How is it possible for a terror militia to conquer such a large area in such a short time. As they first swept across the land of Iraq during a few short days this spring, there was talk of a few hundred fighters only. They reached the outskirts of Baghdad and they still hold most of the territory they grabbed. A few hundred fighters… How is that possible?
They are primitive and cruel. They wave their black flag of fright and decapitate their prisoners. They are a small gang of fanatics who cannot possibly enjoy the support of anyone except a tiny group of extremists.
Obviously there’s something wrong with this picture. No army can be so successful in such a short time without an extensive support. True, the Iraqi government may have been disorganized and there may be an element of surprise in the advance of the militia, but that cannot possibly be the full explanation.
It’s a common propaganda tactics to deny your enemy any popular support, but the Western press is not engaged in propaganda, is it? Well, of course it is, but we may still hope to meet some sober analysis in our media reports. So just admit it: The obvious facts indicate that the IS enjoy a support that is far greater than just a handful of mad extremists.
For a large number of people in the Middle East the IS are probably not seen as terrorists, for no one gives a bad name to their allies, and if we want to be neutral, we shouldn’t give them that name either.
But how could we avoid calling them terrorists, you may ask, when looking at the atrocities they have committed? Well, atrocities happen in all wars, so that would qualify any fighting force as terrorist, but admittedly the picture the IS are spreading of themselves is not quite one of an ordinary military. Those decapitation videos are of course absolutely gruesome and abominable, but such images are not designed to create popular support. What makes the IS somewhat attractive to the local population, is probably its identity as a Sunni force combating a Shiite government. Given its rapid ascent it’s likely that it actually is a coalition of different Sunni groups (including secular Baathists) who don’t necessarily support the entire IS ideology.
The image of cruelty may originate from just a small fraction of the IS coalition, for otherwise it’s hard to believe how a force that has been so strategically successful, can possibly do something as strategically stupid as distributing those images. What the IS really is, is still a riddle.
This time almost everybody wants to intervene in Iraq. A few die-hard pacifists and some fierce isolationists may still be reluctant, but the rest of us are ready to give up our feeble principles and react on reality and “facts on the ground.”
There’s no doubt there will be an increasing intervention and those strikes from thin air are only the beginning. Soon American boots will be sucked onto Iraqi soil again. It’s not a political option anymore. The events are creating their own laws.
The American invasion of Iraq some eleven years ago was a rather political decision. It was not necessary, and it could have been otherwise. True it did follow a certain logic escalating from the previous decade, but there was no pressing reason to intervene at that moment. It was a relatively rare instance political madness. (Madness being defined as a lack of sense of reality.)
But the invasion of 2003 happened and created a new reality. The madness cannot be undone, for that would be insane, wouldn’t it?
Strangely, the laws of logic have changed. The decision to strike at Iraq in 2003 was lacking in logic, but it still created a new logic. Since the US intervened in the first place, the reasoning goes, it must intervene again. If there was a fraction of justification for the first intervention, it is infinitely more justified now.
For an observer this reasoning must be true. We know that the US must plunge into Iraq again because otherwise its engagement up to this point would be completely ridiculed. America invaded a country to fight terrorism where no terrorism existed, so obviously it must invade again now that a terrorist threat actually exists.
So it must be for political man cannot escape from his own actions and history makes its own demands. But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to step out of all this and recognize that the chain of events has been flawed from the very beginning. What if we could look at the world afresh?
Our actions so far have only made bad worse, and American attempts at solving problems in the Middle East have only created more problems. What if we could look at the present with eyes that were not blurred by our past and do what the present demands without being bound by our faulty past behavior.
But that will not happen. America will go to Iraq again.
The basic premise for an intervention in Iraq is that the “Islamic State” is a terrorist organization. Is it really? That depends on our definition of terrorism. Do we understand it in a narrow or in a broader sense. The narrowest definition, one that maybe even the terrorists themselves would agree on, could possibly sound like this: “Terrorism is the act of killing people randomly with the main objective of inciting fear in society.” That should qualify al-Qaida as a terrorist organization, 9/11 being the prime example of such an act. What then about the IS?
