New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | February 14, 2006

The veep's PR and aim are both slipshod; the Dark Knight trades in Joker for jihad; and the many moods of Iran's Ahmadinejad—in the new Reason Express.

Comments

|2.14.06 @ 10:56AM|#

Before anyone gets all upset about propaganda, I would like to point out that AQ IS a bunch of comic book bad guys. There is no moral texture to what they do. Team America was dead on.

keith|2.14.06 @ 11:19AM|#

Did the president of Iran really say "Wow"?

|2.14.06 @ 11:42AM|#

What if Muslims find the Batman comic book offensive?

Did you even think about that?

|2.14.06 @ 12:14PM|#

"I would like to point out that AQ IS a bunch of comic book bad guys. There is no moral texture to what they do."

If true, then they really are no more than criminals, and much less of a threat than we have been lead to believe. If there is no moral compenent to their actions, those that they don't benefit won't support their actions. And since their actions generally consist of purely destructive behavior, they don't benefit many people.

However, I think you are underestimating their position greatly if you think that they, and their supporters, don't believe that what they are doing is moral and right. After all, they see the U.S. as the Great Satan or somesuch, much like you see them as beneath contempt. That's the danger of demonizing your enemy and denying their humanity - you soon find yourself justifying actions that you would otherwise condemn. Such rhetoric is like a poison that winds its way inevitably into other arenas, if only by comparison - "Well, if it's alright that we treat [group X] as beneath human, surely it's okay to treat greedy businessmen as just barely human, right?"

As an aside, perhaps what Miller is doing can be defined as propaganda, but it doesn't fit what I consider the term to encompass. More accurately, I think he is engaged in issue advocacy or rhetoric. To me, propaganda is a government effort to try to justify an action is taking or about to take. As far as I know, Miller is just a private citizen, and as such, his arguments are better defined as rhetoric or advocacy. Propaganda, even if the actual definition is broad enough to cover Miller's proposed Batman, carries such connotations that I would hesitate to use it in this situation.

"Team America was dead on."

Truly. Although I think we see the movie very differently, especially the set in Paris.

|2.14.06 @ 1:31PM|#

"However, I think you are underestimating their position greatly if you think that they, and their supporters, don't believe that what they are doing is moral and right."

When I say there is no moral texture, I'm saying that we are dealing not with that guy from "Sling Blade" but Dr. Doom. There should be no confusion about the idea that the world would be a better place with every AQ member taking a dirt nap. They just want to poo on everything of value in the world.

|2.14.06 @ 1:43PM|#

"That's the danger of demonizing your enemy and denying their humanity - you soon find yourself justifying actions that you would otherwise condemn."

Demonization as usually applied is an act of hyperbole whereby the accuracy of the assessment is harmed to advance rhetorical position.

Demonization of AQ is an act of empiricism. Their prime motive is to destroy everything of value in the world to a liberal thinker, and to deny that fact is to diminish the accuracy of one's assessment.

|2.14.06 @ 1:52PM|#

think you are underestimating their position greatly if you think that they, and their supporters, don't believe that what they are doing is moral and right. After all, they see the U.S. as the Great Satan or somesuch, much like you see them as beneath contempt.

Yes, and the Nazis truly believed that Jews were parasites on the German body politic, and killing them was moral and right too. So what? There's nothing wrong with viewing al-Qaeda as beneath contempt; the danger is that people might lump all Muslims or all Arabs into that category.

|2.14.06 @ 3:25PM|#

"Their prime motive is to destroy everything of value in the world to a liberal thinker, and to deny that fact is to diminish the accuracy of one's assessment"

Now where did you get evidence that supports that conclusion? OBL's statements don't say that - his latest demands are such that most Arab Muslims can't fault the ends. Most fault his means, but that again is not what you're saying - you're saying his ends involve nothing but patent evil. If true, he would be nothing more than a common criminal, with no legitimacy in any population (criminals don't expect others to support their actions). Unfortunately, I don't think that that is true.

