Has American Foreign Policy Contributed...

Current Events Terrorism and Islamic Fundamentalism
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Here is a link to a post to Arthur Silbur’s Light of Reason Blog. I have been critical of Silber in the past but I am starting to think that he often (not always) has a point. One of his contentions is that the Moslem antagonism towards the US has not been *solely* due to the different Ideologies of each respective culture, ie the death worshiping culture of the Middle East and the life affirming culture at the heart of the West. He and others have suggested that Moslem death worship* in conjunction with* America’s interventionist foreign policy over the past 50 years have led to the rise of modern terrorism. America has propped up one dictator or set of dictators after another. Thus it is not hard for Middle Eastern power lusters to stir anti-American sentiment. All they have to do is show a connection between the people that have oppressed them and American support.

I was at first originally suspicous of this line of reasoning but I recently attended a talk given by Yaron Brook, The Morality of War. Brook described how the altuistic Just War Theory has come to dominate American foreign and military policy since WWII (and actually he showed how it even existed in that war which could have been won earlier if America’s greatest general hadn’t been so handcuffed, ie Patton.) While Silber doesn’t get specifically into the philosophical core of America’s foreign policy, he is very good at pointing out its concrete failures and the anti-reason and reality avoidance epistemology of its advocates and implimenters. I have come to believe if Ameirca had remained political isolationists, the spread of Islamic terrorism would not have reached the severity it has today.

Here is one of his posts. There are links to all his voluminous writings on this subject all over his site. You may not agree with everything he says but he does make some interesting points. There are many Objectivist blogs that disect the irrationality of the Left. Silber spends his time vivisecting the irrationality of the Right which I have come to realize is more important. I have seen this in myself and in many Objectivists that I have read here and all over the net (especially Trasinsky at TIA), namely accepting far too many premises of and granting far too much lattitude to the Neocons.

Incidently, Yaron Brook was asked during the Q and A if he agreed with Robert Trasinsky’s support of Bush’s Grand Strategy of Freedom as a watered down version of essentially the right policy, namely a colonial solution. He answered in one emphatic word; “NO”. He went on to say that Trasinsky is a great guy but that he felt Trasinsky and other Objectivists have swallowed some of the altruism that the NeoCons have been serving. He did not believe that spreading “freedom and democaracy” had any chance of succeeding. He said that in 5 years if Iraq isn’t plunged in a civil war (which he said might be a good thing), Iraq may very well be a client state of Iran. There are similarities between Brook and Silber allthough Brook is far more explicitly in favor of massive retaliatory force. Silber is far too sensitive.

Anyway, its good food for thought.

http://coldfury.com/reason/comments.php?id=P2403_0_1_0

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He [silber] and others have suggested that Moslem death worship* in conjunction with* America’s interventionist foreign policy over the past 50 years have led to the rise of modern terrorism.

[…]

I have come to believe if Ameirca had remained political isolationists, the spread of Islamic terrorism would not have reached the severity it has today.

[…]

Silber spends his time vivisecting the irrationality of the Right which I have come to realize is more important. I have seen this in myself and in many Objectivists that I have read here and all over the net (especially Trasinsky at TIA), namely accepting far too many premises of and granting far too much lattitude to the Neocons.

Argive - thanks for the thoughtful post.

I am not a reader of Silber with any amount of regularity, so I have tried to extract from your post what I think are the important statements. If I have missed something, do not hesitate to revisit the point(s).

My knee jerk reaction to America sharing the blame is to say “no way!” It seems from what you wrote that you had the same reaction. I have been stewing on this one, and I think I know why I had that reaction. To say “America contributed to the problem” is a moral equivalency that I am not comfortable with. While bad political decisions based on bad political philosophy may well exacerbate the situation, I would argue that America’s only mistake in regards to Muslim states has been to try to indirectly (through dictators and puppet governments) deal with the problem in the first place. In other words, the hatred was there, we just didn’t deal with it. This was a mistake inhereted in some measure from the UK. Also, it is important to remember that were the nations we are in conflict with rational to begin with, we would not have any conflict at all.

All that said, I have to flatly reject the second statement. The evidence I have seen of the behavior of Muslim states tells me that unless the world were united under theocratic rule of the Crescent Moon, there would be endless bloodshed until one side or the other is utterly annihilated. This is not a recent phenomenon: remember the Moorish invasions, Spain, Constantine, et al. Under such circumstances the U.S. would be unable to remain isolationist. If nothing else, the nuclear wildcard demands we be involved. Anyone who claims “if only we had left them alone they wouldn’t hate us” has some other agenda they are smuggling in - usually an attempt to dilute the resolve of America at a very critical moment in history. There is no evidence to support the idea that Muslim nations would peacefully coexist, but there is ample evidence to show that Muslim nations have traditionally been agressive and that collectivist tyrants are never satisfied by appeasement.

This brings us to the last point, about whether a rational person should fear the Left or the Right more. I think personally my focus is on both, but more heavily on the Left, for a few reasons. It seems to me that though both sides are full of crazy, contradictory and downright dangerous ideas, those who still have what remains of the once-rational American sense of life from centuries past are more likely to be found on the Right. Another reason is that the Left is very virulent about enacting socialist-altruist policies *now*. Finally, the Left is also the imminent threat as they have a strangle-hold on the Unversities and media - the two greatest vehicles for changing the thought of society as a whole. I think a compelling argument can be made that the resurgence of the Right seems to be a backlash against the power of the Left.

As a side note, it was Return of the Primitive that convinced me of the threat of the Left. Though many of the issues that Ayn Rand discusses in those essays are dated, the strategy and overall goal of the Left as she presents it is still very contemporary.

I welcome a rebuttal, as this is still very much an open issue for me and I respect your views.

d_s

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In the article, Silbur says:

I love America while I simultaneously despise the acts of those who govern us.

To be sure, the terrorists themselves are the ones to blame. They are clearly the ones who “pulled the trigger”–but our government has some share in the blame. If one stands around a hornet nest, he or she might expect to be stung once or twice. But if one beats the hornet nest with a baseball bat, just how many stings might he or she expect?

Our interventionist foreign policy is that bat–and we are still swinging it wildly in the middle east, where we just took our 1000th sting yesterday.

Had we used a flame thrower on the hornet nest to start with, no stings would have resulted. The problem is our desire to spare the “innocent” hornets. Our only consolation is the fact that we did not elect a president who would have forced us to endure stings until we passed a “global test”.

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Had we used a flame thrower on the hornet nest to start with, no stings would have resulted.

Thanks AisA… that is what I was trying to say above. You got it right!

d_s

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Had we used a flame thrower on the hornet nest to start with, no stings would have resulted.

That metaphor made my day! :slight_smile:

We have to admit, though, the foreign policy of the US goverment in the Middle East has been both of feckless appeasement and invidious aid/support to certain dictatorial regimes that no doubt intensifies–but not causes–hatred.

However, just watching and listening to the call of radical Muslim leaders indicate that they are grievous not of American interventionist policies in particular, but by the existence of America in general. That’s why you hear the chant : “Death to America”–not the more specific “Death to Bush”. Radical Muslim leaders call America “The Great Satan”. I remember hearing one them quoted saying “America has been a crime for last 215 years ever since George Washington sat on his throne”.

It’s so obvious from those that the hatred is aimed at America–NOT just American foreign policy. Some might wonder then, why not other countries whose cultures are similar? Because America is the symbol. The terrorists could have probably killed more by targeting other buildings or populated areas, but it’s obvious why they chose the WTC and the Pentagon when you look at the symbolic significance of those buildings.

Also, from the recent murder of Van Gogh in the Netherlands (one of THE models of appeasement foreign policy), it’s obvious the hatred and terrorism is directed against the West, and in particular America–the epitome of the West.

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I welcome a rebuttal, as this is still very much an open issue for me and I respect your views.

I want to thank you for your very insightful post. I really have to think about this more, but you did make some very strong points. Silber is thought provoking at times and I read him just to make sure I don’t become intellectually complacent, but my gut reaction doesn’t agree with him either. But as I said, he is good to expose the hypocracy of the Right which, speaking for myself, I am prone to overlook largely because I am so disgusted with the Left.

Thanks again.

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In the article, Silbur says:

Had we used a flame thrower on the hornet nest to start with, no stings would have resulted.  The problem is our desire to spare the “innocent” hornets.  Our only consolation is the fact that we did not elect a president who would have forced us to endure stings until we passed a “global test”.

This is exactly Yaron Brook’s point. He stated it several times. That in the history of warfare whenver one side appeases or allows their enemy respite and time to regroup, it alway eventually costs far more in terms of blood and treasure to defeat that same enemy later on. He made this point brilliantly with two of America’s greatest WWII generals, Patton and McArthur. He pointed out that Patton had intentions of bulldozing straight to Moscow using German trained troops to fight the Russians and that McArthur wanted to attack China directly rather than fighting through proxies in Korea. He pointed out that if both those American warriors had been allowed to fight without their hands tied in knots behind their backs, the 20th century could have been spared two of the bloodiest regimes in mankind’s history; Communist China and the Soviet Union. Hundreds of millions may not have suffered and died the way they did. I almost cried when that point struck home.

Incidently, I have to add that I love this forum. It is such a valuable resource for philosphic and intellectual growth. Thank you all.

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This is exactly Yaron Brook’s point. He stated it several times. That in the history of warfare whenver one side appeases or allows their enemy respite and time to regroup, it alway eventually costs far more in terms of blood and treasure to defeat that same enemy later on. He made this point brilliantly with two of America’s greatest WWII generals, Patton and McArthur. He pointed out that Patton had intentions of bulldozing straight to Moscow using German trained troops to fight the Russians and that McArthur wanted to attack China directly rather than fighting through proxies in Korea. He pointed out that if both those American warriors had been allowed to fight without their hands tied in knots behind their backs, the 20th century could have been spared two of the bloodiest regimes in mankind’s history; Communist China and the Soviet Union. Hundreds of millions may not have suffered and died the way they did. I almost cried when that point struck home.

Better to have simply nuked Red China and Soviet Russia. That way thousands, if not millions, of US soldiers’ lives would have been spared. No matter how large and powerful our army may have been, we still would have encountered brutal resistance and prolonged hardship. Just look at how Napoleon’s and Hitler’s campaign went when they tried to invade Russia. China, by the mere size of its army, would have also made a difficult and obstinate resistance, and no doubt would’ve killed thousands if not millions of US soldiers lives as well.

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Better to have simply nuked Red China and Soviet Russia.  That way thousands, if not millions, of US soldiers’ lives would have been spared.  No matter how large and powerful our army may have been, we still would have encountered brutal resistance and prolonged hardship.  Just look at how Napoleon’s and Hitler’s campaign went when they tried to invade Russia.  China, by the mere size of its army, would have also made a difficult and obstinate resistance, and no doubt would’ve killed thousands if not millions of US soldiers lives as well.

Dr. Brook actually made that point. But he was just mentioning the historical facts surrounding Patton’s and McArthur’s carreers. At one point in the Q and A he stated that at the end of WWII, Americal was the only nuclear superpower in the world. We could have done just what you said. But because of altruism we came up with the Truman Doctrine instead and well… You know how that turned out.

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The problem is that we have not been interventionist enough and when we have intervened we have done so in a half-hearted and ultimately disastrous way (i.e. Lebanon in the early 80s). We let Arab dictators steal our oil and did nothing to stop the rise of fascism in the Middle East in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. We did nothing when American territory was violated in Iran in 1979 and American officials taken hostage.

As far as I can tell the only real “intervention” we have ever made in the middle east was our effort to help certain Afghans (not bin Laden as the myth goes) kick out the Russians and to simultaneously help the Iraqis and Iranians kill each other for eight years. One will notice that almost the entire arsenal of Iraq is made up of old Soviet weaponry, not American stuff. Why has Soviet/Russian interventionism, which has been far more brutal and frequent than anything we ever did caused the entire Muslim world to rise against Russia? Yes, there is Chechnya, but they don’t pursue this enemy with anywhere near the zeal and determination that they pursue the United States.

To say we caused this by being too interventionist is to screw things up historically. We have not intervened when we should have or to the extent we should have. When we have intervened we’ve bent over backwards to not harm “civilians.” And this last policy has only made us appear weak, which in a primitive tribalist culture is not good.

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Montesquieu states:

<<We let Arab dictators steal our oil…>>

We need to take it back…with interest. :stuck_out_tongue:

AisA states:

<<Had we used a flame thrower on the hornet nest to start with, no stings would have resulted. The problem is our desire to spare the “innocent” hornets.>>

At some point we have to distinguish between good and evil, the innocent and the guilty. Neither “nuke’em till they glow” nor “isolationism” is the correct foreign policy. :frowning:

And America really has propped up dictatorships and done great evil to the moslems. We need to apologize.

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And America really has propped up dictatorships and done great evil to the moslems. We need to apologize.

What evil have we done to Muslims? Thousands of Americans have died trying to protect Muslims in places like Bosnia, Lebanon, Somalia, Kuwait, Afghanistan and now Iraq.

We send large sums of tax dollars to Muslims every year: In 2004 we sent $177 million to Afghanistan (incredibly enough, we sent over $150 million to the Taliban in the 12 months preceding 9/11), $1.9 billion to Egypt, $560 million to Jordan, $390 million to Pakistan, $140 million to Sudan and $130 million to Indonesia.

We’ve poured untold millions into the various Palestinian organizations.

We even sent tons of food and hundreds of aid workers to “Death to America” Iran after the 1993 earthquake.

And you think we owe them an apology?

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AisA writes:

What evil have we done to Muslims? Thousands of Americans have died trying to protect Muslims in places like Bosnia, Lebanon, Somalia, Kuwait, Afghanistan and now Iraq. 

We send large sums of tax dollars to Muslims every year:  In 2004 we sent $177 million to Afghanistan (incredibly enough, we sent over $150 million to the Taliban in the 12 months preceding 9/11), $1.9 billion to Egypt, $560 million to Jordan, $390 million to Pakistan, $140 million to Sudan and $130 million to Indonesia.

We’ve poured untold millions into the various Palestinian organizations.

We even sent tons of food and hundreds of aid workers to “Death to America” Iran after the 1993 earthquake.

And you think we owe them an apology?

American virtue and friendliness/neighborliness in standing up for moslems, as stated eloquently above, is nothing short of remarkable. It’s also stunningly under-appreciated and virtually unknown. Still…

All that gov’t charity basically goes to funding the dictators and oppressing the people. We diplomatically recognize these “slave pens” (as Rand once memorably put it), and morally sanction them with a power and authority only we possess. And this just devastates the semi-innocent moslems.

Moreover the West allowed various “tribal savages” (also Rand :blink: ) to “nationalize” our oil which essentially means we funded these miserable destroyers of humanity with trillions in cash. The fact that we also suffered here via the theft is largely irrelevant.

Meanwhile, something beautiful happened in the world back when the Russians apologized to the planet for Soviet evil back in 1987 or so. So too when Germany did the same for nazi atrocities in the 1970s or so. By taking formal responsibility for their actions (or those of their ancestors) they rather cleansed the planet and washed away many sins and hard feelings. In turn, the fact that Japan even today refuses to apologize to the requisite parties for their WWII shenanigans is a great evil.

So, YES, America needs to apologize to the moslem nation.

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Sins?

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I grant you that a good case can be made that we should stop helping the despotic regimes that you mention.

However, if you are trying to compare America’s behavior towards the Muslims with Soviet Russia’s and Germany’s crimes, then I condemn it in the strongest terms possible. Such a comparison is unspeakable. It would equate what are largely errors of innocence with the abject, wholesale evil of two regimes that murdered untold millions around the world and spread death and misery on a global scale.

If that is the comparison you make, then YOU owe an apology to America.

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AisA writes:

…if you are trying to compare America’s behavior towards the Muslims with Soviet Russia’s and Germany’s crimes, then I condemn it in the strongest terms possible.  Such a comparison is unspeakable.  It would equate what are largely errors of innocence with the abject, wholesale evil of  two regimes that murdered  untold millions around the world and spread death and misery on a global scale.