The IS has certainly committed atrocities on its way to conquering a huge area in Iraq and Syria, but that alone cannot qualify as terrorism according to the narrow definition. Atrocities always happen in wars, it’s just a matter of degree. The aim of any army in action is to gain or keep control over a territory by use of violence, and in that process terrible things will inevitably happen. If the army, especially an advancing army, is sufficiently ruthless, it will not make an effort to reduce the number of atrocities. But still, those acts will be bi-products and not the main objective of the war.
Even if the IS doesn’t refrain from proving its power by using excessive violence to scare people on its way, its goal is obviously to conquer territory. It uses violence, as does any army, as a direct strategic move to control an area, and that as such doesn’t qualify as terrorism. For al-Qaida on the other hand, the violence is not to be regarded as strategic moves on the board. 9/11, for example, was not an attempt to conquer ground in the United States. (And as such it wasn’t really an attack on America). It was solely done to create fear and that alone is the essence of terrorism. (“Terror” being synonymous with “fear”)
One relevant question to be asked about the IS, is whether it has links to al-Qaida or whether it is planning terrorist actions itself (violent actions without any strategic value). Previously it was reported that the IS was associated with al-Qaida, but now the connection appears to be less clear.
Be as it may, at the moment the IS is fighting a regular war and doesn’t seem to be engaged in terrorism proper. In fact the only thing that is clear about the IS, is that it is an army fighting to control territory in Iraq and Syria. We cannot fully know what kind of people this army consists of. Given its sudden appearance and strength, it is probably an alliance of diverse Sunni groups, including the secular Baath party. Their only common denominator may just be the wish to gain (or re-gain) Sunni domination over the land. Their claim to the land may be unjust and their advance may be ruthless, but that in itself doesn’t make it a terrorist organization.
“Terrorist” is a word, and words, of course, have no intrinsic meaning. They only mean whatever people refer to when using them. So what do we actually refer to when pronouncing this term “terrorist”?
Some definitions might be suggested, but then we must make sure that the definitions actually cover the objects they are supposed to cover. If A is a terrorist, but B is not, there must be a definition that includes A, but not B.
Assuming that those people who are usually labeled “terrorists” by the Western press are fairly given this name, what would be a reasonable definition that precedes the name-calling? If al Qaida, the IS, the Taliban and Ukrainian separatists are all terrorists, what would be the definition that would cover these groups, but would not cover groups that are usually perceived as freedom fighters? Let’s test some suggestions:
“A terrorist is someone who uses violence to achieve a political goal. ”That would certainly cover the above mentioned groups, but it would also include our dear freedom fighters. (The anti-apartheid movement, for example, also used violence.)
“A terrorist is someone who kills innocent civilians.” Those groups do, but innocent civilians are inevitably killed in any armed struggle. Any American president would then have to be called a terrorist.
“A terrorist is someone who deliberately kills innocent civilians.” That would seem to acquit American presidents, but it poses several problems. What is meant by “deliberately”? If the killing of innocent civilians is not the main objective of a violent act, but just an expected outcome, is it then deliberate? If it’s just a side-effect, does it count as deliberate? (Whenever America goes to war, civilians are expected to get killed.) Does it matter how much is done to avoid this side-effect? Even if a lot is done to avoid it, one could always do more, right? Here it seems the criteria are not sufficiently clear-cut to make a useful definition. (Moreover, how can we objectively measure other people’s intentions to know what is deliberate and what is not?
A much more clear-cut definition could sound like this: “A terrorist is someone whose main objective it is to kill innocent civilians.” This definition, however, seems to be too narrow to fit the general usage.
Al Qaida probably fits it and so does anyone who kills people indiscriminately in order to scare the general public. But other violent groups cannot be called terrorist according to this criterion. The Taliban and Ukrainian separatists, brutal as they may be, pursue a strategic goal, and if civilians are killed in their way, that is just an added consequence.
