Has anyone read Talal Asad’s book “On Suicide Bombing”? Is it worth a read? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/talal-asad/thinking-about-just-war_b_56605.html
“It is often claimed that particular wars may be unjustly declared, that wars may sometimes use immoral means and be concluded in a vindictive way but that in itself war — even brutal war — is sometimes necessary. “Necessity” makes us look for ways of justifying it. Terrorism, on the other hand, is always and in principle evil — even though terrorists also claim that the atrocities they commit are sometimes necessary. Interpreting the motives of fighters is a tricky business but it is central to arguments about the distinction between the conduct of state armies and that of non-state gangs. Thus it is argued that the motives of military commanders are complex: they kill non-combatants but wouldn’t if they didn’t have to. Yet couldn’t the same be said of the terrorist whose killing of civilians is at once deliberate and coerced? He has reached the limit, he has no other option left — or so he claims, when he says that in order to try to defend his people’s freedom he must carry out immoral killings. If he kills enough civilians (so he reasons) perhaps those who are politically responsible will respond in the desired way.”

Hmm, if I remember correctly, Anderson kills the “Agents” not the people and that too to defend himself when he was attacked while in the Matrix. So this is a very wrong example.

That said, you have done a good analysis. When one goes to war, he should accept that there will be “collateral damages” – till now those who were waging the war talked of ‘collateral damages’ in Afghan and Iraq. Now what we are seeing is the same in Madrid and London

just to nitpick the Matrix analogy even more — there were a lot of scenes of Agents and the heroes blowing shit up or missing each other with bullets. how many civilians were injured or killed from that?

The reporting on the series of bombings over the last few years (US, Spain, UK) in much of the global mainstream media does the exact opposite – the conditions and ideologies that make people like the Leeds 4 see themselves as freedom fighters are as inconceivable as it would be to view all of the identical agents named Smith in The Matrix as legitimate law enforcement officers doing counter-terrorism work. This is a problem the ‘they hate us because we are free’ approach and the ‘nothing we can do can stop them, so why bother thinking about other ways of dealing with this than war’ interpretation do absolutely noting to resolve. Perhaps a bit of sci fi can help us be a little more imaginative in assessing and addressing radical militant Islamist responses to the domestic and international policies of the allies in the so-called ‘war on terror’. The point, however, is most certainly not to test it all out and see if these are perfect analogies.

Then Sepoy’s post is evidently not cowardly, because he’s asking us to take a look at ourselves. Looking at ourselves and holding terrorists morally culpable for their murders are not mutually exclusive.

Nothing in this post suggests that the “red pill” is good medicine; on the contrary, the jihadists’ “red pill” is poisonous, distorted, wrong. The question is: Why do terrorists buy the pill, or the story that it tells, and how do we get them to stop? One view is that we get them to stop by putting those who have taken the pill into Gitmo, by actually using their story to terrorize them (we figure out, for instance, that their narrative laments the sexualization of the West, so we put women’s underwear on their heads), or by putting more troops on the ground in the Middle East. But those policies only feed the story, and make what is clearly a poisonous pill more palatable to more people.

To question those policies is not to say that the jihadists’ narrative is right. It’s just to say that by altering our policies–by courageously looking at ourselves–we may have the means to make the wrong narrative less widespread.

Thanks for a great post, sepoy.

The language of the War on Terror, couched in absolute, universal terms like “Evil,” suggests that there is no possible way of winning short of extermination. People are pre-programmed as evil, for whatever reason, and there’s no way of defeating that through structural change—only execution and “freedom,” which is a red pill narrative of its own.

Let those who wish confuse the issue and blame sepoy for sophistry. No one is excusing or justifying anything (that I see), rather exposing underlying structures and ways in which there are similarities. Not all “terrorists” are Muslims, are Arabs, are brown, are whatever. But they are all human. So you tell me: can we learn nothing from Tim McVeigh?

Luke wrote:

Refined sophistry, congratulations. Just what I expected you would come up with. I shall be referring friends to your analysis for further insight into how fascism incubates in various intellectual guises and atmospheres.

While I can understand why some might find the very idea of a Matrix analogy a little glib for such a serious subject, I don’t believe that the substantive points that sepoy makes about the nature of contemporary jihad are at all sophistical. As the secular West confronts those would would negate it, we have to learn about those who hate, both to prevent their ideology from flourishing, and to use knowledge to undermine and defeat them. Sepoy is hardly the only observer to remark on the intellectual and doctrinal bankruptcy of contemporary militant jihad and the “shame and helplessness” which may be felt by potential militants in a world increasingly dominated by Western secular and Judeo-Christian cultural values. These are descriptions and explanations for violence, not excuses or justifications for violence. Perhaps, we may not agree with the description of the roots of jihad that sepoy presents. But if we disagree with his ideas, it is worthwhile to engage with them. Why do you disagree with the diagnosis he makes?

