Juan Cole: A new nadir

[Daniel Morris]

In Salon today, Cole says the London bombings are “blowback” from Britain’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. It follows that had Britain not participated in the invasion of Iraq (nor, of course, the operations in Afghanistan), Islamist terrorists would not have targeted Britain.

The logic is insane. Turkey met the full brunt of al-Qaeda’s savagery despite its having actively blocked the invasion of northern Iraq. What is Juan Cole’s erudite explanation for the Istanbul bombings? And Turkey is only the most obvious example of the illogic: one could ask Cole the same question with regards to Kenya and Tanzania. What did those countries do to warrant the obliteration of hundreds of their citizens in 1998? Was that blowback from Afghanistan?

It’s insane to suggest that countries can sue for peace with al-Qaeda, especially when nations on three continents have been attacked before having had opportunity to commit any offense against the mujahideen.

But now, just for fun, let’s take Cole at his word, and assume that Britain could have avoided the attack by refusing to participate in the intervention in Afghanistan. What Briton would want any part of that? To react to 9/11 by standing by and watching as its oldest democratic friends are assaulted and terrorized? That is not what the twentieth century taught us.

It seems like a distant memory now, but the Western nations were united in their support for a military assault on Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. Does anyone doubt that Qaeda would have found it in its heart to strike London on the pretext of Afghanistan alone (sans any war in Iraq)? If so, you shouldn’t. The hit would have come. And Juan Cole would then have waxed bucolic about how Britain was fairly targeted.

(Ironically, Cole mentions only in passing that the jihadis’ Internet memo charges Britain primarily with being a Zionist-crusader state -- in other words, a supporter of Israel. We might then ponder the fact that Israel was almost never mentioned by Qaeda until after 9/11, when it smelled a winning issue. Qaeda has continually adapted its “grievances” to suit its ever-shifting targets and propaganda-of-the-moment.)

Cole continually asserts that al-Qaeda is inflicting its carnage “in retaliation” for whatever the West last did to try to snuff it out. (Cole uses that word, retaliation, incessantly -- always with a shrug, as if to say, “Shit, man, they’re just giving back what they’re getting from us. Why are we so surprised?”)

News flash: We’re not surprised. But we are incensed that commentators like Cole (and Tom Hayden, who helpfully suggested yesterday that “When governments, through their march to folly, fail to protect their own citizens, it is time for those citizens to push their governments aside and become the peacemakers”) continue to believe that peace can be made with a nebulous ideology founded on racism, misogyny, and megacide.

All of these are dismaying ideas to hear coming from self-described progressives. But I have a special dislike for Cole because he won’t even come out and say what he repeatedly implies:


The United Kingdom had not been a target for al-Qaida in the late 1990s. But in October 2001, bin Laden threatened the United Kingdom with suicide aircraft attacks if it joined in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan…

Lacking even the moral courage of his own convictions, Cole fails to just say it outright: If Britain had just left bin Laden alone and stayed out of this so-called “war on terror,” London would not have been targeted. As a history professor, Cole should know that Britain has learned the lessons of appeasement already. Cole is a coward, to be sure, but worse, he doesn’t know his history.

[MatthewF]

You know something, you might be right. But he also might be right. There's no real way of knowing, now is there? We could go into the whole thing of whether the Iraq war was justified or not, blah blah blah, i'm a moonbat leftist commie fag, etc etc, but i think we can just agree here that NONE OF US KNOWS SHIT FOR TRUTH. His logic may be flawed, but so is yours.

[Andrew Mayer]

Wow you sure managed to put out a bunch of heated rhetoric. That outta show 'em! Also, if you plan to attack someone's position it's useful to provide a link (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/08/blowback/index.html) to what you're attacking.

If Cole actually said what you accuse him of, I might agree. But I doubt the scholar is quite as "insane" as you paint him to be. I also note in the actual piece he bases his arguments on evidence instead of screaming and name-calling.

Here's a sample of his insanity:


After Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, many Muslims felt that Bin Laden's dire warnings to them that the United States wanted to occupy their countries, rape their women, humiliate their men, and steal their assets had been vindicated.

