On 2012-10-11, at 9:51 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Marv: "Guerrilla movements don't arise in a vacuum. They're the
> product of government repression and foreign invasion."
>
> [WS:] Your response surprises me. It indicates that you either did
> not read what I wrote, or that you are incapable or unwilling to see
> the situation outside the sclerotic Left narrative that treats all
> popular movements as justified, if not noble, reaction against US
> imperialism and its proxies.
>
> I clearly argued that as I see it, the popularity of islamic
> radicalism has a very different root causes, defense of male warrior
> honor, aptly identified in Graeber's book. Of course, islamic clerics
> and assorted shysters want to cast it in different terms, as a
> "blowback" against Western imperialism, and the echo chamber on the
> western left parrots these claims...
>
> This is all that there is to it. I see these guys as contemptible
> males who treat women and "infidels" as instruments of asserting their
> wounded warrior honor through humilliaton and clinging to clerics and
> assorted shysters who provide them with religious justification.
> There is nothing political about them. End of story.
>
> Now, this has nothing to do with imperialism, state autocracy, or the
> conduct of wars…
If the Taliban is not a political movement but a collection of crazed zealots who relish combat for no other reason than to assert their "male warrior honor", and its actions have nothing to do with imperialism, how do you explain the ongoing peace talks between it and representatives of the US, Afghan, and Pakistani governments seeking a political settlement of the conflict in the Pashtun regions? If we're to bring "sclerotic" political narratives into it, yours resembles that of the neocons and so-called cruise missile liberals who assume movements like the Taliban reflect a world-historic "clash of civilizations" and that the resulting "war on terror" must necessarily be resolved by military means.