Thank you. But other writers have been down this road with Juan before. If he stays true to form, he'll become completely hysterical, inappropriate, call you a monster, and rant and rave at you with completely insane intensity and misplaced righteous indignation until you're overcome with disgust.

Expect him to claim that you're the next eichman, hitler and pol pot rolled into one and so on....

Michael,
That really puts things into perspective.

It's amazing that people can be so deluded as to believe that the US does not need to fight terrorism. In fact, it isn't delusion, it is anti-Bushism. When Clinton was in power, the Republicans screamed and cried about the Afghanistan and Sudan bombing campaigns. You can argue that he didn't do enough, but that's not what they did at the time. There were plenty complaints about him taking the action.

John Kerry lost all credibility with the people of Lebanon. But not before the election.
The first country he visited after losing the election was Syria. SYRIA! Why didn't he just run off to Iran, Libya, or better yet, North Korea?

Some Lebanese American friends of mine saw him walking into the Umayyad mosque. One yelled, "I voted for you."
He walked up to them and asked, "What are you doing here?"
Even he acknowledged that Syria was not the most friendly place to be for an American, and yet he was buddying up to Bashar al Assad. No condemnations of Syria's actions. Nothing of the sort.
He was having cordial meetings with a country that supports the murder of American troops in Iraq. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
I wasn't the biggest Bush fan before, but I can tell you that Kerry really pushed me in the other direction.
Now, all I can say is, Thank God he lost.

Now, all I can say is, Thank God he lost.

I remember arguing with you about this in Beirut. Looks like I've been a terrible influence. :)

I'll believe this is a real war when the president can publicly name the enemy (as a political movement or identifiable enemy and not as abstractions like 'terror' or 'violent extremism').

As far as I can tell the only things the exhibits in your impressive photographic display have in common are political violence and Muslims. If that's the enemy, then by all means let's say so and rename this thing the "War on Violent Political Muslims" or the "War on Muslim Political Violence". I might be persuaded to get on board with that one.

I agree that Muslim Political Violence is a serious problem and needs to be dealt with by civilized societies (including Muslim ones) but to do so we need clarity and not unparsable codewords.

And in your rush to miss Cole's point, you kind of make it for him, there are at least 10 different political actors represented in your display and a lot of them don't have that much to do with each other.

And his hardware/software analysis seems pretty valid, wanna fisk that?

Michael Farris,

We are at war with Islamists. (Or, if you prefer, Islamofascists. The words are different, the meanings are the same.)

Just because the president is too stupid or inarticulate or politically correct to say so doesn't mean you shouldn't have been able to figure it out by now for yourself.

Farris (again): I agree that Muslim Political Violence is a serious problem and needs to be dealt with by civilized societies (including Muslim ones) but to do so we need clarity and not unparsable codewords.

I agree.

And in your rush to miss Cole's point, you kind of make it for him, there are at least 10 different political actors represented in your display and a lot of them don't have that much to do with each other.

All of them are Islamists.

"We are at war with Islamists."

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Care to define the term "Islamist"? That's not snark (not much, anyway) since learning (and getting in the habit of) defining one's terms can save a lot of pointless arguing.

My own definition of "Violent Political Muslims" (warning: done on the fly and not well thought out) Muslims who use organized violence (chiefly against civilians and very often against other Muslims) to achieve some sort of political aim and who justify their violence on religious grounds. I might tweak that later, but it'll do for a start.

Whether this religious justification is sincere or opportunistic isn't especially important in terms of their effects on civilians.
However, recognizing if a specific entity is sincerely religiously motivated (taliban, van gogh killer) or opportunistically religiously motivated (chechen rebels, baathists) or some unholy mixture (london bombers) is important to effectively counteract it.

Very powerful, MJT.

Michael Farris' argument is at the nub of what we have to figure out. My sense is that the Islamists around the world are indeed very connected. If you look
at Mary Habek and others, you get the idea that this is not about disconnected opportunists - they have been having discussions about a global strategy for over 30 years.

I still think Professor Mary Habek's analysis is one of the best.

To many observers the jihadis seem to have no strategy at all. Attacks around the world appear random or even counter-productive, and there is, apparently, no over-arching strategic vision driving their project. Dr.Habeck argues quite the reverse – there are coherent strategies behind the seeming randomness of the jihadist war on the West, strategies that only make sense within the ideologies of the various extremist groups.

http://www.zwickinc.com/phportal/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=47

Others are posing this spontaneous combustion argument (again) since London 7/7, it seems ostrich-like to me.

For me it is enough to take the Islamist's at their own word. Try Google of "at their word", +xxxxxx and vary xxxxx between Islam, Islamist, terrorists, and Jihadis, etc.. Pretty instructive as to where world opinion is heading, I think.

To repeat my earlier post, as many as 30% of all muslims are Islamist (politically aggressive) and I believe they at least tacitly support the 1% or less that make up the jihadi pool.

Also, remember, wars are usually fought by a rather small percentage of a population. It doesn't mean that the non-military wing isn't part of the problem.

We are being attacked by Muslims who use extreme violence to impose their political will on others, including us.

The use of violence for political gain is the very definition of war; therefore I think it is fair to call this a "war".

Devastatingly effective.

Zionist stooge.

Michael, good idea to refute Cole pictoricaly, of course he will now become hysterical... It'll be fun to watch!

Congrats on yet ANOTHER Instalaunche -- well deserved. Fantastic selection. If this isn't war, what is?

Islamofascists -- those wanting to impose a gov't by death squad inspired by the Koran.

It's a subset of all death squad gov'ts, including China's, Sudan's, and Mugabe's (Zimbabwe).

The world will never again be "safe" from terrorism -- because of the huge increase in empowerment of individuals. Yet it can become much safer from such ideologically derived terror movements.

The world becomes safest by supporting democracy in ME countries. Even if the democracy and human rights are initially imposed by a military.

Leb.prof -- remember that the Bush-hating Left doesn't really care about Arabs (or Vietnamese). Their protests are mostly about THEMSELVES, first, and looking for sticks to use to beat those they disagree with. Juan Cole, who speaks Arabic, is just one of the loudest. Unreal Perfection is their usual, unspoken alternative.

[Michael, can you write in Arabic, yet?]

But my professor said all this war stuff was about oil. And Jews. Or Jewish oil. Or something. Didn't really pay attention - gotta get to the mall.

/channeling moonbat student of Cole

Putting Darfur in this list is a very dishonest rhetorical move. Darfur is pure ethnic cleansing of the type which can be found, unfortunately, in a number of African countries - Congo, Nigeria, etc. You may as well add Kosovo to the list if you want to lump every evil action by Islamists together as a united movement. Iran hanging gays is Islamic terror? Mugabe does the same thing and there are Christians, especially in Africa, who sympathize with that kind of action. This list does not do one thing to address Cole's point, it's just a hysterical response. I usually expect a lot better from this site.

Weren't those two gay guys hanged because they raped a 3 year old boy?

> However, recognizing if a specific entity is sincerely religiously motivated (taliban, van gogh killer) or opportunistically religiously motivated (chechen rebels, baathists) or some unholy mixture (london bombers) is important to effectively counteract it.

That's arguably true, but the benefits don't imply that the costs aren't greater, and there are costs in suggesting that parts of Islam are the problem.

Farris one of the people imposing those costs? For example, did he rant when Bush used the word "crusade"? Does he think that we need to understand "root causes", that we need to either help them economically, somehow change our Israeli policy, or otherwise "feel their pain"? If so ....

My question is did the US State Department, sometime around 1992 or 1993, make an agreement with Islamic nations that US statesmen/presidents would never make reference to, associated with, or even utter the words Islam and terrorists in the same sentence? If true, this would explain why any US statesmen/presidents have never spoken the word Islam and terrorism in the same sentence.

I heard this at a lecture given regarding the state of the US State Department sometime last year but unfortunately cannot remember the name of the speaker. I am not trying to inject any sort of conspiracy theory into the discussion but seriously, I would like to know if the US State Deartment has anything to do with the reason why the words Islam and terrorism are never used in the same sentence when US statemen/presidents speak on the WoT.

In addition to the pics, perhaps Chapter 9 from the Qu'ran could be linked for everyone to read? How about the Al Qaeda training manual?

I must apologize for not linking myself as I admit ignorance regarding linking procedures but it might be useful to read the Jihadist book of warfare in order to clarify our enemy's ambitions.

Darfur is perfectly appropriate. It is a misnomer to say it is 'ethnic' cleansing, considering the difference is not ethnicity, but religion. If these people were Muslim they would not be targetted with such ferocity.

Cole likes Hezbollah, and he agrees with a lot of the goals of Hamas, so I doubt you're about to persuade him with those pics - or any others, actually.

Sad propagandist, him. It's a waste too, because he really is a sharp guy - just blinkered by his ideology.

The second picture titled "Hezbollah" says it all... People should be reminded of the relationship between Arafat's uncle and Hitler's regime (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php)

People who refuse to see Islamofascists as the enemy, seeing only a "resistance" against the Jews and their supporters... they must follow their logic to the end and proclaim the right of the "true British" to slaughter all those of Norman blood as "unlawful occupiers"...