This is a good point. Maybe I should have been more clear in my commentary. But I’m curious…

Don’t you think that some kind of formal and fairly significant apology is owed? Wouldn’t it be the right thing to do? Wouldn’t it, naturally, generate a world of good will and give us a fresh start with the the quasi-innocent, quasi-victimized moslem nation – as well as with all people of good will? Wouldn’t this statement in favor of morality and justice also impact upon our people and leaders so as to stop propping up dictatorships in future?

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This is a good point. Maybe I should have been more clear in my commentary. But I’m curious…

Don’t you think that some kind of formal and fairly significant apology is owed? Wouldn’t it be the right thing to do? Wouldn’t it, naturally, generate a world of good will and give us a fresh start with the the quasi-innocent, quasi-victimized moslem nation – as well as with all people of good will? Wouldn’t this statement in favor of morality and justice also impact upon our people and leaders so as to stop propping up dictatorships in future?

Apologize to whom and for what? The fact that these people allow dictatorships to run their lives and we deal with their governments? We shouldn’t give any of them money, but it’s not as if the foreign aid we give to nearly every government is keeping governments in place against the will of some overwhelming majority of dissidents. The government should apologize to the American people for wasting our money in foreign aid, kill the bastards trying to kill us and move on. If any government should be apologizing, it should be them apologizing to us, for stealing the west’s oil and for causing so many problems in the modern world. Another point, what dictatorships are we or have we propped up? We didn’t prop up the Taliban which was brought to power and kept in power by Pakistan, we didn’t bring Saddam to power or keep him there, he was brought to power via Egyptian and Syrian fascist movements and was able to stay there via stolen oil money, Soviet arms, and recently via corruption of a UN program and bribing French, German, Russian, and Chinese officials. We supported the Shah of Iran, but we did nothing to help him when he was ousted.

I will say one thing about an apology we should make. We should apologize to the people of the former Soviet Union and the Soviet satellite states for the unprincipled actions of FDR in saving Joseph Stalin from defeat and annihilation and causing a 50 year era of living on the brink of worldwide destruction, not to mention millions of people living in bondage. This was clearly the fault of the World War II allies, the United States being the principle member.

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Apologize to whom and for what? The fact that these people allow dictatorships to run their lives and we deal with their governments? We shouldn’t give any of them money, but it’s not as if the foreign aid we give to nearly every government is keeping governments in place against the will of some overwhelming majority of dissidents. The government should apologize to the American people for wasting our money in foreign aid, kill the bastards trying to kill us and move on. If any government should be apologizing, it should be them apologizing to us, for stealing the west’s oil and for causing so many problems in the modern world. Another point, what dictatorships are we or have we propped up? We didn’t prop up the Taliban which was brought to power and kept in power by Pakistan, we didn’t bring Saddam to power or keep him there, he was brought to power via Egyptian and Syrian fascist movements and was able to stay there via stolen oil money, Soviet arms, and recently via corruption of a UN program and bribing French, German, Russian, and Chinese officials. We supported the Shah of Iran, but we did nothing to help him when he was ousted.

I will say one thing about an apology we should make. We should apologize to the people of the former Soviet Union and the Soviet satellite states for the unprincipled actions of FDR in saving Joseph Stalin from defeat and annihilation and causing a 50 year era of living on the brink of worldwide destruction, not to mention millions of people living in bondage. This was clearly the fault of the World War II allies, the United States being the principle member.

You make some valid points – especially about their theft of our oil. But America gave a lot of money to the Taliban over the years, including about 150 million dollars just before 9/11. So too with a great many dictatorships. Currently the US gives about 3 billion a year to Eqypt.

But maybe the more important point here is moral sanction. I think it would mean a lot to the enslaved peoples of the planet if we withdrew diplomatic recognition and offered up high publicity moral condemnation. Rand said as much. I think that America very quietly has huge power here. At the very least America could break relations with China and recognize Tiawan – and state clearly why we’re doing this.

The apology doesn’t have to be abject. It should be based on the merits with an eye toward real justice. We can and should identify and blame their own lack of love of liberty as the main problem. But even a small voice telling the truth and doing what’s right has great significance, in my view. And America has much more than a small voice.

