Ranting Screeds lays even more groundwork for the ‘War on Bad Philosophy’ and he & I are now calling it.
I’m trying to get a proposal out the door (don’t forget that I’m looking for work, and will have to drastically cut back on blogging if I have to get a job as an airport screener…), but promise that I will get the last terrorism piece up today, and will follow up with some amplification on Ranting’s suggestions.

Aparently John Gray, Professor of European Thought at the LSE, has written a book explaining the errors of human exceptionalism (the assumption that we are somehow above nature), and suggests in the book that ‘Homo rapines is only one of very many species, and not obviously worth preserving. Later or sooner, it will become extinct. When it is gone the Earth will recover.‘
Some of us are trying to prevent that…
(from spiked-culture,via Instapundit.)

TANSTAAFL suggests a quick test for critics of the West:

Take a few minutes today to ask yourself a few questions about where you live, and how you live. Here are a few samples to start you off:
Do I like where I live?
Is there another place substantially different where I would prefer to live?
Do I have reasonably good access to the peaceful means of changing the laws and practices of my society?
How secular is my society? How does it treat gender differences? Sexuality? Race?
How free am I? Can I criticise the Government? The Police? Are my thoughts suppressed by government policy?
Do I have access to alternative sources of information? Can I disseminate my thoughts?
Are the processes of my Government transparent? Am I in danger of random arrest? Torture? Summary execution? Secret imprisonment?
What we’re looking for here is a kind of Aggregate Society Satisfaction Rating. There is no perfect society for all. It’s possible Mrs Kublai Khan and all the younger Kahns complained that Xanadu was too far out in the sticks. But realistic debate cannot proceed without an examination of the values that the Western Society stands for in large part, and a comparison to the alternatives of offer. Take a look at where you live, and how you live. If you wouldn’t live anywhere else, make that you starting point for any and all thought about your country, and keep it in mind before you open your mouth.

As a liberal, I’m constantly frustrated because this is where there is hope for the poor, the marginal, women, minorities. I’ve lived in Europe, and I’ll tell you there are few things I’ve encountered more racist and sexist than a Parisian dinner table in the 16th arrondissement, and relative to most of the world, France is good.
(link via Meryl)

Ask a simple question, and look what happens: Ranting Screeds takes off with an opening salvo of what we do to win the War on Bad Philosophy (my new name for the War on Terror). Take a look, you’ll be impressed.
I need some time to come up with responses that make me look smart.

Meryl is once again all over the aftermath of the SFSU incident I’ve discussed here.
Well, the administrative hearings against the three accused – two General Union of Palestinian Students students and one Jewish grandmother – are wrapping up, and it appears that Grandma isn’t settling.
Now, a cautionary note: I wasn’t there. Pretty much everything you read is from someone with an axe to grind. But there are a few basic facts we can pin down. A bunch of pro-Israeli students booked space for a lunchtime demonstration. There were a bunch of pro-Palestinian counterdemonstrators who were pretty aggressive physically and verbally. A few of the pro-Israeli demonstrators got verbally aggressive back.
Now from my point of view, the culpable party here is the University. I have a friend who is a police officer at a major university (not SFSU…), and it’s pretty clear that end-of-semester parties sometimes get out of hand. So it should not have taken a rocket scientist to realize that the potential for a clash was there. And it should not have taken someone with too many advanced degrees to figure out that there might be trouble, and that enforcing civility and distance would be a good thing to do.
The University did neither.
Then, embarrassed by the (Blog led, thanks to Meryl) bad publicity, they engaged in an orgy of ass-covering, resulting in a task force report that my five year old could have written, based on his experience in AYSO and T-ball.
Now the pro-Palestinian students have settled their cases, privately, and the Jewish student is refusing to settle.
She’s accused of using defamatory language, in calling one counter-demonstrator a “bitch” in Arabic, and suggesting to another that he go have carnal relations with his camel. There is a third statement that she disputes (she admits to these two).
I thought then that busting a token pro-Israeli student was the worst kind of pandering; I think that using bad language (which would get your ass thrown out of one of my son’s T-ball games, but is certainly the kind of thing I’ve been called in parking disputes) is fundamentally a different kind of activity than disrupting someone’s free political speech and uttering the kind of threats that both the pro-Israeli and mainstream media attributed to the Palestinian students.
The SFSU administration is totally off base on this. Meryl published the email of President Corrigan of SFSU. After some thought, I’ll refrain from publishing it because I don’t think burying him in emails will help, but you make the call.
Instead, I’d suggest that you send a message to SkyBox Davis, or write a letter to the editor to the S.F. Chronicle.

