Imad Mughniyeh is dead, killed in a Feb. 12 car bomb attack carried out by as yet unidentified assailants in a Damascus suburb. Mughniyeh, a Lebanese, had been the head of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, responsible for the external operations of that organization’s military wing. He was 48 years old. Since coming into prominence during the bloody years of Lebanon’s civil war (1976-79), Mughniyeh had built a résumé of operations that, depending on one’s perspective, established him as either one of the world’s foremost terrorists or freedom fighters. Few outside Lebanon, Syria and Iran will regard him as anything other than a terrorist. He is alleged to have carried out numerous attacks against the United States, killing hundreds, but for me, a former Marine, it is the loss of 241 of my fellow servicemen, the majority of them Marines, in an attack on a Beirut barracks attributed to Mughniyeh that will forever cement him in my mind as a mortal enemy.
That Mughniyeh deserved what he got is, in my opinion, not a matter up for debate. When one lives by the sword, he should expect to perish in the same fashion. Mughniyeh is alleged to be the mastermind of a number of horrific attacks that killed hundreds of people, military and civilian alike. Some of his actions have been acknowledged by those who support him, such as the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, which resulted in the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. Other alleged attacks, such as the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina two years later, have been denied by Hezbollah. Most recently, Hezbollah acknowledged that Mughniyeh had played a significant role in the summer 2006 border war with Israel; that conflict was initiated by an attack that he probably masterminded, an attack in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two others were abducted. There is no doubt that Mughniyeh was personally responsible for any number of attacks, acknowledged or not. Today Mughniyeh lies dead and buried in a land which continues to be torn asunder, largely because of the actions of men like him.
And yet anyone who thinks Mughniyeh’s demise somehow improves the overall situation in the Middle East is sadly mistaken. Hezbollah has appointed his successor, and in light of Hezbollah’s extensive experience and depth, whoever has taken the reins from the slain Mughniyeh will no doubt possess similar nefarious tenacity and imagination. As will whoever replaces the successor when he perishes, and on and on. As with the killing of al-Qaida’s purported No. 3, Abu Laith al-Libi, in Pakistan on Jan. 29 by a missile-equipped CIA unmanned drone, the impact of taking out one individual is minimized when the entire structure of the organization the individual served remains intact, and the cause of the organization, in the eyes of those who support it, remains just.
Indeed, as was so in both the Mughniyeh and al-Libi operations, the violent removal of an individual in isolation often does more harm than good, since it inflames tensions and undermines any progress toward a lasting resolution of the underlying problem. In the case of al-Libi, the CIA attack was conducted unilaterally over Pakistani airspace, without permission of the Pakistani government. This blatant violation of sovereignty by the United States could have detrimental ramifications well beyond any short-term benefit gained by killing al-Libi. And Mughniyeh’s assassination has incensed Hezbollah during a time of increased tension, raising the possibility of renewed conflict with Israel, a conflict that could easily spin out of control and spark an even larger regional conflict. While many tout such targeted killings as a critical element of any larger war on terror, the fact is such actions rarely succeed in facilitating an easing of terrorism, but rather accelerate and exacerbate the conditions that spawn it.
Radical Islamic fundamentalism of the sort that produces an Imad Mughniyeh is a nebulous entity lacking a central theme, cause, creed or motivating factor, save one: the lure of “martyrdom.” In most organizations, the elimination of a top leader would signal a setback, but the martyrdom of Mughniyeh simply motivates those who follow to stay the course. Those who wage jihad, or holy war, tend to view martyrdom not only as a risk worth taking but as a noble and just end in itself. As such, operations that kill jihadists like Mughniyeh, when viewed in isolation, are self-defeating. And if a policy countering the work of jihadists consists of little more than stringing together targeted assassinations, it is a policy doomed to fail.
The key to winning the so-called global war on terror hinges not on our ability to kill terrorists but rather our ability to create conditions that stop producing terrorists. History will show that the assassination of Mughniyeh produced far more terrorists, and far more terrorism, than if he had been left to live. Left to live, however, does not mean left alone. Any policy direction that de-emphasizes violence must articulate some sort of counter to the lure of jihad. There must be a policy of jihad de-legitimization. Unfortunately, the policies of the United States and Israel, in reacting to terror, have done more to legitimize jihad and the resultant acts of terror than anything else. An assassination not only energizes the base of a terrorist organization but, in the case of Mughniyeh, rallies to the cause of Hezbollah the fractured constituencies of global terror, the nebulous mafia of “radical Islamic fundamentalism” ignorantly referred to in certain circles as Islamofascism, that otherwise would have remained neutral or even in opposition.