The sins of the father and all...

I remain stunned that people still give Cole's rants any credit at all. He has been so thoroughly Fisked so many times that I am beginning to think that the word Fisk should be changed to "Juaned".

Mark Buehner re Darfur: "It is a misnomer to say it is 'ethnic' cleansing, considering the difference is not ethnicity, but religion. If these people were Muslim they would not be targetted with such ferocity."

Both sides in the Darfur conflict are Muslim. I don't know if there's a sectarian aspect, but I think there is a racial one. Another terrible war in Sudan (in the south) is between local animists/christians and the Muslim government (maybe better described as Arabist rather than Islamist)>

Mark Buehner,

If these people were Muslim they would not be targetted with such ferocity.

But Mark, they are Muslim. Most of the violence and killing of the Islamists is directed at Muslims.

So who decided to put Cole as the main example of a blogger in Microsoft Encarta 05 in the article on blogging? Hmm....? Worldwide exposure and all those impressionable schoolkids!

You may as well add Kosovo to the list if you want to lump every evil action by Islamists together as a united movement.

Good point. Add it. Also add East Timor to the list of muslim wars on their non-muslim neighbors, and the Phillipines, and Kashmir, and Nigeria (did I miss any?).

Micheal F. and Vanya,

It seems to me that you are purposely missing the point and hoping that, by picking out nits, you can invalidate a much wider point.

Michael F. writes:

"I'll believe this is a real war when the president can publicly name the enemy"

So, lethal attacks by Muslim extremists in New York, Washington, Bali, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, Spain and England won't convince you that a war is raging but if the words "Violent Polital Muslims" pass the lips of one man, THEN you'll be convinced?

Why don't you just say "Of course I recognize we are in a war but I just gotta make trivial political points because I really, really must prove that I hate Bush?" Obviously, the political classes are trying to avoid making things worse by inflaming PC cultural passions (which may or may not be effective as Syn and Micheal T. point out). Does this change, in any substantive way, Michael T's point?

And no, Vanya, including Darfur is not a "dishonest rhetorical move" in the least. Just because ethnic cleansing occurs in other contexts does not change the fact that Darfur's cleansing is animated by the same Islamic extremism as the other violence Michael T. has illustrated.

Unroll it folks. Going back to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the works of al-Qutb, there has been a systematic rejection of Liberal Democracy in all of the important Islamic philosophical works. The extremists of the brotherhood merged easily with the Nazi sympathizers in the Arab world (such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and his followers) and fed on the copious Marxist/Rousseauian/Fascist critiques of the West. Islamism's appeal is to a sense of the world gone wrong from too much freedom, a fixation on grievances, an ignorance of history, and a desire to "fix" things by the imposition of strict Islamic law. JDWill makes the point that as many as 30% of Muslims buy into political Islamism. This isn't surprising in the least: the propagandists of the movement have had a century to learn the propaganda techniques developed by the anti-liberalists in the West and an entire people crushed under the thumb of despots as their audience.

The stunningly ironic thing today is that the so-called "liberals" in the West share so much of the world view - the incoherent and reflexive opposition to liberal Democratic Capitalism - underpinning Islamic extremism. So much so that it is simply de rigeur to hate Bush for his predictably imperfect and sometimes downright tone-deaf attempts at liberalizing the political culture of the Islamic world.

Michael F. and Vanya, I don't particularly care if you wish to wrap yourselves in trivialities, smug in your own "intellectual superiority." You'll have plenty of friends with which to share your hatred of Bush. Meanwhile, the rest of us can try to claw out some semblance of a response to this latest violent incarnation of anti-Westernism. In 20 years, however, please don't act like you were really behind the effort all along.

Lumping all Islamists together is repeating the same mistake we made in the Cold War when people thought Communism was a monolithic movement. As it turned out Communist China and Mao had very divergent interests from the Soviet Union. Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung were all facistic nationalists at heart - Marxism just provided an ideological framework they could use to justify their actions. In the same way Hizbullah, Hamas and the Saudi Wahabis all pay rhetorical lip service to the same God but they have divergent interests and have not hesitated to stab each other in the back when the occasion called for it. Lumping the Shi'ite Iranians in the same boat as the Saudis is really pure ignorance.

Syn: "My question is did the US State Department, sometime around 1992 or 1993, make an agreement with Islamic nations that US statesmen/presidents would never make reference to, associated with, or even utter the words Islam and terrorists in the same sentence?"

Syn - Paul Sperry made claims like that in his book Infliltration, discussed here:

Infiltration - interview with Sperry

"I cite a number of examples of how various security agencies are committing politically correct suicide in the section of the book called IN ALLAH WE TRUST, but the FBI is the most egregious example. Director Bob Mueller is so politically correct he's cut a deal with Muslim pressure groups to never use "Islamic" and "terrorism" in the same sentence. Muslim leaders don't want the link made for obvious reasons, and he's gone along with their whitewashing. But Mueller's own agents feel demoralized by his pandering. They wonder how they can defeat Islamic terrorists when their own boss can't even talk honestly about what's motivating them.

FP: Why isn't the White House cracking down on Mueller?

Sperry: Because the president has made the same pledge to never describe terrorism as Islamic -- you'll never hear him say "Islamic terrorism" either. Mueller's just taking his cue from the Oval Office. The tone is set from the top. The president never fails to remind us Islam is a "religion of peace" and one that we have to "respect." He even suggested at the last inaugural that the Qur’an is somehow part of our American heritage and culture."

SoCalJustice
Cole likes Hezbollah, and he agrees with a lot of the goals of Hamas

Care to substantiate this? What goals do he and Hamas share? You said "alot" so I expect an extensive list of the shared goals with specific quotations. Also provide evidence that he "likes" Hezbollah. Again specific quotations please.

Spaniard: "(did I miss any?)."

Beheading Buddhists in Southern Thailand.

Thanks, Michael. Cole like a large portion of academics living insular lives is an idiot, an articulate and well educated idiot but an idiot nonetheless. I hesitate to reiterate Orwell's comment about some things so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them, but damn it's appropriate.

Lumping the Shi'ite Iranians in the same boat as the Saudis is really pure ignorance.

Vanya,

we aren't interested in the theological nuances between shiites and sunnis and wahabis, etc.-- that's for Juan Cole's classroom lectures.

U.S. foreign policy deals with facts on the ground. If China and the USSR were treated differently, it wasn't because of the subtle differences in their respective flavors of communism-- it was because of facts on the ground. One country was trying to take over the world, the other one was not.

Take a second look at those pictures and tell me the facts on the ground are all that different for the victims of islam.

If we're so 'obviously' at war, can you please simply point me to the Congressional declaration of war? I haven't seen one yet. I'm not tying to pick nits, as this isn't a semantic distinction. Our country CANNOT be at war without a declaration. We can be fighting, we can be performing 'peacekeeping duties', we can be in a 'police action', but it's the declaration of war that makes it war. There really isn't any point in arguing about whether we are at war, since without a declaration of war, we are provably not. The bigger questions is why have we not declared war?

Putting Darfur in this list is a very dishonest rhetorical move. Darfur is pure ethnic cleansing of the type which can be found, unfortunately, in a number of African countries - Congo, Nigeria, etc.

Taking Darfur off of the list would be a very dishonest rhetorical move.

Most Africans call the ethnic cleansing and enslavement in Africa "Arabization". It may or may not have anything to do with the war in the Congo, but Arabization is totally responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Mauritania, Nigeria, and the Sudan.

It is important to bear in mind that by definition the African Christians of the Southern Sudan are the victims of jihad Islamism. The war against us (I should add that the word “war” is misleading because it has not been conventional war we have experienced but a genocidal war of extinction) has been and is being conducted in the name of jihad. According to the murderers, rapists and slavers – they are engaged in a holy war in the name of Allah. The Sudanese jihadists have a simple-minded, cruel, binary worldview. If you are not a Muslim you are a khoufar, an infidel, an enemy, a human being with no right to life who may be treated with terrible inhumanity. The jihadists in Khartoum have a great challenge in Sudan, the Land of the Blacks...

It is very painful to say this, but we Sudanese victims can not avoid uttering the truth, at least among ourselves: we are black, and therefore nobody cares about us. We are the ultimate victims of a global racism that continues even in the new millennium. We also have the great misfortune to be the victims of Arabs who slaughter and enslave us in the name of jihad. And everyone sitting here surely knows that when it comes to the ideology of jihad, open discourse at the Commission for Human Rights is muted. People refuse to speak the truth because no one wishes to be seen as anti-Islamic, especially not at the UN.

since the Arab world realized .. that the African continent was ripe for the taking they have been trying to Arabize it and dominate it since... the Saudis are controlling the Mosques more and more with their money and that they are driving the blacks out of the country that don't agree to their policies and influence through direct/indirect policies... hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries already.

..if no one stops it the African Continent will be overrun by Arabization soon.

Juan Cole is a full supporter of this program of Arabization.

A propos semantics, see Michael Young's latest.

As for Darfur, I've slammed Cole several times at how he 1) completely ignored the conflict, and 2) when he did mention it once or twice, he -- in his typical professorial majesty -- pooh-poohed the idea that it was an ethnic conflict (see one of posts here, scroll down.)