These claims were not credited by most of the world's Muslims before the Iraq war. Opinion polls show that most of the world's Muslims have great admiration for democracy and many other Western values. They object to the U.S. and the U.K. because of their policies, not their values. Before Bush, for instance, the vast majority of Indonesians felt favorably toward the United States. Even after a recent bounce from U.S. help with tsunami relief, only about a third now do.

Arguing with a straw-man may seem like fun, but it doesn't impress me. Also "megacide" isn't a word.

[extarbags]

Also "megacide" isn't a word.

Hey, sure it is (http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-profiles/product.tcl?reg_nr=07548000001&prod_name=MEGACIDE(R)).

[Brian Rucker]

Did you even read that article or was that just a cut-n-paste from some Freeper site?

Cole's not saying Britain deserved what happened at all. But to judge from the anxiety level of the previous post it seems what he was really saying may have hit close to home. Let's look at Juan's actual words:


From the point of view of a serious counterinsurgency campaign against al-Qaida, Bush has made exactly the wrong decisions all along the line. He decided to "unleash" Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rather than pressing for Israeli-Palestinian peace and an end to Israeli occupation of the territories it captured in 1967. Rather than extinguishing this most incendiary issue for Arabs and Muslims, he poured gasoline on it. His strategy in response to Sept. 11 was to fight the Afghanistan War on the cheap. By failing to commit American ground troops in Tora Bora, he allowed bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to escape. He reneged on promises to rebuild Afghanistan and prevent the reemergence of the Taliban and al-Qaida there, thus prolonging the U.S. and NATO military presence indefinitely. He then diverted most American military and reconstruction resources into an illegal war on Iraq. That war may have been doomed from the beginning, but Bush's refusal to line up international support, and his administration's criminal lack of planning for the postwar period, made failure inevitable.

Conservative commentators argue that Iraq is a "fly trap" for Muslim terrorists. It makes much more sense to think of it as bin Laden's fly trap for Western troops. There, jihadis can kill them (making the point that they are not invulnerable), and can provoke reprisals against Iraqi civilians that defame the West in the Muslim world. After Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, many Muslims felt that Bin Laden's dire warnings to them that the United States wanted to occupy their countries, rape their women, humiliate their men, and steal their assets had been vindicated.

These claims were not credited by most of the world's Muslims before the Iraq war. Opinion polls show that most of the world's Muslims have great admiration for democracy and many other Western values. They object to the U.S. and the U.K. because of their policies, not their values. Before Bush, for instance, the vast majority of Indonesians felt favorably toward the United States. Even after a recent bounce from U.S. help with tsunami relief, only about a third now do.

The global anti-insurgency battle against al-Qaida must be fought smarter if the West is to win. To criminal investigations and surveillance must be added a wiser set of foreign policies. Long-term Western military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not going to be acceptable to many in the Muslim world. U.S. actions at Abu Ghraib and Fallujah created powerful new symbols of Muslim humiliation that the jihadis who sympathize with al-Qaida can use to recruit a new generation of terrorists. The U.S. must act as an honest broker in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And Bush and Blair must urgently find a credible exit strategy from Iraq that can extricate the West from bin Laden's fly trap.

Nowhere do I see the implication that Britain would never be targeted if it hadn't participated in Afghanistan or Iraq. What I do see is a reasoned exploration of the motives of this particular splinter group (if indeed it is behind the bombings) and an extrapolation of what effect our current policies are having.

I will say this, I'm not certain I agree entirely with his conclusions. Yes, I believe Bin Ladin loves that we're pissing away goodwill, lives and capital in Iraq. And, no, I don't see a clear path to victory here at all. However, what I'd really, really, like is for someone without some crackpot agenda (neoconservativism) or karmic political debts to questionable groups (religious right, big oil) tell me how we're going to win in Iraq, complete with measurable goals that are transperant to us - not even a timetable, just immediate goals and a rationale for what effects they're going to have.

We can't afford to leave Iraq in chaos. And with these morons we've got running the show now, I don't see how we win.

Give me a different alternative.

[Nick Walter]

However, what I'd really, really, like is for someone without some crackpot agenda (neoconservativism) or karmic political debts to questionable groups (religious right, big oil) tell me how we're going to win in Iraq, complete with measurable goals that are transperant to us - not even a timetable, just immediate goals and a rationale for what effects they're going to have.


