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Originally Posted by crowonapost
Part 1
An Unnatural Disaster
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In any case, along with their trumped-up case on WMD, the Bushies never successfully made the argument that Al Qaeda grew out of a lack of democracy in Arabia rather than out of the anti-Soviet jihad in the mountains of Afghanistan, which was the group's real lineage....
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.... In order to account for his Iraq mistake, in other words, he lumps together almost every Islamist opponent, Al Qaeda or not. Very few people around the world are fooled by this conflation of enemies. I have spoken to many foreign diplomats and officials in recent years, and I have found almost none who embrace Bush's strategic conception of Iraq as an integral part of the war on terror. Just as most reject the blame that Washington is now directing at NATO for Afghanistan. We and the rest of the world are talking past each other.
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Hirsh is almost making the argument that the world is being seen in simplistic terms without considering the historical context objectively.
But he doesn't really manage to do it. In 2003, he wrote
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There is no precedent for what America did in the Gulf War, restoring Kuwait’s rulers to their rule and then going home.
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Clearly a statement written out of a context of history that doesn't reflect any point of view of the people in the Persian Gulf region.
Bush did get UN support to "liberating" Kuwait, but to what end?
To restore a government that was more restrictive on individual liberty than the anti-globalist radicals used as a justification for treason and rebellion from circa 1765-1780 hardly seems noble, unless you would view the French seeking to restore the British Monarchy on the US as some sort of virtue. Of course, Bush never talked about the nature of the government that Bush was restoring in Kuwait because that would conflict with the view of the people who place individual sovereignty above national sovereignty when it comes to establishing governments.
Of course, Saddam when into Kuwait for the same reasons he went into Iran, and the US supported Saddam's invasion of Iran, so the question is what could possibly be wrong with invading Kuwait for the same exact reasons?
Further, Hirsh says that after restoring an implied "democracy" in Kuwait, then the US went home, when that wasn't the case. What the Gulf War did was place a large US base in the Persian Gulf, something the US never had there, and this base was placed in Saudi Arabia.
It was that base in the Persian Gulf that crystallized the views of many Saudis; this was a step beyond the West bringing liberalism to Saudi Arabia which violated religious principles, the same emotion the Republicans play to in the social conservatives, and now brought Western occupation to Saudi Arabia, encroaching on the legal sovereignty of Saudi society.
If we take a step back and look at history objectively, we see a period of enlightenment in Europe that influenced the thinking in the Americas, which for various complex factors, including resistance to globalization in Boston (the Boston Tea Party was an anti-globalization, anti-free trade, protest demonstration), lead to terrorism, then treason and rebellion, a war we now call a liberation movement. That set in motion a number of other groups in other regions seeking to replicate the fruits of terrorism and treason and insurrection. It happened in France, much to the consternation of the leaders of the American insurrection.
The British had one style of colonization that while often brutal, was conducted in ways that resulted in the British having a much better understanding of the people they ruled over, and by their use of local people to be their proxies, they trained the subjected people in their ways, so the subjects understood a lot about Britain. Where Britain most connected, India, liberation and independence did not result in a break with Britain.
The US, on the other hand, sought to pull the strings on puppets, puppets like the Shah of Iran, and the House of Saud, without fully appreciating what was going on inside the government or country. And out of the decades of this style of domination, we have a government mindset that says that all government action and all action against our government is controlled by a few individuals.
Hirsh does make the argument that Bush is pointing fingers at this or that villain to explain his failure, but I don't think Hirsh fully realizes how much he makes the same mistake in his thinking. And if he can't see that, then he can't fully appreciate the distorted perspective of the people he writes about, and seeks to explain why they do what they do.
Osama was inspired by the actions of others who used terrorism to get their way, the Zionists in Palestine, for example, and he then applied them in his efforts to get the US out of Saudi Arabia. And Osama did succeed in getting the US out of Saudi Arabia - Bush closed down the base in Saudi Arabia, and moved it to Kuwait.
But then, just as the French were inspired by the success of the American Revolution, others in the Persian Gulf were inspired by Osama's success to do the same.
All the groups that are commonly called terrorist groups are independent, and to claim that they are under the control of Osama or Iran is like saying Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were pulling the strings on the French terrorists that beheaded so many in France.
Yes, many individuals use their power and influence to encourage others to do what they believe will benefit their cause. So, Osama cheers on al qaeda in Iraq, but he had nothing to do with its existence, nor no control over it. Just as Jefferson had nothing to do with starting, or control over, the French Revolution. And Iran has the same degree of control over Hamas and Hezbollah as Reagan-Bush had over Saddam.
But the absolute last thing considered in the analysis of the events around the world are the nature of individual and national sovereignty in its current and past context, and then the infringement on the individual and national sovereignty by US policies.
The biggest limits to power, or the exercise of power, is the past. No one can control or change the past. One can define the past to suit your own purposes, but if that view is not shared by others, then your actions based on a past that is not shared will certainly be seen as a violation of sovereignty.
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