Benazir Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of the slightly Islamic Pakistan. I don’t think Condi is treated with any more disdain than would be shown to a male.
FinnAgain, I disagree, but I consider this discussion a distraction from the OP. If you would like to continue this discussion, perhaps you should open another thread.
So, for the sake of argument, let’s say that someone advocated only the establishment of a pan-Arab caliphate under sharia law, and he didn’t care what the West did so long as they stayed out. Are you saying that such a person wouldn’t be an Islamic fundamentalist? In other words, can an Islamic fundamentalist believe only that he and fellow Muslims should live under sharia, or does a fundamentalist have to believe that the whole world must live under that system?
When you construct an argument that someone wasn’t making and put words in their mouth for the very purpose of knocking it down, that’s the definition of a strawman. Now perhaps you just hear what you want to hear, but miss elizabeth’s argument sounded nothing like how you chose to summarize it.
You said that extremists by definition believe that “they have to destroy our governments [and] institute a global system of Sharia.” The fact is that some fundamentalists have political goals that basically consist of the establishment of the caliphate under sharia, not worldwide revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood is one example, your selective quoting notwithstanding. (Is there a reason you left out this bit from your quote? “But some academics and Muslim leaders say that the ideals contained in the documents were written by disgruntled foreign dissidents representing a tiny radical fringe.”)
You are right, it was just some untruth in the thread. If readings words from AQ leaders themselves won’t convince you that your claim that they were “just” motivated by something different from what they themselves say motivates them, a dozen other threads won’t do it.
We can certainly drop the tangent here though.
And since I didn’t actually do that… pretending that I did in order to knock down an argument I was making as if it was a strawman is, well, a strawman, right?
Perhaps you just say what you want to say, but responding to a direct quote about a specific group and saying, of that specific group “their only motivation is thus and such”, means that someone is saying a specific group’s motivation is thus and such.
Of course it later turned out that she was engaging in bait-and-switch tactics (and she was wrong about Al Quaeda anyway), but acting as if she was responding to what was actually said is no strawman. As for how her argument ‘sounded’, that’s irrelevant and obfuscatory on your part to boot. Assuming that she had been talking about the topic under discussion, rather than engaging in bait-and-switch and hoping nobody had noticed, the semantic value of her statement and my gloss would have been identical. That they “sound different” is immaterial and unimportant.
As long as I’m pointing out strawmen, I actually said "By definition, Islamic fundamentalism believes that Sharia law is the only correct path to governance. "
Of Islamic extremists, I said “There is a fairly massive movement of people who believe they are at war with the west, that they have to destroy our governments, institute a global system of Sharia and who believe that secularism itself constitutes an attack upon Islam”
If by selective quoting you mean quoting designed to show: “Radical Islamic factions, like some in the Muslim Brotherhood”
Why then, yes… I “selectively quoted” to show that there was a faction among some in the Muslim Brotherhood.
And tricky devil that I am, I explicitly hid that in plain sight by clearly saying it.
My duplicity knows no bounds.
Could it be… could it be… that I talked about a faction within the MB… and then posted a quote about a faction within the MB? And then didn’t feel anybody would be overager enough to miss the entire point of what I was saying in order to somehow put forward, as a ‘gotcha’, that my quote specifically supported exactly what I said it did?
It could.
And while we’re talking of selective quoting, any reason you left out: " A knot of terrorism researchers say the memos and audiotapes, many translated from Arabic and containing detailed strategies by the international Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, are proof that extremists have long sought to replace the Constitution with Shariah, or Islamic law."
I might add that your tactics obscure the fact that the MB is hardly an organization that consistently and clearly only wants sharia in its own backyard. To begin with, it’s a fractured organization that barely deserves the term, with its international outposts being more like mostly-autonomous colonies than satellites.
Hassan al-Banna, founder of the MB, was once quoted as saying: “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” Sayyid Qutb, already referenced, is one of the fathers of modern Islamic extremism and was an influential member of the MB.
Even in modern times, things are nowhere near as simple as you pretend, at all. Contrary to your claim that the MB is a group that wants “the establishment of the caliphate under sharia, not worldwide revolution”… their presence in the US in particular (at least among certain members, the secrecy with which they’ve conducted themselves removes transparency) has been significantly different.
[
](A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America)
[
And yet you dismiss her cite from Osama bin Laden as being a quote from “one single Islamic extremist.” The double standard is appalling.
