Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

in 1940 chomsky would've been blaming the shoah on Versailles

speaking of 1940, Mordy, did you see The Last of the Unjust, and did you rate it above Guardians of the Galaxy or not?

Chomsky's obvious flaws aside, I don't buy Graeme Wood's subjective, not very well-supported conclusions in the Atlantic either.

I think about 75% of what Chomsky says there, few people would argue with today. The US absolutely helped to create the vacuum that enabled ISIS to thrive. It's also true that Saudi Arabia is our ally, and that Saudi Arabia is partly responsible for funding the ideological underpinnings of ISIS (though it's not clear to me whether it follows that the Saudi monarchy actually wants ISIS to exist). I just don't understand how all of this adds up to "the US created ISIS."

i have not seen last of the unjust but i'm very familiar w/ Theresienstadt

wood has a lot of original, primary research in that piece - putting aside any conclusion. i have seen no one deal w/ IS theology on that level before.

I was not familiar w/ Theresienstadt; the way Lanzmann uses the footage of his Murmelstein interviews from the '70s, and his own presence on the sites, is a very compelling dialogue beteen the past and present, principals and historian.

the proximate american derived cause of isis isn't their patronage of saudi arabia so much as the invasion of iraq and the failure to restrain shi'ite chauvinism, and the vacillatory response to the syrian revolt

isis are vehemently opposed to the house of saud not least because they are seen as provincial usurpers (not of lineage from the prophet) and unworthy custodians of the holy sites

also thought the atlantic article was very thought provoking regarding how fanatics (really of all religions - this is certainly true about judaism imo) on some level do represent a more textually supported take on their religion and that when we say, eg, that IS doesn't represent Islam, maybe what we should be saying is that no human is obligated to take a hardline on their religious obligations. that fanatics may do their religion better than us moderates, but us moderates shouldn't be competing for who best practices theologies developed in more barbaric times.

His paragraphs like this one below do not impress me:

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

why doesn't it impress you? they have a theologically coherent ideology rooted in a literalism reading of the text and w/ historical traditional support

yeah for example burning the pilot was justified with respect to accounts of early caliphatic warfare practises in order to distinguish themselves from mainstream sunni opinion and even from other salafists

they seem to be a lot more innovative/exegetically minded than saudi wahabbism, which was always devised as a very simple code that could be diffused unto illiterate bedouins by relatively uneducated preachers without extensive recourse to complicated jurisprudence

It would be facile, even exculpatory, to call the problem of the Islamic State “a problem with Islam.” The religion allows many interpretations, and Islamic State supporters are morally on the hook for the one they choose. And yet simply denouncing the Islamic State as un-Islamic can be counterproductive, especially if those who hear the message have read the holy texts and seen the endorsement of many of the caliphate’s practices written plainly within them.

Muslims can say that slavery is not legitimate now, and that crucifixion is wrong at this historical juncture. Many say precisely this. But they cannot condemn slavery or crucifixion outright without contradicting the Koran and the example of the Prophet. “The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid,” Bernard Haykel says. That really would be an act of apostasy.

The Islamic State’s ideology exerts powerful sway over a certain subset of the population. Life’s hypocrisies and inconsistencies vanish in its face. Musa Cerantonio and the Salafis I met in London are unstumpable: no question I posed left them stuttering. They lectured me garrulously and, if one accepts their premises, convincingly. To call them un-Islamic appears, to me, to invite them into an argument that they would win. If they had been froth-spewing maniacs, I might be able to predict that their movement would burn out as the psychopaths detonated themselves or became drone-splats, one by one. But these men spoke with an academic precision that put me in mind of a good graduate seminar. I even enjoyed their company, and that frightened me as much as anything else.

It shouldn't be surprising that a religious text was written with the justification of conquest in mind. We liberals have a somewhat neutered view of religion and its role in history and civilization, as though apologetics for empire is a "distortion" of religion rather than what religion is often designed for.

Although I wouldn't make an easy equivalency (especially since Judaism doesn't have a period of conquest on the scale of Islam or Christianity), the Torah has a bit of that too.

News at 11: extremists who read religious texts, believe their own interpretation of such texts.

