Jakarta bombing and Islamism

You are just a complete ignorant loser who was a nerd in high school and trying to get some attention by sitting behind his computer by talking crap to get some kind of attention. The world is full of morons like yourself. Your attacking against the Muslims will come to an end soon because the truth will come out soon and you’ll learn the difference between the Muslims and the terrorists who are claiming they’re Muslims. Until then enjoy your life because losers like you are not going to have the full enjoyment when it’s needed the most (……).

You are just a complete ignorant loser who was a nerd in high school and trying to get some attention by sitting behind his computer by talking crap to get some kind of attention

Well yes, taken literally all three of these claims are probably true, but since the world is full of morons like me you probably ought to start being nicer to us.

A note to K.D.: I find Daniel to be intelligent and interesting, even if he letting his politics color his analysis. You, on the other hand, are just a nasty troll.

I have no use for anyone unwilling to participate in civil discourse. Even when they are on my side.

Richard Clarke suggests, “Jihadism, which is largely but not completely a break-off sect from Wahabism” as a better alternative to “Islamism.”

Re East Timor, Daniel may have been referring to the period between 1975 and 1998 when Australia certainly wasn’t helping the East Timorese. (Or the period after when we decided to enforce rather one-sided agreements to take a chunk of their oil.) But Australians did provide assistance in the recent transition to democracy, and in my opinion that’s something the Howard government actually deserves credit for. (Not that they deserve credit for much.)

“I personally don’t think “Islamism” is a useful analytic category…lots of people who read CT violently disagree with me.”

It might be helpful if those who disagree kick off by giving a brief definition of the term. My impression is that some mean jihadism while others mean political Islam (not necessarily violent).

“November is a hugely important month for everyone on this planet”

Probably not, 2000 more important. America too polarized and too closely divided. Either one could be manageable, but not both. Whichever side wins will be considered radically, and I expect violently, illegitimate.

“Anyone got anything to cheer me up, or shall I remain in despair?”

Internal division will make America less internationally influential? Course a 2nd American Civil War will probably degrade the world economy. Buy bottled water and canned goods.

I’m suspecting from attam and k.d’s comments that we’ve been linked to by an Indonesian news source or blog?

Attam: I don’t know about ‘intelligent’ or ‘intellectual’, but speaking as a ‘similar’ I can say the Zionist Conspiracy angle doesn’t pass the Occam’s Razor test. The simplest (and therefore most likey) answer is that these people are doing these things for the very reason’s they give. Therefore they are Islamists or, if you prefer, Jihadists. Personally I prefer the term batshit-crazy-evil-sonofabitches…

In any case I personally do not blame Muslims in general for the acts of a few. For example I am certain that the average Muslim is appalled by the recent happenings in Russia. Does not the Koran say to spare children and women even in war?

So, if these acts were done by some shadowy Zionist consipiracy in an attempt to turn people like me against those of the Muslim faith they have failed. In the more likely event that they really are Islamic terrorists trying to convince Muslims to destroy the ‘Evil West’, I hope that they are failing as well.

Those of us who are good and feel good-will towards others must band together against this kind of evil; no matter its source.

But Australians did provide assistance in the recent transition to democracy, and in my opinion that’s something the Howard government actually deserves credit for.

I happen to agree with you. And I suspect that Daniel may have been referring to the previous unhappy history of East Timor.

But there’s also no question that the part of East Timorese history that Jemaah Islamiah is angry about and is using as a pretext for their various terrorist acts is the support for their independence in 1999. It’s that intervention that was on bin Laden’s list of grievances against the West, not their complicity in letting (Islamic) Indonesia repress the Timorese during the 70s and 80s.

I happen to think that the intervention was a grand idea, in spite of the fact that it has caused an increase in fundamentalist Muslim terrorism, which it undoubtedly has; both in Bali and Jakarta and possibly in the bombing of UN building in Baghdad that killed Sergio de Mello.

Why is it that no Australians were killed only Muslims? Who is really to blame?