The guy is a joke; a bad one at that.

It may or may not have anything to do with the war in the Congo, but Arabization is totally responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Mauritania, Nigeria, and the Sudan.

Mary,

This reminds me of a comment I heard a non-Arab muslim make about radical islam. His view was that islam has been Arabized, and that the current jihad is an Arab phenomenon, not a muslim one. His view is that non-Arab jihadists have been Arabized.

WildMonk's on the beam. Vanya and Farris should take their heads out of their self-satisfied asses for a moment and read things like Qutub's Milestones or Azzam's Join the Caravan. If they deigned to read up on the history of the Islamic Revival, it might illuminate the issue so that even they would understand.

In fact, if they just read....

WildMonk's on the beam. Vanya and Farris should take their heads out of their self-satisfied asses for a moment and read things like Qutub's Milestones or Azzam's Join the Caravan. If they deigned to read up on the history of the Islamic Revival, it might illuminate the issue so that even they would understand.

In fact, if they just read....

wildmonk (to meeee): "So, lethal attacks by Muslim extremists in New York, Washington, Bali, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, Spain and England won't convince you that a war is raging but if the words "Violent Polital Muslims" pass the lips of one man, THEN you'll be convinced?"

Yeah, considering he's the guy who DECLARED the "war" without naming an enemy. Political discourse is debased when policy is carried out by codewords and innuendo. I'm not going to pretend I'm in on what the president is "really" saying/means.

You can compare the War on Terror to the civil rights movement. Was there a central organization that coordinated efforts to deny blacks the vote or prevent them from achieving a decent standard of living? Of course not. While the KKK was the standard bearer of racism, discrimination was practiced by individuals in every state, in every industry and every profession without the need of a governing assembly or uniform code of operating rules. The results of this commonly held belief, that blacks were inferior, were devastating and undeniable and combating the mindset required a new kind of multifaceted and perpetual warfare that is still being waged.

It's not a cookie-cutter fit but Islamism is no different than the racist insanity that gripped western societies in the past. The idea that infidels/unbelievers can be discounted is analogous to racial discrimination and the terror bombings and murders are no different than the lynchings and beatings used to terrorize people in the past. Same war, different people and now on a global scale. Either Juan isn't 'nuanced' enough to see this or he's one of them.

His view is that non-Arab jihadists have been Arabized.

Iran and al Qaeda have been working together for years. It's such an obvious fact, even the MSM is talking about it.

Many Iranians call the puritanical Iranian Mullahs "Arabs". The Mullahs' severe, intolerant beliefs are closer to Saudi Wahhabism than Persian culture.

The Arab/Islamist campaign of ethnic cleansing is a political movement - it has about as much to do with Islam as the KKK has to do with Christianity, or the Nazis with patriotism.

Mr. Ferris:

The declaration of war you should be looking at was issued by Osama bin Laden, long before the phrase "War on Terror" was issued by Bush.

Re: whether we're at war and a declaration of war.

Consider this emphatic statement by Democratic Senator Joe Biden, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with regard to the Use of Force resolution he authored and was passed nearly unanimously by Congress after September 11, 2001. In response to a question from the floor following a speech (given October 22, 2001 and shown on CSPAN), the interchange went as follows:

Question: "My question is this, do you foresee the need or the expectation of a Congressional declaration of war, which the Constitution calls for, and if so, against whom?"

Senator Biden: "The answer is yes, and we did it. I happen to be a professor of Constitutional law. I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction … Louis Fisher and others can tell you, there is no distinction between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. And we defined in that Use of Force Act that we passed, what … against whom we were moving, and what authority was granted to the President."

Thus, the United States certainly is at war. One might also check out Constitutional law Professor Eugene Volokh's comments with regard to whether the U.S. can indeed be legitimately at war even without a formal declaration of war (answer: yes), here, here, here, and here.

Michael:

I'm amused that you would attempt to engage me. Do you know how many tax districts existed in the Caliphate under Suleiman the Magnificent? Can you detect the slight difference in Arabian peninsula spoken Arabic vs. Egyptian spoken Arabic? Can you describe (in general) the series of battles leading to Mohammed's conqering of the peninsula?

Unless you have mastered these (and countless other) details regarding Arab/Islamic civilization, you're not qualified to fisk me.

You see, I use my extensive education as a fortress from which to protect myself from the reality that 60%-70% of my conclusions on current events in the Arab world are incorrect or at worst, dangerous.

What a cheap and tawdry "fisking". Lets use a series of emotion-laden pictures as a substitute for any articulation of an idea, or for any honest attempt to deal seriously with an issue.

The point of Cole's comments of course is that it is the Bush administration that is moving away from the concept of a "Global War On Terrorism" to a "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" (GSAVE), according to the terminology of Rumsfeld.
And why would that be?

Its always a bit tricky to parse out the underlying themes of a marketing campaign when it is still in its early stages, but some things seem pretty clear. Bush needs to lay out the conceptual groundwork that could support a withdrawl of substanial numbers of troops in time for the 06 elections. And aside from Iraq, and mountains of southern Afghanistan, there are precious few places where the war/struggle can be waged with military forces.

Whether one wants to admit it or not, and clearly conservatives have a real problem with this reality, the war/struggle against global islamists really is something that requires things like human intellegence, international information sharing, communications surveillance, and disruption of small local cells. In a word, a sophisticated international police effort.

It is obvious to anyone with at least half a brain (except Michael Totten apparently, who does have a full brain but sometimes doesnt use it), that Cole was not saying that the problem is only four men. He was saying that the problem exists on the scale of groups of a few men - i.e it is not a massed army we are fighting, it is a loose network of small cells in widely scattered places, often in the midst of our own cities. The ties that bind them are ideas and the use of communication networks - not things that can be dealt with by military forces.

We all know that. A wise set of policies would have used these past two or three years to advance a focussed effort at the problem as it exists, on the scales that it exists, in the places that it exists. Instead, we got a military response to an entirely different problem, and the result is that the real effort, the war/struggle against the islamists has become more difficult as the "groups of four men" phenomenon has metastisized around the globe. Any serious advancement of the war/struggle is going to have to be undertaken with mainly non-military means. And that is why the Bush admin. is easing off on the "war" rhetoric.

And yes, the Darfur references are absurd.

Michael has a bug up his ass about Juan Cole it seems, but I find his "fiskings" to be entirely unpersuasive. Interesting that MJ still seems to be reading Cole with close attention. I would recommend that as well.

It would seem appropriate for a photo-Fisking of Juan Cole to include a photograph of the USS Cole.

Islamofascist goals are political in nature (e.g., establishing a Caliphate; imposing sharia). Some Islamofascists are using violent means against the USA in pursuit of these goals. These facts make it clear that at least some Islamofascists are actively engaged in war against the USA. Likewise the US military is clearly engaged in war against Islamofascists.

However, the USA has not legally declared war against the Islamofascists. In fact, one could argue that it is not possible to legally declare war on the Islamofascists as US and International laws governing war (e.g., the Council of Vienna, Geneva Convention, US Constitution and UN Charter) are all founded on the premise that war is conducted between nation states. There simly is no legal basis for declaring war on a landless entity.

One could argue (and DoD does) that this makes the question of a declaration of war moot. From an international law perspective this is a sound argument (imho) as Al Queda and "4 guys in a gym in Leeds" are certainly not signatories to the Geneva convention, the UN charter or any other currently binding international treaty.

However, from a US Constitutional perspective one could argue (and I do) that the Senate's oversight responsibility includes not only the formal declaration of war against a nation state but oversight of the conducting of war. In this regard I believe the Senate is negligent in its duties.

"War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means" - Karl Von Clausewitz

I'm sorry that they're lynching gay men in Iran just like I'm sorry they used to lynch black men in the South, but what does that have to do with anything?

Has Congress declared war yet or not?

If Congress hasn't declared war, then I'm sorry, we're not at war - the Constitution makes that pretty clear.

And yes, the Darfur references are absurd.

Why don't you tell that to all of the Sudanese and Mauritanian ex slaves who claim that the Darfur references are very pertinent.

Why don't you tell them that the Islamist armies who are massacring blacks by the millions in the name of Arabization consist of "a few men" who must be appeased or cajoled with non-military means.

Simon Deng and others often speak out against slavery, Arabization and the UN/Arab League's refusal to do anything about the problem in the interests of "peace". Deng and others are part of the American Anti-Slavery group, and they attend many rallies around the country.

It's funny - at the rallies, everyone speaks out against slavery and Arabization, but no one is willing to support Cole's pro-Arabization platform. If you did so, your voice would be the first.

LOL,

If Congress hasn't declared war, then I'm sorry, we're not at war - the Constitution makes that pretty clear.

Sort of like Vietnam and Korea weren't wars? Or the Indian wars weren't wars? You are just playing with words, a rather trivial pastime I think.

I'm sorry they used to lynch black men in the South, but what does that have to do with anything?

We went to war with the South, remember?

I know, that was just rhetorical claptrap, but one turn deserves another.

