The Crazy Party
I can think of no better illustration of why the right is never going to manage the terrorism problem effectively than to just encourage everyone to read this post on the Corner. Conservative insist on believing -- contrary to all of the evidence -- that jihadism isn't a genuinely transnational non-state problem.
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Hasn't Ledeen's insanity been a given for a while now?
June 26, 2006 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
What do mean "contrary to all the evidence?" The evidence - from the 9/11 Commission on down - is pretty clear on the fact that passive and active state support is pretty crucial to Islamic terrorism. It's not Soviet style state-sponsorship, sure, but it's just lazy to make a sweeping assertion that states play "no role." Iran provided - at a minumum - safe passage to the 9/11 hijackers. Sudan's government was intimately involved with bin Laden's early establishment of training camps in that country (even had a joint venture going at Al Shifa). al Qaeda was openly allied with the government of Afghanistan. Pakistan's ISS set up and ran Islamic training camps - some of them in Afghanistan - throughout the 1980s and 1990s
I mean, c'mon. The "non-state, transnational" designation is only a half-truth. It's also a dodge from addressing the difficult question of state involvement in terrorism in the post Cold War era. I'm not saying the Right has the answer, but the Left's embrace of the "non state" analytical framework uber-alles is just as intellectually bankrupt.
June 26, 2006 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I blame Bill Clinton.
After all, Bill Clinton maintained for his entire Presidency a list of "State Sponsors of Terror".
As Matthew says, the idea that a state would sponsor terror is simple "contrary to all of the evidence"!!!
Now, the question is: why did Bill Clinton persist in lying to us about these non-existent "State Sponsors" of terror? After all, Clinton wasn't a nefarious guy like Bush - and Clinton must have known very well that terrorism is purely "transnational non-state problem". So what was Clinton's motive?
June 26, 2006 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
They are holding up Ledeen's book as one of the best examples.
"Islamic terror, then, has its rationale as a weapon used by hostile states against their enemies, whether open or undeclared. We aren't dealing with crazies or criminals, or even the oppressed, but with cold calculators, some of whom, in Saudi Arabia notably, pass themselves off as our allies."
To follow his logic would appear to suggest attacking states such as Saudi Arabia or Iran.
"Non-state, transnational" is not a half-truth, a dodge, or intellectually bankrupt -- it's a far more accurate description than state-sponsored, even if there are some links such as those you described. Non-state and transnational doesn't preclude some involvement or support by various nations to some degree at certain points.
If you think we were correct to attack Iraq because of its nexus with terrorism, then it makes sense for you to make such claims, but it doesn't make you right.
June 26, 2006 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Michael Ledeen's was the first book to point out that terrorism begins at the top in both Iran and Saudi Arabia,"
Uh, no, actually. Claire Sterling's book "The Terror Network", published way back in 1981, made this claim first - except she blamed the Russians mostly - which claim appears to be historically inaccurate to some degree according to more recent analysts.
The facts of the matter are that states use terrorism movements, but the movements themselves are created outside of states. It also depends on the specific terrorist movement whether it is dependent on or involved with a state. The fact that terrorist movements often support each other in larger or smaller ways does not mean that they all work for the same state or the same outcome, either.
You have terrorist movements on the left and the right in Europe and elsewhere. The US even today actively supports groups which are listed as "terrorists" on the US's own State Department watch lists - the anti-Iranisn M.E.K. group is just one of them. That doesn't mean the US CREATED the M.E.K. group, or that the group wouldn't exist if the US didn't support them. And while they are a repressive personality cult organization, they are opposed to the repressive Iranian regime.
Conflating terrorism with repressive regimes is just an excuse to demonize the repressive regimes and justify pre-emptive war. Nothing more.
June 28, 2006 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink