cutting
> >off all aid to Israel isn't a whole lot more
> likely.
>
> If there is an iron law of international relations,
> it is this: Things
> change. Nations are the best of allies in one era,
> mortal enemies in
> another. In its own brutal self-interest, the US is
> very close to having to
> choose between being the enemy of one billion
> Moslems or 4 million Israelis.
> The math speaks for itself.
Oh, I see, and why hasn't it spoken for the last 50-some years? Is it tongue-tied?
Sure, things change. But that's no answer unless -- isn't this Marxism 101? -- you can point to real forces in the world promoting the change?
Moreover, and crucially, the issue, what do we do about Islamist terrorism here and now, not in that rosy future when someone in the US gov't decides that Israel isn't worth it, whenever that may be. The fellas who were arrested, if they are guilty, were planning to act a lot sooner than that, and there are plenty of people like that.
>
> >We should also get out of Iraq and Afghanistan,
> which
> >is a good deal more like, at least it will happen
> >within our lifetimes, and probably within the
> decade.
> >But that wouldn't be enough to placate the
> Islamists.
>
> How do you know?
Because, among other things, I bother to read what they say. Have you read, for example, bin Laden's statements, or the Islamist propaganda and policy analysis? They want a lot more than US OUT of some recent places they've invaded, and a lot more even than Palestinian nationhood and the elimination of Israel. They want to establish Islamic Republics of Virtue throughout the Muslim world,w hich extends from Morocco to Indonesia and parts of the Philippines and the former USSR, not to mention bits of China, and they want to eliminate all Western influence from this greater Islamic world. And they've been talking this way for over 70 years.
>
> >In fact, for a substantial minority of them,
> nothing
> >would. However, at this point you show a really
> >startling naivete about human motivation. People do
> >not act like rational economic agents who formulate
> >goals and stop doing the things they think they
> need
> >to achieve them when the goals are attained. They
> >commit themselves to values or visions, the
> Islamists
> >not least, and they keep on going long after anyone
> >would say that they have either attained what they
> >wish or that any rational person would see that
> what
> >they wish unattainable, or anyway by those methods.
>
> This seems like a wordy version of, "Who can deal
> with these crazy Arabs?"
> Am I missing something?
Yeah, like the part where you substitute "Arabs" for where I say "human." That's what you are missing. For heaven's sake, man, please read!
This is a point I learned from Thomas Kuhn, talking about white male Western scientists -- when people get committed enough to any idea (please notice, people, not just Arabs), you cannot change their minds. They have too much invested. No scientific revolution is over, Kuhn said, until the last of the die-hard believer in the old ways has, well, died. Here the Islamists (and the rabid Zionists and wacko Christian fundis and believers in the New American Century are no better) have too much invested to ever be placated. They can only be defeated, if they can be defeated.
Btw what have I ever done or said that has given you the impression that I am a racist?
>
> >Finally, your approach here is really subject
> >changing, unless you actually agree with Chris'
> >sarcastic comment that we should ignore terrorist
> >activity and hope they don't bother us.
>
> No, that's too simplistic. I favor a more
> comprehensive two-pronged
> approach: (a) ignore the terrorists
I presume you are not planning to fly, go near or into any tall buildings, or near any large groups of people in hot symbolic targets, on this view. You live in New York, though, right?
and (b) tell
> Israel to go fuck itself.
> I think the US could drain the global swamp of
> Islamic resentment pronto
> that way. At least I think that stands a better
> chance of success than
> calling Islamists irrational and letting it go at
> that.
Who the hell said I wanted to let it go at that? I want the police to investigate terrorist conspiracies and arrest the conspirators before they act. Of course I want the suspects to get fair trials with due process like any other suspects -- no Gitmos.
And I have no illusions that the prosecutorial method would solve the problem. For that we need to go to the roots, and ending the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan would help, as would forcing the Israelis to be rational and semi-cooperative. But I was talking about stopping Islamists from blowing up planes, buildings, and people over the next few months and years.
That was the question I posed to you, what to do about that, and your answer is: nothing. That is not acceptable. It is not rational. It is self-destructive.
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