In the wake of last week's London terror bombings, Japan's left-leaning Asahi Shimbun suggests a possible solution to the problem of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism:
Unlike Osama bin Laden and his contemporaries who personally experienced conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the suspects of the London attacks grew up in an industrialized country in a free and open environment. What drove them to commit such dastardly acts?Sure, those aren't very catchy "slogans". And, if you feel your culture is "under attack", blowing up buses and subway cars full of commuters is a poor way to defend it. But the important thing is that if the U.S. packs up and heads home from Iraq, and if Israel lets itself be pushed into the sea, we'll all be okay. Noted.
The Middle East situation and the Iraq war may have provided an incentive. Two slogans are typically chanted: That the United States and Britain invaded Iraq with powerful military forces, causing innocent people unbearable pain and Israel continues to inflict terror on the Palestinians. Perhaps they felt that Islamic culture was under attack.
If we sit back and do nothing, it will be increasingly difficult to contain terrorism.
Also worth noting is that Japan has shown little interest in whatever root causes motivated its own domestic terrorists.
FOLLOW-UP:
The BBC weighs in on how to stop Islamic terrorism, and it decides we need beagles. Lots of beagles. (Found via Kathryn Judson.)
4 comments:
It actually can be a pretty good way to defend it.
Islamic culture is changing from its intercourse with the West. If al Qaeda can destroy enough of the links connecting us (transit, telecommunications, trade, etc), they can stop this change. If they are successful enough, they can even go off on their own direction "firewalled" from our influence.
Lenin did it. Mao did too. It is possible.
Posted by Dan
The vast majority of Palestinians don't want to "push Israel into the sea."
Understandably, they want Israel to stop stealing their land. Amid all the sensational TV coverage of extremist Jews forcibly exiting glittering U.S.-subsidized Gaza housing tracts, Israel is quietly expanding it's expropriated exclusively Jewish housing projects in the West Bank and extending the "security" wall INSIDE Palestinian territory.
I think it's clear to anyone willing to spend 10 minutes researching the question that what the Asahi Shimbun means by "inflicting terror'' on the Palestinians is not merely preventing Israel from being pushed into the sea.
Posted by bunkerbuster
Dan - You really think it's possible to firewall the entire Islamic world in this day and age? I don't think they could ever achieve that. The Middle East literally lies at the crossroads of continents and supplies the world with necessary commodities. No firewall is going up there, much less in Indonesia, North Africa, or Muslim communities overseas.
Biker - To their credit, the BBC are at least taking a realistic approach to the issue, as opposed to Asahi, which just repeat the news and hint (but thankfully don't outright say) that it's all attributable to actions of the West. So I wouldn't ridicule them on this particular point; there are better points to ridicule them on.
Posted by Joe
The Asahi Shimbun does deserve criticism for being so opaque about what they were trying to get across. Still, Israeli terrorism and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq are obvious reasons for people to hate the U.S. and its allies.
What kind of Iraqi lets foreigners invade his country, bomb his house and kill his children and doesn't fight back or do what he can to support those who do? What kind of Palestinian lets Israelis murder his children and take his land and doesn't fight back?
Why would anyone be surprised that these victims have allies that respond in irrational ways like suicide bombing?
Posted by bunkerbuster
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