaving open lines of trade and travel, while cooling it with the military ventures.

Interesting for me to find myself in this position. I started off as a hardcore conservative, but a little reading and a lot of witnessing recent events (~last decade) has turned me into a wacko libertarian. Some of my friends and family are surprised by this.

Oh well, at least I still like guns (in private hands).

 

[GregBurch]

... speaking of isolation, I suppose I shall chalk myself up as the lone bloodthirsty imperialist around here. Seriously, I think there's a dangerous underestimation of what I perceive to be a major problem. Of course I could be completely wrong about what I've concluded from the bookshelves groaning under the weight of all the reading I've done on the subject over the last seven years, but I don't think so.

For the record, I don't think all Muslims or Iranians are a monolith, and that every single person in these categories are dangerous. But I do conclude that there is a critical mass of very, very dangerous ideas among these groups, and that talking to unrepresentative individual people in the West doesn't give you a clue about the level of that danger. I also conclude that voices of moderation in these groups can be cherry-picked to prove a point, but that they are unrepresentative and their influence is structurally limited to a very great degree. I also think that it is foolish -- and can be extremely dangerous -- to assume a level or kind of rationality in other people that one perceives in one's self.

But, hey, the nice people may get their shot at trying a different way. All I have to say to them is, good luck. If it doesn't work out, there will always be those men on the wall with guns to help out. They'll always be there ... right?

 

[MJR]

Well, my personal opinion. If Iran shoots one nuke at us, we turn the place into a crater.
Even Obama would do it.

That is what they want us to do so we lose trust and freindship with other countries. But I guess if I was the president I would call a retaliation as well.

 

[Jarvitä]

That is what they want us to do so we lose trust and freindship with other countries. But I guess if I was the president I would call a retaliation as well.

Wait, they want to be turned into a crater? I doubt it. Even if they are working on their nuclear and space programs for military purposes, have you considered it might be to act as a deterrent to being turned into a crater? That's why everyone got nuclear weapons after the USA had them, and it's kept the world relatively peaceful for the last 60 years.

 

[GregBurch]

Wait, they want to be turned into a crater? I doubt it. Even if they are working on their nuclear and space programs for military purposes, have you considered it might be to act as a deterrent to being turned into a crater? That's why everyone got nuclear weapons after the USA had them, and it's kept the world relatively peaceful for the last 60 years.

Kindly Uncle Joe ... he never would have considered developing nuclear weapons if those nasty Americans hadn't done it first ...

 

[Jarvitä]

Kindly Uncle Joe ... he never would have considered developing nuclear weapons if those nasty Americans hadn't done it first ...

Actually the nuclear race has started long before the Manhattan project. Americans got to the bomb first because of all the German scientists that ran to the USA, and the Russians got it second because of all the spies they had in America. You're right, other countries would likely proceed with nuclear proliferation just as fast even if the USA didn't have nuclear weapons. Perhaps even faster if the USSR had them first.

 

[n0mad23]

Andy44 - a libertarian? There's hope for our generation yet.

The great questions that need to be asked: Who wins? Who loses? What's at stake? How are those in power going to use us next?

I, for one, love the idea of democracy. Transparency is the key, and everything else can easily be turned into a red-herring.

I could be totally wrong about the danger posed by Iran. But frankly, I have no confidence in the intelligence that's being fed us by the same chaps that gave us the Iraq security risk.

 

[Andy44]

Andy44 - a libertarian? There's hope for our generation yet.

Well what the heck did you think I was?

I'm curious, Greg, about what you think we should do about the fundamentalist Islamic threat (which I agree exists). Do you think what the US has done since 911 is all good? Including the domestic security stuff?

And going back a bit, what do you think caused this threat in the first place? Do you think US doreign policy played any role in it?

 

[Linguofreak]

Wait, they want to be turned into a crater?

Well... Possibly. Several members of the Iranian government are supposed to belong to a cult that thinks bringing on Armageddon would be a good thing because it would hasten the coming of the Mahdi. Even without that, they may think that however antisocial they get, they don't have to worry about retaliation because Allah will protect them.

 

[GregBurch]

I'm curious, Greg, about what you think we should do about the fundamentalist Islamic threat (which I agree exists). Do you think what the US has done since 911 is all good? Including the domestic security stuff?

