Religion v. RELIGION!!!

In the comments below, reader Jim sends a link to a Saba Net article about President Salih using a Quran Memorization competition- which is more exciting than any NFL game or comic book- to attempt to create a cleavage between moderate and radical Islam.

He wondered saying: "These extremist terrorist elements who kill the forbidden self, where they are from the tolerant teachings of Islam?", he added "Their terrorist and criminal acts forbidden by law and Islam only hurt the interests of the nation".

"Islam is a religion of love, brotherhood and compassion, and Islam had never taught terrorism and banditry, but it forbade these bad acts", President Saleh noted.

He urged the scholars and preachers as well as all citizens to take responsibility as well as the state agencies to counter the deviant thoughts of that perverse group and to thwart its terrorist plans.

Jim notes: "This forms part of what is a clear campaign by the government to promote moderate Islam, targeted at the youth. Western media may not pick this up but in conjunction with a military strategy it forms an essential part of the overall campaign plan as proven in other Middle Eastern countries."   I think he is right, and if this works it is an important step.  Nasser Arrabyee also noted a similar tactic, with Salih urging clerics to speak out against extremism.  This is different than the al-Hitar meetings, where the famed cleric tried to convince militants the error of their ways.  This seems to be something broader, intending to start before people get to the blowing-up stage of development. 


Of course, in publicly declaring he wants clerics to do this, Salih threatens to undermine them.  If someone is leaning toward the AQAP narrative, then the clerics following Salih are merely his lackeys, which makes them under-puppets of the United States.  Or maybe second-degree lapdogs.  I can't decide which I dislike least. This is somewhat similar to the criticism directed at al-Azhar in Cairo, which is easily painted as a tool of the regime's sleepy authoritarianism.   Indeed, even if one isn't leaning AQAP-ward, for many, if not a huge majority, the government lacks legitimacy.   It is troubling to think that moderate clerics could get tied up with the crumbling government of Salih.


But I am not saying that this shouldn't be done; it is vitally important.  It just shows, for probably the thousandth time, how difficult things are in Yemen.  Some form of central control is vital to containing AQAP, but it is that very central control that helps Qaeda thrive.   A good example of this difficulty can be read in this AP article from a few days ago (for some reason I'll link to the one in the New York Post, because why not?).   The article can pass without comment, as it does an excellent job of showing the difficult tangles in our "action without footprints" policy. 

Some Dumb Guy

So Pastor Terry Jones, of the weirdly-named Dove World Outreach Church, is going ahead with his plan to host International Burn a Koran Day, which may or may not also feature bobbing for apples.  Fun for the whole family, if you are a family of assholes.   He is going ahead with this despite General Petraeus specifically calling him out, saying it would endanger the troops, which seems pretty indisputable. 

                                                     (Not the Terry Jones from Monty Python)

Strangely, he makes a good point, saying "'We think it's time to turn the tables, and instead of possibly blaming us for what could happen, we put the blame where it belongs — on the people who would do it.'"  There is an element of truth to that- we very rarely say that the people who are rioting over a damn cartoon have responsibility.   It is both misleading and insulting; it takes away agency from people, as if they are children incapable of doing anything other than responding to stimulus.

However, there is a big difference.  This is intentionally enraging people in order to draw attention to yourself.  Of course he has the right to do this (though I don't know if it qualifies as incitement), and should go ahead.  But burning things to make an angry point seems more like something done by those you are protesting.  It is also a little strange that everyone is debating whether or not he should be burning the Quran, instead of saying "this fucking guy wants to burn books."   It is amazing how many steps backward we keep taking, and insane that I am nostalgic for the more pastoral and tolerant right wing of the George Bush era.

Incidentally, props to the Washington Post for being the only publication (that I've seen, though I didn't go very deep) to say they will most likely be burning translations of the Quran.  In Islam, if it isn't in Arabic it isn't the real book, just a shadow thereof.   Of course, there is nothing inherently godly about Arabic, so it is all the same to me, but at least the WaPo knew what they were talking about.  

A few links

Don't have much time for analysis today, so here are a few links of interest. 

Here's a story about massive protests over power cuts.  Violence is sexy and draws the headlines, but in a faltering state with deep mistrust- often outright hatred- of the government, annoyances throughout daily life can explode.  It reminds me of a part in the great biography of the old Mayor Daley and his Chicago, Boss, by the inimitable Mike Royko (and he is inimitable, so stop freaking trying, John Kass), about the 1967 riots.  The proximate cause was the fire department closing hydrants on the west side, to save water, while white kids in the north were allowed to frolic at their leisure.  This was the last straw, and huge swaths of the city burned.  Daley, who thought everything could be fixed with projects and buildings, quickly trucked in pools and let the hydrants flow and built swimming structures.  As Royko said, if Chicago didn't have the happiest blacks, it "at least had the wettest ones."  This of course ignored the underpinnings of discontent.   It is a difficult dance- daily grievances exacerbate discontent, but the roots don't go away with band-aid gestures.