Well, nothing like a few excited fans to put a damper on discussion…

Kevin, I think most people using the term Islamism simply mean a certain militant fundamentalism — political or religious. Sharia, a distrust/hatred of the West, of Israel, of liberalism are also common ingredients. Jihadism is different. In degree. In its violence. Paraphrasing Abdel Rahman al-Rashed [http://www.nytimes.com/ 2004/09/08/international/middleeast/ 08CND-ARAB.html?hp], not all Islamists are terrorists but all Muslim terrorists are Islamists.

Is it quite accurate to describe opposition to the Iraqi occupation as an Al Qaeda goal?

I ask because AQ long has been defined in my mind for its nihilist, take-no-prisoners methods in pursuit of an impossible goal. No doubt this is due to AQ’s having come to my attention mainly through 9/11. I actually don’t perceive hostage-taking, when the hostages are released upon compliance with a specific demand, as an AQ-style tactic.

I keep thinking about how non-hostage taking use of airliner terrorism was something of a shock. Remember that the passengers on the planes that hit the World Trade Center were not less courageous than those on Flight 93; they simply assumed that they were being held hostage, and that the best way to get out alive was to sit quietly and wait for the government to negotiate it.

Of course, there was no negotiation because there was no specific demand to be met. The goal truly was to inspire terror in the U.S. The hostage-taking in Iraq, when the hostages have been released upon demands being fulfilled, seems like a more conventional and less terrorizing sort of insanity than what we are dealing with when AQ is the definite opponent. Because AQ didn’t start with the Iraq war, I am reluctant to see the end of the occupation as an “AQ goal,” rather than simply the goal shared by a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t take much interest in AQ.

Pierre, that’s not right: the Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel are Muslim terrorists but not Islamists.

Perhaps some not. If so, very few exceptions. The three main groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aksa Martyrs, are all Islamist. All explain their suicide bombings in religious terms, as opposed to attributing their actions to political or nationalist motives. I can’t recall any tape made in advance by a Palestinian suicide bomber that did not have Jihadist religious trappings.

I believe in all societies there are a certain number of people who really enjoy belonging to a group that likes to blow things up and/or kill people. It gives meaning and purpose to their lives like nothing else does. It just depends on what circumstances start them into action, and how long the momentum sustains itself. In the West it is the right wing that is more deadly than the left, but the opposite is true in the East.

We had the Weathermen in the 60’s, which died out after fatalities in one of their bombings, and then the Vietnam War ended. Depressed rural economies in the 80’s, and later a Democratic administration led to polarization of extreme right wingers and eventual blowing up of the Murrah building.

After the breakup of Soviet Union, the U.S. is left as the only world power, and that is an unstable position, which set in motion the situation we have now. Just as we showed them how to defeat a superpower in Afghanistan, now they are using the techniques on us, as a replacement for the power of the Soviet Union that is now gone.

Note to jdw: I think it is a good idea for the author to respond to unreasonably critical remarks at least once, even if you think it sounds like a flame war. When you have groups of people that only get together and agree with each other all the time, that’s when it can get dangerous. I’ve listened to some of them and it can sound dangerous real fast.

I’m working on the assumption that Yasser Arafat isn’t an Islamist, and that Arafat exercises control over the terrorists, ergo the terrorists aren’t Islamists. None of these are exactly uncontroversial assumptions, I admit.

I’m working on the assumption that Yasser Arafat isn’t an Islamist, and that Arafat exercises control over the terrorists

The first probably yes, Dsquared, the second almost certainly not. For nearly a decade (late-80s to late-90s) a large part of Arafat’s bargaining position with the Israelis had been that if they gave him what he wanted (basically land, financial aid and legitimacy) he would give them what they wanted (basically peace and legitimacy). I.e., he would play policeman. But terrorism of one sort or another was what brought him to this point and he was reluctant to (attempt to) eradicate it — not only by force (a very tricky proposition) but by reforming the educational system, abandoning the institution of martyrdom, and so on. Not to mention that it was the Israelis themselves who had originally promoted Hamas as a counterweight to (mainstream) Fatah and the more purely nationalist radicals. By the late 90s Islamism had overtaken Palestine as it had so much of the Arab world, and if he had any control over the terrorists before the 2nd Intifada, he quickly lost it under pressure on one side from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and on the other from Israeli destruction of his infrastructure. His only remaining bargain chips are what remains of his prestige as father of the nation and his ability to pick or veto the prime minister and security chief.

