Stony seems to be arguing against the entire idea that al Qaeda is the huge problem that the Bush administration claims. In some ways, I agree with what Stony is saying. But in other ways, I don't. Al Qaeda and "Islamists" generally really do want to set up societies -- and ultimately a world -- that is ruled by very conservative Islamic precepts. I don't want to live in that world. Neither do you. (Whoever you are -- if you're reading a poker web site, you don't want to live under conservative Islam).
Everybody on the site should be able to agree on this much: we don't want to be part of a conservative Islamic state. Nor do we think it's a good idea for huge chunks of the world to be ruled in that way. Liberal democracy, with all the freedoms that we take for granted, is just a better way to live than religion-based authoritarianism that would control how you dress, what you write, what music you listen to, etc., etc.
I support 100% the importance of stopping this radical Islamic theocratic ideology. I think everybody here does.
The only issue, then, is means, not ends. How do we stop them? What are the methods that will work? And, by contrast, what methods would be counterproductive -- that is, likely to lead to the growth in power of Islamic fundamentalism?
The main advantage that the US has in this struggle is the power of our ideas. Freedom, liberty, democracy. No taxation without representation. The dignity of every individual. "You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney." (I read somewhere that many residents of unfree countries watch Law & Order and other shows, and then are stunned when they get arrested and find out they don't have any of these rights. It makes them wish they lived in a place more like America.) The right to choose how to live, what to wear, where to go. Freedom of speech. The American dream -- go into business and make good. Freedom of religion. Habeus corpus. A justice system that assumes that you're innocent until proven guilty. Our reputation for being the good guys, even in wartime: the Nazis desperately wanted to surrender to the Americans rather than the Russians, because they knew that the Russians would torture them and we wouldn't. A sense that we only fought wars that we had to fight, in self-defense or in defense of others. Even the separation of powers is important: no one person has absolute power; every branch of government is checked by every other branch. Same thing with federalism: the national government has power, but it's checked by state powers, and vice-versa. All of that preserves a space for people to really be free.
All of these are American values -- not Democratic or Republican. They're what we had going for us. We were universally identified with them.
Yes, there were people who were honestly against these ideals. Truly radical people committed to ideologies in which personal freedom is less important than following the "one true and correct way of life"(tm). A few Muslims, a few Jews, a few Christians, a few anarchists, a few neo-Nazis, a few hardline Communists, a few crazy leftists, a few crazy right-wing skinhead types, and no doubt others. Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, and that whole Heavens Gate cult come to mind. So yeah, a few people really would be against us if we stood up for what we believed, and lived out our ideals. But not many. Not many at all. Al Qaeda would still be against us. But they would have a hard time coming up with many allies or much support.
What the Bush administration has done, and what I absolutely condemn with all my heart, is to single-handedly destroy many of these values. We are now a nation that tortures its enemies. We are now a nation that denies habeus corpus. We are now a nation that denies the right to an attorney. We are now a nation that invades other countries that pose no threat to us. We are now a nation that spies on its own people, where the government can enter your house without a warrant and you'll never even know they were there. We are now a nation in which, on the say-so of one man and one man only, you can be deemed guilty until proven innocent -- and then not given any forum in which to prove your innocence. We are now a nation where you can be held without trial, without it even being admitted that you are being held, and tortured, and killed, and nobody will ever know. We are now a nation that relies on information obtained through torture. We are now a nation in which the President does not abide by laws passed by Congress -- and openly says that he has no intention of doing so.
If you think that the previous paragraph is an overstatement, you have not been paying attention to the news lately. It's absolutely horrific what is happening to this country. We are literally destroying our own values.
If we are going to stop the spread of radical Islamism, our greatest weapon will be our ideas. Our guns just ain't going to get it done. You can't kill everybody. You need to have people on your side. We need to have the huge majority of the world on our side. We need to be seen as the good guys. And we just aren't seen that way anymore.
What's worse is, we deserve it. We're not the good guys anymore.
This thread started as an argument about whether we're worse than Venezuela or not. What an incredibly low standard to set. So we're better than Venezuela. Whoopdyfuckingdoo! That's not our standard. That's not America.
This is the standard: We are no longer the America we used to be. We have fallen away from our real values.
Ronald Reagan would be ashamed of us.
Dwight Eisenhower would be ashamed of us.
Teddy Roosevelt would be ashamed of us.
Abraham Lincoln would be ashamed of us.
Thomas Jefferson would be ashamed of us.
And they would be right.
....
But the worst thing is, we didn't need to sacrifice these ideals. It's just not necessary.
When we fought World War I, we did not give up our ideals.
When we fought the Nazis and the Japanese, we did not give up our ideals.
When we fought the Cold War, we did not give up our ideals.
The idea that somehow Al Qaeda is a more formidable enemy than Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia is ludicrous. It's like comparing my high-school football team to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Except, no, my high school football team would have more of a chance. Al Qaeda has zip. They dream someday that they might be able to somehow get hold of a nuclear weapon and then maybe somehow smuggle it into some city and set it off. That's a dream, not a reality. They have no territory. Their main guy lives in a cave and may have died for lack of medical care. The Soviets had the power to press a button, any time they wanted, and obliterate every city in America. Adolf Hitler and the Japanese combined came within a hairsbreadth of conquering an entire hemisphere. I mean, come on. This is not a threat of unprecedented extent. It's an incredibly wimpy threat, by historical standards.
The only chance Al Qaeda has to win, is if a big enough chunk of people come to see them as the good guys, and us as the bad guys. They desperately need hearts and minds to be on their side, not ours. And, amazingly enough, we look like we're doing everything we can to provide them with that.
So yes. Fight Al Qaeda. Beat back radical Islamic fundamentalism. I don't want to live that way. Nobody does. But do it the right way. Do it while also living up to American ideals. If you abandon those ideals, you not only destroy what it means (or used to mean) to be America, but you give Al Qaeda and their allies the only chance they have of winning.