Paris, Terrorism, Islam, and You and Me.

Once again terrorists have struck at a Western city, and once again it is Paris. And yes, the terrorists have been identified as Muslim and members of the violent and aggressive Islamic State. There, I've used the words 'terrorists', ''Muslim' and 'Islamic' all together. No-one can say I'm soft on terrorism.

But if the problem is Islam, if there is something intrinsic and essential about being Muslim that is causing the violence, then there are only two solutions. Either convert every Muslim to some other religion: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism (or atheism) even by force, or alternatively, kill them all. If you want to only kill the extremist Muslims, then you are admitting that not all Muslims are responsible for violence and so the problem cannot be Islam but something added to it in this particular case

Islam is not the problem. Yes, it can be used to motivate or justify violence, but so can democracy, patriotism, capitalism, revenge, pride, nationalism, language, loyalty, even love can motivate violence (love of country, love of fellow soldiers, love of royalty). The problem is not the reasons people give for committing violence, it is the willingness with which people commit violence, the readiness with which we are willing to kill.

There really is a moral equivalency between our side killing them and their side killing us. As outraged and grief-stricken we feel at the Paris killings, that is how outraged and grief-stricken Yemenis feel when we bomb their families. Ask yourself whether you would rather live in Paris today, after 120 people out of a city of. Million were murdered by a handful of terrorists, or live in Baghdad during the American invasion, when by December 2005 just one US air force wing had dropped five hundred thousand tons of explosives on Iraq. Think there was anybody terrified by that?

We all assume that the cause someone kills for is what's important, rather than the fact that they are killing, period. Since we only kill for reasons that are important to us, our violence is always justified. Since the enemy kills for reasons that are not important to us, such as getting foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia (bin Laden's reason for 9/11), they are always wrong. If the reasons they killed for were important to us too, then they wouldn't even be the enemy, they'd be allies or surrogates.

It is wrong to blame religion for causing violence, but it is right to criticize religion for not ending violence. How would the US fight any of its wars without faithful, God-fearing, peace-loving, Jesus followers ready to kill and torture and bomb others? The difference between a US bomb killing a family of Iraqis and an ISIS gunman killing a family of Parisians is that in one case we agree with the cause and in the other we don't. Both groups are just as dead. If we didn't believe that what we kill for is more important than whether or not we kill at all, if we didn't believe that the things we value are worth killing for and the things they value are so clearly not worth killing for, well, then, what would we do? How could we function? How would we be able to fight wars at all?

Blame religion for not making every violent, war-like, hate monger on whatever issue and on all sides (including ours) ashamed to open his or her mouth. Complain that religion has not been effective enough in bringing peace to wars fought for other things. It has not made enough people better enough to stop this shit from happening again and again. But then, what has? Maybe we need stronger, better, more positive religion. Maybe, if we are religious people, we should be calling out our leaders and brothers and sisters. When you think of all the reasons people kill each other: domestic abuse, drug deals, money, territory, revenge, anger, and yes, God, maybe the problem isn't religion. Maybe it's people.

What is Remembrance Day? Really?

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, a day set aside every year to celebrate the making of war veterans through our past wars and to encourage our young people to become veterans themselves in our future wars. I know that's not what they say it's for. They say it is to 'honour' the people who fought in our wars. What makes fighting in a war honourable? Certainly not bravery, enemy soldiers were just as brave and we are certainly not celebrating them. Not patriotism; Nazi soldiers were no doubt patriotic, as patriotic about Germany as ours were about Canada. Not self-sacrifice, since both sides sacrificed, died, were wounded. For that matter, most of the people who die in wars now are civilians, and Remembrance Day is definitely not about remembering or honouring them. Civilians killed in war aren't even people, they're not even soldiers, they are 'collateral damage', and certainly there is no day set aside to think about them.

Patriotism is not a virtue, neither is bravery or sacrifice or loving your spouse or your children or being loved by your parents, because those things apply to both sides in any conflict and if we admit that the Taliban were fighting for their country, were brave, skilled, loved their families and left widows behind them when we killed them, well, it sort of makes you question how honourable killing them really was. Our soldiers deserve our gratitude because it is they who fight and not us. In fact, they are fighting for us. And by 'us' I mean the Prime Minister.  The PM said "bomb Libya" so our troops bombed Libya. If the PM had said "bomb Sweden" our troops would have bombed Sweden. Our fighting men and women are thankfully free from ever having to consider the moral implications of whether or not they should bomb Sweden - their moral choice is made when the sign up: follow every legal order.

