The Clever Badger I'm not dead yet!

U.S.-born Muslim Cleric: Kill U.S. Civilians

Go read this. 

Allow it to sink in.

Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, is encouraging the killing of U.S. civilians because “the American people, in general, are taking part in this and they elected this administration and they are financing the war.”

It's pretty clear where Al-Awlaki stands on things.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems that plagues the whole "war on terror"¹ business is that it puts the focus on the effect, not the cause. 

Acts that we refer to as terrorism aren't simply the impulsive acts of lunatics or psychopaths, though many people may find it comforting to believe that they are.  They're more complicated than that because of the ideologies at work behind them.  Within the logic of those ideologies, acts of terrorism make sense, and within the context of those ideologies, what we think of as acts of terrorism may well be thought of as acts of heroism.²

Since September 11, 2001, we Americans have been presented with a fairly consistent black-and-white message:  The Bad Guys (the terrorists and anyone who supports them) are out to get the Good Guys (the Americans and our allies).  The reason that the Bad Guys want to get the Good Guys is, for the most part, presented as jealousy of all the great stuff we have.  It's all very movie-plot, but I don't think it's very accurate. 

Reading between the lines of Al-Awlaki's comments, it seems to me that the reason that the Bad Guys want to get the Good Guys is not much more mysterious than "the Americans aren't Muslims."   And if you look at that from the perspective of a certain stripe of very devout Muslim, that's a perfectly reasonable justification, and furthermore, from a certain very devout Muslim perspective, we're the Bad Guys.

I need to be very clear that I don't believe for a moment that every, or even most individual Muslims are looking for an opportunity to kill an American.  I rather suspect that most would just prefer that everyone stop shooting at each other.

I also need to be very clear that just because I say that from a particular perspective a certain action seems reasonable³, I'm not saying that such an action is right.  Try as I might, I can think of no realistic situation in which hijacking airplanes full of passengers and deliberately crashing them into occupied buildings is right.  It's horrific by any standard, and the fact that such an act might be religiously motivated does not change the horrific nature of the act in the least.

If Al-Awlaki's comments are reflective of widespread sentiment, and it's not unreasonable to expect that they are, they suggest a mindset that is unlikely to be overcome using military techniques.⁴  In fact, I'm not convinced that such a mindset can be overcome.

But I'm certain it won't be if we don't make the effort to understand it.   

-Jay
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¹I don't like that term, by the way.  Terror isn't something concrete that we can "defeat" in any useful sense of the term.  It might be more meaningful to call it a "war on terrorists".

²I used to wonder if Darth Vader knew that he was evil. Given the rather cut-out characterization he had in the films, I suspect that we are to believe that he did. However, I would speculate that a Darth Vader, were he to exist in real life, would probably be as completely convinced that he was doing the right thing as anyone else. I don't think he would wake up in the morning and think to himself "What evil acts do I have on the calendar today?"

³Being able to understand other perspectives is a useful skill to have.  It can be difficult to do, though, particularly if the other perspective is the polar opposite of your own.  Always keep in mind that understanding does not imply agreement.

⁴Attempting to have soldiers pass out Bibles in Iraq and using rifle sights inscribed with Bible references don't help matters at all.

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