Sort of like Vietnam and Korea weren't wars? Or the Indian wars weren't wars? You are just playing with words, a rather trivial pastime I think.
Posted by: chuck at August 2, 2005 09:13 AM

****

Yes it is true that people sometimes ignore the law, but if we just struck down every law that got ignored we wouldn't have any left.

Presidents are only in office for 4 years, but the constitution has served us well for much longer.

***

We went to war with the South, remember?

***

We went to war with the Southern states in the the 1960s? Wow, that's amazing, somehow my history teacher never tought me that.

On a related note, Iran is still a sovereign country and not an American state - there actually is a difference, y'know.

I think, perhaps, Mr. Cole was trying, inarticulately, to make the point that this is not a War in any sense we've experienced in the past. While we are fighting some enemy in Iraq, we aren't sure that the enemy in Iraq is actually the enemy who bombed London and dropped the WTC. The Defense Dept. with its planes and bombs and missles and ships and etc. seem useful when we're involved in an "on the ground" war (the questions becomes, is the War on Terror, really an On The Ground War)....

The Defense Dept and traditional War were useful in ousting Saddam from power. They were useful in invading and taking over a nation.

In the media, political rehtoric and the minds of many Americans, the Insurgency and The War On Terror appear as the same thing. This seems, to me, unfortunate. The Insurgency in Iraq may be fueled by the same type of hate that has been expressed by AQ, but to equate the Insurgent as analogus to the terrorists who bombed London seems likely to confuse. Mosbunall Americans I talk to about AQ and the WoT seem to consider reality as the following:
---------
Bin Laden is an evil criminal mastermind (I think they make him out to be 007's new nemesis). He has spent years plotting and creating a vast network of soliders and generals and suicide bombers. Now, he directs the attacks, the bombings, the beheadings etc. etc. etc. (again, just like 007's enemies). It makes sense to be 'at War' with some nemesis like that
--------
This doesn't seem to jive with what we think we really know about AQ and its operations. In reality, it seems that Bin Laden actively encourages terrorism, by training individuals to become terrorists and to design attacks (and throwing some seed money their way). It appears that Bin Laden himself, occasionally pulls off his own stunts and acts of terror, but may not have working knowledge of mosbunall of the individual acts... there's some indication that he may not even have any sort of contact with mosbunall of the disperate groups who are pulling off these acts of terror. On top of that, Bin Laden acts as a hero and role model to many crazy Islamists. They too may become terrorists, without ever meeting or having any actual connection to AQ.

This, I think, was Cole's terribly articluated point. The DoD is useful for defined enemies which are gathered together in a central location. If the flypaper idea actually worked, then the DoD would have been useful. However, it doesn't appear that the Flypaper idea worked, it doesn't appear that our actions in Iraq helped, hurt, or otherwise affected the decision for the individuals in London to bomb trains. We can give the DoD $85,000,000,000 and they can build bombs and jets and IED detectors, but they still won't provide a useful buffer against attacks like we saw in London.

Terrorism isn't an enemy... it's a tactic. The "War On Terror" is a commercial title, designed to be catchy and hip. It's a marketing ploy. Currently, Islamists are using the tactics of terror to achieve their goals. A War on Terror would involve an active War against all forms of terror... shall the DoD start going after the local gangs that demand protection money in exchgange for not blowing up the shop? That's terror, the same mindset, the same toolset, only the ideology is slightly different. (I want a bribe vs. I want a Caliphate).

The Dept of Defense has been useful in the War on Terror, only because of the Iraq/Afganistan gambit. They were useful in hitting a hornets nest which had just stung us (and took out the tree next to it, just in case they tried to make a new nest).

I think that the marketing behind this WoT reflects the pathetic situation of our country overall. We have become consumers, swallowing any marketing line fed to us... including this one.

There has yet to be any factual correlation between our actions in Iraq and any reduction in the acts of Terror perpatrated by Islamic extremists. When people hear 'war' they see two armies fighting. The army that does more damage wins. We did a lot of damage in Iraq, therefore many Americans think we're winning. Yet, this may not be the case. Bin Laden is still at large, a major attack was successfully implemented and once again the western world has been 'terrorized' (and while we know it probably made OBL very happy... we don't know that he had any clue, before it was reported on CNN).

Terrorists don't need a network. The first recorded terrorists (The Vikings) didn't have a heavily coordinated network. They were mostly autonomous groups whicch used similar tactics in order to take advantage of the psychological effect on their victims. The 18th/19th century anarchists who comitted acts of terror in Europe weren't a network of coordinated groups... they were anarchists, working on their own, noiminally tied together to increase their psychological advantage. We have no evidence that the terrorists who bombed the WTC, the terrorists who bombed London and the terrorists who bombed Balli, have any association at all (except for a similar ideology). The Dept. of Defense seems less than useful once we focus on ending an ideology as opposed to an army.

Too, we must think of 'enemy' as something different now, as well. An individual, no moatter how much hate and rhetoric they've swalloed, is not a 'terrorist' until they've comitted an act of terror (which, by then appears too late to do anything... esp since they usually off themselves at the same time). The boys in London may have appeared as harmless, simply individuals going their way... until it was too late.

A Nazi was a Nazi as soon as he put on a uniform. He may never have shot a person, he may never have tortured a Jew or homosexual... but he was an identifiable enemy. The Islamist appears no different from a fundamental follower of Islam, until they act.

We might say that this is a war on Islamists, or Islamofascists. But these appear as more buzzwords, blogspeak, marketing and demonization. What is an Islamofascist? In what way are they fascist? What is an Islamist? How does the Islamist differ from a fundamentalist Muslim in an identifable way? What identification could we have made on the London bombers, before the act was done?

We have become so used to using words as emotional stimuli, that it seems to me that we tend to ignore what the words actually mean.

Ratatosk

Here are some photos you may want to add of what they have been doing to non-Muslims in Indonesia for years: (warning, graphic photos, especially under the 'Head Hunter' category)
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/9388/index2.html

Were we at war at noontime, December 7, 1941? Pretty obviously yes. But war had not been officially declared yet.

Cole's attempt to deny the blatantly obvious fact that the perpetrators of the global genocidal terror so graphically illustrated in the photos above are all MUSLIMS is beyond pathetic. Hey Juan, the proctologist called, they found your head.

We went to war with the Southern states in the the 1960s?

I do recall Federal troops marching into a certain city in the South during the 1960s to enforce desegregation laws.

Anymore rhetorical claptrap to aggravae my carpal tunnel syndrome with?

Were we at war at noontime, December 7, 1941? Pretty obviously yes. But war had not been officially declared yet.

***

The US officially declared war on Japan on Dec 8th, 1941 - the very next day in fact.

Why haven't we declared war this time? The Repubs control both houses, they have the time and energy to rename Freedom Fries and Freedom toast, but they can't declare war?

Riddle me that, Batman.

charons_oar writes:
However, the USA has not legally declared war against the Islamofascists. In fact, one could argue that it is not possible to legally declare war on the Islamofascists as US and International laws governing war (e.g., the Council of Vienna, Geneva Convention, US Constitution and UN Charter) are all founded on the premise that war is conducted between nation states. There simly is no legal basis for declaring war on a landless entity.

Such knowledge of the Constitution -- Not! As the Constitution specifically says (Article I, Section 8):

"The Congress shall have Power... To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations...."

Thus, the Constitution does envision "war" against stateless entities such as pirates other like war criminals -- which fits the definition of Islamist terrorists to a "T".

Moreover, since the Democratic Chairman at the time of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, who drafted the Use of Force resolution -- aka the declaration of war -- which authorized the global war on terror, specifically stated (which I've quoted above) that war has been legally declared, saying it hasn't is what has "simply no legal basis."

Why haven't we declared war this time?

Why didn't we declare war during the Korean War?

The answer to both: who cares.

I do recall Federal troops marching into a certain city in the South during the 1960s to enforce desegregation laws.

---------

You are still confused here, my friend.

Louisiana, Georgia etc are states in the US - they aren't sovereign countries but part of a Republic, the same way that Alberta is a province of Canada.

Iran is an entirely separate country - we don't vote in Iranian elections, our citizens don't hold office there, etc.

Really, it's true - check out the CIA factbook.

That's why teh honorabvle congressman from New Jersey doesn't get to decide whether or not minors should be tried as adults in Iceland, or whetehrr Nigerian homeowners are allowed to purchase automatic weapons with credit cards - separate countries!

"I do recall Federal troops marching into a certain city in the South during the 1960s to enforce desegregation laws."

Spainard, I thought we were talking about war? would you consider federal agents, enforcing federal laws to be war? Or police action? ;-)

"Were we at war at noontime, December 7, 1941? Pretty obviously yes."

Err, no we had been attacked by noontime on Dec 7th. But, we were not yet "at war". The statement "We are at war" implies action. December 7th saw only the action of trying to recover from an attack. On December 8th we took action and then by our actions were 'at war'.

I wish that our federal government was more concerned about articulate discussion of the situation, as opposed to 'talking points', marketing and buzzwords. However, with the average American attention span shrinking faster than Ron Jeremy at a Coney Island Polar Bear Club outing.

Well done. Surely even Juan Cole would admit that those four guys from Leeds really get around.

My favorite part of Juan's article was his point about how this wasn't really about religion.