And going back a bit, what do you think caused this threat in the first place? Do you think US doreign policy played any role in it?

I may tray to post a response later. I'm really trying to make some progress on my next addon here in my weekend time. And I'm also somewhat concerned that all my political talk may be unwelcome by many on the forum. I know I'm not the only one on the forum who talks politics, but I'm afraid my views are considerably off the mainstream here, and I really do value Orbiter and the welcome I've had in this community.

 

[simonpro]

I'm not Greg, but I'm answering anyway. I'm never shy with my opinions

And going back a bit, what do you think caused this threat in the first place? Do you think US doreign policy played any role in it?

Well the original threat comes from the fact that fundamentalist religion is not compatible with other religions, so Fundamentalist Islam is already at odds with countrys who have, say, Christianity as their main religion.
However, in the shorter term I think the tensions were started by the creation of the state of Israel (don't get me started on that) and further aggravated by several Western governments meddling in the affairs of the Middle East. There's nothing more aggravating for a country than having another country messing in your internal affairs. America is lucky that it's never really had that problem, and perhaps if some other countries had meddled with US domestic policy then the USA would be a little more reluctant to do the same to other countries.*


Let me tell you a story that may be of relevance to illustrate my point.
About 6 years ago, just before I went to uni, I spent a summer in the middle east travelling around and visiting the different countries.
While I was there I saw a lot of people with stickers on their cars/bikes showing the American or British flag in flames, and I also encountered a fair bit of hostility from people on the street.
However, every time I actually stopped to talk to people they quickly grew very friendly when I mentioned I was Swedish and not American/British. They'd quite happily talk away to me with no problems at all, even when I mentioned I came from a Christian country.
When I asked why they disliked these other countries so much their response was always along the lines of "they think they know what is best for us" or "they treat us with arrogance". That is what annoys the common man on the street, most of them don't give two hoots about the differing religion.


That's not to say that there isn't a minority who does want to destroy anything non-islamic: There will always be people who want that, and we must watch them carefully.
My point is merely that the foreign policy of many western countries is what annoys many Muslims, and as soon as you start getting people who are aggreived with the West then you can persuade them that the West needs to be attacked, it becomes a breeding ground for discontent.
With a little thought and a lot of work I really think we could change a fair bit of the current hostile climate. Get the foreign policy sorted out and treat them as equals and not as third world hellholes.




*Although, of course, the USA isn't the only one doing the meddling. The UK and France are even worse for it. France only escapes the attention of fundamentalist Islam because the government has (vaguely) friendly relations with a lot of countries in the M.E, something that a lot of other places don't.

(edit) That was a little longer than expected. Good luck reading it

 

[GregBurch]

what do you think caused this threat in the first place?

I only know how to approach an answer to your question with a broad overview of the roots of the problem, which I lay out here:

The Birth of Islam (622-750)

• The standard biography of Muhammed accepted throughout the Muslim world reveals that, after the Hejira (the retreat from Mecca to Medina in 622), Muhammed was a political and military leader, as well as being a “prophet” of what westerners would consider purely religious matters.
• The doctrine of “abrogation” is universally accepted in all four of the standard schools of Sunni Islamic scholarship (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali) and mainstream Shiite scholarship.
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naskh_(exegesis)
  • http://www.meforum.org/article/1754
• The sunna, or biographical example laid down by Muhammed and narrated in the hadith, is an element of Muslim belief of almost equal importance to the Koran. In practice, it is often more influential than the Koran, since the latter is often quite linguistically obscure.
• The doctrine of abrogation is applied by almost all schools of Muslim thought to the sunna in some form. Thus the later example of Muhammed is seen as more relevant than the earlier example.
• As time went on, Muhammed became more and more violent, both in his “revelations” as recorded in the Koran, and in the example he set in his own life.
• A huge portion of the later suras and hadith deal with Muhammed’s acts and pronouncements as the leader of an aggressive band of warriors. Examples include many, many items dealing with who to fight, how, and how to divide up the spoils of the victories that Muhammed and his warrior band increasingly experienced. A not insignificant portion of this material, by the way, deals with minute questions of the sexual slavery into which female captives were condemned.
• Having subdued basically all of his local opponents, at the end of his life, Muhammed was planning his first major military campaign of conquest outside the Arabian Peninsula. In preparation for this, his final “revelations” and the last (and therefore most authoritative) hadith are some of the most aggressive and bloodthirsty.
• “The Companions,” the warriors who served as Muhammed’s chief lieutenants, continued Muhammed’s wars of conquests with no interruption when he died. Within 120 years of Muhammed’s death, these conquests had subdued all the land from Iberia in the west to Persia in the east.
• These were NOT peaceful acts of conversion. The Muslim conquests were very bloody. This period is still perceived throughout the Muslim world as a golden age in which much pride is taken.