Fighting the Taliban wasn't necessary to protect any Canadian rights or territory; we invaded their country, they didn't invade ours. The Afghanistan mission was a failure anyway; we neither caught nor killed Osama bin Laden there, which is why we went in the first place. But, and here's the point, given that the Canadian government was going to send X number of Canadians to war there, I am very grateful that I wasn't one of them. Therefore, although I honour our veterans, I do not honour them for what they have done, because war is largely immoral, inhumane, unChristian, and unjustified - war is never the last option, you always have the option of doing without whatever the war is over. I don't honour them for what they are, because what they are is being played for suckers by politicians who wouldn't declare war in the first place if they didn't figure their political objective was worth the cost of a certain number of our soldiers dying. I honour our fighting men and women because when our soldiers go off to battle irrelevant enemies in far away places, as ordered by whatever politician happened to get 38% of the vote in the last election, it saves me from having to go to jail for refusing to wage war myself.

If a veteran on Remembrance Day ever took a young person aside and said, "Listen, I've been to war. If anyone every tries to send you to one, for God's sake don't go. Refuse. Go to jail. Face a firing squad. Don't believe what they tell you. There's always another way," then I might be happy. Just one. But you can't expect that, because that would invalidate the veteran's own value as a veteran, which is based on war being a good, noble, heroic, necessary, honourable, Godly thing.

If I approached you to donate to end world hunger, you might think it was wishful thinking, that there will always be hungry people, that ending hunger would cost too much, that it is impractical - but you still might donate. If I told you I was working to create a world without war, what would you do? We all know what we are willing to sacrifice to win a war. What are we willing to do to not have wars?

Look Who's Hot.

New Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is, by international female consensus, hot. This may seem like (or even actually be) a case of woman objectifying the male body in ways feminists have always complained men objectify women, but don't be deceived. It is simply women doing to men what they don't like men doing to them because, well, it's their turn.

For years (centuries? Millennia? Forever?) men have rated the female body strictly as a machine for sexiness, while women during the same time never ranked one male as sexier than another, or at least not based on his appearance - or if they did they did not do so publicly and openly. Now, just when women are starting to take the power of, and right to, objectification for themselves, men are telling them objectification is wrong. When, the frustrated feminist wonders, will it be their turn to be pigs, or is that to forever be an exclusive male privilege?

I'm old enough (sadly) to remember when the feminist argument would have gone, "men objectify women. It is bad when people to objectify each other. Therefore no one should do it." Now the argument is, "men objectify women. It is bad when people objectify each other. Therefore we should all objectify each other equally." Everyone treating each other equally badly has become an adequate substitute for everyone treating each other well. This may be a legitimate, practical feminist reform, but it is not as easy for me to get behind or support as the old goal of building a society where no one exploited or objectified anyone. Call me an idealist (please) but the latter is a more attractive rallying call for me as a male feminist than the former.
It seems like we've lowered our goals.

As well, there is still the question of the individual male youth who internalizes this discussion of the male body as meaning he is not good enough, tall enough, doesn't have nice enough hair - in other words, ends up with poor body image issues. I know he would have to be a weak, effeminate, rare, sensitive, insecure male, but nonetheless such individuals may exist. Real men, of course, can take it. Why, real men love it when women look at them purely as sex objects; I know because a) I am a man, and b) because even though women pretend not to like it when guys cat-call them on the street, we all know that secretly it turns them on. Come on, all we're doing is appreciating your legs, you should be proud of them. It's meant as a compliment.

I know the male gaze carries with it the implied threat of violence that the female does not, but the gaze that objectifies, rates, discusses - coldly, matter-of-faculty - carries with it a sort of put down which is probably not healthy for viewed or viewer. You will never get people to stop responding to some people as sexy and some others as not. But what do you do after you've said to yourself, "so-and-so has a great body"? Do you shrug and move on. Do you harass? Do you start public online discussions about that person's body part? Do you get on your high horse and say that it's different when you do it because you've earned the right to ogle or disdain other people, and by God that's what you're going to do?

