While I was busying myself with other pursuits, Eric’s post about Iraq and Al-Qaeda seems to have prompted a really good discussion with Matt of Cerulean Blue and Mike of No Angst Zone (as always, I’ve arrived stylishly late to the party).

In the thick of all this, Mike comes up with an essentially flawed post about how the history of Afghanistan explains why we needed to invade Iraq. The problem is, his history is faulty in a way that tremendously undermines his argument.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the following little mistake implies about his reasoning and our foreign policy in general:

In order to understand al-Qaeda fully, we must go to the start. And the start is Sudan, in 1990. It was here that Osama bin-Laden fled after he was kicked out of Saudi Arabia. And it was here that he first formed al-Qaeda, which translates to “The Base.”

Let’s forget, for a moment, that bin Laden wasn’t even in Sudan until the NIF took over the country in 1991. The organization we call “al-Qaeda” split from the Maktab Khidamat al-Mujihidin al-Arab (also known as the Afghan Services Bureau, or MAK) in 1988, around the time of the assassination of one Dr. Azzam, the bureau’s cofounder. The other founder? Osama bin Laden. And where did this happen? Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan.

After re-reading Mike’s post, it becomes clear that his false assertion about Sudan is crucial to his case that Al-Qaeda needs friendly governments to survive. Well, I already explained this two years ago, so I’ll just quote myself:

There were two main branches of the Afghan Communist Party in the 1970s – Khalq (the Masses), and Parcham (the Flag). When the Khalq faction wrested control of the country from a coalition government composed of the former royal family and Parchami military figures, the officially secular bent of the government offended the regional clerics, who started organizing armed resistance. Thus, in 1978, the “mujahideen” appear, Islamist guerillas who fought for the establishment of an Islamic state.

After two of his predecessors are graphically executed [i.e., hung from Kabul lampposts with their testicles stuffed in their mouths –ed. note], newly installed President Babrak Karmal called in the Soviet Army in December 1979 to help him deal with the insurgency, beginning twenty-five years of continuous combat.

During the 80’s, Afghanistan became the top jihadi-tourist locale in the world. One scholar described it as a kind of Woodstock for the Bin Laden generation; if there was one place you could actually fight the advances of the atheistic kaffir (infidel), it was Afghanistan–so many a young Muslim flew to Pakistan, picked up an automatic weapon on the Afghan border, and started firing on the Red Army. Al-Qaeda (“the list”) began when Bin Laden, who was hanging out in Pakistan far from the front, started collecting the contact information of every aspiring mujahid who came through his house in Peshawar.

Now, two years ago, I referred to al-Qaeda as “the list,” (which refers to the actual guestbook bin Laden kept in the Peshawar house) but the literal translation would be “the basis,” or “the foundation,” as in, “al-Qaida al-Sulbah,” the title of an essay by Azzam about the “solid basis” for Islamic revolution (by the way, here is an amazing article about Al-Qaeda and Asimov’s “The Foundation”).

So, returning to Mike’s post, by his own logic, because he doesn’t “go to the start,” he cannot “understand al-Qaeda fully.” Here’s what I mean:

Al-Qaeda is just one symptom of a larger problem plaguing the Middle East, a problem that is caused by people like Saddam Hussein. The problem is a combination of things: lack of political representation, often due to an oppressive government, compounded with a stagnant economy and booming birthrates has produced a generation with a lot of young Arab men who are unemployed, unheard, and angry about it. Because of their oppressive, non-representative government, they are often forced to turn to religion as an outlet. Too many of these young men are being converted to Wahhabi style Islamism. What is the solution? Obviously, getting rid of the oppressive government and, in time, the stagnant economy.

I wish to dispel, once and for all, this canard about secular oppressive governments inciting worldwide terrorism. It’s this kind of ‘liberal’ fallacy which underpins our whole flawed foreign policy.

Permit me to digress a little bit first. The reason suicide bombings are so effective is that it totally screws with our Western notions of justice. When they caught McVeigh, we were satisfied with his execution. Now, what is the appropriate punishment for mass murder? Mere execution balances one life ‘justly’ taken against many unjustly taken, but the math is fundamentally unsatisfying. How about spending the rest of their lives in jail? You could do that for dealing drugs or securities fraud (if you have a heart condition). The truth is that mass murder is a supremely unjust act because there is no punishment equal to or even approaching the crime. At least a public execution makes some people feel better, even if it can’t bring back their loved ones, or, in the view of some others, ends the guilty party’s torment prematurely.

When the guilty execute themselves, we are deprived not only of what we think of as “justice,” but also the “vengeance” of watching them being killed by the state. What do I mean by “vengeance,” you ask? Punishment is for the guilty’s wrongdoings. Vengeance is for the victim’s emotional needs. And so, the narrative of justice is that when wrongs occur, someone must be punished! But the fact that suicide bombers are so unafraid of punishment that they actually do it themselves is fundamentally unsatisfying to us. And so, it prompts Westerners into a perfectly innappropriate response, which is to kick some ass (and it doesn’t really matter whose). The invasion of Iraq is a perfect example, because it ultimately did more for al-Qaeda than 9/11.

But our Western thinking extends beyond just inappropriate responses to terrorism. In fact, our conception of terrorism and terrorist groups is also fundamentally flawed. I think a lot of people conceive of bin Laden as the head of COBRA (while we, of course, are G. I. Joes). Well, kids, knowing is half the battle. Al-Qaeda’s organization, if it can be called that, is the most loosely-organized ‘terrorist group’ in the world, more like an ideological cause than an army with personalized jumpsuits.

Our foreign policy is based on the idea that we can’t afford to respect national sovereignty, but the reality is that we can’t afford not to respect it. In fact, the former assertion is the basis of what international relations scholars call ‘liberalism,’ the idea which justifies invading other countries because democratic capitalism needs the lebensraum.

Now, let’s get back to suicide bombing. Oppressive governments and poverty are not the causes of international terrorism and/or suicide bombing. We all know this because the two conditions have been pervasive for a long, long time, longer than any government has been around. It’s a stupid argument, so obviously false it amazes me that people keep repeating it. Bin Laden grew up with 53 siblings in a billionaire’s mansion. The 9/11 hijackers were mostly middle-class guys with degrees.

Well, if it isn’t poverty and oppression, what does cause suicide bombings? A very smart man named Robert Pape has the answer. This is a guy who appears in the New York Times, The American Conservative and Intervention Magazine, explaining to people that the only known cause of suicide bombing is occupation by foreign troops. He figured this out by looking at every single suicide bombing since 1980. Did you know, for instance, that the Tamil Tigers carry out the majority of suicide bombings in the world, not “al-Qaeda?” And what does that name really refer to, anyway?

Before you protest that not every occupation reuslts in suicide bombing, I wish to state here and now that the relationship is more of a prerequisite than a causal one. That is to say, suicide bombing is always a response to (real or percieved) foreign occupation. It is not the only response. The reason the “oppressive leadership” theory gets so much play is that it dovetails so nicely with liberal foreign policy.

So, with regard to Muslims and our foreign policy, do we hate their freedoms more than they hate ours? I would have to say yes, because we couldn’t leave bad enough alone. We can’t help but fuck with other countries, because we don’t trust them to install sufficiently friendly leaders.