Mostapha writes:

Pardon me if I jump back and forth and appear incoherent, it is for much of the same reasosn A.L. mentioned, thoughts evolving all the time, etc. It’s long too (two parter)
A.L.: Welcome to the club…
zizka brings up a good point of the Palestinian conflict, that it is essentially a land war (if you didn’t mean it that way, then sorry but I think it is). Religion is secondary in the conflict. Religion is just how they draw their “lines on the map.” In Western conflict, nationalism had a bigger part in conflicts because most people in Europe were Christian (or else). So instead of us and them being “Jew” or “Muslim” it was “French” or “English.” Same old fight, just in a new, filthy way.
A.L.: But it is being fought in a fundamentally different way, don’t you think? That’s what’s of interest to me…not that the roots of the issue are old and typical, but that the means aren’t.
I don’t think the WTC was attacked because of the “Jew York” stereotype. That stereotype is much more well known here than out in the M.E. As far as they’re concerned there are Jews all over. The WTC represents a modern Tower of Babel, a symbol of American engineering and technological prowess. Like th Harris article says, these guys live in fantasy land, they went for the major American symbols of might (Pentagon), economic/engineering (WTC) and gov’t (plane in PA headed for the White House?). These guys probably thought if we can take these out, the Americans will be demoraized and cave to our demands. Once we came out swinging, no demands were made.
A.L.: I think you make my case for me when you say “ The WTC represents a modern Tower of Babel, a symbol of American engineering and technological prowess. Like th Harris article says, these guys live in fantasy land, they went for the major American symbols of might (Pentagon), economic/engineering (WTC) and gov’t (plane in PA headed for the White House?)” Don’t you think it’s important that they are fighting a symbolic rather than practical war? They aren’t idiots…
–Mostafa

And then he continues:

And now for tangent #3 … Why do they use the methods they currently use? Because they have no better way and nothing to lose. On the Pal side you have a group of people who have been marginalized and lied to by everyone in their region including Arabs. The Israelis make peace concessions like Oslo, but continue to make things worse by expanding settlements. This does a couple things. One, it causes a distrust of the other side, which is a bad thing to perpetuate with peace deals. Two, it “supports” the old European stereotype of the “crooked Jew” in the minds of the Pals. The Israelis sign a treaty, but still build settlements, why WOULD they trust them. To Palestinians, the settlements are akin to the old British colonies, and also a reminder that they were removed from their old homes by these same people years before. They see these offerings the way the Native Americans saw and treaties with the U.S. in the 19th century.
A.L.: I agree with almost everything you say, except that the tactics they are choosing dig them into a deeper hole, and I believe that ultimately they have done and will do worse than they would have done with nonviolent resistance or even a true guerilla war. As I said, they aren’t stupid, so why are they making choices that take them so far from their stated goals? That the $64 million question/
Since these people have so little to lose there is not much we can do. All Israel can do is kill them and they taunt Israel by killing themselves and their enemies in a way that would make Samson jealous.
A.L.: Again, I think you’re supporting me when you say they “taunt Israel”. Think about it. Do they want to get a state or taunt Israel?
I believe that they should be given something to lose. Start a gradual pullout of settlements and self rule over a small portion. Put a pullout and expansion of Pal border timeline on paper. Explicitly write the necessity of self policing and that allowing or harboring terrorist will result in the old status quo. Once the people have something to lose, they will defend it. Think of it this way, in elementary school, when everyone was being loud and throwing paper airplanes it was good fun. But once the teacher said “If I see another paper airplane or spitball, everyone loses recess.” There might be another spitball or airplane, but once the teacher takes away recess there’s a whupping coming from the rest of the class. The people who have spent the last few decades suffering and waiting for land aren’t going to let ideologues ruin it after all they’ve been through. It’s not the 70s anymore, the mainstream Arab world has finally (begrudgingly) acknowledged the existence of Israel. Peer pressure is an amazing thing.
A.L.: I don’t disagree, but as I’ve said a bazillion times here, it takes the survival of a vocal moderate group to make something like this work, and unless there is someone there on the Palestinian side, it won’t happen. But that’s another issue.
One last thing, Sharon can’t (or shouldn’t) expect peace before signing a treaty. Historically, the fighting stopped after the peace accords were signed, not before.
Sorry this was so long winded, hope you all enjoy it at the very least.
A.L.: No, was great…that’s why I’ve moved it up.
— Mostafa Sabet

