A very good point, unfortunately. Fanatics usually (IMO) do a much better job of pushing their own adherents away than any external “pull” system ever did. It just seems to take so long and cost so much waiting for them do finally do it.

I have a post or two on educated people becoming extremists. One was a 3rd year med student at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mi who was caught stalking people in Hemlock Park, Dearborn. He was Lebanese and bragged about his ties to terror groups but had been in the USA for years.

The educated ones are usually the finaciers, bomb makers, recruiters, and other shadow players. It does contradict the theory that economics/lack of education cause terrorism. I believe that is too simplistic but not entirely incorrect. There is a historical economic hoplessness factor combined with a decided lack of education. These mix well with the “paradise awaits” snake oil given by the Imams and the cultural background of the “holy warrior”. In the end, the poorly educated and trained fodder are strapped to bombs made by those with education and skills, financed by those who went to college, and set off (most suicide bombers do not detonate themselves) by a well paid trigger man.

Taking the Imams/religion out of the equation and giving a better way out of poverty than crime and/or terrorism is probably the best method (which is what we are trying to do there now). The difficult part was separating the firebrand Imams from the populance and keeping them separated. Luckily it appears the imams and Islamic terrorists are doing the alienation for us. People with jobs, education, and futures tend to be less inclined to throw it all away for “jihad”.

As for architecture, it is almost is a “chicken or egg” debate. Does open architecture create more peaceful places or does peace allow for open areas? I would say violent areas do force a closed architecture for protection but even old European castles, forts, and walled cities are very open behind the initial wall. However I cannot say having an open area invites peace. I just have no evidence of that.

Unfortunately, my readings (I’ll try to hunt up a link) have indicated that even well educated, middle class people can become fodder for extremists, suicidal actions. So, while the calls may or may not go unheaded, I fear that income/education will not be a factor.

Your postulate about the culture of walled homes/cities makes a good point. This may be a stretch, but I do notice that cultures that favor open cafes, homes and cities tend to be less violent. Of course I could easily be mixing cause and effect, since it may be that a less violent society begets the open architecture.

Taking the Imams out of the picture would, I agree, remove one more set of instigators. Of course the challenge is to avoid their successors from being from the same mold.

Then again, with wealth tends (in general) to come more secularism, which ameliorates the effects of firebrand clerics. So perhaps hoping for better jobs and incomes would be more productive. (Which brings us back around to one of the original premisis of this threat that the terrorists can be compared to street gangs of major cities.)

On your other point that Communist societies tended to make their “ism” into their “god”: I’m not sure we have any good measures on that one. For the major Communist societies that lasted a while, the countries all tended to form cults of personality around their leaders as their “gods” rather than any particular “ism”. We had Lenin, Stalin and, to a degree Kruschev for Russia, Mao for China, Castro for Cuba, Tito for Yugoslavia, Kim John Il for North Korea, and so on. Those Communist states that did not have charasmatic leaders tended to be vassal states of either Russia or China, which proped them up.

So, while I can’t say I believe you are “wrong” on that one, I tend to say that it has not been observed in action yet.

I would postulate, for discussion’s sake that Communism actually replaces “god” with the “party”. Nothing much changed in the end except the communists answered only to their “party”. “Absolute power corrupts” aspect (no matter where that power is derrived).

The point on risks in Iraq is similar to Afghanistan on the tribal front. In Afghanistan, tribes are separated via geography (as in Martian like vertical cliffs) and even though tribes may be 2-4 linear miles apart, it is a three day walk. In Iraq, almost every home is a walled compound (I will try to find pictures and add as an ‘edit’). Neighbors of different families may rarely meet in some areas. Villiages look like fortresses with narrow streets and multiple ambush points. This probably surved a very useful role in past times as raiders/thieves could not attack these homes.

Once the Imams are removed, many of these tribal chiefs (shieks) can be “bought off” either by direct money or services (like building a road, covered sewer, or clean water well). The hard part was exposing the extremist Shia and Sunni Imams for what they are. This was tough in better educated Iraq and even tougher in poorly educated Afghanistan. The Taliban seek to keep “their” people uneducated for a reason. Though even now they are calling for “educated” muslims to join their fight. Not sure how that will play out.

VERY Rural Iraqi Home in Northern Iraq (The mountain areas are actually quite nice)

Another Rural Village. Notice the walled gardens and pens. Area is north of Tikrit.

Kirkuk from above.

I never took pics from the air so I had to search for these. Notice in larger cities/towns, the homes are literally walled camps. In the rural areas they are also walled if possible. This does make one wonder if the culture is akin to a bad section of an “inner city” combined with the “tribalism” and xenophobia steriotyped in “Deliverance”. In other words, the tribes could become (or remain) wall off family ‘gangs’ with little unity.

Good point. I agree that tribalism and religious fanaticism do tend to feed on each other, and differentiating the two is difficult (and perhaps futile).

To the extent that I disagree with you at all (and in this context I likely don’t) it’s that I tend to view the main driver as factionalism, with religious extremists merely taking advantage of it. As my historic parallel I look to the early successes of Karl Marx’s vision of Communism taking advantage of the factionalism (along class and income lines) that existed in the late 19th and early 20th century in Europe. In that case Communism was not religious, but atheistic: However it did contain radicalism that exploited the extreme social differences that existed, particularly in Tsarist Russia. (And a lot of other items as well, to be sure).