One wonders if Juan believes his own rhetoric... if he does, it's quite a feat of self-delusion.

Is Jihad war? I think that's what it means "holy war", but I could be mistaken. And unless I'm mistaken, a lot of islamofascists seem to speak a lot about jihad against America (among other apostates) and have for, oh, decades now. So on the principal that it only takes one side to declare a war to make it a war, why the hell should anyone get their panties twisted by Bush calling the set of our varied responses to the various jihads a "war" on terror?

P.S. I think there's a conscious desire on the Administration's part to not bring the term "Islam" into rhetorical play, because they have a very real desire not to protect innocent muslims from induced bigotry. In my opinion, a noble goal and not a sign of poor communication skills. Quite the contrary.

And the War isn't going all that badly, either:

U.S. General: "The Name of the Game was Whoop-Ass!"

The answer to both: who cares.

-----------

Most elementary and junior high schools no longer teach basic civics, so if you try to tell twenty-somethings nowadays about the Bill of Rights or the Constitution or the rule of law, you'll only get a blank stare - they've literally never heard of any ofthese things.

So I won't try to argue with you my friend as it would simply be an exercise in futilty.

I have a post on this here. If I've misunderstood the nature of the "photo-Fisking" I'm sure someone will point this out to me.

It seems to me that the tenured class is, generally speaking, addicted to abstraction. The prosaic escapes them; everything is predetermined by their egalitarianism and their complete lack of appreciation for the concrete.

Personally, I have my doubts as to whether or not the tenured class is capable of understanding the war on terror at all.

"We never declared war in Vietnam."

"We never declared war on LIbya."

"We haven't declared war in Iraq."

As if just mentioning this proves that those wars were/are invalid.

Several people have posted excellent answers to the questions of legality/illegality of war and how congress and the president play into this.

All you ankle biters (LOL)have have been answered. Please stop with this silly line.

As if just mentioning this proves that those wars were/are invalid.

--------

If you don't understand the purpose of having laws and a constitution then I can't explain it to you.

"Were we at war at noontime, December 7, 1941? Pretty obviously yes."

Err, no we had been attacked by noontime on Dec 7th. But, we were not yet "at war".

I respectfully disagree. Japan made war against us, therefore we were at war. The formal declaration was merely a rhetorical (if you wish, propagandistic) flourish. Likewise, refusing to call the Korean Was a war (it was a "police action") didn't make it not a war.

So I repeat: The islamofascists make war against us, they routinely declare they are at war with us, so whether some of us would rather cover our eyes and say "nyah nyah nyah" at the tops of our voices or not, we are in a state of war.

Here's an explanation of exactly who the enemy is and why Juan Cole, Brian Leiter, and others like them are just plain wrong:

http://goodandtheright.blogspot.com/2005/07/ut-austin-professor-confuses-derrire.html

"I think there's a conscious desire on the Administration's part to not bring the term "Islam" into rhetorical play, because they have a very real desire not to protect innocent muslims from induced bigotry. In my opinion, a noble goal and not a sign of poor communication skills. Quite the contrary."

I respectfully disagree, I don't know why the president won't name the enemy in human terms but I don't think that's it. Especially if the naming is done precisely. Innocent Muslims have more to lose from the free ranging imaginations that policy by codeword and inference give rise to.

"So I repeat: The islamofascists make war against us, they routinely declare they are at war with us, so whether some of us would rather cover our eyes and say "nyah nyah nyah" at the tops of our voices or not, we are in a state of war."

I want the administration to speak up clearly and unambiguously and name the enemy. If they can't/won't do that, then how serious about this whole thing are they?

Why haven't we declared war this time?

Why didn't we declare war during the Korean War?

The answer to both: who cares.

Well, I don't recall the Korean terrorists who blew up American buildings. I don't recall the Vietnamese attack on US soil. Why should we have declared war in those situations? This time we were directly attacked, and the proper response is a direct declaration of war. If you aren't willing to declare war, why are you calling it war?
We can set up a whole new department of secret police in response to the attack on our soil, one which takes more from American citizens than from foreign radicals, and yet we can't be bothered to declare war? But it's still supposed to be a war?
That does not make sense. I don't care about the obfuscation between 'war' and 'use of force' since it's pretty clear they aren't the same thing. Do you believe everything every senator says? If so, you have much bigger problems than believing we're at war. Vietnam and Korea were much more legitimate to the Vietnamese and Koreans (respectively) than they were to Americans. This time, American soil has been violated. Yet, there still hasn't been a declaration of war. If congress authorizing the use of force is functionally the same as declaring war, why didn't they just go ahead and declare war, too? Did they just overlook it? Couldn't be bothered? Had too much golf to play or too much money to rake in? There is a reason, and we just want to know what it is. Don't bother to respond if you can't answer this question: Why have we not yet officially declared war?

Most elementary and junior high schools no longer teach basic civics,

You couldn't care less about civics or the Bill of Rights. Your concern is only rhetorical point scoring.

The current non-declaration of war is no more alarming than any of the previous non-declarations.

If you would care to make an argument to the contrary I'd be happy to engage you.

Well, I don't recall the Korean terrorists who blew up American buildings.

Do you recall that we were directly attacked by the N. Korean military? Yet we didn't declare war.

But you demand we "declare war" on a shadowy organization consisting of isolated believers of a religious cult. Bizarre.

Seems to me the problems with the photo array are the same problems with the "GWOT/G-SAVE". Too widespread and scattershot to suggest any useful course of action.

The single binding theme in these horrors (violent Muslims) is also significantly different from the threat the U.S. has allegedly been focussed on (global terror, of the nondenominational variety). If Mr. Totten bought into the war's stated aims, there would also have been images of non-Muslim terrorist acts in there. The fact that even supporters can't swallow the government line as stated only highlights the problem here.

Prof. Cole's main point, that we may have reached the limits of what military force can do about this problem, however it's defined, remains unrefuted. Indeed, it's probably been reinforced. No army can avenge or prevent all of the horrors Mr. Totten has pictorially listed here.

Not to mention we were also attacked by the Chinese military. I don't recall we declared war on China. So what point are the "declare war" hysterics trying to make? I truly don't know.

I want the administration to speak up clearly and unambiguously and name the enemy. If they can't/won't do that, then how serious about this whole thing are they?--MF

And pray tell, in your unbiased opinion, what exactly are the administration's motives, if they are not 'serious about the whole thing'?
What other reason would they have for the actions they have taken? In order to posit bad faith in the first place, you surely must have some useful ideas on this .

I can hardly wait to be informed.

Why don't you tell that to all of the Sudanese and Mauritanian ex slaves who claim that the Darfur references are very pertinent

Gee sorry Mary, I missed all the comments by the ex-slaves congratulating Michael for including Darfur shots and making the claims you attribute to them.

The Darfur genocide has nothing to do with al-Q inspired jihadism. It is an effort by the military dictators in Khartoum to suppress, in the most brutal way possible, a revolutionary uprising out in the provinces.

The fact that they are muslims seems to give people like you all the excuse you need to try to use this horror to gin up a war of civilizations. Not buying.

Gentlemen,

The "four men in a gym in Leeds" require several things to become a threat force. First they must have motive; second they must have skill; third they must have resources; and finally they must have a defined target.

Terrorism is a tactic used in warfare and criminal enterprises - fundamentally identical operations with slightly different goals.
The neutralization of Afghanistan and Iraq served multiple purposes, most of which were ignored or suppressed. Foremost the actions denied resources and skills aquisition by possible motivated individuals. Note the fizzle bombs in London on 21 July - lack of expert knowledge averted a second serious terror attack. Had the men been better trained, they would have known about explosive degradation. Second, the actions influenced other nations to restrict overt support for non-governmental combatants. The support is still there; it is not so blatant and is somewhat diminished. Third, the actions focus enemy perception on a specific target region; I wear the uniform not to blend in, but to protect non-combatants. Finally (for this post, at least) and most importantly from my point of view as a Military Intelligence professional with Counter-Terror training, the actions denied material acquisitions, to include biological, toxin, and chemical, by non-governmental hostile forces. With a lab in place a chemical or toxin agent can be produced from precursor agents in under 72 hours for use. The hard part is the lab and the knowledge. Elimination of institutional knowledge by removal of leadership and nation-state sponsors reduces the level of threat.

The action (war, invasion, occupation, whatever) in the Middle East was a military action designed to eliminate major sponsors, including two nation-states, and to intimidate or neutralize other nation-state sponsors in the region. Period.

No, we can't use military force to chase "four men in a gym in Leeds". We can use military force to destroy, intimidate, and reduce the support structure for those four men. Further, the actions taken on smaller scale by less-organized groups are able to be countered by police forces to some extent; elimination of professional training in counter-intelligence and security operational issues will make the job easier for police. One must cut down the tree before digging out the roots and tendrils; no new seeds will fall from a tree that has been removed. Yes, there are many trees in this forest; two of the big ones have been chopped down and others have been pruned so their branches will not fall on the roof of civilization. Getting all the roots out of the sewer line will take some time.

SGT Dave

Those of you tossing out the "we didn't declare war" meme might want to address Michael McNeil's first post. You seem to have conveniently missed it.