Here are a few comments. First, from ziska:

I’m coming in in the middle, but I went back to the beginning and read most of what preceded. My comments:
I think lumping together Muslim terrorism, Indian ethnic violence, and European and American street crime is highly erroneous.
Osama Bin Laden did have a rational purpose. He wanted to drive the US out of Saudi Arabia and with it the Saudi regime, presumably replacing the Saud ruler with himself or someone of his own choosing.
A.L.: My issue isn’t with his ultimate goals, but the basis in reality and in the connection between goals and means
In the Middle East, our support for corrupt authoritarian oil regimes has produced wealthy societies without any avenues for the exercise of citizenship, and to a degree (esp. Saudi) without access to Western knowledge. So whatever discontent there is will probably be in a traditional (anti-Western) form, there being no Western alternative.
A.L.But why is it anti-Western, as opposed to anti-House of Saud? Why is that the default condition?
Palestinian terrorism is rational in the sense that there is a goal, Palestine. They have a better chance of reaching that goal than the IRA or the Basque separatists, I think. Terrorism is used because the alternative is to cease to exist as a force. Weapon of the weak, etc.
A.L. There are other means to fight asymmetrical wars; guerilla warfare, wars aimed at infrastructure, etc. The Palestinian model seems based on what would look the most dramatic on TV.
This was not a war of al-Qaeda vs. the US, with al-Q trying to defeat the US. The goal was to change US foreign policy and to stir up trouble.
Both the 9/11 terrorists and Palestinian terrorists are well funded by oil money which comes as “free money” to be dispensed at will (unlike earnings which have to be reinvested and managed). We don’t see Indonesian or Bangla Deshi terrorism because the funding isn’t there.
A.L.: I agree that the presence of oil money is a part of the equation. But I think iot is more in the social impacts than in the ‘expense’ issue. Actually, I’m amazed that 9/11 cost as much as it was claimed to. I could make Los Angeles hard to live in for about $300,000.
I basically don’t think terrorism is a powerful analytic concept, partly because it privileges state violence. Most “sub-states” think of themselves as “pre-states”.
See blogged comment above.
For example, even by your definitions some of the US-sponsored violence in Central America ca. 1980 was terrorist. Civilians were murdered in bulk for purposes of intimidation, in part by un-uniformed private police forces working outside the law (though winked at by the legal forces). Yet I don’t think you would want to count that as terrorism, because being insurgent (and perhaps futility) is really part of the definition.
Yup, I’d agree that state-sponsored or militia-sponsored violence in Central and Latin America walks close to and over the line of terrorism. It’s something I’m trying to talk about a bit in the wrapup.
So anyway, I would deal with the present case as a specific thing rather than a new state of the world order.
My source for some of the above is The Hidden Truth, Dasquie & Brisard, which is a better book than the Corn, Cave, and Silverstein reviews would have you think.
— zizka

Ziska writes:

I basically don’t think terrorism is a powerful analytic concept, partly because it privileges state violence. Most “sub-states” think of themselves as “pre-states”.

Hmm. This raises an interesting question. While there is more to it than just this, I intend to privilege state violence…that’s part of how I differentiate taxes and extortion, for example. If you don’t, what violence do you exclude from legitimacy?

As a first post on the new site…check out Corsair the Rational Pirate for a picture that is worth a couple of thousand words.
The Islamists stone them to death and don’t let them drive. We elect them to the Senate and give them Gatling guns.
Our women are why I am convinced we will ultimately win whatever wars we fight.
From the LA Times this morning:

“My emotion today is anger,” Carden said Friday as she began her move into the rebuilt offices. She’s a tiny woman of 53 whose silver hair and demure business suits belie the grit that has made her a survivor of 30 years in the Army bureaucracy and one hellish morning of smoke and flames.

We’re up and seem to be running. Please bookmark this URL and modify your links as you have time. I’ll put up a redirect on the old site, but it’ll be neater that way.
FWIW, the server you’re loading from is in the Netherlands, and yes, the women are really beautiful here!!