Contrary to the statements of President George W. Bush and members of his administration, there is no global nexus of radical Islamic terror. There is a growing number of Islamic groups and organizations whose actions have become increasingly radicalized in the past decades, some of which have assumed tactics and methods that can be classified as terrorism. There will be those who will point out that Mughniyeh was in Damascus ostensibly to meet with Hamas leaders about a coordinated strategy for dealing with Israel and say that this, in fact, proves that Hezbollah and Hamas are working the same agenda. These same people will note that past statements made by senior al-Qaida figures, including Osama bin Laden, have praised the work of Hamas, and will conclude that Hamas and al-Qaida are working the same agenda. And some will note that bin Laden himself at one time opened a training camp for Shiite jihadists, thereby theoretically bringing Hezbollah and its Iranian masters (both exclusively Shiite entities) into line with al-Qaida (an exclusively Sunni establishment). But to claim that Hezbollah is Hamas, that Hamas is al-Qaida, and that al-Qaida is Hezbollah is wrong.
Assessments of this sort put forth by the Bush administration and others fly in the face of reality and fact. Coordination between Sunni and Shiite is anathema for most Sunni fundamentalists, who view the Shiites as apostates; al-Qaida training literature places the Shiite as the second-greatest enemy of Islam, behind Sunni heretics, and ahead of Israel and the United States. Iran nearly fought a war with the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies in 1999, following the Taliban’s massacre of thousands of Shiite Hazara in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, along with several Iranian diplomats and their families. Many of the more extreme elements within al-Qaida are known as “taqfiris,” or those who believe in the repudiation and elimination from Islam of all impure elements. To them, the Shiites are among the most impure. The natural inclination between Shiite and Sunni, especially at the level of fundamentalists, is to oppose one another, more often than not violently. The concept of a “nexus of terror” naturally linking these two forces together is difficult to imagine, let alone document. It would take a compelling cause for any such linkage to be formed, directly or indirectly. Such a cause exists, and it can be defined by one word: Palestine.
The cause of Palestine is not a natural rallying point for most Sunni fundamentalists associated with al-Qaida. For all the language of global jihad, most Sunni fundamentalists are in fact quite parochial, focused primarily on “cleansing” Islam only insofar as it impacts them personally. Thus, an Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood is almost exclusively focused on ridding Egypt of “heretics” such as President Hosni Mubarak, and not supporting global jihad or the Palestinian cause. Similarly, Sunni fundamentalists in Afghanistan are more concerned with establishing Islamic purity in their respective areas than they are with exporting Islam abroad. While there are those elements of Sunni Islamic fundamentalism that do in fact espouse global jihad, they are very much in the minority and, more critically, isolated from any traditional foundation of support. Stateless, these extremists are prone to being isolated from the rest of Islam due to a combination of conditions-their inability to bond with the natural fabric of Islamic society (family, tribe and nation), and the violence of their actions, which are rejected by nearly the entire Islamic world. These stateless jihadists are in fact little more than parasites, and they require a host cause from which they can nourish. Palestine represents such a cause.
