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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (32416)	10/13/2001 11:21:55 AM
From: Poet	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

I just stole something else from the Foreign Affairs Discussion Group thread (which I really like). This is from Andrew Sullivan's (the author of the article you just read) personal website. interesting commentary and more grist for the mill: Tidbits from andrewsullivan.com ---------------------------- On Finding Humor ---------------------------- As to finding humor in the conflict itself, I don't think we've made enough fun of bin Laden himself yet. Like Hitler, bin Laden is not just evil, he's ridiculous - and seeing his absurdity is a critical part of overcoming fear. Maybe it's because I'd just seen (for the umpteenth time) "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" but that video of the turbaned maniac surrounded by characters out of central casting struck me as faintly hilarious. Where are the knights that say "Ni!" when you need them? I see no reason why we shouldn't laugh at bin Laden's preposterous medievalism, with that microphone perched in front of him, like a cross between Phil Donahue and the Ayatollah Khomeini. Laughter is a vital response to terror: it neutralizes fear. I remember that from the AIDS years and it kept many of us alive. Besides, one thing that separates the civilized world from these religious thugs is that we have a sense of humor. Let's use it. And let's start by occasionally laughing at the monstrous spectacle of these bearded beady-eyed bullies on a rock. ------------------------------ On War and Religion ------------------------------ WAR AND RELIGION: Some of you emailed me to ask why I had written a while back in an aside that I didn't think much of David Forte's "bromides" about Islamic fundamentalism. I hope my piece in the New York Times Magazine helps explain why. Frankie Foer does a good job on Forte in the new TNR. Forte gets his facts wrong, and his views of Islam seem strained through his own (and Bush's) unfortunate belief that faith - any faith - is somehow better than none. (In my view, atheists are far less politically dangerous than fundamentalists of any stripe.) Forte's also close to many of the theocons on the right who have done their best to blur the clear distinctions between Church and State that make the United States such a unique experiment in world history. Such theocons have far too much clout, in my view, in the Bush White House, and may be blurring some of our vision in the current conflict with Islamo-fascism. Michael Novak does the same thing in National Review, in an excruciating call to arms for a religious America. No, Mr. Novak. America is politically a secular country. Only civilly is it a deeply religious one. And those two facts are deeply connected. It's clear that there are some on the religious right - and I don't blame them - who are rattled by the recent exposure of what fundamentalism can achieve if welded to political power. One small silver lining from Osama bin Laden is to remind us of the evil of the fusion of religion and politics - a fusion that the theocons keep wanting to dilute. --------------------------------- On the "Arab Coalition" -------------------------------- WHAT ARAB COALITION?: The saddest fact of this war so far is how luke-warm the Arab states have been. In the Gulf War, many Arab states were terrified by Saddam's belligerence and fully backed the military alliance over a period of months. This time, there is no real unanimity and only token support after only a few days. We cannot even use the American-built Saudi bases! And the Saudis have helped foster and finance the Wahhabism that gave birth to al Qaeda. Arafat is doing what he can to avoid either being killed by his own people or siding with the losers, as he did last time. Mubarak gave a terse word of support yesterday. But no major Arab regime has given unqualified backing to the strikes in Afghanistan and the Pakistani leader is walking a tightrope. So what on earth is the point of Colin Powell's marvelous alliance? The answer is obviously propagandistic. Any sign that this is a Western assault on a Muslim fundamentalist threat is rightly resisted in Washington because it would give bin Laden a propaganda coup and perhaps deepen the conflict unnecessarily. But the idea that we can keep this broad coalition going for much longer - or anywhere near as long as this effort will require - seems to me to be far-fetched. As each day goes by, as the public opinion of the Arab street makes itself heard more defiantly, and as the corrupt regimes in the Arab world get even more scared of the masses, something will crack. At some point, we will be forced to do something the Arab states will have to condemn: an attack on Iraq (I wish); an encounter with Hamas; a collateral destruction of something that can be made out to have some religious significance; or something simply unpredictable. What do we do then? That will be the moment of truth for Powell, Bush, Cheney and Blair. My bet is that we will continue with a fractured coalition and a widening conflict, at which point the two sides are going to look an awful lot like a Sam Huntington nightmare. No, we have no quarrel with Islam itself. No, we don't want to unite the Arab world against the West. But we sure do have a problem with radicalized political Islam of the Wahhabist strain; further terrorist acts will only intensify our resolve; and we cannot and will not abandon Israel. Therefore some Western-Muslim conflict is close to inevitable. I think the chances of this conflict restricting itself to Afghanistan with this coalition intact are next to zero. At some point, we will have to decide whether to win this one and walk right into a clash of civilizations; or walk away and merely postpone the clash for an even bloodier future re-match. Meanwhile, our two most important allies are Britain and Russia, the last two conquerors of Afghanistan. How very reassuring and unnerving at the same time.