Sorry Mordy, but I don't consider this that mind-blowing. Former New Republic current Atlantic writer Wood tries to set up his religious take versus a strawman that doesn't exist--people who say ISIS are just thugs w/out an alleged religious motive

isn't that essentially obama's argument? "ISIL is not Islamic"?

strawman = POTUS?

One of the major points the article tries to make is that the religious ideas that drive ISIS will make their actions predictable. That would seem to be a falsifiable hypothesis. I didn't notice the author made any concrete predictions, but I didn't read to the end. Were there any?

well, he did predict that if there's a conventional western invasion that ISIS would try to throw all their resources at dabiq

Obama is arguing that ISIL's actions are not Islamic in the way that many interpret Islam.

Ok, and modern muslims are also "not Islamic in the way that many interpret Islam."

I think the sentiment behind what he's saying is ultimately the right one, I just think it's not a very sound or sophisticated argument. I mean, not that you typically get soundness and sophistication in mass political rhetoric.

that sort of 'a small minority' rhetoric is delusory and dishonest and doesn't even work on its own exculpatory feelgood terms when all sorts of less extreme than isis but still not particularly laudable forms of legal violence are practised with wide support in much of the islamic world

I think the Sam Harris version of it with concentric circles or whatever is simplifying and dangerous too -- it makes it sound like there's this "core extremist" group at the center with different levels of support in the wider and wider circles, radiating outward until you encompass all of Islam, when in fact it's more like a very complex and multi-centric venn diagram.

who, outside the most insane beyond-the-reach-of-reason bigots, believe that EVERY muslim agrees w/ ISIS

TBF I think plenty of average amuricans believe that or don't make much of a nuanced distinction anyway.

that sort of 'a small minority' rhetoric is delusory and dishonest and doesn't even work on its own exculpatory feelgood terms [...]
― no love deb weep (nakhchivan), Tuesday, February 17, 2015 12:19 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the diplomatic and (domestic) political intent of these statements is v obvious, no? more or less ritualistic at this point to say it but that's life eh

hypothetically yeah, if they assuage public opinion, though that isn't clear anyway, are the sort of people in the west who strongly dislike muslims likely to be reassured by obama / merkel etc saying that?

my reference was more to the number of people speaking to an educated liberal audience who still talk in platitudes rather than the potentially useful bromides of power

there is probably a larger minority of muslims who interpret islam to be compatible with alcoholism and promiscuity than those who interpret it in the same way as abu bakr

there is no reason for nonobservers to attempt to excommunicate either group, and there is no coherent majoritarian muslim culture to appeal to either, only further diversities of sect, devotion, culture etc

wood is showing how on certain of the terms that religion appeals -- a sense of rectitude, a coherent closed system, an apocalyptic tendency, a strong in group / out group identity -- salafism and the wacky brand of it favoured by isis does offer a lot to those with a particularly strong religious cathexis

even if it's true that a religious extremist movement didn't speak for me, if a non-adherent said "X isn't Jewish" or whatever I'd probably balk instead of appreciate it. like what the fuck does obama know about what is and isn't islam.

I might have missed the details, but I'm not sure what in that Atlantic article is new other than its relatively concise comprehensiveness. Even pre 9/11, weren't a lot of us attuned to the desire of some radical groups to establish a new caliphate? Vs. the more typically disruptive/destructive goal of the usual terrorist suspects? Like, the right wingers who fear monger about people coming to blow us up, they're talking about one strain of radical Islam. The ones worried about those coming to impose sharia, they're scared of another, and if anything conflating the two seems to be one of the major hiccups of the broader "war on terror." The horror stories coming out of IS don't seem really different than what was coming out of Afghanistan pre-9/11, iirc. Establishing strict religious law, public executions, etc. The big change just seems to be that the general chaos that has cloaked the region for years now has made it much easier for a philosophy dead set on and strengthened by spreading to do so.

i couldn't tell you precisely which aspects of the article qualify as scoops v. collation, but i read a lot about IS and i learnt things from the article that i didn't know before reading it. he clearly did a lot of groundwork and spoke to a lot of ppl.