One of bin Laden’s overarching objectives was to get the United States to commit to a course of action that pitted it in a life-and-death struggle with Islam. The horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were intended to accomplish this, but in fact backfired when the majority of Islam expressed revulsion at the murder of thousands of innocents. It took the invasion of Iraq by the United States to breathe life into bin Laden’s dream. Afghanistan today remains a remote battleground in the “global war on terror,” with American forces engaged in little more than a fruitless manhunt amid the backdrop of an internal struggle for power within Afghanistan and Pakistan. The American invasion of Iraq created the spectacle of a Christian nation invading and occupying, in brutal fashion, a Muslim people (albeit ruled by a secular dictator). But even this horrific blunder by the United States, left in isolation, was not enough to inspire a universal condemnation by the Islamic world, if for no other reason than that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was viewed by most Muslim nations as an embarrassment. The resistance to the American occupation of Iraq comes almost exclusively from Iraqi sources, with foreign jihadists comprising a distinct minority used more as disposable munitions (i.e., suicide bombers) than a philosophical center of gravity. But what the American invasion of Iraq did accomplish, coupled with the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan, was to create the impression of a larger struggle between the West and Islam that has come to be defined by a separate ongoing occupation, carried out by an American ally viewed by many in the Muslim world as more U.S. proxy than U.S. friend. The occupier in this case is Israel, with Palestine being the occupied territory. Since 9/11 didn’t capture the imagination of the Muslim world, and Afghanistan and Iraq couldn’t hold the attention of the Muslim world, bin Laden and his circle of followers have opportunistically picked up on Palestine as the issue of the moment. Unlike 9/11 and Iraq, it’s an issue that sticks.
Hamas rejects any effort to label its movement as extremist, and, though it is a religious organization, it has vociferously rebuffed all efforts undertaken by al-Qaida to piggyback the cause of global jihad onto the matter of a Palestinian homeland. Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal has repeatedly underscored that his group’s mission is to secure a Palestinian homeland and that its military struggle will never expand beyond confronting Israel inside Israel or in the occupied territories. While Hamas has no global agenda, it has attracted the attention of Islamist elements around the world beyond the parasitic opportunism of al-Qaida, including Hezbollah, the parent organization of Imad Mughniyeh.
Hezbollah began as a radical outgrowth of the Lebanese Shiite militia group known as Amal. In 1979, following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, radical elements of the newly formed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command traveled to Lebanon in an effort to export the concept of Islamic revolution. Many of these Iranians took Lebanese wives and became an integral part of the Shiites of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. The call for Islamic revolution did not catch on, however, and many of the original cadres of Revolutionary Guards were transferred back to Iran when Iraq invaded. The Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982 dramatically altered the political landscape among the Shiites. The Iranians rushed reinforcements to Lebanon to support their Amal allies, until nearly 1,500 Revolutionary Guards were deployed. These forces helped fight the Israeli army to a standstill, and became a critical part of the resistance movement that grew inside Lebanon.
Mughniyeh came into prominence during this time, serving as a senior leader of a group known as Islamic Jihad. Under his direction, some 35 suicide attacks were launched against the forces of those nations seen as occupiers of Lebanon, including Israel and, later, the United States and France. By 1985, differences in the direction of resistance to the ongoing Israeli occupation had created a split within the Shiites of southern Lebanon, with the mainstream Amal militia taking a more moderate approach and a more radical wing of Amal, backed by the Revolutionary Guard, advocating a more aggressive stance. The radicals split from Amal in 1985 and created their own organization, known as the Party of God, or Hezbollah. Although Lebanese, Hezbollah, as a Shiite-based religious organization, recognized the supreme leader of Iran as its highest political authority and looked to Tehran for final approval of most major decisions. With the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, Hezbollah increasingly assumed a more independent posture, although it remained strongly influenced by Iran. Hezbollah had an almost singular focus on achieving the liberation of Lebanon from Israeli occupation, a goal it was surprisingly able to achieve in 2000 through tenacity and the force of arms.
Links between Hezbollah and Hamas were for all intents and purposes nonexistent before 2002. When Israeli forces raided the West Bank and detained Marwan Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian figure, Hezbollah head Hasan Nasrullah expressed his support of Palestinian resistance to an Israeli occupation of Palestine, which he felt paralleled the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Barghouti headed a wing of the PLO known as Tanzim. Tanzim had become a very effective and violent movement resisting Israel and was gradually drifting away from embracing what it viewed as the more accommodating policies of the PLO and toward the more active resistance embraced by Hamas. When Israel assassinated the former head of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, in 2004, Nasrullah publicly declared the forces of Hezbollah to be at the disposal of Hamas.