If a violent act is committed in an effort to conquer land or to overthrow a government, it cannot be called terrorist according to this definition.
In my view choosing such a definition would be very useful because it would clearly point out what objects the term refers to, (and that is the very purpose of a definition.) However, I’m not an inventor of language and a word only has the meaning that the speaker puts into it.
Nevertheless, I suspect that such a definition, or a similar one, contains the original meaning of the word “terrorist” or maybe even the basic current meaning. It may have this fairly straight forward meaning, but because it points to something that is mostly perceived as morally very bad, it has become a general word of abuse. Thereby it seems to lose all meaning.
Many other words in the language share this destiny. In the field of politics the words “fascist” and “Nazi”, for example, had and still have a very specific meaning, but are now often used as mere name-calling. However, that doesn’t imply that its concrete content has disappeared. (A Nazi is still basically a supporter of the historical German national socialist party.)
We sometimes give an object an incorrect name on purpose in order to put it in a bad light by comparing it to something despicable. That is the nature of words of abuse. It is a rather human habit, and most of us resort to it in moments of affect. But what may be forgivable when emotions run high is less acceptable in sober circumstances. We should expect serious news reports to employ an unemotional language and call things by their proper names. To call someone a terrorist is often just an expression of contempt and therefore it should be avoided by anyone who wants to be perceived as neutral.
Who started the current conflict in Ukraine? Well, any such question may potentially lead back to the dawn of history, and such a scope of course greatly exceeds our ability. But even when taking our short memory into account, we should be able to remember beyond this year.
We still remember that the first occupation of public buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk and the secession of Crimea were reactions to the ouster of President Yanukovych. That was the eastern reaction to events in the western Ukraine. (That much must be acknowledged; nothing in the world happens in a vacuum, it is always a reaction to preceding events.) The fallen president had been the leader of the eastern party, and his removal meant that the west had now gained the upper hand.
Of course the events that led to his ouster were a western reaction to an eastern advantage. Yanukovych had scrapped a deal with the EU and instead signed an agreement with Russia, thereby pulling the country in his direction – the east.
Was this then the beginning of the conflict? Of course not. The east – west game of chess goes way beyond last year.
Yanukovych was elected president in 2010 when the eastern party received the majority of the votes in a democratic election. The result was accepted by international observers and it’s interesting to notice that the protesters who caused his removal are continuously called “democrats” in the European press. There may or may not be good reasons for demanding his ouster, but how can the forced removal of a democratically elected president be called democratic? It was simply the west taking to the streets against the east.
The election of 2010 was an eastern reaction to six years of western rule, but by mentioning that we may be stepping out of the boundaries of our active memory. Nevertheless it must be done, for history didn’t start last year. The years 2004 – 2010, when the western leaning party of the Orange revolution was in power, were signified by bitter in-fighting and rampant corruption. It was a far cry from the noble standards of Western democracy, but that is also conveniently disregarded now that the same group of people are back in power and hailed as democrats.
The struggle for Ukraine is little less than a continuous fight between east and west that has been shifting back and forth for the past years and beyond, and whoever insists on one side or the other being inspired by noble ideal and values, is bound to be disappointed.
When Kosovo was granted independence by the Western powers, a decisive crack was made in the post WWII border arrangement in Europe. Kosovo itself is not relevant and it is beside the point whether this new nation in any way deserved its independence. An obvious argument was given to any other region that would want to become a country. If Kosovo, then why not Abkhazia, South Osetia and Crimea? Why not Donetsk and Luhansk?
Western commentators have made a great effort to explain why not. They have constructed elaborate arguments to demonstrate what makes Kosovo different. It is pointed out that Kosovo had suffered gross injustice, and its road toward independence was long and gradual. The Crimean secession, on the other hand, was short and abrupt.