I might have missed the details, but I'm not sure what in that Atlantic article is new other than its relatively concise comprehensiveness. Even pre 9/11, weren't a lot of us attuned to the desire of some radical groups to establish a new caliphate? Vs. the more typically disruptive/destructive goal of the usual terrorist suspects? Like, the right wingers who fear monger about people coming to blow us up, they're talking about one strain of radical Islam. The ones worried about those coming to impose sharia, they're scared of another, and if anything conflating the two seems to be one of the major hiccups of the broader "war on terror." The horror stories coming out of IS don't seem really different than what was coming out of Afghanistan pre-9/11, iirc. Establishing strict religious law, public executions, etc. The big change just seems to be that the general chaos that has cloaked the region for years now has made it much easier for a philosophy dead set on and strengthened by spreading to do so.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, February 17, 2015 2:01 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not sure what you're getting at here -- as the article points out, Bin Laden very clearly saw his work as a precursor to establishing the caliphate, and ISIS propaganda discusses attacking the US, so it's not like there are these two separate schools of thought, one that wants to attack the west and the other that wants to create an empire under sharia.

also that, as the article notes, the taliban aren't revolutionary enough for IS bc they participate in politics

I guess I was confused then, because I did not think the aim of Bin Laden and his cohort was to spread the caliphate per se so much as target the west specifically.

I am still confused how IS can claim not to be political, unless they're saying everything they do is ... legal? As opposed to political? Which seems like splitting hairs, especially since I assume the Koran has some laws on how to govern.

this is the relevant bit:

Choudary’s colleague Abu Baraa explained that Islamic law permits only temporary peace treaties, lasting no longer than a decade. Similarly, accepting any border is anathema, as stated by the Prophet and echoed in the Islamic State’s propaganda videos. If the caliph consents to a longer-term peace or permanent border, he will be in error. Temporary peace treaties are renewable, but may not be applied to all enemies at once: the caliph must wage jihad at least once a year. He may not rest, or he will fall into a state of sin.

One comparison to the Islamic State is the Khmer Rouge, which killed about a third of the population of Cambodia. But the Khmer Rouge occupied Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations. “This is not permitted,” Abu Baraa said. “To send an ambassador to the UN is to recognize an authority other than God’s.” This form of diplomacy is shirk, or polytheism, he argued, and would be immediate cause to hereticize and replace Baghdadi. Even to hasten the arrival of a caliphate by democratic means—for example by voting for political candidates who favor a caliphate—is shirk.

It’s hard to overstate how hamstrung the Islamic State will be by its radicalism. The modern international system, born of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, relies on each state’s willingness to recognize borders, however grudgingly. For the Islamic State, that recognition is ideological suicide. Other Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, have succumbed to the blandishments of democracy and the potential for an invitation to the community of nations, complete with a UN seat. Negotiation and accommodation have worked, at times, for the Taliban as well. (Under Taliban rule, Afghanistan exchanged ambassadors with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, an act that invalidated the Taliban’s authority in the Islamic State’s eyes.) To the Islamic State these are not options, but acts of apostasy.

Right, they don't recognize "politics" in the sense of participating in earthly, non-Islamic political processes - elections etc. They don't recognize modern nation-states. A lot of their propaganda features group burnings/tearings of passports.

Thanks. I blame IS for my terrible cold and comprehension skills, the jerks.

eliminating all allegiance to fallible human-created nation states and living only in accordance with divine law == living the dream self-delusion

Well, no one would peg these chumps as rational.

Of course, god is not fallible, so as long as you follow his lead you're good.

ISIS is a truly radical millennialism movement, apocalyptic, post-rational, etc

doing the same thing for 67 years and expecting different results is also post-rational.

i find these imminent messianic movements (Communism too I guess - and it's probably no coincidence that they believe in a kind of socialist ideal for followers of the caliph) really fascinating in how they are post-historical, no longer striving for the apocalypse but actively producing it

xp i have no idea what that means except as another bizarre, unenlightening equivocation?

ILX is post-rational.

oh come now v few ilx posts are rational

flag-post-rational

pre-post-rational