I think you’re very knowledgeable about this subject, but I disagree with some of your views. Ideally I would like to continue a debate on this subject, because I think you have interesting points, but I find the debating style you pursue is extremely aggressive and ill-spirited. I’m afraid my going any further in this is discussion to be simply not worth the effort.
Nope, no double standard. (I suppose that accusing me of engaging in appalling behavior is part of a non-aggressive debate style.)
I dismissed Bin Laden’s statements as not being representative of all Islamic extremists. Further, I dismiss the suggestion that AQ “just wanted the US out of the ME”.
I provided a cite, on the other hand, of AQ leaders themselves giving other motivations. Other motivations means that they were not “just” motivated by one thing. Disproving a claim like that only requires me to show one other motivation for attacks in order to disprove it. No double standard, at all.
I’d point out, on the subject of debating styles, that I’ve primarily been mimicking your tone when responding to you, but you’re right. Continued debate probably won’t serve any purpose.
No big HRC fan here but agree with those who believe that the gender of the POTUS is immaterial.
I will repeat here my position stated before - the battle in the Islamic MENA region is between those who want to become integrated into the world’s community of communities and those who fear the West’s secular values and desire instead for an insular return to the fundamental values. Those who want insularity want the US there because their is no better prop for their cause.
I tend to agree. The information we receive from the mass media might be a carefully woven story to influence public opinion.
I don’t think gender should be an issue of any importance to voters; it’s certainly not an issue in other nations. The Islamic extremists simply want the freedom tower built. Who builds it is not important.
What are you defining as massive? That’s not a trap or trick question by the way - I’m curious where the impression springs from.
I’m assuming you’re not defining Islamic neo-fundamentalism and Islamists as defined by Olivier Roy ( as related, sometimes allied, but also somewhat oppositional philosophies ) in toto as part of said movement, as of course not even all neo-fundamentalists, let alone Islamists ( sensu Roy ) are violent, as Roy notes. Nor of course are many Islamists interested, as distinct from neo-fundamentalists, with extraterritorial concerns. Unless you are defining “war with the west and destroying our governments” as a less active, more metaphorical and philosophical stance, not necessarily implying overt violence. Even that numbers wouldn’t include ALL neo-fundamentalists and Islamists, as not even all of them are of that mindset.
Roy refers to neo-fundamentalists as a small minority ( albeit an outsizely significant one due to the frequent penchance for violent reaction) and it is only a certain subset of those that are jihadists. Similarily with Islamists, of course. Jihadists in my reading seem to constitute a quite miniscule ( but also quite dangerous ) group, subsets of larger philosophical tendencies, themselves minority opinions, still, in the larger Islamic world. These in turn are loosely “supported” by a somewhat more substantial group, in most places also minorities ( some particular hotspots like the Palestinian territories excepted ), that aren’t necessarily philosophically in alignment, but frustratedly approve of blows struck against what may seem to some to be hostile hegemons/opressors of whatever sort.
You disagree?
To the OP’s question, I think the relative lack of noise from the Middle East about Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Thatcher, & Indira Gandhi being women points to it not being a big deal.
We’re already infidels, to some of the crazier ones we’re already Jews or ruled by Jews. The Iranians look at us as a stoogelike cousin to the diabolical British who conquered the world.
They’re not going to make that big a deal about it, 'cos it’s not their country. The people who’ll be freaked by it are right here at home.
Somewhere in the millions, much more likely than not. Albeit the single-digit-millions in all likelyhood. Just the number of Wahabist madrases alone most likely account for hundreds of thousands of new converts a year to Islamist and/or neo-fundamentalists scisms. None of the polls I’ve seen, however, have been as conclusive as I’d like.
I’m using definitions that’re pretty close to Roy, I’d say.( Not owning a copy of his work myself, I can’t check on it at the moment. I can check the local library, however, and see if I can’t find a copy there. )
Of course the percent who are actually violent in their own actions would most likely be rather low. I would also note, I suppose, that destroying a government does not necessarily mean destroying it via force; an America bound by Sharia instead our current system of jurisprudence would essentially be destroyed and remade, for all practical purposes. And many Islamists view themselves in a cultural rather than a military war. There is, of course, the problem of schisms and sub-schisms and such in terms of defining numbers and ideologies…
And there are, of course, many Muslims like a sizable percentage of British Muslims, who want Sharia law but want it set up in parallel to traditional legal courts and not replacing them. The issue is anything but simple, I’ll quickly grant that. But with anywhere from 700 million to 1.2 billion Muslims in the world even a half of a percent would yield a fairly massive movement (from where I sit, at least.)