You've taken a four word headline and extrapolated from that that Cole does not believe there is a War on Terror, missing the entire point of Cole's post; that it is impossible to fight a War on Terror in the traditional military sense of waging war.

In fact, the administration itself has declared as much, with their rebranding campaign.

It is a fundamental question: how do you fight a "war" against guerillas without the cover of a nation-state. As someone pointed out earlier, it takes intelligence, cooperation across national borders, and disruption of small terrorist cells. The military is not a useful tool for these actions; policing agencies are.

On a final note, you are using the same technique used by the Islamists to drum up support: emotional and graphic images of suffering at the hands of the enemy. Al-Qaeda recruitment videos, for example, intersperse graphic images of children killed in Iraq with recruits training at a camp.

One is meant to react to these photos without rational thought, which I guess is the point. It is an appeal that fosters rage at the injustice of it all; one would expect more intellectual rigor from you, Mr. Totten.

I know, "God, Guns, Guts, All to Glory" and all but get your collective head out of the flag for a second and read what Cole wrote, again.

Who did the latest bombings in London? Some group named Al Qaeda in England (or Britain, or something like that). In other words, Al Qaeda isn't a central unit. What did the authorities have to say about the group? Never heard of 'em. Cole is right in this, any four morons can get together and plan, and perhaps succeed, to blow up stuff and hurt people if they think they have enough of a good reason.

How big was the conspiracy behind Oklahoma City? (Beyond the morons who think Iraq was somehow behind it.) It was just a few people. That's what Cole is getting at, folks. You can take out Bin Laden, you can take out all the insurgents in Iraq, you can turn Saudi Arabia to glass, it won't end the terrorism. As the war in Iraq, it will only produce more of it.

Oh, and if you want to call it a war, then I suppose you're ready to acquiesce to the notion that the nice boys in Gitmo are POWs and should be treated according to the Geneva Conventions?

Just a thought experiment... someone said here that Juan Cole's real point was that the Islamofacist fight as small, four men in a gym, teams that do not/cannot be fought by billion dollar armies in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Ok. Can anyone imagine what the left would have thought about small, four men in a van outside the gym, FBI and Special Forces using Patriot Act powers to tap their phones, track their bank accounts, and follow their cars... I dont mean one or two of these opperations, but hundreds of thousands, every year. Wouldnt they be screaming just as loud about the Police State?

IP,

The fact that they are muslims seems to give people like you all the excuse you need to try to use this horror to gin up a war of civilizations. Not buying.

Playing that old racist/bigot card, no? Looks like you lost the argument.

Amazingly inane comments, Sean and Chuck. Chuck, ever heard of the Southern Strategy? It's a valid point.

Sean, sounds like an argument for finding another solution to the problem, i.e., finding out the source of the problem, and trying to wipe that out instead of just blowing up stuff.

The fact that they are muslims seems to give people like you all the excuse you need to try to use this horror to gin up a war of civilizations. Not buying.

Who are "people like me"? Americans? Women? Jews/neo-cons? Ex-slaves like Francis Bok? Tell us who we are.

The Darfur genocide has nothing to do with al-Q inspired jihadism. It is an effort by the military dictators in Khartoum to suppress, in the most brutal way possible, a revolutionary uprising out in the provinces.

Please do some research on these subjects before you talk about them.

Al-Qaeda is so merged with the Sudanese government that it even runs a number of official government agencies for the NIF including the Islamic Security Agency (secret police), the al-Amn al-Sawri (counter-intelligence), and the People's Defense Force (a paramilitary group along the lines of the SS). The first high-ranking al-Qaeda defector the US ever got ahold of back in 1994, Jamal al-Fadhl, was serving as the assistant director of the Revolutionary Security Service, the evolutionary predecessor of the Islamic Security Agency.

The Sudanese military helped al-Qaeda to conduct (unsuccessful) chemical, biological, and radiological weapons experiments at the Hilat Koko military base with the help of government scientists.

Al-Qaeda shipped $300,000,000 in gold from Afghanistan to Sudan in the wake of the US victory over the Taliban.

None of this is truly any great secret and most of it can be found in reading the court documents from the trial of the 1998 embassy bombers…

The Telegraph on the Sudan/al Qaeda connection

If you haven't bothered to learn anything about Islamist groups, how can you comment intelligently about them?

By the way,

I am due to rotate out to the sandbox on 1 September - I am a National Guardsman. If you are unwilling to put it on the line, please understand that I really could care less about your opinion. I serve; if you are doing nothing other than criticism you are serving nothing but your own ego. Terrorism/extremism/fascism are all reflections of a single piece of humanity. They are images of the worst of ourselves. All the pictures are of the same crime, writ in different script. While I hear the protests, I rejoice that the protests are voiced. Each time I hear the accusations against the current administration, I know the system and its current leaders are doing their job. When the media was quiet about abuses by the 42nd President, I grew uneasy. When Amnesty does not denouce Cuba, Sudan, Syria, Iran, and others, I distrust their motives. If the current administration were as evil as many claim, we would hear no protests at all. When I observe attacks on people because they voice dissent, I am enraged. The attacks are coming from those who have the most to lose; academics, entertainers, and civil protesters. One would think that those supporting free thought would have supported an attack on the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq; your actions tell me you wish freedom for yourselves and the rest of the world can go to hell. You can say what you wish - as can I if I agree with you. If I differ in opinion, I should be silenced and removed (military recruiters, boy scouts).

"Yet I will defend to the death your right to say these things." - I wish I could believe that many on the left might do the same for me.

SGT Dave

Kirill,

...finding out the source of the problem, and trying to wipe that out instead of just blowing up stuff.

Hats off, gentlemen a genius. Talk about inane. So, Kirill, any thoughts at to the source of the problem?

Mr. McNeil,

Great Biden quote. He is certainly more of an expert than I.

You stated that the Constitution empowers Congress to declare war on non-state actors. Quoting Section I Article 10 as an example. I disagree with you.

Article I Section 10, in its entirety reads: "To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;"

I interpret setcion 10 as enabling Congress to authorize police actions (hence the use of the term 'felonies' rather than the term 'war').

It is the very next clause, number 10, that grants Congress the power to declare war. In its entirety, "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"

There is a difference between policing and war. War implies (imho) the use of force to exert ones political will; crimes, such as piracy, do not.

You can see how our argument on semantics bears on the larger question of how to relate to Islamofascism. If Islamofsacism is a few nutbags "doing some crimes" without political agenda then a police action is warranted. If it is an armed (albeit stealthy) force attempting to dictate political terms through violence then war is warrented.

I admit there is a grey area, Do you declare war on Ted Kazinski?, the Weathermen, Bader Meinhoff gang, SLA? Certainly they were all politically motivated.

"And pray tell, in your unbiased opinion, what exactly are the administration's motives, if they are not 'serious about the whole thing'?"

I don't know what their motives are, that's why I want clearer talk. I'm up for idle speculation just as much as anyone (and certainly I indulge in a lot of it) but I don't mistake it for reasoned public discourse. Too many people are sure they know what the administration thinks/intends when the fact is they have no clue and are indulging in wishful thinking.

"I can hardly wait to be informed."

I hope you're not too disappointed.

Michael J. Farris deludes only himself with his "Muslim Political Violence" claptrap.

Those who use "violence to achieve" a "political aim" are terrorists. That's the definition put forth by the USDOJ during the Billary years - and is appropriate today when the US is actually doing something to fight these bastards.

Juan gives new depth and breadth to the term "asshole."

Sgt Dave,

"We can use military force to destroy, intimidate, and reduce the support structure for those four men."

Do we have any evidence that the "four men in a gym in Leeds" made use of the support structure in Iraq or Afganistan? If they did, then it would seem to indicate, to me, that our war didn't break the back of the support structure. If they didn't make use of a support structure, then it would seem to indicate to me, that destroying the support structure won't necessarily stop terrorism.

Either way there's some logical inconsistencies.

Spaniard,

"I respectfully disagree. Japan made war against us, therefore we were at war. The formal declaration was merely a rhetorical (if you wish, propagandistic) flourish. Likewise, refusing to call the Korean Was a war (it was a "police action") didn't make it not a war."

You're still not speaking in a clear manner. One is not 'at war', simply because they are attacked. For a nation to be 'at war' the nation must act, as a nation we acted on Dec 8.

I think we really are 'at war' at this point... the posters who are quibbling simply miss the fact that Congress rolled over and just gave the power to the Pres. Ergo, the Congress, not Mr. Bush, circumvented the standard operating proceedures as outlined in the Consitution, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court (did the uphold it, or just refuse the case, I don't remember). We invaded a soverign country... in fact, we've invaded two sovrign countries, declaration or not, we have started two wars, as for the WoT, I still think it's a marketing ploy, more than a useful descriptor (like the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty).

Using the wrong word often leads to confusion.

Ratatosk

It is a fundamental question: how do you fight a "war" against guerillas without the cover of a nation-state. As someone pointed out earlier, it takes intelligence, cooperation across national borders, and disruption of small terrorist cells. The military is not a useful tool for these actions; policing agencies are.

There is no proof that policing agenices are capable of fighting Islamist terrorism. There is overwhelming proof that they aren't.