Here are a couple of stories about AQAP, its evolving leadership, and stepped-up tactics by the Yemeni government.   AQAP is getting a deeper bench and growing stronger roots- indeed, it inspires any number of hackneyed and mixed metaphors. This just underscores the ultimate futility of relying solely or even largely on military methods.   Military and intelligence action is indispensable to avoid attacks in the short-term, but we'll be risk being stuck in that mode forever.   

Quick Programming Note for Labor Day Weekend

After two exhausting days blogging, I need a vacation.  That isn't true.  But I do have a camping trip this weekend.  If I am not blogging next week, it isn't because I quit again- it is because I was eaten by a bear.  Remember me as a hero.


Incidentally, does anyone else get a strange feeling when seeing commercials for Labor Day sales with stars and stripes exploding in the background?  I don't mean this in the same vein as how degrading it is that MLK Day and Memorial Day are excuses for mattress sales- though there is an element in there.  I guess I mean it more because it evokes a celebration of capitalism, which is not exactly the reason for the holiday.  And while I think that the progressive labor movement was, in fact, a celebration of our ideals, the scorn with which the Flag-Pin crowd holds for the progressive movement makes for an uncomfortable association while watching the commercials (by Flag Pin I don't mean anyone who wears one, or of course any patriot, but those who use mile-wide and inch-deep patriotism as a political cudgel). 

Of course, I suppose you could see those commercials as unintentional subversion of the aggressively patriotic message, but it is pretty clear they are unreflective and opportunistic.  "This is a holiday, and Memorial Day is a holiday, and we use fireworks and flags and Ronald McDonald raising the flag at Iwo Jima to sell things- let's do it for this one!"   It seems a little obtuse to make this another chest-thumping holiday when one party is clamoring to further their program of deregulation.  I don't know why this is bugging me.  I've been reading some Upton Sinclair lately- for no reason other than I happened to see them on a shelf.   I'm not a socialist, really.  Just a guy who gets annoyed by things.

One more for today

The Atlantic has a piece on a new ceasefire in the north- a ceasefire about which, as always, this author is extremely optimistic.  Not bad, except for one little thing.

The Houthis are Shia Muslims, and the Yemeni government is Sunni. The government alleges that the Houthis are trying to overthrow the regime and implement Shia religious law. The Houthis have repeatedly denied this accusation, claiming they are defending their branch of Shia Islam - Zaydism - from a government they feel treats them like second class citizens because of their religious differences.    

To quote from Harun al-Amriki's excellent Yemen Twitter feed: "Inaccurate to portray Yemeni govt as Sunni. Saleh is Zaydi just not Hashemi."  Indeed- the divisions are not cut-and-dried.  This doesn't fit the normal Sunni-Shi'ite clash we like to read about.   And the Houthis are not treated like second-class citizens just because of their religion- it has historical roots in the Imamate and the Civil War.  Of course these have religious roots (among other factors), but things are a lot more complicated than we like to believe.

Money

The big US-Yemen story of the day, of course, is the Journal's piece about pumping military aid into Yemen. 

WASHINGTON—The U.S. military's Central Command has proposed pumping as much as $1.2 billion over five years into building up Yemen's security forces, a major investment in a shaky government, in a sign of Washington's fears of al Qaeda's growing foothold on the Arabian Peninsula.
The timing and the final funding amount will depend on how supporters of the effort overcome resistance from some officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, who have doubts about Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the ability of his government, seen by many as corrupt, to effectively use a flood of American-taxpayer money.

"Seen by many" is journalistic lingo for "is".

This seems on the face to be exactly what many are warning against- pumping in a flood of money to enhance the security services while leaving the massive underpinning structural issues untouched.  Non-military aid, promised with a heap of pronouncements this year, has been terribly slow, and essential food supplies are, at best, trickling in.  There is also the fear- which is polite blogger lingo for "near goddamn certainty"- that the aid will be used for Salih's other wars in the north and the south, and send the country into further chaos.  

These are legitimate concerns and fears.  As has been hammered home nearly ad nauseum, mere military aid might staunch the bleeding, but won't save the patient.  It's like House- the treatment is worse than the disease! 

But the Journal article adds a little more nuance to that picture.

Special Operations teams run several rural development programs in Yemen's tribal areas.They are doing the type of work the State Department's Provincial Reconstruction Teams have done to understand local needs in regions of Iraq and Afghanistan, a congressional official said. Officials said the teams' aid role in Yemen has grown in part because of the U.S. Embassy's stricter travel restrictions for civilian employees. In some cases, USAID officers haven't been out to visit their projects in years.