But Hamas continues to maintain that it will limit its actions to the immediate theater of action in Israel and the occupied territories, and Hezbollah maintains that its military operations will be limited to protecting Lebanon from outside aggression and Israeli occupation. In 2004, the same year he promised support for Hamas, Nasrullah declared that any solution to the Palestinian problem that was acceptable to the Palestinians would be acceptable to Hezbollah. Far from embracing Osama bin Laden’s parasitic cry for global jihad in defense of Palestine, both Hamas and Hezbollah recognized the reality of Israel as a nation-state and were willing to deal with Israel within the context of the pre-1967 borders and respect for the rights of Palestinians. This posture seemed to be embraced by Hezbollah’s Iranian sponsors as well, insofar as a 2003 diplomatic outreach from Iran to the United States indicated both a willingness to respect Israel’s legitimate right to exist as a nation-state and a promise to help rein in the actions of Hezbollah and Hamas.
The rejection by the Bush administration of the 2003 Iranian initiative, Israel’s disastrous 34-day war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 and Israel’s virtual declaration of war against Hamas have combined to negatively influenced the situation vis-à-vis Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The policies of the Bush administration-from opposing a cease-fire in Lebanon in 2006 while a thousand Lebanese civilians were being bombed to death by Israel and over a hundred Israelis, mostly soldiers, were being killed by Hezbollah, to promoting a confrontational policy centered on regime change with Iran-have only exacerbated an already difficult situation. The assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, which, despite denials, might have been a direct action undertaken by the Israeli Mossad, threatens to turn a volatile situation into an explosive one. If Hezbollah carries out its promise of retaliation against Israel, the northern border of Israel could again explode in violence that, this time, might extend all the way to Iran, drawing in the U.S. military as well. The end result would be further radicalization of forces like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Iran, and the creation of a casus belli for radical Islamic fundamentalists worldwide, many of whom will be drawn in by the opportunistic calls for jihad issued by bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders; in short, a victory for radical Islamic fundamentalism.
This is a fight that didn’t need to happen, and should never have been allowed to develop in this manner. Whatever Mughniyeh had done in the past, the fact is that for more than a decade this “world’s most dangerous man” had been contained by the passage of time. The events that created a Mughniyeh in Lebanon were no longer in play, and his role in the greater scheme of things had been significantly reduced. Simply put, Mughniyeh was no longer a key player for Hezbollah or any other group, and was fully subject to being contained by those elements that favored moderation and diplomacy over extremism and violence. Now he is dead, and there is the great possibility of even more violence being done in the name of a man who was, for the most part, a vestige of times gone by, and no longer relevant.
This is the Mughniyeh Enigma. Do we hold on to the events of the past, seeking to avenge all wrongs regardless of the consequences? Did Mughniyeh deserve to be brought to justice? Yes. Was justice served by assassinating him? No. The only thing accomplished was a simple act of revenge that no court of law would recognize as justice. If the issue of greater good, especially within the context of the “global war on terror,” is considered, it becomes clear that by far the greater good would have been served by letting Mughniyeh be and allowing his enemies to focus on the issue that exacerbates all efforts to quash radical Islamic extremism, whether it is derived from a parasitic organization like al-Qaida or from regional resistance-oriented groups like Hamas and Hezbollah: Palestine. Resolving the Palestinian issue would not cure all that ails the Middle East. But it would go a long way in restoring a sense of stability, a foundation of peace upon which any lasting agreement between Israel and its neighbors, or for that matter the United States and the Middle East, might be built.
Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author of numerous books, including “Iraq Confidential” (Nation Books, 2005) , “Target Iran” (Nation Books, 2006) and his latest, “Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement” (Nation Books, April 2007).
© 2008 TruthDig.com
“Radical Islamic fundamentalism of the sort that produces an Imad Mughniyeh is a nebulous entity lacking a central theme, cause, creed or motivating factor, save one: the lure of “martyrdom.””
This statement is incredibly simplistic. It is worthy of Pipes or other right wing screamers. Hezbollah doesn’t get a steady source of recruits by offering martyrdom, it offers membership in an organization that seeks to rid the country of occupiers.