It's not a big social problem, by any means - women publicly objectifying men's bodies - but it is a bit disappointing for feminists to take it on as a cause. As a male I have had decades of hating myself and my body, and it effecting my social life badly. It really does seem to me that simple politeness dictates that if you think someone you don't know has a sexy body part, don't go on about it publicly and over and over. Messages build up, and weakened minds can take them the wrong way. Besides, it doesn't make the person doing it look very good. At some point we all (hopefully) have to get out of high school.

Why 9/11 Hurt

Two things stood out in the American mind about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. One, it was, in the eyes of Americans, unprovoked, and two, it happened on US soil - in,  as they say, The Homeland.

To take the second point first, the unspoken deal the U.S. public had long made with its military and foreign policy was that, yes, there would be ongoing war, yes, there would be bombing campaigns and the destruction of cities and the deaths of thousands - but those would happen in someone else's country. In, for example, Cambodia and Vietnam - with those countries having no ability to bomb the U.S. back. The Americans would attack Iraq in the Gulf war, but that war would be fought overseas, not in New York or Boston. The invasion of Grenada? No chance that any fighting would happen in Texas. The multiple times (I believe the number is nineteen) that the U.S. Invaded Guatemala in the twentieth century held no danger of Guatemala taking the war to Michigan. The west could bomb third world countries without worrying about those countries bombing anything in the West. For one thing, those countries had no military capacity to fly over Chicago and drop fire bombs - no wonder going to war was no big deal.

But today, technology has reached a point, and strategies have been developed, so that targets (or those who perceive themselves to be targets) of US war can, in fact, bomb the US. Without missiles, without B-52s, without nuclear submarines, or jet fighters, enemies can hit the Homeland. When America bombs Yemen, the effects of that bombing do not stay in Yemen. Instead, they may bomb the U.S. back - with a suitcase. There was a reason America never attacked the Soviet Union - because the Soviet Union would have hit the US in return. It used to be safe though, to attack smaller countries. Maybe not so much these days.

You might think that fact would change American policy and make military adventurism and fiddling with other countries politics less attractive or at least more tentative. But the thing is, the terrorist attack on the U.S. is universally considered unprovoked by Americans. Whatever it may have been in the minds of the perpetrators, no one one this side can accept that anything could have preceded 9/11. Even the Muslim world saw the attacks as criminal and unjustified and unprovoked - there were pro-US demonstrations in Iran, of all places - until, that is, America responded to the attacks with war. War on Afghanistan. War on Iraq. Black site prisons. Torture. Drones. All of which, in the minds of many Muslims, justified 9/11 in retrospect; see, the US really is trying to destroy Islam, really is bent on dominating or eliminating Islamic countries or populations - Bin Laden was right. At the time Muslims saw 9/11 as unjustified and shameful terrorism, by the end of Bush's tenure many saw 9/11 as pointing out an obvious truth, that America was out to destroy Islamic culture.

Since 9/11 was such a shock, violation, affront, was done to such innocents, was so like the Crucifixion of Jesus - the most innocent person who could possibly be and who had only wanted to help the very people who executed him - the response had to be damnation to the perpetrators (remember when Jesus called down curses and hate on the Romans who were crucifying him? "Kill them all, Father, for they know exactly they are doing." Look it up). Such a challenge to self-image, to confidence, to invulnerability, military supremacy, righteousness and the favour of God, the raised possibility that not everyone wanted to be an American; a controlled, measured, limited, criminal justice, political, cultural, response including working with then-sympathetic Muslims would have been emotionally unsatisfying. Outrage must be met with outrage. As the point of capital punishment is simply to emotionally satisfy those who like it, the point of the Iraq war for the public was the visceral release of anger - "Hulk! Smash!" - even if those leading the war had another agenda (Oil? Glory? Utopian arrogance? Money? Empire?). There is nothing more natural than the desire to hurt people who hurt people.

But if that is the reaction of Americans to an attack on them, what do they think the response of foreigners will be to attacks on them? If a U.S. drone kills your friends and family, are you not going to have he same reaction? Aren't you going to want to lash out in return? And, of course, there is a way to lash out. Terrorism.