This isn't laziness; Yemen is a dangerous place.  There is good that the military can do, where aid groups fear to tread.   This, then, is the frustrating paradox of nation-building policies- you can't build a well while being shot, and the shooting won't stop until there's a well.

What this really boils down to is a question to which no one has an answer, and really what no one wants to ask: is it worth billions of dollars and years of blood and treasure to protect, say, one or two planes of citizens, or even a few thousand?   What we've learned over the last decade is what should have always been obvious: America doesn't have infinite power and resources; all wars have to be paid for.  So do you bog yourself down in yet another maddening country to stop a threat which, in the end, shouldn't prove to be existential?   Instinctively, you say yes- lives are worth it.  I know that is my gut.  But what I want to do in over the next couple of weeks is explore that question a little more in-depth.   Any insights or suggested readings are welcomed. 

Case in Point?

Fawaz Gerges has a mostly fine article about "Yemen's Summer of Discontent" (although you would have to believe that it was only this summer that AQAP's tactics shifted to "all-out war against what it called the “tyrant” Saleh government and its soldiers “who terrorize Muslims, support the crusade against our country, and are the first line of American defense in Yemen.”"  This is: not new.)   However, in that mostly fine article, he lays down this, in direct contravention to what I said yesterday.  It is like he didn't even read the blog.

In particular, Anwar Al-Awlaki—the Yemeni-American cleric the Obama administration designated in April as a legitimate target for assassination—provides AQAP members with theological, ideological and operational guidance.

This seems a pretty gross exaggeration, if not outright distortion, of what al-Awlaki does.  But this is, of course, the conventional wisdom.  I usually rebel against that, but maybe I am off my game.  So here's a question to readers or to bloggers: am I way behind the curve on al-Awlaki?   I kind of worry I underestimate his threat maybe as much as others over-estimate it.  Thoughts?

Meta-terrorism

If one man has dominated jihadi discussions this summer- at least in the popular press- it was been Anwaw al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American demogogue who was the motivating force behind the Ft. Hood shooting, and Christmas attack, and the Times Square bombing.   He has been routinely depicted as the next bin Laden and the most dangerous man in al-Qaeda.  This has been much to my consternation and bewilderment.  In AQAP, at least until recently, he has been pretty far down the totem pole- there are many people who are better strategists and more skilled at propaganda.   This is also just opinion, but I find "inspiration" to be somewhat nebulous and emphemeral- those who can plan attacks and organize men are far more dangerous.  To be really, really crude, he is also just 1-for-3 right now in terms of success. 

Of course, no one can say that he isn't important.  He is excellent at reaching out to the disaffected, especially in Western countries.  And in this summer of anger, where Islam-bashing has far exceeded the aftermath of 9/11, when cynics and bloviating bigots dominate the conversation, there is room for another famous demagogue to speak to a different kind of rage. 

And that sort of encapsulates the man's frustrating danger- we have helped to make him a far more important player then he was before.  His fame completely outstrips his accomplishments, like any reality-show dimwit.  Putting a cross-hair on his unassuming head catapulted him up the jihadi ranks to the point where he is almost as important as we all pretended he was.  He is the Paris Hilton of jihadis- someone who shouldn't be, but is now an inescapable fact in our lives.

My take on this is that the shrewd operators who are the real masterminds behind AQAP are content to let him take credit (and possible drone strikes).  They can continue their long-term goals and step up their attacks in the shadow of someone less-accomplished.   While we have built him up, we have also let our real enemies grow more dangerous.   Our government and media have been swatting a fly while ignoring dragons.  We've created a fully post-modern terrorist. 

Getting the band back together

Well, not the whole band.  Just me, really.  It has been a strange summer with other things, uneventful and prosaic (like, having a job) occupying my mental space.   So, I'll try to get this back up now and see if anyone is still interested in reading.   It is a bit like starting over, of course.  So it goes.   We'll have a new post up shortly. 

Insanity

World Food Program, citing lack of funds, is cutting food aid to Yemen.  Only 30% of the pledged $100 million has been sent- and meanwhile, the US alone is sending $150 million in military aid.  I know that a hundred million bones is a lot of cheddar, but it isn't that much relative to how much we spend on national security.  I was hoping that this administration in particular would be aware of what seems like a mind-numbingly obvious fact by now: food aid, particularly in a country like Yemen, is part of national security.  We can wipe out as much of the leadership as we want, but a starving and desperate Yemen becomes a failed state, a real haven, and we'll get drawn in further.   And while I am in favor of military assistance, there is little more we can do in terms of negative propaganda than propping up an increasingly toxic and illegitimate government while letting bellies go empty.