Granted, I think OBL is just as adept as W (or any other american politician, like Slick Willy) at hiding his true motivations behind doublespeak, but that doesn't change the fact that people over there agree with his doublespeak, just like a great many people here agree with W's (or slick Willy's) doublespeak.

Saying that all they want to do is "destroy everything of value to a liberal civilization" is demonizing them, plain and simple. It is the mirror image of the language OBL uses about us "they want to destroy and defile Islam!". They clearly don't see themselves like that, just like an F-16 pilot who blows up a house with infants in it doesn't see himself as a child-murderer. They may even feel some revulsion at supporting the given means, but in the end, they believe that they are fighting for the greater good, just like the fighter pilot.

All of which is important to understand in order to defeat the real bad guys - you need to rob them of their perceived legitimacy. And to do that, you need to know why they are perceived as legitimate, and do what is necessary to end their legitimacy. Killing them doesn't do it - it just makes them martyrs. Even capturing and trying them won't necessarily do it - they'll just be considered political prisoners if you don't address why their actions are seen as legitimate by a large population.

Jennifer - the big difference was that the Nazis were seen as legitimate because they were the state. So eliminating those in power in the state was a way of ending their legitimacy. In fact, most Germans didn't agree with the ends of Naziism once they became apparent, but they believed that they must obey the state, because anarchy was worse.

That's not true of AQ, whose legitimacy derives from a cause, not from the existence of a state apparatus. Which makes AQ in one sense a much tougher enemy but at the same time, in another sense, a much weaker enemy. It just so happens they're tougher to defeat through excess machismo and bloodletting, but easier to defeat by just voluntarily ending the actions that give them legitimacy among their target populations.

|2.14.06 @ 3:29PM|#

QB--

Maybe I misread your previous comment, but the way I interpreted it was "we should respect the fact that these people have sincere beliefs." Which is why I in turn brought up the Nazi example--I don't buy the idea that so long as a belief is "sincere" then it is worthy of respect. Hell, I've known racists who sincerely believed blacks were inferior to whites, but that doesn't mean I have to respect their beliefs.

|2.14.06 @ 3:44PM|#

"They clearly don't see themselves like that, just like an F-16 pilot who blows up a house with infants in it doesn't see himself as a child-murderer. They may even feel some revulsion at supporting the given means, but in the end, they believe that they are fighting for the greater good, just like the fighter pilot." - quasibill

When AQ carries out an attack the intent is specifically to kill as many civilian non-combatants as possible. An F-16 pilot doesn't drop bombs on a house with infants in it because that's not a legitimate military target.

You really don't think there's a difference?

You think that recognizing that their aims run counter to all that is good about classically liberal Western civilization is unfairly demonizing them? AQ's open aims include subjugating all women and exterminating any infidels who won't convert. Somehow that strikes me as being even worse than trying to wipe out one specific religious/cultural niche (Jews) - as tho that weren't more than evil enough!

Well, I guess Robert Frost was right: "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel" even if the other side is at war with him.

|2.14.06 @ 5:22PM|#

"If true, he would be nothing more than a common criminal, with no legitimacy in any population (criminals don't expect others to support their actions)."

This doesn't follow. A whole bunch of people can have a value system incompatible with everything important to a classical liberal, and they can find common cause in that value system. If said value system is sufficiently destructive to things I value, I am dealing with Dr. Doom. Where do I get the idea that such is the case here?

Free exchange of ideas - not permitted.
Self determination / choice - not permitted.
Political expression - not permitted.

Your comments remind me somewhat of the anti-statist defense of the South in the civil war. Yes, the secession from an oppressive central authority should have been an option, but let's not forget that the driving ideology was the continuation of slavery as an enterprise.

|2.14.06 @ 6:47PM|#

Denny O'Neil was a bit of a prophet when he dreamt up Ra's al Ghul. I just hope that Osama doesn't have access to any Lazarus Pits.