This war is already lost. It was lost as soon as it was declared, because war was the goal of the attack; to provoke the targeted nation to over-react with excessive violence which will only make the terrorists' point for them, namely that there is a war going on between their interests and our interests. That sides must be chosen. That there is, always has been, and always will be, a war going on between the West and Islam. It's just that now we know it, whereas before only people like Bin Laden could see it.

9/11 was unprovoked, but not unusual. People in other countries have had bombs dropped on their cities, governments overthrown, civil wars, military dictatorships, dirty wars, and death squads - they already knew how politics and economics and ideology kill, even American politics, even capitalist economics, even our foreign policy. What happened to America that day was that buildings blew up in an act of political violence - something that had happened in lots of other places, sometimes (often) as a result of Western interests. The charmed life of North America (Satan himself to its enemies) has changed. It was not a loss of innocence; the west was never innocent. It was joining the club. It was our becoming like the other nations of the world - subject to war and aggression and attack and violence from political interference from external forces whose interests differ from ours.

To the extent that American exceptionalism is built on military supremacy, it took a blow on 9/11, and an even bigger blow in Afghanistan and Iraq. No one sees the U.S. as invulnerable or even intimidating the way it used to be. This is not like to change. It is the new reality. Perhaps the west needs to find a political, international, policy approach that doesn't rely one an advantage it no longer has.

What's So Bad About Iran And The Bomb?

It is obvious that at all costs, even the cost of our launching a nuclear attack on them, Iran must be stopped from getting the bomb. This is because Iranians, unlike Americans and Israelis, are not moral enough to have such weapons. Iran is part of the U.S.-identified axis of evil - they are not rational actors, do not have any legitimate self-interests (like, for instance, protecting  themselves from the U.S. and Israel, who both do have nuclear weapons), are fanatical, maniacal, radical death-cultists, unfazed by the certainty of own retaliatory destruction, religiously driven (if a real god like Jesus can tell George W. Bush to invade Iraq, heaven only knows what a false god like Allah could tell Iran to do).

If Iran became a nuclear power it would destabilize the region (it was different when Israel got nuclear weapons, that stabilized the region, because...well, be fair, Israel is the Judaeo in Judaeo-Christian). An example of how it would destabilize the mid-east is that America wouldn't have been able to invade Iraq and Afghanistan which both border on Iran and are universally recognized as two wars which made the region oh so much more stable then it was. Vice President Cheney could not talk openly about launching a nuclear first strike on a non-nuclear Iran because, hey, Iran wouldn't be non-nuclear. You could image how much less stable that would make things. Iran must not be allowed to do anything that limits our ability to attack, bomb, threaten, ignore, or insult them. If the west has to take Iranian interests into consideration, it will be a humiliation of America unlike anything since the failure of the invasion of Canada in 1812.

We need third world or developing nations to remain third world or developing nations so that we are able to do what we need to do to them militarily, to protect our interests. What if Ronald Reagan had let Grenada get the bomb? He would have been unable to invade the island and the US would still be living under the shadow of failure in Vietnam. Do we really want to jeopardize the U.S militarist ego like that? Who will protect us from Iran then?

War is never the first choice but there is a whole private-public, media, political, infrastructure to ensure it will always be the easiest. To start, anyway. Everyone is against war once it's started, but for it before it begins. As soon as a politician has declared war he or she starts talking about how they are bringing the war to a close. Before war starts no one wants to talk about avoiding it. This is because we in the west (and this includes Israel) really do like war. We go out if our way to have them, we rise to power through them, we profit by them, we build economies around them, we are proud of being at war. The fear I have is what if the Iranians turn out to be just as territorially greedy and power obsessed as we are? What if the Islamic state actually turns out (they haven't invaded anyone in 700 years) to be just a nuclear warhead away from being like us. We act like Iranians have some genetic, ethnic, religious, cultural tic that makes them so different from us that they can't be trusted with the weapons France and China and Israel and the U.S. have...but what if they turn out to be just like us?

Rags to Riches to Love?

From The Actual, But Informal News File:

Two brothers in Hungary spent their lives so poor they had to live in a cave and sell whatever they could scavenge or salvage from trash piles. Now in their forties, they have just been informed that they have inherited six billion dollars. Long lost heirs.
   
Their immediate reaction, as reported by MSNBC? That when they were living in a cave no women would look at them, but that maybe now they have money they thought that might change. You think? Six billion dollars?
   