Some of the polls I’ve come across, for instance, paint anything but a clear and cohesive picture. Which is to be expected, as ideologies don’t really exist outside of those who hold/practice them and labels are draped over entities and not the other way around.
I would posit, however, that believing that Sharia is the only acceptable form of government leads, if not explicitly than logically and tacitly, to an us-them mentality for any who hold it. It naturally yields a view of secularism as somehow wrong, and the increasing power of western ideals as detrimental to fundamentalist Islam.
But it’s also worth noting that such ideologies can and do have a direct impact on the militant wings of various ideological schisms. Which is what I was referring to when I was talking about the concept that Al Quaeda attacked us “Just because they wanted us out of the ME” being a myth. Undoubtedly infidel troops in Saudi Arabia played a part, but an ideology which sees sharia as the only form of government, for the entire world, played a part as well. After all, it’s not important that there are infidel troops there unless there’s something significant about infidels.
Or to quote Roy on the matter:
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](http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/22/opinion/edroy.php)
I’d agree with that, and of course apologize if my terminology to describe various schisms has been less than accurate. However, by the same token, if we assume, say, that 2% of all Muslims are neo-fundamentalists, that’s still roughly somewhere between one and three milliion, if my back-of-the-napkin-math is correct. In my view, millions of warm bodies constitutes a pretty significant movement, even if compared to the larger body of believers it’s much smaller.
Heck, even 1% could yield upwards of one million members. Which is a pretty massive movement, as I see it.
Can’t say as I disagree at all.
Not at all. Your comments are thoroughly lucid, informed and cogent. (reading your post was actually quite an unexpected treat)
Have I clarified my verbiage sufficiently?
I actually would predict Ahmadinejad would be very respectful of Clinton, if for no other reason than to try to appear **that **gracious (either sincerely, or for PR reasons); like his thing about wanting to lay a shrine at ground zero.
That’s reasonable enough, if you include all philosophically like-minded militants, including the greater proportion of not directly violent ones, but who are immediately supportive of those who are. To me .2-1 or 2% isn’t proportionally massive, but to you some hundreds of thousands to several million are and that’s a fair divide. Less semantics than in how you perceive the problem.
They never will be, I’m pretty certain. There is a host of issues making recovery of that sort of data many times more difficult than it would be in, say, Philadelphia. I’m semi-confidant the truly extremist numbers are low, but I’m not going to hazard a guess at how low.
I’m comfortable with a figure of violent regional jihadists in the tens of thousands at the very least ( this would exclude, obviously, non-jihadist, but otherwise ostensibly Muslim guerillas/“freedom fighters”/terrorists, like elements of Fatah ) and of the extraterritorial neo-fundamentalist varieties a smaller subset of that. With a no doubt much larger non-combatant, but otherwise activist support network .
Globalized Islam: The Search For A New Ummah ( 2004, Colombia University Press ) is where he lays out his concept of neofundamentalism as unstructured, non-coherent amalgam of extrateritorial purists that reject the concept of the “Islamic state” or an “Islamic party” and instead stress the oneness of the ummah. Accodingly they reject tribe, nationality and ethnicity, as well as history, theology, philosophy, literature, westernism of any stripe. This oneness also conveniently writes out any version of Islam but their singular vision ( including a dismissal of such traditional orthodoxy as the various Sunni schools of jurisprudence ). They are Islamic libertarians in a sense, distrusting any state solution or really any social issues not directly addressed by their version of sharia. Neo-fundamentalists reject politics as corrupting and irrelevant, states as barely tolerated evils. To quote:
Neofundamentaliss feel no urge to build specific ‘Islamic’ institutions ( from a constitution to a parliament ) because that would imply sharia is not sufficient. When the Taliban ran Afghanistan, they cared nothing for building state institutions. For the Talibs the very concept of an Islamic state meant that something had to be added to sharia. For neofundamentalists the aim of action is salvation, not revolution. Their objective is the individual, not society.
Wahabist Salafism is the largest strain of neo-fundamentalism in this view, though not the only manifestation. Osama bin Laden ( in his latest incarnation, anyway ) is a neo-fundamentalist.
Khomeinism, Hamas and Hezbollah on the other hand are Islamist - they are political animals looking for a state solution. They are concerned about regional communities, nations, social justice. As Roy notes the literacy rate among women in Iran rose from 28% in 1976 on the eve of revolution to 80% in 1996. The Taliban could have given a shit about such things.
No argument.