Our problems in Iraq are entirely in the realm of reputation and perception. How would one assign metrics and milestones to a reputation issue?

[russellmz00]

But we are incensed that commentators like Cole (and Tom Hayden, who helpfully suggested yesterday that “When governments, through their march to folly, fail to protect their own citizens, it is time for those citizens to push their governments aside and become the peacemakers”) continue to believe that peace can be made with a nebulous ideology founded on racism, misogyny, and megacide.


{bush's} strategy in response to Sept. 11 was to fight the Afghanistan War on the cheap. By failing to commit American ground troops in Tora Bora, he allowed bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to escape.

bitching bush didn't send more military to chase bin laden's ass = peace can be made with a nebulous ideology founded on racism, misogyny, and megacide?

[Houngan]

You might be right. In fact, I'm inclined to agree, as far as this: terrorists were going to do bad shit, anyway.

However, where you are wrong: There will now be more bad shit, because there are now more terrorists. If for every 1000 radical Islamists, 1 becomes actively a "terrorist," and for every 100 active terrorists, 1 actually manages to get in place at the right time with the right payload, then increasing the number of radical Islamists will flow down the food chain, and cause more attacks.

And what we are doing and have done in Iraq is creating more radical Islamists. We're teetering on the brink of losing one of the few progressive secular states to Iranian control, by hook or by crook. We're providing a clear reason for the people who were on the fence to fall off to the wrong side.

Further, we may be messing with the ratios, as they now have a steady supply of support money and weapons from the conflict, so that we might get 2 attacks per 100 terrorists, or some similar increase. Of course, this is all conjecture, but it seems fairly logical to me. Tell me where I'm wrong.

H.

[Brian Rucker]

However, what I'd really, really, like is for someone without some crackpot agenda (neoconservativism) or karmic political debts to questionable groups (religious right, big oil) tell me how we're going to win in Iraq, complete with measurable goals that are transperant to us - not even a timetable, just immediate goals and a rationale for what effects they're going to have.


Our problems in Iraq are entirely in the realm of reputation and perception. How would one assign metrics and milestones to a reputation issue?

Reputation and perception are arising from events on the ground. Change events on the ground, change reputation and perception.

I'd like a Colin Powell to stand in front of a big wallchart showing me the different tribes in the Sunni triangle. I'd like a breakdown of which ones are cooperating, and a solid definition for cooperation, with the Iraqi central government. I'd also like a chart laid out for us telling us who the opinion leaders are (mullas, sheiks, whatever) and what they're saying to us and their own people.

Then I'd like to see the plan for working out compromises dealt with in a transperant manner and goals set that would help us get some cooperation. If there are impasses I want to know about them. And I want to understand the implications of the political discussions going on not only between the U.S. reps and military command but also between Iraqi factions. Put it out there for me to see.

Show me where the money's going on a weekly if not daily basis. I want big color charts. I want to know what results each contractor is getting in which region and how that's concretely going to help us achieve our goals. If there's a problem with security, I want to know if the locals are part of the problem and if so why. If not, I want to know why they aren't picking up their own AKs and helping protect the contractors who are, presumably, doing work to make the community better.

It's time for some serious accounting of what's going on over there. Treat the reconstruction and counterinsurgency like we did the invasion of Iraq under Bush I. I realize that some military and intelligence operations are too sensitive to discuss but it's time the guys footing the bill, that's you and I, have some idea what's really going on.

And if they can't do that, I don't have the information I need to really process whether or not we can win the battle of perceptions - ol' hearts and minds. A bodycount alone doesn't cut it and never has. I certainly haven't seen anything out of this administration that would seem to reward a "trust me" approach so I want the facts.

[Nick Walter]

How would a 500 page consultants report detailing troop strength and deployment show if the reputation or perception issues are being addressed?

I can understand wanting to make sure that no soldiers are being rude or arrogant to Iraqi citizens but again there is no way to slap a metric on that. You can account for every cent of the Iraqi occupation and have no idea if it is really being well run or not.

[russellmz00]

How would a 500 page consultants report detailing troop strength and deployment show if the reputation or perception issues are being addressed?