And, “fascism”? Surely you didn’t mean that literally. At the very worst, sepoy’s post is a little slick with an analogy. It does not defend jihad, and certainly does not advocate fascism, a right-wing, undemocratic, nationalistic, racist ideology. Do you intend “fascism” here to mean “any liberal humanism I dislike”? Do you disagree that we ought to try to figure out what makes jihadists tick?

I agree with the first comment by Luke. This is nothing but refined sophistry.

I am surprised that a second critic has had the grace to call the supposed “sophistry” of sepoy’s post “refined”. I assume it’s just a pat phrase. But it is still the case that the mere use of a pop-culture analogy does not invalidate the ideas that lie behind it. krisv, at least, does sepoy the courtesy of engaging with his ideas.

I notice that you are implying the prescription is to address the “selling points” i.e the root causes. And so you legitimize the very same “selling points”.

You are right to imply that there is a risk that in our attempt to understand what motivates contemporary jihad, we may lend legitimacy to some of the grievances of jihadists. We would presumably also agree that no grievance can justify the offhand slaughter of civilians. But even if all the “selling points” are inflated beyond resemblance to fact by psuedo-religious hyperbole, isn’t it still reasonable to figure out what those selling points are, and why they are so compelling to some, so as to counter their appeal, and cut off the supply of suicide bombers? And in any case, is it not possible that some of the grievances have a grain truth? If so, isn’t it not only right and proper that the West do what it can to alleviate them, but also thoroughly wise – in the interest of undermining our opponents’ appeal – for it to do so? And how are we to know truth from falsehood, unless we examine the claims? Now, I can’t provide a convenient list of all the possible religious, political, psychololgical, and cultural factors that might fuel jihadists’ fury, but it’s reasonable to start by looking at situations which the jihadists themselves say motivate them, social and political situations in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and, yes, Kashmir and Palestine, and Iraq.

You imply the issue of injustice in “Palestine and Kashmir”. I wonder how the issue of Palestine has anything to do with Muslims or Islam. After all this is all about land and displacement of a group from land, and this group includes non-muslims.

Of course, there are, for example, Christian Palestinans. But the “displacement” they share with Muslim Palestinians is still a huge grievance with many Muslims, and, at least, a convenient pretext for governments throughout the Middle East to avoid cooperation with the West. Whatever you think of the justice of the Palestinian and Israeli causes, whatever arrangement an impossibly clear-eyed justice might bring to a riven land, I don’t know how you can sincerely deny that the disposal of Palestine has become a central issue in the politics of Muslim countries, and central to the way very many Muslims view themselves, Israel, and the West.

You refer to the injustice in Kashmir, in the same context of the muslim community. What about the injustice resulting from the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir valley by these jihadists with the same idea of “injustice”?

To reiterate: sepoy was describing grievances used by militant jihadists to motivate themselves and others. Muslim Kashmiri militants and various non-Kashmiri allied militants themselves say they the political status quo in Kashmir is a grievance. To examine their claims is not to ignore the injustices they themselves inflict on others. Of course, their violence is horrible. But by trying to understand what they think, we’ll strengthen our abilities to undermine their wrongheaded beliefs, and to defeat their violence.

You conveniently ignore the terrible injustices perpetrated in most of the “muslim world” including (I gather your home country Pakistan) to the minorities, both muslim and non muslim, living in these countries, as well as to their womenfolk, not to speak of the genocides (remember Bangladesh, 1971?) that they have gotten away with. If you expect all the communities to address the “selling points” of the jihadists, you better be prepared for the same questions to be asked of the societies the jihadists come from. It is a coward’s way to blame the rest of the world for the problems they face, without ever taking a look at themselves.

You imply some familiarity with the recent history of Islamic societies, and with the history of the subcontinent. I wish you showed similar familiarity with the blog you criticize. This site routinely speaks out both against violence against minorities and against the inequities and systematic political repression common in some Muslim countries, and particularly in Pakistan. Read the blogs on Mukhtar Mai for a clear-cut opposition to rape and honor-killing. Look at CM’s recent thoughts on Musharraf, and indeed virtually anything that sepoy writes about Pakistani politics. In fact, in this very post, sepoy writes that “the flashpoints of Palestine or Kashmir still need tangible justice,” but he also states that “dictatorships still need unbuttressing,” so that their corrupt structures might collapse under their own weight.

A little attention to what sepoy actually wrote in this post doesn’t hurt. Of the ideology of the madrassas that urges young men to violence, he writes

The Islam it presents is fundamentally and intentionally flawed. The structures it uses to propogate – madrasas or mosques or communes – are blindingly hierarchical so that no one can ever ask for information not deemed necessary. As to their objectives – they are concrete and designed towards political hegemony.

You’re right that “the same questions” should be asked of Islamic societies that some ask about Anglo-American policy in our confrontation with Islamic militants. Looks like sepoy agrees with you.