That may very well be true, but why is it relevant? The borders of Europe were drawn in 1945 as a settlement between the victorious powers, and as such they cannot be said to represent some higher objective justice. Those lines on the map were, and still are, more or less arbitrary, but the basic understanding has been, probably exactly for that reason, that they cannot and should not be touched.
For truly, once you start rearranging those borders, maybe based on some favorite principle of yours, there will be no end to it. Should every people and every language have its own country? Then what is a people and what is a language? In Europe there is a messy mixture of peoples and languages across borders and inside borders and adjustments to the benefit of one group would surely come at the expense of another. That’s why the borders of Europe used to be sacred – until Kosovo…
It doesn’t matter if Kosovo had an abundance of moral reasons for its independence or if the process of gaining it took ever so many years, once Pandora’s box was opened all sorts of small devils may escape. Crimea, and potentially many other regions have every reason to claim their independence now that the borders of Europe are not untouchable anymore.
Kosovo is also one of the causes of the current debacle in Ukraine, but don’t expect the West to acknowledge any guilt.
We are sure that our side is right. It’s easier that way. When having a preconceived idea of the world, future events will make more sense. We all do that. It’s natural and it’s human. Order is made from chaos, if only in our minds.
Of course nothing comes from nothing, and all conflicts have a cause in the past, but the chains of events are usually quite murky, and unfortunately for our peace of mind they are not easily reduced to handy formulas. But still we try. We wish to see simple forces of good and evil, and that wish is self-fulfilling and comes true.
For a conflict to make sense to the Western mind, at least one of the fighting parties must be called democratic. We generously grant this title of honor to whoever seems to be our allies. Those who fought against Gaddafi in Libya were democrats and thus received Western support. Those fighting against Assad in Syria were at first democrats, but the war has now dragged on for so long that a more complicated picture has had time to appear. In Ukraine, our side, the western side, are of course the democrats, and that has been the name we have given them.
Why not? They are on our side, therefore they are the good guys, therefore they are democrats. That makes the world simple and it saves us from the laborious task of digging slightly deeper into the recent history of the conflict, but it’s a dangerous practice for it raises the stakes and makes people more eager to be a part of the war. Everybody wants to fight for what is right.
But how can we be so sure? Some sober analysis would probably be a good idea before we throw in our unconditional backing. Are they really democrats, and if so, in what sense of the word? In the end they may still be worthy of our support, but that should not be based on simplified terminology without substantial meaning. So let’s ask the question what makes western Ukraine and it current government democratic and whatever is the underlying meaning of this word when applied to this particular conflict.
Ukraine was always a divided country. In it we may perceive the micro-cosmos of a divided world, a bi-polar world, a world fighting in eternal dichotomy. Dualism is a natural law, for any organism will want to fight within itself, but Ukraine is more than an organism; it mirrors the world.
What then are the forces struggling in our world? Good and evil? Right and wrong? Western liberals frown at such a suggestion. The truth is subjective, they tell us, and everyone must choose his own believes. It is just that in Ukraine the truth lies in the West. Reading the European press should be enough to convince any half interested observer; in Kiev the democrats dwell, while Donetsk is the nest of terrorists. That has been the simple tune throughout the conflict; one side is fundamentally right, and the other one is wrong.
But there is no right or wrong, liberalism has taught us, the only real value is autonomy; the right to decide for oneself. That is the fundamental of the so-called Western values, isn’t it, and accordingly that is the basic reason why Ukraine must choose the West. It has no choice: It must choose the freedom to choose. Who can solve this paradox?: The Freedom to choose leaves you with no choice.
If the Ukrainian conflict is a struggle for values on the Western side, being true to those values means letting the people of Ukraine, including those of the eastern Ukraine, decide. On the other hand, if it is just a classical struggle for power between old cold warriors, then let it be so and there is no need to refer to values.
In either case, maybe both sides of the conflict will have to be understood. Maybe there are no terrorists and no democrats. Maybe the world is complicated.