The Ascendancy of Islam (750-1683)

• For the next 900 years, there was constant warfare around the periphery of the Islamic world. In the east, this resulted in the conquest of India and large parts of Southeast Asia. In the far west, non-Muslims fought a 600-year war of reconquista in Iberia, a bloody conflict that became the crucible in which modern Hispanic culture was formed. In the Levant, Christian Europe made repeated attempts to recapture “the Holy Land,” but ultimately failed to maintain control there when Saladin reinvigorated the Muslim effort. And in the middle, the Turkish Muslim Ottoman Empire fought constant wars of aggression into Russia, the Balkans and central Europe.
• All of this warfare was explicitly justified in religious terms.
• During this same period, Muslim thought became increasingly frozen. The most important element of this is the so-called “Closing of the Gates of Ijtihad” in the TENTH CENTURY.
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijtihad
• “Ijtihad” literally means “effort,” but in terms of Islamic thought means the application of independent reasoning to the otherwise unquestionable authority of the Koran and sunna. All of the major schools of Sunni thought hold that the role of ijtihad in the contemporary world is, at best, extremely limited. In other words, it is accepted that by no later than the tenth century, all major questions of how life should be lived had been worked out.
• Shiite thought is different in this regard, with men learned in the Koran, sunna and pronouncements of previous learned men (imams) being given greater weight and scope of authority in the contemporary world. Thus the role of figures like the ayatollahs in Iran. However, mainstream Shiite thought is still extremely conservative by Western standards, rejecting “bidah” (innovation) as an inherent evil.

Islam in Eclipse (1683-1919)

• For 250 years after the defeat of the Ottomans at the Siege of Vienna in 1683, the Muslim world became largely irrelevant to developments in the West. The rapid progress made in Europe as a result of the Renaissance and Enlightenment created means of power that were impossible for Muslim societies to adopt. There had been no real change in the fundamentally tribal nature of Arab society itself, and non-Arab Muslim societies, like India and Persia, languished as cultural backwaters. These societies were not capable of creating and maintaining the kind of large, institutional armies required to operate increasingly complex weapon systems. Likewise, antipathy to secular knowledge and supra-tribal institutions made adoption of capitalist economic systems impossible in the Muslim world.
• One result of the general lack of progress in the Muslim world at the same time that Europe was undergoing successive waves of radical technological and social progress was that various Muslim regions became “easy pickings” for European expansion. Thus the English “accidental empire” in Mughal Muslim-ruled India, and European incursions into North Africa, the Levant and the Arab Middle East.
• An important cultural reaction to the loss of Arab and Muslim power in contrast to first Turkish expansion and then European dynamism was the birth of a number of fundamentalist movements. The Wahhabis in the Arabian peninsula actually gained power before any European impact in the area, as part of the re-assertion of power by some of the most primitive Bedouin tribes (especially the Saud clan) against Ottoman rule. In India, the Deobandi sect (the cradle of Pakistani fundamentalism, now envigorated by Wahhabi money) was born in the aftermath of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Also, dozens of Mahdi-centered militaristic cults sprang up across the Muslim world, both Sunni and Shiite, throughout this period, as Ottoman authority crumbled in first one area, and then another.
• The last and, in many ways, most dangerous of the fundamentalist Salafi movements, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, coalesced around the writings of Sayed Q’tb in the first part of the 20th century. Ayman Zawahiri, one of the founders of al Qaida, was an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Note that all of this happened before the formal founding of Israel.
• This period of maximal cultural and political decay in the Muslim world can be said to have ended with the final, complete collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the arrangements made by the victorious European imperial powers, England and France, at the end of World War I. This includes the confusion connected with the Balfour Declaration, but it is important to not overstate the importance of this last item, since it was not perceived at the time within the Arab and Muslim worlds to be a more significant “humiliation” than any others that came out of their final prostration.

