[(Continued from p.9)]
like that of a 'loyal opposition' became part of the nation's political culture."It is clear that the model of 1945 Japan is largely irrelevant as an argument in favor of the democratic transformation of 2003 Iraq.
If not democracy, then what? What should we do with Iraq when the U.S. takes over?
(For the answer, readers of Outpost are urged
to look back at our May 2003 issue, which featured
Yale Kramer's "Until Thomas Jefferson Comes to
Baghdad," outlining his equally prescient suggestions for conduct
of the occupation. The article is also available on our website
www.mideastoutpost.com )
The 9/11 hearings would not be a distraction if they were not so heavily politicized, and if they asked the real question that needed to be asked: how is it, over many decades, that policy toward Saudi Arabia was formed by a combination of people directly on the Saudi payroll? These included assorted public relations flacks, former ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, CIA men who went into business with the Saudis, and who were allowed to fashion the myth that Saudi Arabia was a friend, not the most sinister of enemies. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia used fabulous amounts of unearned oil money -- $70 billion, it is estimated -- to pay for madrassas and mosques throughout the world (not least in the Western world, with mosques in the center of Western Christendom, Rome, London, and Paris, the Rome mosque scarcely a pmile from the Vatican). The mortgages of 80% of the mosques in the U.S. are paid by Saudi Arabia.
There is an aggressive war on, which for a long time has gone on without its victims being able, apparently, to articulate its nature.
So don't be surprised if the report fails to mention CIA station chief Raymond Close, who quit to "go into business" with Saudi colleagues, or if it fails to mention the machinations of Fred Dutton, or of a host of ex-ambassadors, such as the recently-deceased (full of honor, presumably) John C. West, who obtained a job for his friend Crawford Cook doing public relations for the Saudis even as West remained ambassador. Or if it fails to mention the assorted Middle East Centers and Institutes (oh, there are so many, with such solemn, somber, true-blue American spokesmen, who naturally have only "America's" interests in view, founded, and sustained, with Arab money -- a rich "Palestinian" contractor here, a Kuwaiti family there, an American corporation doing business within the Arab world over there).
Terrorism is a tactic in a war, not the war itself. The war is Jihad. It is the "struggle," which has a 1350 year history, to spread Islam through the conquest of other lands, and the subjugation of their non-Muslim popula-tions. It is foolish to spend time solemnly deciding whether or not Al Qaeda is responsible for this, or for that, or whether it can be wiped out -- why, perhaps it can, but so what? It is just as foolish as the solemn analyses of whether some murderous attack was done by Hamas, Hezbollah, or Al Aksa-Martyr's Brigade. It makes no difference. They are all prompted by the central tenets of Islam. Anyone who fails to study Islam, or who fails to learn what its position is vis-a-vis Infidels -- the inculcated hostility, the Manichaeism, should simply be barred from even uttering an opinion about the Jihad, much less helping to make policy. There is an aggressive war on, which for a long time has gone on without its victims being able, apparently, to articulate its nature.
It is distracting, it is time-wasting, it is idiotic to wonder "who knew what when." The question is: what now is to be done, not with Al Qaeda, but with Al Qaeda, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Laskar Jihad, Abu Sayyaf, Gemaaa Islamiyaa, and another dozen, or a dozen hundred groups and groupuscules. What, aside from direct military attack, what efficacious application of cunning and guile, can split or demoralize the enemy, what pressures and measures will lead, not to a change in Muslim doctrine -- it cannot be changed -- but changes in Muslim behavior, which is a different thing.
Ataturk changed Muslim behavior. He gave women the right to vote. He passed the Hat Act, outlawing the tarboosh, a rimless hat that could be worn while praying. He monitored every mosque, and every khutba (pulpit), and punished severely anyone who touched, in the khutba, on political subjects -- only the blandest kind of prayers, carefully avoiding the matter of Jihad and the infidel, were permitted. He did many other things, all de-signed to limit and weaken the power of Islam. That was his great achievement. It did not change Islamic texts or doctrines. Yet it made Turkey, or at least an important part of Turkey, beginning with the educated middle classes of Istanbul, people who existed on something like the same intellectual planet as non-Muslims. That cannot be said for Muslims anywhere in the Arab Muslim world, or in those parts of the non-Arab Muslim world who have only their Muslim identity, and are completely under Arab influence, such as Pakistan.
So instead of Lee Hamilton and Robert Kerrey worrying over who knew what when, they should try to figure out what now is to be done about all the weapons
[(Continued on p.11)]
Outpost - 10 - May 2004