Kevin

|2.15.06 @ 12:26AM|#

Miller is just a private citizen

Sure, but he's also the maker of Batman. And Batman does his own government thing. So there's gotta be room for propaganda.

-------------

QB,

"Their prime motive is to destroy everything of value in the world to a liberal thinker, and to deny that fact is to diminish the accuracy of one's assessment"

Now where did you get evidence that supports that conclusion? OBL's statements don't say that - his latest demands are such that most Arab Muslims can't fault the ends.

Precisely how much credence do you place in OBL's statements? About anything?

I place far more credence in his actions than anything he babbles about.

Action: deliberately destroy WTC.

I could care less what his motives are, or what he claims them to be. He's trying to make a power grab and that was obvious from his first public babbling spree. Hasn't anybody heard of pan-Arabism?

Saying that all they want to do is "destroy everything of value to a liberal civilization" is demonizing them, plain and simple.

Yes, it is. And they deserve it. The only slippery spot is, as Jennifer says, that we should not confuse all Muslims with AQ mentality.

All of which is important to understand in order to defeat the real bad guys - you need to rob them of their perceived legitimacy.

Come again?

Perceived -- in whose mind? There is no unrooting the "perceived" legitimacy a mass murderer has in his own mind. There is also no unrooting the sense of "legitimacy" that a barbaric moral sense instills in people's minds.

Trying to get OBL's fans to stop seeing him as "legitimate" is a lost cause. You can't get there from here.

|2.15.06 @ 8:45AM|#

"Precisely how much credence do you place in OBL's statements? About anything?"

As I said, about as much as I put in W's or Slick Willy's pronouncements. However, like W and Slick Willy, there are those that believe such pronouncements are why he is doing these things. And ignoring that truth is a recipe for failure in any attempt at dealing with him.

Again, the issue is whether he is merely a criminal, with no moral texture, or a politician (or what I call an ur-politician, as OBL is the leader of a cause, not a state) who has legitimacy in a given large population. And there are different levels of legitimacy. There's explicit support. Put in context of the U.S., these are hawks. Then, there's implicit support - these are people who are merely statists, who believe you must follow what ever your state tells you is right. Then there is coerced support - people like me who wouldn't support the invasion, except the gun is at our heads (note that it is still my choice in deciding it is not worth it to fight this fight).

Now, against any real enemy, it's group one, the explicit supporters, that you must eliminate. This is OBL and the active participants in AQ. However, if all they are is criminals, there is no other level. Unfortunately, we know that isn't true, as in some countries, OBL is more popular than W. And as much as I dislike W, I'll still take him over OBL. So we have to understand why OBL gets this second level support (it's not the second level support I described above, since he doesn't have the implicit legitimacy of a state). It's because the words he speaks ring true to these people. When he says he wants the U.S. out of the holy lands, these people agree with those ends. They may disagree with the means, but they agree with the ends. And so there is a level of implicit support where they will not actively work against him.

That's where he is different from a "comic book criminal" "with no moral texture." In the end, I agree that his utterances are no more than political pandering to an audience, just like the SOTU address - they bear no reality to the speaker's actual intent or beliefs. But there is a target audience involved in the equation as well. And if they buy the speech, the speaker gains legitimacy to do things that otherwise would be condemned as evil, and gains followers that do things that they would otherwise find immoral in the name of the "greater good".

OBL's perceived legitimacy does not come from his association with a state apparatus, like Hitler's or Stalin's did. His legitimacy comes from a cause. So attacking and dismantling states will have no effect on his perceived legitimacy. Attacking and dismantling his cause will. But that's unlikely to happen, because that's harder to do (it require looking in a mirror critically) instead of just blowing sh*t up.

|2.15.06 @ 8:53AM|#

"An F-16 pilot doesn't drop bombs on a house with infants in it because that's not a legitimate military target."