In that context, one of the remaining largest risk in Iraq is, IMO, that the continued seperation of the “tribes” into their own regions, through ethnic clensing, will retain the tribalism, even were the Imams to lose their hold on power. Although perhaps, once they are no longer in direct conflict, perhaps they can make peace across the “borders” (although the Cubans who were displaced by Castro in 1959 have not eased their opinions after almost fifty years, nor have the Palistinians who were displaced for the creation of Israel forgotten their “loss” after sixty years - again there were many other factors there as well).

But, if the religious zealots can be removed from the equation, that would certainly help remove one instigator from the scene in Iraq. When one is fighting with “direct permission from God”, one tends to be much more violent and destructive, since “God’s Will” excuses any amount of slaughter (regardless of whose “god” is being served). Give me good old Communists. As atheists, they could always be bought off

Moving away from the religious extremism is step 1. Tribal adherance, xenophobia (even of the next village), and growing into the modern world (for lack of better terms) will take longer. I doubt it will be symbolic as the McDonalds in Moscow was, but it may be more meaningful in the long run. For instance, cell and internet usage in Iraq grows exponentially (just do not call near a US Military vehicle as the phone will go dead instantly). It is getting more difficult for not only the Imams to control their youth but also the xenophobics. Many interesitng discussions I had in the Iraqi Ministry of Defence ended when I typed in something on google and could reference a point I made. The shear volume of knowledge now accessible to the Iraqis is almost overwhelming.

China has similar issues on information control but chose to severly restrict internet usage, though even that is failing.

For the point made by Igor and you, luckily we are not fighting cockroaches. Cockroaches are preferrable to the Islamofascist/Islamic Holy Warriors/Jihadists/Harrabists (I think I covered them all) as cockroaches do serve some useful purpose. These fools and their ideology are also not nearly as resistant as roaches are. however, I like multi-teared approaches.

As one of my old battalion commanders said, “an enemy can react to any wone thing you do to him. He can even react to two things at once. He cannot react to three or more actions.” He was referring to the combined arms approach of attacking with ground forces (in multiple directions), artillery, air power, and electronic means (jamming) at the same time. Being simplistic as volumes have been written for this subject, this translates to direct military action, information operations (PR/info ops, jamming terror networks/denial, hacking their computer systems/bank accounts, etc), cummunity work, law enforcement operations, creating/training friendly forces, educating populations, and other aspects.

Greg,

Dunham added a line at the end of the bit where he asks the puppet if he is muslim. The puppet answers ‘no’. It may have been enough, or it may explode in a month. It just matters what is important for the Imams who preach hate at the time.

That was not one of the threads I read (can’t read them all. not enough time, meaning I sometimes miss some good ones).

I don’t want to get too argumentative about the points in the article (shocking as that may sound), but is the author so sure that the root of the Iraqi civil war was religiously based as it was ethnically (tribally) based.

The fact that the factions were Shia and Sunni Muslims was, at least in my opinion, just a part of the fact that different tribes (belonging to either Sunni or Shia sects) were in conflict. The clerics, of whichever major division of Islam) just shaded the conflicts to their advantage.

To take another context, we saw similar situations in Northern Ireland, where the conflict took Roman Catholic vs. Protestant tones, but was, IMO, actually based on (heavily) English landowners against occupied Irish peasants. That is, I admit something of an oversimplification, but I wanted to pick an example where ethnic/social conflicts took religious overtones.

My point being that the Iraqi civil war migiht have been as likely to take place were all the participants Christian, Jewish or Hindu, but still belonging to the same set of tribes, as opressed, with ambitious warlords and access to weapons.

That makes me a little less optimistic that a “move away from religious fanaticism” is the key. I would rather hear about a “move away from tribalism”, but I’ll take what I can get.

Re: “opium for crack”

Check out Aldus Huxley’s “Brave New World”. Then substitute “Soma” for either of those choices. The results are the same.

Please see this article from the NYTs.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/03/04/iraqis-turning-against-religious-fanaticism/

Though I read Marx and think him a controlling monster. He proposed to exchange “opium” for “crack”. Just as bad, but more addictive and difficult to get out of.

I to find it both fascinating that people put their blind loyalty into the very same people who are keeping them opressed and poor. This phenomenon is observable in the Battered spouse syndrome that psychologists (and police) deal with every day. It is just appaling when entire populations participate. One (meaning me) just believes, “why don’t the facts of the situation make themselves evident”. But then, when beople “believe”, they apparently are reluctant to give up that faith, if it is all they have.

In an earlier generation this is what I believe Karl Marx was referencing when he referred to the clerics of the 19th century who were aligning themselves with opressive regimes (one thinks of Tsarist Russia and the Orthodox Church) as “The Opiate of the People”.

To play Devil’s Advocate:

The problem with mocking the terrorists violent side is it results in more violence in the name of Islam. The “Execute those who insult Islam” signs come out and massive protests are staged for years. The Danes are STILL dealing with “cartoon rage” where they made fun of the terrorists and now have death threats against the artists.

There are several dozen more views from “Westerners are responsible for all the Worlds woes and Islamists are just and pure” to “It’s Islam stupid”. All one has to do is vary search terms.

I chose two examples from recent headlines. You may be correct. The hard part is deciding the few positions to merge into something approaching reality (why I never volunteered for the Military Intelligence branch… Crystal Balls are no longer issued).

Steve,

On this point I agree with you. This is especially the case with internal “jihadists” of what ever motivation and stripe. The interesting (in a morbid fashion) aspect of Islamic jihadism is that it is their leaders (religious and secular) who maintain this lack of education and poverty in order to have recruits.

The same skills needed in counter gang and counter mob/mafia efforts were learned by the US Armed Forces in Iraq and applied with great success.