Tag: religious war

General Flynn’s Resignation: A Holy Warrior Derails Himself

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Flynn waiting for an elevator in Trump Tower back in December (NBC)

W.J. Astore

General Michael Flynn’s resignation as National Security Adviser is good news, and not only because of his lack of candor in regards to Russia.  Flynn is a believer in religious war.  He sacralized the war on terror and saw himself as a holy warrior against radical Islamist terrorists.  (Of course, he couldn’t perceive his own extremism and radicalism.)

Both in religious terms and in predatory terms, men like Flynn and Steve Bannon see radical Islamists as the enemy.  These “animals” cut off heads!  A creed war that treats the enemy as animals is a combustible combination.  When you see the enemy as an inferior yet insidious “Other,” there is no opportunity for compromise.  Vermin can only be exterminated.  Especially when they are allegedly out to destroy your “Judeo-Christian” values.

Flynn’s war against radical Islamists would be unending, driven as it would be by outrage against what he saw as a verminous enemy.  In such a “holy” war, killing acquires quasi-sacred meaning.  Flynn’s war was not to be a Clausewitzian war of politics by other means. Nor was it a greed-war driven by money and empire.  His war was far more insidious.

When you conceive of the enemy as predators who simultaneously have the human ability to enslave you with their own creed (Sharia Law): Well, this enemy is a shape-shifting monster. Small wonder that Flynn infamously tweeted: “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.”

What was the source of his fear?  In theory, what is the biggest threat to humans?  Not tigers or snakes or other predators; they can be identified.  The biggest threat is something human but not quite human.  Something that looks human, has human skills, human smarts, but is ruthlessly inhuman, even as it readily blends in with “normal” humans.

The tight Islamophobic circle around Trump (one weaker, with Flynn’s resignation) appears to view Muslims in this way.  It’s a little like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

film1956-invasionofthebodysnatchers-originalposter

They look like us — act like us — and that’s precisely the problem!  Even a five-year-old Muslim refugee, no matter how innocent-looking, is seen by Sean Spicer and crew as an opening to an unstoppable invasion of America, hence Trump’s hurried and sweeping ban on Muslim immigration.

Flynn’s ideology supported the dynamic of permanent religious war.  His writings and tweets were consistent with an exterminatory struggle for existence of the worst kind.  His actions and views would only perpetuate jihad, a struggle he apparently sees as inevitable.

Until we neutralize jihadists like Flynn (and Bannon) and his Islamist counterparts, until we see a common humanity instead of viewing the enemy as insanely ferocious predators who are out to destroy our way of life, there is no hope for even a semblance of peace in this world.

General Allen’s Revealing Article on Iraq

Is this the leader of a scourge and an abomination and a witch's brew?
Is this the leader of a “scourge” and an “abomination” and a “witch’s brew”?

W.J. Astore

General John Allen wants to “destroy the Islamic State now.”  So he says in an article for Defense One.  Allen, a retired Marine Corps general who led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, is currently a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution.  But what is distinguishing him in this article is his crusader-speak, a remarkable blend of religious extremism and chauvinistic parochialism.

Let’s tackle the latter first.  For Allen, the good people of Iraq are “poor” and “benighted.”  But some of them can serve as our “boots on the ground” in the region, i.e. they can serve as bullet magnets while the U.S. provides air support with impunity.  It’s up to the U.S. to “orchestrate” their attacks against the Islamic State.  As long as they follow our conductor’s baton, all will end well, perhaps with a crescendo of U.S. bombs.  (As an aside, he describes the Taliban in Afghanistan as “cavemen” when compared to the new enemy in Iraq.  Some of those “cavemen” did fairly well against the former Soviet Union, did they not?)

My charge that the general’s language is that of “religious extremism” may itself appear extreme, but take a close look at his article.  The general refers to the Islamic State as a “scourge” and an “abomination.”  (I’ve read my Bible and recognize the religious resonances here.)  They are “beyond the pale of humanity” and must be “eradicated” because they are engaged in “total war” aided by a “witch’s brew” of foreign recruits.

In sum, General Allen has demonized the enemy while at the same time diminishing potential allies (those “poor benighted” people in need of an American conductor).  The answer is eradication, i.e. extermination of that enemy. Now!

Remind me again: Which side is engaged in religious war here?

As Richard Nixon used to say, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I’m not in any way defending the murderous extremism of the Islamic State.  What I’m saying is that the best solution is not to return the favor (unless you’re truly seeking a crusade).  I’m also suggesting that the general’s article is (unintentionally) indicative of a mindset that explains much about why American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed.

A New Thirty Years’ War in the Middle East?

Jacques Callot captured the miseries of the Thirty Years' War. Here we see a mass hanging
Jacques Callot captured the miseries of the Thirty Years’ War. Here we see a mass hanging

W.J. Astore

The Middle East of the early 21st century is looking more and more like the Thirty Years’ War of the early 17th century that tore apart the Germanic states of the Holy Roman Empire.  Religious sectarianism?  In the 17th century, Catholics and Protestants killed each other with gusto.  Disunity?  Yes, within and among the various Germanic states of the Holy Roman Empire.  Great power intervention that made matters far worse?  Yes, Protestant Sweden and Catholic France intervened in a big way, among a host of other lesser powers. Privatized, for-profit militaries that threw more fuel on the fire?  Yes, Albrecht von Wallenstein, the greatest mercenary captain of the age, created his own empire until he was assassinated in 1634.

The war finally ended when it burnt itself out, and when European leaders realized the more they intervened, the more they risked the infection spreading to their own kingdoms.  Thus came the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, but not before roughly eight million people, most of them civilians, died in and of the war.

When will conflicts in the Middle East finally burn themselves out?  In 2048?  When the oil is finally gone? (Sadly, water may replace oil as a major source of conflict.)

And when will great powers like the United States realize the more they intervene, the more the infection spreads elsewhere?  Indeed, the more it comes home to endanger the United States?

Speaking of 30 years, when did the war for the greater Middle East truly begin?  With the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s?  The creation of Israel in 1948?  The end of World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918?  Biblical times?

The Thirty Years’ War worked to delay German unification until 1871, after which Germany, late to European power politics, decided to rattle its saber for a bigger seat at the table.  World War I was the result.

What will be the long-term effects of constant warfare in the Middle East?  Impossible to see, perhaps, but the short-term ones are before our eyes: more instability ahead, more innocents dead, more hatred spread.

The time is now to put a stop to the killing.