I can understand wanting to make sure that no soldiers are being rude or arrogant to Iraqi citizens but again there is no way to slap a metric on that. You can account for every cent of the Iraqi occupation and have no idea if it is really being well run or not.

but conversely, not being able to account for every cent of the iraqi occupation gives a clue it's not being well run.

[Nick Walter]

but conversely, not being able to account for every cent of the iraqi occupation gives a clue it's not being well run.

Not necessarily. All that means is that it is not being well accounted for.

[Brian Rucker]

It's a start. But I don't think you need a 500 page report. Maybe a 2,000 page appendix with an even more hefty database on the backend. But two or three nice clear maps for the user so we can check at a glance what's going on. Hell, if game designers can make these kinds of interfaces why not one to rally (assuming there's any good news to be had) the public?

The only way you're going to get Americans to stay the course here is honesty and transperancy. Make Iraq the Superbowl if with more focus on statistics over hype. Show us the players. Help us understand the dynamics.

Since I'm dreaming out loud here, why not a couple domestic government cable channels that we just turn over to Iraqi localities to broadcast whatever they want? Assign different city councils over there 1-900 numbers. Folks can call for updates on how things are going and the money can go into local coffers. If we can get excited about fantasy baseball why can't we get excited about AK toting clans trying to fix up their neighborhoods in Iraq?

But it's important we get the static out of the way. No government tenders or overseers. Just face-to-face. Iraqi's want a safe home and we want to give them one, right? So kick the neocon democracy-is-a-virus crowd the to curb along with Exxon and Haliburton. Get their partisans out of the picture. And hook us up with Iraqis. Inform us, let us help.

Yeah, I know it's crazy and I haven't really thought it through, obviously, but it feels right to say it at the moment. I don't know what else will work.

[Andrew Mayer]

How about actually getting the electricty running and clean water flowing?

How about hiring actual Iraquis to do the work instead of paying Halliburton billions to do the same jobs?

It's hard to remember now, but things were relatively calm in Iraq for a year after we got there. We had a year to get things right, and we put a bunch of kids over there to run things, and had seminars on how we were going to create a free-market paradise.

[Huzurdaddi]

However, what I'd really, really, like is for someone without some crackpot agenda (neoconservativism) or karmic political debts to questionable groups (religious right, big oil) tell me how we're going to win in Iraq, complete with measurable goals that are transperant to us - not even a timetable, just immediate goals and a rationale for what effects they're going to have.


Our problems in Iraq are entirely in the realm of reputation and perception. How would one assign metrics and milestones to a reputation issue?

Bullshit. The problem in Iraq is more than reputation and perception. The problem is cost benefit. What is the payout from success in Iraq? And what is the probability of success? What is the cost?

[Bren]

In Salon today, Cole says the London bombings are “blowback” from Britain’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. It follows that had Britain not participated in the invasion of Iraq (nor, of course, the operations in Afghanistan), Islamist terrorists would not have targeted Britain.

The logic is insane.

Well, there's the minor point of the reason given by those claiming resposibility:

Rejoice for it is time to take revenge from the British Zionist Crusader Government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But, you know, don't let that get in your way.

[Jason McCullough]

However, what I'd really, really, like is for someone without some crackpot agenda (neoconservativism) or karmic political debts to questionable groups (religious right, big oil) tell me how we're going to win in Iraq, complete with measurable goals that are transperant to us - not even a timetable, just immediate goals and a rationale for what effects they're going to have.


Our problems in Iraq are entirely in the realm of reputation and perception. How would one assign metrics and milestones to a reputation issue?

Percentage of negative vs. positive mentions on Al-Jareeza? I'm sure a PR professional could go on at length.


The logic is insane. Turkey met the full brunt of al-Qaeda’s savagery despite its having actively blocked the invasion of northern Iraq. What is Juan Cole’s erudite explanation for the Istanbul bombings? And Turkey is only the most obvious example of the illogic: one could ask Cole the same question with regards to Kenya and Tanzania. What did those countries do to warrant the obliteration of hundreds of their citizens in 1998? Was that blowback from Afghanistan?

1) Turkey's a very westernized, western-leaning muslim country, which automatically puts them on the Al-Qaeda shitlist.
2) Kenya bombing: Israeli hotel.
3) Tanzania bombing: US embassy.