It may just happen that the majority of the people of Eastern Ukraine actually want to have closer ties to Russia. That wouldn’t seem so incredible when looking at the history, both recent and ancient, of the area that is now called Ukraine. It is divided and it has been divided. Then, shouldn’t this division be respected? In the name of freedom and autonomy, shouldn’t each part be allowed to choose for itself?
What is Russia? In a concrete geographical sense the question is simple, isn’t it? There are internationally recognized borders that have settled that issue once and for all, and borders are lines of untouchable truths.
But even if this simple and naïve definition is accepted, the matter is not easy, for borders have in fact changed also in our present age of post World War II order. The borders of Russia have already been altered, and not only was that tolerated in the West, it was greeted with unrestrained applause. I am talking about the fall of the Soviet Union.
Through that sudden collapse a web of new international borders was instantly created, but strangely this massive fact seems to have been disregarded. One pretends that those borders had always been there just because they had been marking the division between the former Soviet republics. But international borders and borders between administrative regions within one country are very different concepts, aren’t they?
The Soviet republics possessed a negligible degree of independence. The divisions were largely pro forma having little more significance than mere provinces in other countries. But they were called “republics” and this nominal detail made all the difference when the political system crumbled. Just because of the naming one could pretend that nothing had changed in the sacred international order and that no new borders had been drawn.
Of course a huge change had taken place. Russia had lost more than a fifth of its territory. (I call it “Russia” instead of “the Soviet Union” because the latter name was also pro forma. The territory of the Soviet Union was almost identical to that of Russia prior to 1917.)Then what is Russia proper? Is it the one existing before or after 1991?
Obviously, many of the people that got their independence from Russia in 1991 didn’t want to belong to that country, but it should also not be surprising to find ethnic Russians who want to return to the country from which they have been separated. They can only get their will by redrawing international borders in defiance of international principles. That is unfortunate, but the action that caused their alienation from their country in the first place was also a break with international principles.
Should it not be the goal of all philosophical inquiry to step out of personal cultural bias and reexamine the world from a purely rational perspective? True, it is not really possible because we are all so heavily laden with preconceived baggage that we can hardly get completely rid of it, but we should still try, shouldn’t we?
The Socratic warning that “the unexamined life is not worth living” means continuously and restlessly asking new questions to escape from lazily held majority opinions and one’s own hasty conclusions. Although a full escape is not possible, we must desperately try for the value of our lives.
Yes, that actually means dismissing culture altogether in the search for morality. For what is culture other than practices based on habit rather than reason. It is far more valuable to search for the truth than to preserve some antiquated cultural belief.
But does culture have no intrinsic value at all? Oh, it does, just as any human achievement carries value. If the work of one single human being is given a value, then entire cultures must be much more appreciated. A culture is the accumulation of millennia of human habits and thoughts, and just like an ancient wonder it deserves our awe.
To a certain extent it is therefore reasonable to submit to the demands of our culture. When we find ourselves on morally neutral ground, the courteous thing to do is to follow the cultural rules. When our conduct is not potentially hurtful to others or to ourselves, the moral rules remain silent, and the rules of the community become the highest authority – but only then. If a cultural rule is somehow inflicting pain, a rational person should pause to ask if it deserves his approval.
But this rationalist approach also includes a great deal of respect and understanding of cultural differences. The difficult game of transporting oneself into an imaginary area of cultural neutrality can also be paralleled by a rational journey into a culture different from one’s own. One may ask: Given certain cultural premises, would it not be reasonable to conclude such and such, and then reach the conclusion that what at first sight seemed to be a senseless cultural practice is in fact quite rational.
It seems to me that some of the most serious cultural conflicts between the Western and the Muslim world in recent years stem from this very disability to transport oneself into the valid thinking of the other side. Moreover, the questions of dispute have not really been morally significant at all. The debate in the West has not been about issues such as female circumcision, but rather morally irrelevant issues like the wearing of headscarves or drawing pictures of Muhammad.
Any attempt at understanding culture must somehow involve an experimental removal from one’s own culture.
A Bear - Poles Apart 