But lest you think that implies something mercenary and unflattering about women, you know that with that much money the brothers will make sure they are surrounded by the youngest, most beautiful, easiest women.
   
It would be a  rare man who inherits three billion dollars (half of six billion) and moves from his cave into the local village and marries a fifty year old woman who works in the local bakery and lives in a cottage the rest of his life.
   
They are quoted as saying they want a "normal life", but my guess is that it won't be a normal life they get, any more than it was a normal (by our standards) life they had before. It may not even be a good life. You and I, we may dream of having three billion dollars, or be afraid of being forced to live in a cave, but the lives we work to build for ourselves, 'normal lives', are most likely, if they work well, to be a stable marriage, a home, friendly neighbours, and grandchildren. Some - hopefully enough, though probably just barely enough - money  as well. Some genuine warmth from people dear to us, comfort and time in our old age. These two didn't have it when they were poor. I hope they, but would not be surprised if they didn't, find it now. Be nice to try, though, wouldn't it?

Israel and Palestine: who's for peace?

Israeli 'extremists' (note, not 'terrorists') have been blamed for the murder of a Palestinian child. The Prime Minister of Israel said said there will be "zero tolerance" toward such Israeli 'terrorism' (that is, 'extremism').

We know what Palestinians are angry about in this conflict: their expulsion from their homes, the theft of their land through expanding settlements, living in prison camps, an economic blockade against them, segregation, no freedom of movement, living behind a security wall (also a theft of their land), being denied their own state, poverty, humiliation, hopelessness, being at the mercy of a hostile military against which they are wildly overmatched, the destruction of their homes as punishment for relative's crimes - compare the life and life-style of the average Israeli citizen with that of the average Gaza citizen and guess which one is harder and which one is easier and better off. By miles.

But what is Israel angry about? Security? They get billions in military aid from the U.S.; the Palestinians have no Air Force, no navy, hardly even an army, more a small group of armed men, no national status, no legal weight (the US veto can be counted on at the UN), and presents no economic competition to Israel. Think of the last invasion. What was it, 2,000 Palestinian dead versus 70 Israelis, most of whom we soldiers killed in the invasion itself? More Americans are killed by other American in Chicago in two months than Israelis are killed by Palestinians in a year.

That is why I think it is time to say it out loud, this thing that has finally gone out into the open with Israel saying it does not want a two state solution, that is to say, that Israel does not want peace. The status quo works for Israel quite nicely. There is no incentive for them to change anything. Israel gets to take over Palestinian land as the mood suits them, they are under no real military threat as can be seen by the devastation of Gaza by the IDF, they get billions in aid from the U.S. (what happens to that money if there is a resolution of the conflict?), the Israeli economic, territorial, military, political and logistical dominance of the region goes on unchallenged, and Israeli politicians and Prime Ministers have a trump card to play every election: the Palestinians. Resolve the Palestinian issues and Benjamin Netanyahu is judged on economic policy, social justice, the environment, minority rights, the status of women, education policy, democracy, likability - he, like all Israeli PMs, is in power because of the crisis. He needs that card to play, over and over, or how does he stay in power? Even Winston Churchill, who won the Second World War, lost the post-war peacetime election.

If Palestine becomes a state, it gets to have an army and airforce. Any settlements or a blockade become acts of war, and any war becomes not a matter of firing missiles into a basically undefended refugee camp, but army against army, air power against air power, tank against tank - a much less favourable war. We can see what the Palestinians have to gain by peace: nationhood, and end to the blockade, self-respect, a chance at an economy, security from Israeli raids, international recognition, the ability to travel, a shot, theoretically, at a middle class life lived among buildings that are buildings and not rubble. But where is Israel's incentive for peace? Peace with the Palestinians can only lessen Israel's economic and military and political power. It can only makes things harder for Israeli politicians.

Peace with the Palestinians would come close to removing the reason for Israel. If the Jewish people are not continually under threat from someone, then what's the point of Israel? Without war or the threat of war, without persecution or the language of persecution, the country's entire history, politics, self-image and status as a powerful symbol of humanity and innocence slips. Could Israel survive a peace? Yes. But could it flourish in a peace? Yes, perhaps, probably. But not the way it is now, not the way it has become accustomed to. Not the way that has worked so well so far.