Ritter is intelligent and always worth reading, but it’s difficult to see the bombing of the US barracks in Lebanon as anything other than a legitimate act of war. Reagan was the cause, as he was the first to insert US troops into a region where they were correctly viewed as partisans. Reagan, Schultz, and the entire foreign policy team were absolutely inept.
re oaxaca
exactly. with all due respect for ritter’ experience and knowledge, he appears to have missed the forest for the trees. palestine is correctly identified as a festering wound, but what of u.s. military bases throughout the middle east, especially saudi arabia?
nobody (except those few who benfit personally) really likes military occupation. ridding the 13 colonies of british troops and their hessian mercenaries was a prime objective of the american revolution, lest we forget. and those 241 troops ritter mentions might still be alive if their barracks had been in north carolina instead of beirut.
if the u.s. wants to reduce the threat of terrorism, military occupation must be a policy tool of absolute last resort. of course, if the legitimacy of the government depends on the continued existence of terrorism, we’re making all the right moves.
We all ought to be forwarding this timely and profound essay to all members of Congress, as well as the Pentagon and State Department.
While many may not like this essay or its recommendations, it is a grand case of ‘telling it like it is.’
We can argue all we want, but facts are facts.
Having spent time in the Middle East, in Arab countries as well as Israel, I concur with Ritter’s assessments.
US policy in regard to these problems seems to have been written by the American Enterprise Institute, AIPAC, and ‘rapture’ believing Christian Evangelists. Their undue influence of policy over the years is the cause of our current predicament in the Middle East and around the world and, as a result, also here at home.
IMHO
I think an important point that Noam Chomsky regularly makes( but Scott Ritter and other knowledgable analysts never seem to recognize ) is that the U.S. and the “coalition of the willing” don’t oppose terrorism in general; they only oppose it when it hampers their own efforts to dominate the globe economically, militarily and geopolitically. What to do with individual terrorists like Mughniyeh? The same thing you do with terrorists like General Pinochet? Use the international system to formally charge and try them. This is an overly-simplistic answer to a complex problem but it is the correct place to start.
I’m very close to idolizing Ritter.
I am 19 and a part of the peace movement in America. Having read Waging Peace, part of his book Target Iran, and now this profound essay, I could not promote the wisdom of Scott Ritter enough.
He understands America’s militaristic adventurism so much that he is the key to getting the mainstream public to abandon Bush’s “war on terror” and support a fight to end terrorism that addresses what leads people to become terrorists so terrorism can be eradicated.
He is the one (other than Ron Paul) who could get Americans to look at foreign policy and say, “We do that? I guess they should be pissed. Maybe we should stop doing that.”
“but for me, a former Marine, it is the loss of 241 of my fellow servicemen, the majority of them Marines, in an attack on a Beirut barracks attributed to Mughniyeh that will forever cement him in my mind as a mortal enemy.”
The US Marines had no business being there and were supporting the Israeli aggressors, therefore, made them legitimate targets. As well, the doctrine of “targeted assassinations” being implemented by the US and Israel means that the entire leadership of both the US and Israel are LEGITIMATE targets as well. The US and Israel will murder Hamas leaders, resistance leaders in Iraq, Hezbollah leaders and anyone else they deem to be a “Terrorist”. Well I say the US is the number #1 terrorist organization followed closely by Israel.
hazmat has it right on forest vs trees, although Ritter at least sees some of the woods. However, Ritter fails to view the war in the context of long term history, he fails to point out the relative timing and magnitude of violence on all sides, he fails to see that violence by the west is also terrorism, he fails to separate the purpose of violence (to carry out crimes versus defense of a people), and he misstates the role of religion.
The reality is, the West (primarily UK, Israel, US) has been waging war against a large region containing mostly Muslim people for many decades, and longer in some areas. These wars have been undertaken for the sake of greed: originally spice and opium trades, later oil and land and water[1], and so on[2]. In Iraq alone, since 1981 the US has directly killed many 10s of thousands of people, perhaps several hundred thousand combat casualties with a large fraction of them non-combatants. Including indirect casualties, total deaths are probably around 2 million, give or take a million. These numbers do not include those prior to the US betrayal of Saddam Hussein in 1980, in which the US actively supported the worst of Hussein’s atrocities. Israel’s war against its neighbors has likewise resulted in a huge number of deaths of its neighbors, a large fraction of them civilian. The geographic reach of Western combat against Muslim people extends from Morocco to Mindanao.
US and Israeli tactics are deliberately designed to cause terror to disorient the target population, and are directed against the civilian population more than against the militant segments.