Except we did just that in an effort to take out one of the 100 or so #2's in AQ in Pakistan. And that's not even beginning to get into what we're doing (and did, through the embargo) in Iraq.

"Noone is blinder, than he who will not see"

|2.15.06 @ 8:59AM|#

"A whole bunch of people can have a value system incompatible with everything important to a classical liberal, and they can find common cause in that value system"

Generally doesn't happen outside the institution of a state. Most people, when thinking on an individual level, won't commit murder. You see it all the time - people have a problem with "pulling the trigger" (and that's the easiest way, much easier to pull a trigger thant to repeatedly stab someone or bludgeon them). It takes abstraction to a belief in the "collective good" for large numbers of people to believe that immoral individual action is moral and legitimate. And the values you mention are just too difficult to sustain in the absence of the collectivist abstraction - purely criminal groups like you mention exist only in comic books.

|2.15.06 @ 10:22AM|#

quasibill:

You are off base. People follow cults all the time to destructive ends. Revolutionaries may want all sorts of things they aren't currently getting from the government. It does not follow that any arbitrary concept of the collective good should be accomodated.

The specific character of the collective good in question has to matter. Theocratic totalitarianism is part of the picture. Retaking Spain is part of the picture. Responding to speech with bombs is part of the picture.

If you are looking at secondary support, look no further than the rampant conspiracy theory that passes as prime time news in the region. Look at schools that are indoctrination camps. It is classic cultist behavior.

|2.15.06 @ 4:04PM|#

"People follow cults all the time to destructive ends."

Self-destructive ends, yes. And destructive to others, sometimes, but they are extremely small groups and rare.

"Revolutionaries may want all sorts of things they aren't currently getting from the government"

Revolutionaries, almost by defintion, are seeking to institute a new government for the common good - and subverting individual moral responsibility by advocating violence against agents of the state who may be innocent (i.e. victims of coercion or fraud themselves). They are like OBL - cause oriented. They are not simple criminals.

"It does not follow that any arbitrary concept of the collective good should be accomodated."

Never said that it should.

"The specific character of the collective good in question has to matter."

Beyond that, the means utilized to achieve any person's subjective determination of the collective good must matter. The blanket assumption of ends justifying means is exactly how the Nazis and Bolsheviks became so evil.

"If you are looking at secondary support, look no further than the rampant conspiracy theory that passes as prime time news in the region. Look at schools that are indoctrination camps. It is classic cultist behavior."

I'm not sure if you're talking about the U.S. or the middle east :)

Regardless, I agree, there are problems. But by ignoring the fact that a substantial portion of the population over there agrees with the main OBL demands is a violation of one the most basic axioms of battle - know your enemy. You need to go no further than his own public pronouncements to see what he thinks his public will respond to. And in that area, its pretty clear that the big rallying points revolve around our interference in the mid-east. I haven't seen much of him talking about re-taking Spain, but even if he has - that's Spain's problem, not ours.

|2.17.06 @ 3:13PM|#

"Except we did just that in an effort to take out one of the 100 or so #2's in AQ in Pakistan. And that's not even beginning to get into what we're doing (and did, through the embargo) in Iraq." - quasibill

Sorry I missed quasibill's response until now...
Please, allow me to retort, as Sam Jackson once said.

It's simple, really. AQ's #2 right on down through to the last suicide bomber equals legitimate military targets. The World Trade Center, various embassies and so forth equal illegitimate targets filled with civilian non-combatants and NO COMBATANTS. Also, I'd like to see where we wiped out a house full of kids to get to AQ's #2...

I must have missed that bit. On the other hand, if you're supporting and hiding AQ's #2, you probably shouldn't be shocked when an F-16 bombs the place you're hiding him. Keeping your kids in the same place is just madness on par with offering them up to die just so you can make the argument that the US kills innocent women and kids.