One of the more annoying things about this war is that a lot people who should know better profess to have no idea what the motivations of the enemies are; it'd be like if we thought Japan attacked us because "they hated our way of life." Al Qaeda has made it quite clear they're attacking the West (read, Isreal, the US, everyone else based on perceived level of outrage that week at involvement in "Muslim countries") because they want us to stop meddling in their internal affairs, restore the age of Islamic supremacy, and a bunch of other generally insane shit.

Cole's written some quite good stuff on what Al Qaeda wants; here, for example: http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=3560

Every time this gets brought up the response is some ridiculous accusation of traitor, etc. I don't really have an explanation for it other than some sort of trick to avoid acknowledging that the US or Israel has ever done anything bad, something that might be interpreted as bad, or something that the countries we did it to might not want. It's not like it in any way makes it less bad that Al Qaeda kills civilians; they still need to be shot dead. It does make a difference, however, in how to prosecute the war; if you don't understand your enemy's motivations you're going to have a hell of a time beating them.

For example, a perceived "crusader country" by the region invading Iraq to force western-friendly governments (oh, and democratic too; ok, maybe not, we're backing away from that) at gunpoint *probably isn't a very good idea*. You can't shoot them into liking you without an 80-year Phillipines level commitment where you burn the native culture to the ground. Combine that with fucking it up, and hey look, Al Qaeda is probably stronger than ever.

[Nick Walter]

Our problems in Iraq are entirely in the realm of reputation and perception. How would one assign metrics and milestones to a reputation issue?

Percentage of negative vs. positive mentions on Al-Jareeza? I'm sure a PR professional could go on at length.

An interesting idea but I doubt it would work. Fuzzy or easily manipualted metrics like that just tempt the people being judged by them to cheat. If the Bush administration knew that the public was mainly paying attention to the Al Jazeera metric then they would just focus covert actions on mainuplating Al Jazeera.

[russellmz00]

but conversely, not being able to account for every cent of the iraqi occupation gives a clue it's not being well run.

Not necessarily. All that means is that it is not being well accounted for.

poor accounting is one part of poor adminstration. btw, did they ever find that 100 million dollars that went missing?

[Jason McCullough]

Our problems in Iraq are entirely in the realm of reputation and perception. How would one assign metrics and milestones to a reputation issue?

Percentage of negative vs. positive mentions on Al-Jareeza? I'm sure a PR professional could go on at length.

An interesting idea but I doubt it would work. Fuzzy or easily manipualted metrics like that just tempt the people being judged by them to cheat. If the Bush administration knew that the public was mainly paying attention to the Al Jazeera metric then they would just focus covert actions on mainuplating Al Jazeera.

If your response is "Bush is too corrupt to do it," ok, but I don't think that's the same thing as "you can't."

[Jason McCullough]

Ok, one final comment. From that linked Cole article:


From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted. (Look at the British Empire and its imposition on much of the Muslim world in the map below.)

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not an unprecedented event from the point of view of bin Laden and his followers. Far from it. It was only the latest in a long series of Western predations in Muslim lands. The British had conquered Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, and had unilaterally opened Palestine to Jewish immigration, with the colonized Palestinians unable to object. The Russians had taken the Caucasus and Chechnya in the early nineteenth century, and had so brutally repressed the Muslims under their rule that they probably killed hundreds of thousands and expelled even more to the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey).

From al-Qaeda's point of view, the Soviet attempt to absorb Afghanistan was the beginning of the end of the colonial venture. They demonstrated that even a superpower can be forced to withdraw from a Muslim land if sufficient guerrilla pressure is put on it.

Bin Laden sees the Muslim world as continually invaded, divided and weakened by outside forces. Among these are the Americans in Saudi Arabia and the Israelis in geographical Palestine. He repeatedly complained about the occupation of the three holy cities, i.e., Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.

For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state. But Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad al-Islami, had tried very hard to overthrow the Egyptian state, and was always checked. Al-Zawahiri thought it was because of U.S. backing for Egypt. They believed that the U.S. also keeps Israel dominant in the Levant and backs Saudi Arabia's royal family.

Now I know the response is going to be something like "that's crazy! They can't believe that! If they do we should just ignore them."