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What you should really say is that we should apologize to ourselves

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Argive,

It is undoubtedly true that American policy has contributed to the rise of modern terrorism. But from that it does not follow that America should stop whatever it was doing that gave rise to this new terrorism. The reason is that we are not dealing here with rational people who are pushed to desperate measures by American immorality. American action has rarely been openly forceful toward other countries; America has this tremendous power and unrivaled capacity to inflict destruction, but it has limited itself to a few timid covert CIA operations in South America. America, this giant titan of destruction, wreaking havoc on noble countries of the world, has invaded only one country in the past few decades, before 9/11 - the large and prosperous country, the bastion of power and freedom known as Panama.

Such tremendous capacity for destruction, and America has only invaded Panama! And this is what is being described by the Middle East as the new crusader country ruled by the incarnation of Adolf Hitler. Now imagine if you really had a Hitler running America, or say Saddam Hussein, at reigns of American power. He would have obliterated both Beijing and Moscow long ago, and converted the whole of Middle East into one large glass factory (from all the molten sand, due to all of the nuclear explosions). Those would be actions of a country which treats its enemies with scorn and deals with them swiftly, and without remorse.

So, America is this Titan with a chain on its neck, the other end of which is held by liliput bureaucrats. It makes a lot of noise and causes observers to exclaim ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ by striking poses and flexing its muscles, but the real power is held by someone else, and it knows it.

And moreover, despite this incredible firepower, it tries to manipulate the political environment of South America by timid covert operations and unsteady alliances with dirt-poor countries, making threats sometimes against its two-bit dictators, and sometimes calling them friends. In short, American foreign policy has been hopelessly cowardly and chained to the huge iron ball named “altruism”. It inspires no confidence or hope.

On the other hand, we can analyze the ends for which America has practiced foreign intervention, the reasons why the American behemoth sent some liliputs to fight other liliputs. I don’t recall any immoral examples of this foreign policy, but do recall that most of these incidents have been of ambiguous morality, caused by a contradictory moral code on one hand, and corrupt link between business and government. The presence of this link is undeniable, but this link hasn’t always resulted in undesirable things: if there were corrupt business reasons for why we went into Iraq, I really don’t care, I’m thankful for the invasion and still generally supportive of the war. But the point is that America has rarely engaged in unambiguously moral actions. Its intervention has often been contradictory, and confused at best.

Now if you’re a radical irrational teenager who yearns for perpetual 72 pretty virgins all for yourself, America seems like a great country to attack and blame. It has never (since WWII) acted with any shred of moral certainty, and the exercize of its gigantic military bicep has been limited to wars with Panama and other similar military superpowers. It has great economic influence, so you can blame it for practically everything that happens in the world, because it has links and ties to practically everything and everyone (even if there was no active policy to do what you blame it for).

So the point I’m trying to make is that yes, American policy can be seen as aiding the cause and recruitment of modern terrorism. The moral ambiguity of most of its actions gives ammo to ideological enemies of America (American liberals and intellectuals everywhere else in the world), and the timid exercize of the greatest military might inspires contempt in enemies who would otherwise have stayed under their rocks.

So, it can be said that America is a sufficient cause of New Terrorism, though not a necessary one (if you know the distinction). But America is not to blame for this terrorism because you are not dealing with rational people on the enemy side, peaceful and moral people who just want to be left alone in order to establish a paradise of freedom and individual rights. That’s not the enemy America is fighting. Thus, although American actions help terrorism, it should do more of what it’s been doing, and do it better, with more moral weight and military capacity, despite the fact that it will aid terrorist recruitments even more. We cannot limit our timid intervention even more, and handcuff our actions out of hope that the Arabs will put away their hate and go back to their countries to build prosperous republics which will rival America in respect for the individual. If you were dealing with a rational people, less intervention would convince them that we mean no imperial ambitions, and would cool down the hostilities. But the fact is that Middle East is a country of bullies, and bullies have never stepped down; they always have to be slapped down. If the Arabs will flock in droves to Al Quaeda once America acquires moral certainty and acts with greater military might, then as the Romans would say, bring it. That’s what I see as the ideal American foreign policy.