The 1993 terrorist attack against the World Trade Center was treated as a civil crime, and terrorists were tried and convicted.

The British police arrested hundreds of people under their anti-terror legislation.

..because of post-September 11, 2001, anti-terrorist legislation [means] "the whole of Britain has become Dar ul-Harb," or territory open for Muslim conquest. Therefore, in a reference to unbelievers, "the kuffar has no sanctity for their own life or property."

The response from the Muslims will be horrendous if the British government continues in the way it treats Muslims," explicitly raising the possibility of suicide bombings under the leadership of Al-Qaeda. Western governments must know that if they do not change course, Muslims will "give them a 9/11 day after day after day!"

Mary,

I agree that police action hasn't stopped terrorism... but then I would also argue that overt millitary action hasn't stopped terrorism either. So anyone who makes statements about either, seem to base them, not on evidence, but on perception. As such, I think that either side may have some problems with delusions.

The enemy is fairly well defined not by the color of their uniform but, in a word, their Arab-ness. Therefore, profiling is appropriate. Our success in fighting the enemy is dependent on our willingness to offend and our willingness to prioritize. Winning, to me, is more important than avoiding hurt feelings. I realize that this makes me, in the words of C.S.Lewis, "terribly practical". Ok.

Yes, we will have to sift through a lot of innocent swarthy guys (not all Muslims are terrorists, etc.) to get the bad guys, offending all in the process. I apologize in advance, but when someone dies and leaves me in charge, prepare to be offended.

I wrote:

As if just mentioning this proves that those wars were/are invalid.

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LOL wrote:

If you don't understand the purpose of having laws and a constitution then I can't explain it to you.

I didn't ask for you to explain anything to me, you self righteous prik. Oh, and nice way to respond to the posts that answer your "No Declaration of War" meme.

I think it would be a nice gesture if everyone dropped Juan an email (jricole@yahoo.com) and let him know how much you appreciate his sympathy for terrorist organizations,.

I agree that police action hasn't stopped terrorism... but then I would also argue that overt millitary action hasn't stopped terrorism either.

As always, there are more than two solutions to a problem. There's military action, there's police action, and there's the private sector.

There are also community groups. More Guardian Angels are patrolling the subways now. New York residents were volunteering to help the police search backpacks.

Fighting terrorism is like fighting our oil dependence. It's probably best to apply many solutions/alternatives at the same time.

The formal declaration was merely a rhetorical (if you wish, propagandistic) flourish.

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There you have it folks - the rule of law is just so much "rhetorical flourish"

Why not just rescind the Consitution and officially replace it with the Law of the Jungle?

If we have no interest in maintaining the legal traditions that make this country unique (and it would appear that most here see themn as simply so many fancy words to be jettisoned the second they become incovenient) then at least be honest about what you're advocating.

Mary,

Once again, you and I find a common foothold in this crazy climb. ;-)

A wide variety of tools must be used, if we hope to end this mess. To suppose that police action or outright war are THE solution, seems myopic to me.

Juan Cole makes a point that the "War on Terror" cannot be fought and won like the war on Nazis or Communists or Gooks or whatever. Others have made the valid point that we cannot rely on 'police action'... and sombunall people in the middle, get confused and assume that we're dealing with an exclusive or situation... damn Aristotle!!!

LOL wrote: Why not just rescind the Consitution and officially replace it with the Law of the Jungle?

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Who exactly is your beef with? Bush (who took us to war), Congress (who turned over war making powers to Bush), or the Supreme Court (who hasn't ruled any of this illegal) ?

Is that all you got? Several people have responded to your absurd "No Declaration of War" meme in detail. And you resort to teenage hyberbole! Good job. Quite the intellectual.

Those of you tossing out the "we didn't declare war" meme

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The Repubs control both houses.

They can spend the taxpayers' time & money renaming French Fries, but they can't be bothered to declare war when we've been attacked?

I think this shows how serious they are - not very.

BTW, the three branches of government are not just window dressing or a decoration as you seem to imply here. You need to go back to highschool and take Intro to American History - the founders developed all of these things for a reason.

"A Republic if you can keep it" - not likely judging from some of you!

LOL,

you are simply repeating yourself without addressing a single response to your rhetorical claptrap.

Ratatosk,

The "four men in Leeds" do indeed have connections: ideology, possibly training, and definitely motive. The failure of the second wave of bombs is a result of the severance of the institutional knowledge. The London bombers received material and moral support from local mosques tied to extremists.

SGT Dave

You're still not speaking in a clear manner. One is not 'at war', simply because they are attacked. For a nation to be 'at war' the nation must act, as a nation we acted on Dec 8.

Tosk,

I agree. But my point is not that we are at war simply because we are attacked-- my point is that we made no formal declaration when we were attacked.

Congress rolled over and just gave the power to the Pres. Ergo, the Congress, not Mr. Bush, circumvented the standard operating proceedures as outlined in the Consitution, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court

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Bingo.

People here seem to arguing that we've entered a new era where we no longer need three branches of government. As one posters so eloquently put it "who cares?"

Really, who cares about the rule of law? Nobody here it would appear - the Constitution is just so much "rhetorical claptrap"

Feh. I would ask what you all thought about the recent eminent domain ruling but I suspect I'd rather not know.

Good luck guys.

LOL,

the Korean War? .......still waiting.

Feh. I would ask what you all thought about the recent eminent domain ruling but I suspect I'd rather not know.

LOL,

I would ask what you think about the fact that it was the Libs on the Court who ruled in favor in that case, and the conservatives who dissented.

Any thoughts? I bet you didn't even know that. It's not something you'll hear about on Kos or Atrios, that's for sure.

SGT Dave,

Well, as it stands now (as far as I am informed on the situation which is obviously less so, perhaps than someone actively involved in the investigation), we have no direct evidence that these individuals were trained by AQ. We have no evidence that they were a sleeper cell for AQ, we have no evidence that they had any connection to AQ.

The ideology does appear similar, but this ideology seems rampant in many groups aside from AQ, Afganistan or Iraq. Indeed, it's possible that they were induced into these acts by the local mosque, which may or may not have had ties to AQ.

As for the lack of education and sophistication... are you talking about the same terrorists who flubbed the Cole bombing? The same ones who tried shoe bombing with Richard Reid?

My point is that, for the most part, AQ hasn't pulled off extremely competent, well defined and highly sophisticated attacks. For the most part they seem to haul some highly explosive stuff around and blow themselves up. The attack on the WTC, from what I've been able to determine, seems to be their most sophisticated attack and quite different than their usual MO.

Do you see it differently?

You threw everything in but Natalee Holloway's corpse and some photos of Auschwitz survivors to make your point, that there are mean people in the world. I don't see what it has to do with the Administration's change in terminology.

I think Cole's point is reasonable in this case: that we can't stop terrorism by randomly dropping bombs on unfriendly countries, when the problem often lives amongst us, and that hawkishness has proven to be a failed policy in stopping these sorts of attacks. You usually are above such cheap rhetorical devises.

Kirill Nils Senior wrote:
Oh, and if you want to call it a war, then I suppose you're ready to acquiesce to the notion that the nice boys in Gitmo are POWs and should be treated according to the Geneva Conventions?

Nonsense. It is perfectly possible to fight a war without having as an enemy opponents who obey the laws of war -- which, according to the Geneva Conventions, are the only armed combatants who warrant their protections. Al Qaeda and its adherents most assuredly do not obey the laws of war, and by the Geneva Conventions could simply be shot, much less deserving of the protections of honorable soldiers who obey the rules governing warfare.

Congress rolled over and just gave the power to the Pres. Ergo, the Congress, not Mr. Bush, circumvented the standard operating procedures as outlined in the Constitution, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court

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LOL wrote:
People here seem to arguing that we've entered a new era where we no longer need three branches of government.

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Who here is arguing that? Seems like the three branches of government are working just fine.

How many Democratic dissent votes came up in Congress, when it voted to give war making powers to Bush? Did Congress not fulfill its duties?

The Supreme Court hasn't ruled any war making maneuvers illegal. How exactly has the Supreme court not fulfilled its duties?

Can you answer those questions without feigning woe about how all of us want to do away with the constitution?

I'm an undergrad student at the University of Pennsylvania. I sent Prof. Cole a polite but firm e-mail questioning his opinion.

He wrote back saying that I should read Gen. Myers comments (which I have) and claimed he was being ironic. Perhaps I didn't take that class yet, he suggested. My response to the Northwestern alum: we don't have classes on irony in Ivy League, so no, I haven't taken any.

This is a perfect refutation of Cole's head in the sand philosophy.
There is no doubt that the civilized world is at war with the barbarians, and the sooner everyone realizes this, the better.

Ok Joel (since you "expect" it):

Cole writes: "*Emile Lahoud, the president of Lebanon, rejected US Secretary of State Colin Powell's demand that the Hizbullah militia in south Lebanon be replaced. He said that Hizbullah is a legal political party, and expressed satisfaction that its guerrilla actions had gotten the Israelis back out of south Lebanon after 18 years.