You're wrong. Just because you and I think it's crazy does *not* mean Al Qaeda, and to a lesser very mild extent the entire Arab world, doesn't believe it. If you don't evaluate enemies as they actually are, you're going to make it extra painful to win, if at all, just for a cold bit of psychological comfort.

Additionally - and this is policy extrapolitions come in - stuff like "the US torturing the crap out of innocent Iraqis in sexually degrading manners" and "the US detaining forever and probably torturing Muslims in Gitmo" and (extra inflammatory) "sending lots of missionaries to Iraq" are *the worst possible things we can do*. I don't think anyone in the administration understands this, and it's one of the things that really worries me. Whatever rinky-dink information we get out of someone by torture, for one, cannot possibly outweigh the massive PR damage we've taken as a result. Follow that up with the administration's refusal to admit fault - *Abu Ghirab is still open, for chrissakes; why haven't we burnt it to the ground* - and we're in for some future wounds, probably self-inflicted.

It's not like these are our only options, either. If we want to help the Arab and remove the foundations of support our enemies have, it's quite possible we could have gone for some unified G8 poverty and government reform program; refugee resolution; a serious attempt to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian problem; if we really had to invade Iraq, doing it with a real coalition aimed at building a respectable government, not an excuse to set up 6 permanent military bases. And we'd be doing this while doing the military stuff that actually matters - namely, blowing the living crap out of the terrorists.

Instead, we get some sort of neocon bizarro world fantasy, where the solution to failure is more of the same, twice as loud. God, we are so fucked.

[Nick Walter]

If your response is "Bush is too corrupt to do it," ok, but I don't think that's the same thing as "you can't."

I only mentioned my Bush in specific because he's in office right now. My point was intended to be more general, measuring people's performance against easily manipulated fuzzy metrics isn't a good idea.

There just isn't a good way to assign metrics to things like reputation, period. This is why disciplines like PR and marketing are full of creative types who operate on instinct and judgement as opposed to PR engineers calculating public opinion with a slide rule.

[Jason McCullough]

Well ok, dump them on it then. It's not like they're doing anything like this that I can tell, other than ridiculous "USA magazine for arab teens".

[Tim Partlett]

Instead of trying to spin every horrow show that results because of the Iraq invasion, why don't you ideologues expend some energy coming up with ways to make the best of the shit that you got us into in the first place?

[Linoleum]

On second thought, maybe I've been giving Cole too much credit for accuracy (http://sandbox.blog-city.com/making_cole_slaw_of_history.htm)...

[Jason McCullough]

Well shit, he got the dates wrong even though the underlying point about the Palestinian conflict driving things is correct! Chuck him in the recycle bin!

Meanwhile, Cheney dancing around "Iraq was connected to 9/11" is a reasonable, carefully measured bit of factual information.

[playingwithknives]

I dont know if "targetted" is the right word for the London bombings, this was a home grown operation, with 4 brits blowing themselves up. It might have been financed, supplied and trained externally, but the fuckers that did it were born and bred here.

[Ben]

McCullough- Cole wasn't dissembling, he was just plain wrong. That won't stop him from being your foremost source about all things Middle Eastern, but come on. That's not dancing around an issue, it's not knowing what you are talking about. And getting the dates wrong? He ascribed entirely fictional motives. That one of the things he made up was easily proven wrong just highlights that Cole wrote that off the top of his head then passed it off like it was a description of actual events.

But great example. Yes, he may have been wrong about the facts, BUT HE AGREES WITH ME ABOUT THE CORE ISSUE SO MAGICALLY HE IS CORRECT.

[Brian Rucker]

Here's a refutation of just one of those points.


Moreover, the 9/11 commission report cites evidence that bin Laden seemed obsessed with linking the attack to Israel in some way. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who authorities believe was the main strategist in the 9/11 plot, reportedly told interrogators that bin Laden initially urged that the attack take place shortly after Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to Jerusalem's Temple Mount in September 2000. After Sharon was elected Israel's prime minister, bin Laden suggested the attack coincide with a planned Sharon visit to Washington, according to Mohammed's account. Both dates proved impossible because of insufficient planning time. An attack during Rosh Hashanah would have been in keeping with one of bin Laden's top priorities -- spreading the rumor of a connection to Israel. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20379-2004Aug20.html

So, evidently, someone else saw that in the 9/11 Commission Report. And it wasn't hard to find this. I just went to Kramer's site. Noticed a link he made to a sympathetic review of his points with the comment "He's running into some stiff opposition from militant (and occasionally obscene) Cole addicts. Have a peek." Well, I did. Lo and behold, some of those "Cole addicts" kicked his ass and one provided the excerpt you see above.

