often, when talking across political viewpoints, political positions, what becomes a problem is the way questions are framed. the opening post set up the frame: the question is outlined on a highly problematic level of generality. to wit:
Quote:
We need to figure out the terrorists reason, their motivations, right. And then they'll stop once we've figured them out. Well figure this. Suicide bombings in Egypt over the weekend that have the hallmark of al-qaeda, suicide bombers, synchronized attacks, economic significance.
So if Britain asked for it by backing the US and the US asked for it from years of foriegn policy, then why attack Sharm al-Sheikh. Reports give credit to an organization that wants all jews out of egypt. But their bombs didn't target Jews, but anyone in the vicinity. Their bombs killed more egyptians than anyone else.
How can you try to understand an irrational people? Did egypt ask for this as well?
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there you have it, politicophile. the straight conservative line on "terrorism" which consists, here as elswhere in the following claims, either explicit or implicit:
1. interpretation/trying to interpret the actions/motivations of "terrorists" is weakness.
or
1a. emphasizing the need to situate socially and historically the category of "terrorist" undermines the manly conflict undertaken by the bush administration--this is a charitable reading of the second sentence....another possible reading of this particularly snippy opening, which works entirely within the intellectual framework of the right: interpretation is a variant of appeasement.
conclusion: it is stronger to not try to understand anything.
as a strategy, this is wholly self defeating.
you would surely loose every chess match you played if you approached them in this way. underestimating the adversary is the most fundamental of strategic errors.
2. the post further treats egypt as though it is still an english colony. why is it that the role of the egyptian government in supporting bushwar cannot be posed in the opening? is it because the egyptian government is populated by "irrational people"?
3. the question: "how do you understand an irrational people?"
and so here we are: this is the framing question, the logic within which the debate is to unfold: every single feature of the dominant cartoon ideology on this question of what "terrorism" is and how to combat it is restated in that question: there are no distinctions to be made--no reason to analyse; "we"--presumably the rational people (i love that little slide)---confront our Enemy, the "terrorist" who is also the "irrational"...
given the history in this forum over the past weeks of debates on exactly this question of how to define terrorism, what the implications of the bushdefinition of the term are, etc., it is not unreasonable to see this thread as a step backward.
stevo is interacting with the folk who post in a way that indicates he is trying to maintain certain boundaries around the debate. this is one way to act in a threa that you start--nothing wrong with it--but it is what it is.
and so you know, i probably would not have bothered to pursue the racism argument had ustwo not posted a series of cromwellian remarks that went more or less unchallenged. among the problems with conservative ideology on terrorism is its close intertwining with racism, its use of racism as a mobilizng tool. even if the line is not explicitly racist, the conclusions that people draw from it often are.
but maybe this does not bother you. maybe you do not know anyone whose family was afraid to leave their houses for weeks after 9/11 simply because they were arab. maybe you dont know anyone who was beaten up by some flintstone because they were arab. maybe you dont know people who find each attack, no matter where, that fits into this nitwit construct of the "war on terror" to be a real problem because they worry that it will set off another round of having to be afraid to walk around the city where they live because they are arab. the refusal to make even the most basic distinction within the discourse of "terrorism"--a refusal that is performed in the opening of the thread---is really really problematic. this sort of stuff has happened to people in my immediate circle, to their families, to students, to their families. and it keeps happening.
you see in the guardian article i posted above that the same kind of thing is happening all over again, except this time in the u.k.
this is an important factor that explains something of why the entire rightwing line bothers me as it does.
just so you know.