If there is any moral distinction to be made relative to the violence, it is that violence which is defensive in nature, or reactionary to initial and greater violence, is less morally repugnant than the initially offensive violence.
Religion is used by extremists on both sides to justify violence. Ritter leaves an impression that it is one sided. It is a fact that the most violent single organization carrying out terror is dominated by the Christian Right: the US Air Force. The reality is that the prime motives for violence are greed and revenge; religion is used as a framework for justification of immoral acts.
Some specific comments relative to specific statements by Ritter:
“When one lives by the sword, he should expect to perish in the same fashion.” Does that refer to the 241 Marines in Lebanon? They were allied to the military invading Lebanon from the south.
“legitimize jihad” The West does not just legitimize jihad, it creates the need for it. The militant portion of Jihad against the West is revenge for mass death, and far more justifiable than the violence for greed carried out by the West. Another phrase for much of Western violence, especially in the case of Israel, is “preemptive revenge”.
“One of bin Laden’s overarching objectives was to get the United States to commit to a course of action that pitted it in a life-and-death struggle with Islam. The horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were intended to accomplish this, but in fact backfired when the majority of Islam expressed revulsion at the murder of thousands of innocents.” This ignores the previous decades of violence by the West against Muslim peoples, and their retaliation. It also accepts the official Bush version of 911, which, to be charitable, is highly suspect. However, militarily, this act seems to have given Bush and the US military the rope to hang themselves with, albeit at huge cost in lives in the East. The long term effect of the Bush overreaction is to tremendously damage the US military’s ability to conduct such operations in the future. The biggest problem is that the dollar cost is huge, the secondary problem is that the weaknesses in US military doctrine have been exposed for all to see.
[1] Israel has grabbed land for the sake of its water. Fresh water is more important than oil; while usually not as profitable, enough water is absolutely necessary for life.
[2] A key motive for this phase of the US war against Iraq is artificial profits for Halliburton. The economy of Israel is greatly bolstered by its counter terrorism industry; Israel’s incitement of terrorism serves not only as a cover for continual land grabs, it generates a larger market for security services.
Good comments, gde,
They expand on Ritter’s statements well.
Thanks to GDE for pointing out Ritter’s sad illogic in expressing bitter sorrow for Mughniyeh’s slaughter of 241 Marine comrades in Beirut, but then quickly follows with the notion: “That “Mughniyeh deserved what he got….” Obviously, the 241 were covered by the same rationale that he used to justify Mughniyeh’s assassination: “When one lives by the sword, he should expect to perish in the same fashion.” As noted the other day, Robert E. Lee was right about the horror and waste of war when, as he looked down from Mary’s Heights on the massed bodies of Union Dead at Fredricksburg, he said that: “It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”(13th December 1862)
The statement “Mughniyeh deserved what he got is, in my opinion, not a matter up for debate.”
shows a flawed but entirely human side of Ritter.
For a gritty piece on the situation in Afghanistan and its hoelessness, see this one from Sunday’s NYT Magazine section. It also shows the brotherhood is developed by combat, no matter how misguided the overall situation is.
“Battle Company Is Out There”
Where is the outrage at the Zionist 1967 attack on the Liberty by the U.S. Marines or Navy?
When the Zionists cease their genocidal crusade against Palestinians, the violence will cease. The Mother of all fundamentalisms of the last 100 plus years is Zionism. It is also the least tolerant. As one Jewish fundamentalist recently stated to a reporter in Time Magazine, he prefers a Jewish state to a secular democracy. That is Israel. Now that western supporters of universal human rights have dared to criticize Israel, Jane Harman has introduced a bill to make thoughts a federal crime. Even in Nazi Germany thought were free. The West needs to look at its own underpinnings and not point at others.
As Molly Ivins said shortly before she died, the United States was founded on genocide and slavery. And as Lord Balfour said when issuing the Blafour Declaration, “Palestinians are Blacks and Blacks have no rights.” Blafour also said that creating a Jewish fundamental state would be a distraction in the area while the West took the oil. It has exceeded his expectations.
A couple of comments.
I am in agreement with the above postings by oaxaca, pax4all, and hazmat.
Scott Ritter is a good man, but his analysis of today’s violent global predicament is unfortunately still missing the central concept of USian imperialism (the very particular empire, that is, constituted by the more than 720 U.S. military bases established all around the world).