Nationalism (1919-1991)

• More or less secular nationalist political and military movements sprang up across the Arab and Muslim world in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the immediate aftermath of complete Ottoman collapse. These included the “Young Turks” in Turkey, the Baath in Syria and Iraq, the Hashemite partisans there and in Jordan, Nasser and his anti-Farouk rebels in Egypt, and the Muslims participating in anti-British activities in India, leading to the formation of Pakistan.
• All of these movements followed a similar trajectory of embracing some elements of “Western” modernism, but ultimately being unable to transcend the factors that had led their societies into decline in the first place. As first one and then another “secular nationalist” movement failed to deliver real progress in their societies, the Salafi fundamentalist movements that had preceded them began to grow as alternatives. As they did, they began to target the secular nationalists as apostate regimes who failed because they had adopted “unislamic” policies.
• The founding of Israel became a focus for much of the tension between the secular nationalist governments and their fundamentalist critics. Thus, when one effort after another to destroy Israel by the leading secular nationalist, Nasser, failed, the Muslim Brotherhood and its various imitators began to use the “Arab-Israeli conflict” as a constant and ever-fruitful refrain for pushing their agendas. The assassination of Anwar Sadat by the Muslim Brotherhood stands as the ultimate example of this dynamic.
• I mark the end of the “Muslim Nationalist” period in 1991, with the defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War. This is an arbitrary date, because outside of Iraq, and Lybia, the Salafist Islamist movements had by this time become the most dynamic and influential social and political factor throughout much of the Muslim world. By this point, while “secular nationalist” parties and strong-men still held titular power in many areas, Salafist religious parties and insurgencies had become the main actors driving events, either directly (as in Iran and Saudi Arabia) or through becoming the primary focus of efforts to maintain internal stability (as in Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere). In Indonesia, Salafist sentiment made steady inroads into public life, both political and cultural, so that by the end of this period, forces for and reacting against the Islamist movement became the most important element in public life there.

Global Jihad (c.1979-????)

• The Iranian Revolution provides a meaningful date to mark the beginning of a new expression of Islamic aggressiveness. But this current period is merely a return to Islam’s roots. With the development of modern communication technology and powerful weapons that are ever-simpler to use by ever-smaller groups, it is no longer necessary for those who embrace the original violent expansionism of Islam to master the power of the modern nation-state. Those who would emulate the example set by Muhhamed and his original followers need not adopt the forms of modern life in order to follow the way of jihad.
• The modern global jihad comes full circle to the original violent roots of Islam. There has never been in the Muslim world a meaningful reconsideration of the role that violence played in the birth of Islam. To the extent that moderates attempt to articulate a less violent Islam, they must do so by ignoring thirteen centuries of history and the great body of Islamic thought and law. In doing so, they immediately place themselves outside of the mainstream, and expose themselves to charges of “bidah” or “innovation” – a prohibited form of thought in all mainstream schools of Islamic scholarship. Such moderates exist, but they are structurally marginalized. The main centers of “official” Islamic thought, such as Al-Azhar in Cairo and the “official” Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, continue to embrace traditional views that consider the “gates of ijtihad” to be closed, and continue to issue fatwas based on the most conservative interpretations of Islam. Those conservative views are in fact completely consistent with the violent foundations of Islam and cannot serve as a meaningful antidote to the most radical jihadi rhetoric.

 

[dougkeenan]

I only know how to approach an answer to your question with a broad overview of the roots of the problem, which I lay out here:

Is there supposed to be a link at "here" where we can learn more, or is that just off the cuff?

 

[GregBurch]

Is there supposed to be a link at "here" where we can learn more, or is that just off the cuff?

No, the text that follows is what I'm referring to -- something I dashed off this morning. Sorry, it's the best I can do in such a short time.