Seriously, look at the two folks doing most of this. They're clearly on an anti-Cole crusade. Both seem to be politically motivated to judge from the extremely heated, personalized, rhetoric coming out of them. While I don't doubt it seems Cole gets things wrong sometimes he does provide good context if you're looking for that. As another "Cole addict" commented on the thread:
I appreciate/value Cole's perspective, and often agree with his assessments, but certainly no one should hold him, or anyone else up on a pedestal as the one true god and only Middle East authority. If anyone thinks the whole truth can be had through a one-stop shopping method they are fooling themselves.

Juan Cole is unquestionably a ME authority, but he is also human, and like all of us, is subject to the same multiple pressures, time constraints on his output, and inevitable biases and emotions that any person has, which do influence/modulate the quality/accuracy/precision of a person's work from time to time. http://sandbox.blog-city.com/making_cole_slaw_of_history.htm

[Jason McCullough]

For that matter, if he was wrong, what damned difference would it make to everything else in this thread? Can you point to what's wrong? It's rationalization, not reasoning.

[Linoleum]

What's wrong is I was wrong for assuming he did his fact-checking. Even then, I wouldn't think it much to quibble, except for his increasingly documented habits of silent revisionism versus correction/retraction.

Of course, then we have:


Please do up an oppo research diary on Martin Kramer. Who is he? Where did he come from? When he was head of the Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, to whom did he report in the Israeli intelligence community? Who funded his work on Hizbullah? Was he fired from heading the Dayan Center? How does he suddenly show back up in the US after a 20-year absence with a book that blames unpreparedness for 9/11 on US professors of Middle East Studies instead of on the Israeli Mossad and the US CIA/FBI? What was his role in getting up the Iraq War and in advising the US on the wrong-headed policies that have gotten so many Americans killed? Who pays his salary, now, exactly? What are his links with AIPAC, and with the shadowy world of far-right Zionist think tanks and dummy organizations?

[Brian Rucker]

I've been doing some reading on this since you put up that latest bit by Cole. I can't really find anything that proves Cole's contentions about Kramer's past being all that shady. Which, in honesty, hurts Cole. That doesn't mean something won't come up but until it does - count me out of this political catfight. Actually, it's even pettier. It's an academic catfight. Kramer comes off like a douchbag himself but I seriously doubt he's a MOSSAD funded douchbag. Here's an irony. Cole claims he was against the Iraq war but some old quotes certainly sound like he supported it. Kramer was deeply skeptical about the entire enterprise claiming that Arab's didn't have the innate inclinations or history that would support the idea that democratization could work.

In fact, I think I'm seeing who Bush was talking to when he said, "Some folks don't believe that Muslims can form peaceful democracies." Maybe it wasn't the left, who'd never actually said that, he was talking to - but felt insulted as they drew that implication. Maybe it was pro-Israeli scholars with a record of writing about Islamic society with a very broad, and negative, brush like Kramer?

This dispute is certainly more complicated than meets the eye. And I don't think I'd want to get in the middle of it more than a hypothetical word-fight between Koontz and Derek Smart.

Here's some, somewhat, biased background that does seem to summarize the real crux of what's going on. But author's intent aside, I don't think it at all absolves Cole's latest descent into asking for a blogging hit squad to take down an academic rival based on specious insinuations.

http://lawnorder.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/11/15547/1092

[Oghier]

Assume Al Qaeda is not lying when they claim to have targetted London because of British support for the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will that change anything? I have a hard time seeing the Brits making policy changes as a result. They may continue, cease or change their role in this war for various reasons, but nothing about British history suggests that bombing London will get them to stop fighting.

[Jason McCullough]

Depends what you mean by "fighting". "Pointlessly mucking around in Iraq and fucking it up" probably isn't a good idea.