But if they say they are doing it to liberate Palestine; and if they would stop doing it if Palestine were liberated, isn’t it reasonable to assume that they aren’t in fact trying to restore the Caliphate, or destroy America?

Their Jihadism is local, Andrew, it is only their Islamism that is global. I doubt that many Palestinians are volunteering to liberate Andalusia or destroy America (none of the Madrid bombers or the 9/11 crew were Palestinians); their immediate concerns are closer to home. But on general principle most probably agree with some variation of the above aims.

The three main groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aksa Martyrs, are all Islamist.

Al-Aqsa isn’t.

Dsquared,

The reason I’m writing about this is that weblog obsessives may know that I personally don’t think “Islamism” is a useful analytic category, and that lots of people who read CT violently disagree with me1.

Generally speaking I share your analysis; but I disagree with you on the usefulness of ‘Islamism’ as a term. Of course it is imprecise, can mean different things to different people and like most popular and well worn concepts is prone to definitional slippages in what it is intended to represent. On the other a lot depends on how you use it and I think it does provide a convenient short-hand to describe a group of related political positions and phenomena.

As I understand them, theorists of “Islamism” believe that violent fundamentalist Muslim groups all share each other’s grievances and fight for them on a global basis, which would be a hell of a lot more worrying.

This could be where you might be going wrong – of course there is no need to pay attention to me since I am not a theorist of Islamism and am not a specialist of any kind on things and matter Islamic. But as someone who uses the term and believes it to be of value; I certainly don’t think that it is immediately equatable to “violent fundamentalist Muslim groups” as I would argue that both non-violent fundamentalists as well as some non-fundamentalist Muslim groups who base political action on a certain ascribed political role for religion; should be included. In this schema it is only the violent and extremist Islamists that one needs to be directly worried about and who tend to form terrorist organisations. The problem is that, the divisions between these different strains of Islamism can be porous and the credible fear is that individuals cross over at different points of time, depending on their particular situation as well as external events and environments, from one strain to another. I don’t think it helps, as some so-called theorists of Islamism argue, to treat the entire range of positions as if they were all violent fundamentalists with a pre-disposition towards terrorism; as this is most likely to be a self-fulfilling activity. I would assume that AQ, is well aware of the divisions within different streams of Islamist opinion, and is banking on precisely this kind of reaction to achieve the kind of polarisation they desire. The dilemma though, is that there are organic linkages between these different streams of thought and practise which allows individuals to start in one and end up in another; I think some evidence based on the trajectories of the membership of terrorist organisations might indicate that this is more than a possibility.

As it turned out, this appears to me to be somewhere between 1 and 2; the bomb was planted by a local group, but one linked to Al-Quaeda, and was claimed to be planted in furtherance of partly local (“punishing” Australia for helping East Timor, which is frankly not the way I remembered it) and partly Al-Quaedaist (Iraq) goals.

But wouldn’t this be the expectations of how AQ would operate? For an organisation paranoid about security and infiltration, and aware that they would be explicitly targeted after the WoT (with varying degrees of intensity) it would make sense to rely on such groups to carry out attacks in different theatres. It is unlikely that they can have active cells and support structures in place, in widely different regions to put into place some grand strategy of action. Relying on sympathetic local organisations, cuts down costs (and AQ likes to fight on the cheap, knowing that cash flows are limited and not easily renewable) preserves its own manpower and makes it that much harder to penetrate if the localised actors are eliminated or captured. I would assume that AQ would primarily rely on this kind of route of action, while it preserves its energies towards surviving and planning the next big attack, which would most likely be another direct strike as opposed to a ‘localised’ action.