 

[n0mad23]

Having spent some of my formative years in Indonesia, I've been really concerned about the possibility of them sliding towards fundamentalism in the last few years. Given the population of this country, there are actually more Muslims in Indonesia than the entire middle-east. Indonesia's also a country that's done a fairly good job in shifting from one religious paradigm to the next while retaining some of the better aspects of the previous one. For example, the Ramayana still constitutes national theater even though the country is primarily Islamic. Aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and even Animism still bubble just under the surface, and if you ever listen to gamelan music you can hear how unique Indonesian culture really is.

The Arab Muslims have very openly criticized the Indonesians as practicing "impure" Islam. As a kid, I never saw a veiled woman anywhere. This has certainly changed in the last several years.

Indonesia's also had a series of incredibly brutal dictators that have been supported by the US and European interests. Squeezed on all sides, the possibility for anti-western blow-back is a real threat. I try to remain optimistic, and found the wide spread reaction to the Bali bombing fairly encouraging.

Perhaps blow-back is the real issue for us here. For example, most of the "success" our law enforcement officials have had combating Muslim terrorists in the US has come from tips from American Muslims. I'm pretty sure this has to do with the access to America that's granted to the Muslim population, as opposed to many of the European countries that are having even worse problems with Islamic fundamentalism. Access to economic success and even cultural assimilation is the strongest weapon against fundamentalist recruitment.

Could be I'm feeling more idealist than usual, too.

Greg - Nice synopsis above. I'm curious about your take on the claim that the current Jihadist movement is inseparable from neo-conservatism, as they're both born at the same time, and are in fact reactions against US liberalism.

 

[SiberianTiger]

I know I'm not the only one on the forum who talks politics, but I'm afraid my views are considerably off the mainstream here, and I really do value Orbiter and the welcome I've had in this community.

Please keep posting, Greg. Your posts are very educational.

 

[Urwumpe]

I know I'm not the only one on the forum who talks politics, but I'm afraid my views are considerably off the mainstream here, and I really do value Orbiter and the welcome I've had in this community.

At least not more off the mainstream as my views.

 

[Andy44]

I agree, Greg, your posts bring a mature and realistic view to the forum. If anyone around here can actually cause me to reexamine my premises, it'd be you.

Still, nobody here seems to have any solution to the problem of fundamentalism, which, if I am getting this right, is that they cannot be expected to act rationally, and therefore cannot be deterred from committing massively destructive acts involving nuclear and other WMD.

One thing the West (including Russia) is very good at is making war against nation-states. We think in terms of kings and dictators and governments and territories. But you cannot use the traditional methods of warfare to fight a religion or an ideology. Washington seems to partially understand this, but their default solution is to impose a police state atmosphere at home and to gain control of anything they can overseas. I can't see a justification for the loss of liberty and the destruction and misery entailed in following that path.

I also don't believe that wacko fundamentalists are capable of running a state or an empire or a "caliphate" without toning down the wackiness enough for self-preservation. The more at stake in the material world, the less likely they are to risk losing it all. Iran seems to be run by crazies, but they are crazy like a fox, and they are good at the brinksmanship games. I also think that if the US can avoid alienating the Iranian population, which after all actually likes Western culture, the crazies will eventually become an anachronism. Attacking Iran risks hardening their nationalist attitude.

 

[Linguofreak]

*Although, of course, the USA isn't the only one doing the meddling. The UK and France are even worse for it. France only escapes the attention of fundamentalist Islam because the government has (vaguely) friendly relations with a lot of countries in the M.E, something that a lot of other places don't.

(edit) That was a little longer than expected. Good luck reading it

Problem is that the meddling isn't even all western. Major powers tend to meddle because their size and power means that they tend to have interests in lots of places, and lots of seemingly local conflicts can hurt them badly, not by direct attack, but simply by causing disruptions in key areas (such as those which produce oil). But what makes the situation worse is that smaller powers tend to try to manipulate larger ones by using the larger powers interests to try and manipulate them into taking one side or the other in a conflict, giving economic aid, or whatever. This helps the minor power in the short term, but in the long term only gives the major power more to worry about (especially if the minor power has been playing off of rivalries between major ones), and thus more reason to meddle.

The Iranian revolution and much current hostility in Iran towards America comes from American meddling (replacing a democratically elected leader with a tyrant who was more pro American). But the American meddling came from the democratically elected leader having tried to play America and the USSR against each other.