Neofundamentalists reject the concept of ‘Islamic ideology’ ;). Which doesn’t mean they don’t have one of course. Yes, conflict with the west as an ideological requirement does play a part for ObL et al, at least in Roy’s view. I’d argue that purely psychologically ( and retroactively as a justifier ) the presense of U.S. troops In SA does seem to have been the proximate trigger. The United States as a foil may or may not have been a predestined inevitability - I think it is arguable. But at this point, I’d agree that is no longer the only factor in play.
However there are undoutably other jihadists for whom that IS all they care about. Not all the terrorists are neofundamentalists, afterall :). For instance I’m quite certain there are Shi’a Islamists currently plotting to blow up Americans that would promptly forget about them and turn to plotting their Islamic republic of Iraq if the U.S. would just leave. As with every damned little thing, there are no clear, unambiguous answers.
That’s reasonable enough, if you include all philosophically like-minded militants, including the greater proportion of not directly violent ones, but who are immediately supportive of those who are. To me .2-1 or 2% isn’t proportionally massive, but to you some hundreds of thousands to several million are and that’s a fair divide. Less semantics than in how you perceive the problem.
They never will be, I’m pretty certain. There is a host of issues making recovery of that sort of data many times more difficult than it would be in, say, Philadelphia. I’m semi-confidant the truly extremist numbers are low, but I’m not going to hazard a guess at how low.
I’m comfortable with a figure of violent regional jihadists in the tens of thousands at the very least ( this would exclude, obviously, non-jihadist, but otherwise ostensibly Muslim guerillas/“freedom fighters”/terrorists, like elements of Fatah ) and of the extraterritorial neo-fundamentalist varieties a smaller subset of that. With a no doubt much larger non-combatant, but otherwise activist support network .
Globalized Islam: The Search For A New Ummah ( 2004, Colombia University Press ) is where he lays out his concept of neofundamentalism as an unstructured amalgam of extraterritorial purists that reject the concept of the “Islamic state” or an “Islamic party” and instead stress the oneness of the ummah. Accodingly they reject tribe, nationality and ethnicity, as well as history, theology, philosophy, literature, westernism of any stripe. This oneness also conveniently writes out any version of Islam but their singular vision ( including a dismissal of such traditional orthodoxy as the various Sunni schools of jurisprudence ). They are Islamic libertarians in a sense, distrusting any state solution or really any social issues not directly addressed by their version of sharia. Neo-fundamentalists reject politics as corrupting and irrelevant, states as barely tolerated evils. To quote:
Neofundamentalists feel no urge to build specific ‘Islamic’ institutions ( from a constitution to a parliament ) because that would imply sharia is not sufficient. When the Taliban ran Afghanistan, they cared nothing for building state institutions. For the Talibs the very concept of an Islamic state meant that something had to be added to sharia. For neofundamentalists the aim of action is salvation, not revolution. Their objective is the individual, not society.
Wahabist Salafism is the largest strain of neo-fundamentalism in this view, though not the only manifestation. Osama bin Laden ( in his latest incarnation, anyway ) is a neo-fundamentalist.
Khomeinism, Hamas and Hezbollah on the other hand are Islamist - they are political animals looking for a state solution. They are concerned about regional communities, nations, social justice. As Roy notes the literacy rate among women in Iran rose from 28% in 1976 on the eve of revolution to 80% in 1996. The Taliban could have given a shit about such things.
No argument.
Neofundamentalists reject the concept of ‘Islamic ideology’ ;). Which doesn’t mean they don’t have one of course. Yes, conflict with the west as an ideological requirement does play a part for ObL et al, at least in Roy’s view. I’d argue that purely psychologically ( and retroactively as a justifier ) the presense of U.S. troops In SA does seem to have been the proximate trigger. The United States as a foil may or may not have been a predestined inevitability - I think it is arguable. But at this point, I’d agree that is no longer the only factor in play.
However there are undoutably other jihadists for whom that IS all they care about. Not all the terrorists are neofundamentalists, afterall :). For instance I’m quite certain there are Shi’a Islamists currently plotting to blow up Americans that would promptly forget about them and turn to plotting their Islamic republic of Iraq if the U.S. would just leave. As with every damned little thing, there are no clear, unambiguous answers.
I am much more interested in the people asking the questions: Do they really care about the answer, or are they the same people who son’t think America’s ‘ready’ for a female president in the first place? And if they truly do believe having a female for prez would fuel the fire of extremists, and urge people not to vote for one for that reason, what other decisions are they willing to make in order not to incite these extremists?