The Israeli and Zionist Right has it as a principle that they should never give back up land once they manage to grab it, so Ehud Barak's 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon was widely seen by them as a mistake. In the Arab and Muslim worlds, however, it was seen as only right that the Israelis leave Lebanon, where they had no business in the first place. Some fear Ariel Sharon has his eye on the waters of the Litani River in Lebanon, and that Sharon has a history of sticky fingers and aggressive acquisitions."

Aside from being obvious where his bias lies in those paragraphs, I guess he forgot that it was a Likud government that gave away the Sinai. I suppose if someone reminds him of that fact he'll probably say that the "the Israeli and Zionist Right" doesn't have principles to begin with, and he should have never asserted that they did, even if it was an evil principle.

That's Hezbollah - preventing evil Zionists from getting their hands on the waters of the Litani river since 2000.

Cole on Hamas: "Likewise, Hamas (the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood) turned to terrorism in large part out of desperation at the squalid circumstances and economic and political hopelessness of the Israeli military occupation of Gaza."

I guess it would have been more accurate to say that Cole shares some of the goals of what he perceives Hamas' goals to be. Anyone who is paying attention know that they seek the destruction of Israel entirely, and are not just seeking an end to the "Israeli military occupation of Gaza." But that graph sets up a complete, blameless excuse for Hamas' genocidal rhetoric and activities. Just because they don't have the means to pull it off, doesn't mean they don't speak about it every day, have it in their official documents, and act murderously every chance they get.

As for your "expect"ation of an "extensive list" - that seems an odd and unnecessary request. He routinely calls Israelis "fascists" and never blames Arab intransigence or terrorism for any of the ills of the I/P conflicts.

Hamas terrorism - in fact, al-Qaeda terrorism even - in his eyes - is all the Israelis fault.

So much so that he even blamed 9/11 on the Israelis raid of Jenin, even though it happened after the attack on the WTC/Pentagon. That was a neat trick, even for those crafty Zionists.

Steve Smith,
"I think Cole's point is reasonable in this case: that we can't stop terrorism by randomly dropping bombs on unfriendly countries, when the problem often lives amongst us, and that hawkishness has proven to be a failed policy in stopping these sorts of attacks"

Sure, it's a reasonable point. But it has absolutely no relationship to what the situation has been for the past 20 or so years.
Randomly dropping bombs on unfriendly countries? When did that happen? Hawkishness has proven to be a failed policy? Since when? Are you assuming that since there are still terrorist attacks, that the "hawkish" policy hasn't stopped any?
Hey, there is still pollution, so that means that all the EPA laws and policies are failed.

Ratatosk,

I agree that the Cole, WTC, and to some extent the 7/7 attacks were a sophisticated, coordinated terrorist activity. I do not mean to imply that our opposition is stupid or simple. What I do mean is that there is a level of institutional knowledge that appears to have degraded over the past five years. As a military person and amateur historian, the ability to retain lessons from conflict is the most important part of an institution. By eliminating sponsor states and havens for groups, one limits the ability to share and develop complex strategies. Our opponents are capable and adaptive; by destroying their ability to draw on outside experts (sponsors) and larger group resources (funding by AQ and others) we limit their abilities to conduct complex actions. The London attacks would have been more devastating using a better type of explosive - the 7/21 attacks failed because the group lacked information on degradation of home-made explosives. We cannot destroy every small group; that is not the purview of a military. We can, however, keep them from gathering in larger groups or gaining sponsors that allow them to become a greater threat than the sum of their parts.

At the end of it all, the military is responsible for finding, fixing, and destroying logistics, leadership, and training facilities provided by state and larger non-state activities. Police forces are responsible for neutralizing small groups within a nation (nominally counter-intelligence agencies; the FBI in the U.S. has the charter for this mission).

The military was not able nor responsible for stoppping the 7/7 attacks. In my opinion, the damage the military wrought on AQ and its adherents in Afghanistan and Iraq were at least partially responsible for the failure of the 7/21 attacks. Loss of knowledge followed the removal or intimidation of technically capable sponsors.

The enemy is smart and capable. By eliminating resources of materiel and knowledge, we limit his ability to use that intelligence and capacity. We won't destroy him by this method; we restrict him. It becomes a battle of attrition: we destroy centers of knowledge and support for the terrorist, he attacks our political resolve. Eventually he loses enough institutional knowledge that he makes an error, allowing us to infiltrate and eliminate his base or we decide to give in to his demands and either become slaves to his ideology or enablers allowing him to inflict terror on ourselves or another victim.

Guess you know where I sit on that one, eh?

"Millions for defense but not one penny in tribute!"

SGT Dave

Yep. Photo montages totally prove that we're at war, administration pronouncements notwithstanding (what, no Oklahoma City?) Surely the traitorous Cole and his fellow travelers in the Bush administration cannot possibly maintain their stance in the face of such an airtight syllogism.

Yep. Photo montages totally prove that we're at war, administration pronouncements notwithstanding (what, no Oklahoma City?) Surely the traitorous Cole and his fellow travelers in the Bush administration cannot possibly maintain their stance in the face of such an airtight syllogism.

Perhaps it's a bit difficult to understand simple sentences. Professor Cole seemed to be making a statement in response to the administration playing some funny propaganda games, i.e. the change from our actions in response to 9/11 being called a Global War on Terrorism to a Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.

However, his real point is that the use of the word "war" in this struggle has no place in achieving the goals that everyone wants. At no point does Professor Cole think that terrorism is a good thing or that we should roll over and ignore the threat. He is trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in the discussion of this "worldwide" condition. Remember, terrorism is a technique, not a person, not a state, not an enemy.

I'll speak slowly now so everyone can understand and try to answer me:

The word war implies a military action against a definable enemy. Implicit in the concept of a war is the concept of winning or losing and most definitely an end point.

Can anyone tell me when this war will be over? Can anyone actually describe the conditions that need to be satisfied to constitute victory (or defeat)?

I am reminded of that other great war we are fighting domestically, viz. the war against drugs. That's another police action that has been transformed into a "war" merely for propaganda effect. Can such a war ever be won? Can victory ever be declared if even one person still "abuses" drugs?

It is the administration that only now, after we are mired in actual military conflicts unrelated to the "struggle", has decided to face reality a bit more by referring to a struggle (which can go on forever), but which isn't as sexy (and constitutionally really doesn't permit the wide-ranging domestic attacks on our civil liberties) as a war.

It is those who think by puffing up our chests and shooting first at anything that moves who have their collective heads in the sand; especially if they think that such actions will advance the "struggle" or even win the "war".

This photo montage totally proves we're at war. Provided "war" doesn't really mean anything more than that there are bad people who do bad things.

9/11 - not "war."

Truck bombing our Embassies - not "war."

Killing civilians in all manner of speaking - not "war."

Just bad people doing bad things.

Bin Laden issued a fatwa in 1996 entitled:

Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.

I'm sure he meant to call it a Declaration of "bad things" against Americans....

Slight oversight - probably lost in translation.

eddie wrote:

Can anyone tell me when this war will be over? Can anyone actually describe the conditions that need to be satisfied to constitute victory (or defeat)?

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Could anyone have predicted when the Cold War would end? Do you deny that was a war?

We'll win this new war (called whatever you want: war on terror, war on islamic extremism) when fanatical Muslims stop blowing up people in the name of Allah. Or, at least when the number of those incidents are below a certain threshold, say once every 5 years.

We will win this war, but it will probably take another 10-20 years. Perhaps longer.

I thought we were using precision guided bombs more and more

Now I learn that we are "randomly dropping bombs on countries"

Wow - this is a serious problem

Has Iceland been hit yet? Or Canada? Or Vatican City ( technically a country! ) by this US policy?

Um, SoCal? "Killing civilians in all manner of speaking," to the extent it even makes sense (shouldn't it be "killing civilians in all manner of killing"?) isn't necessarily war. Civilians get massacred all the time, every such instance isn't a war. War means a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties. If you want to shoehorn in the current state of affairs via a broad definition of "parties," make your case, but simply posting a bunch of pictures of various atrocities doesn't do much more than place emotion over reason; use of the term "war" where it may not be warranted tends to have the same effect.

We will know we won the war when you see women in bikinis on the beaches outside Mecca.

Very simple and easily measured. And a lot goes into that simple stroll on a beach in a speedo...

Big Worm,

If you are so against emotion over reason you should make sure all pictures from Abu Garib (sp?) don't get shown. Right? We know what happened and showing them would just be for emotional gratification.

Um, Big Worm?

Please ALSO respond to the attacks on 9/11 (which included the Pentagon), the attacks on our Embassies in Africa - throw in the U.S.S. Cole for good measure - and the fact that OBL actually "Declared War" (rather than just "Declared Bad Things) against "Americans" - not just the U.S. government, anyway.

Also, thank you in advance for your highly anticipated answer on why attacking official U.S. government/military installations merely constitutes "bad things" and not "war."

You completely ignored that those issues in your last post, hopefully you will not in your next.

SGT Dave,

Good Answer :)

In 1998 the President(D) and the US Congress declared war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
Why the need to re-declare an already declared declaration of war?

Of course, a declaration of war cannot be issued against that which does not exist under any one-nation therefore, a declaration of war cannot be issued against Islamic Jihad because no such nation called Islamicjihadistan exists.