This empire creates a situation of permanent intimidation and bullying of various regions and populations, and consequently of anger and hatred towards the U.S. To that, one must then add the U.S. military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the misery and hatred they in turn engender.
You are wrong, Scott Ritter: violent, militant radical Islam does not at all lack a cause; it does not have to dream up a cause: that cause is amply supplied to it every single day by U.S. imperialism and its insidious, nefarious, and often murderous presence in every corner of the planet.
Scott Ritter, you are also wrong in stating that “[t]he cause of Palestine is not a natural rallying point for most Sunni fundamentalists associated with al-Qaida.” Osama bin Laden has been citing the victimization of the Palestians by Israel (and indirectly by unconditional U.S. support for Israel) since at least his March 1997 interview with Peter Arnett near Jalalabad (see Bruce Lawrence, ed., Messages to the World. The Statements of Osama bin Laden (Verso, 2005), pp. 44-57).
Many good comments,for and against this Ritter piece. Not being an expert, but having strong opinions concurring with certain issues posed by both sides commenting, I harken back to 2002 and the many times I heard and read Mr. Ritter. His analysis and prophetic words from that time manifested quite accurately with events that unfolded. For that I put a great deal of credence in his analyses.
I don’t know who could argue with the suggestion that Scott Ritter would be a much better Under-secretary for Mid-East Affairs, senior policy advisor, or even Secretary of State or Defense than we have been cursed with for the last two terms.
In this essay Ritter rejects the rule of international law in approving of a terrorist act; misstates the motives of al Qaeda which are defensive and obviously so; and connects the assassinated man with the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon when Islamic Jihad took responsibility according to Noam Chomsky. And, as others have pointed out, the US miltary presence in Lebanon lacked legitimacy, for around the time the US and Israel were bombing sites in the Mideast. Rather the US presence in the Middle East reflects the presumption that the US controls the world with its empire of bases. Ritter and those who think like him need to consider the example of a real military hero, and true progressive thinker Lt. Watada, currently on trial for refusing to commit the crime against peace of international aggression against Iraq. Watada takes international law seriously. Ritter just advocated a terrorist act, which is a violation of international law.
Following up on al Qaeda’s motives, George Tenet in 1999 stated to the Senate Armed Services Committeed that “. . . bin Laden’s overarching goal is to get us out of the Persian Gulf.” Duh. OBL and AZ state that in nearly every taped message. As OBL says, we should wonder why they don’t attack Sweden.
Would we want Chinese carrier battle groups in New York and San Francisco harbors while China bombs Florida and Oregon?
I’m afraid Ritter, while he is right on many issues, is hynotized by his military training and American acculturation into believing that the international laws enshrined by the Constitution he swore allegience to don’t apply to us, and that an empire most of the world hates is a good thing.
The three keys to preventing more violence in our world are these: quit doing it, abiding by the law, and improving the law by making the UN more democratic and representative.
Reagan set those Marines up in Beirut, in the middle of a War Zone, like it was the Annual Boy Scout Jamboree.
I ONLY blame Reagan, or whoever it was that devised that lunacy.
Ritter asks “Do we hold on to the events of the past, seeking to avenge all wrongs regardless of the consequences?”
What, we got a MOUSE in our POCKET? Oh, yeah, Mossad… the mouse in our pocket.
I get everyone’s point… that these crises didn’t occur in a vacuum and despite, National Amnesia, individual, selective memory in a person of Mr. Ritter’s stature is puzzling. I actually hadn’t noticed. Thanks for pulling my awareness up.
All I can say is I’m glad he’s there… to educate, re-educate… and continue to place events, with all their potential consequences in an informed context, insofar as he is able. This, for a people in America, kept in the dark and fed incessant bullshit… yeah, mushroom people.
FYI:
Mughniyeh’s widow believes the killers come from Iran and Syria as they don’t want to investigate the killing.
We become what we fight!
Replacing leaders? Both sides; as leaders are removed, they are replaced by leaders committed to the same tasks as the last.
THE LINES ARE GETTING BLURRY! We are engaged and both sides are trying to win.
The machine is gaining momentum!
Another view is that ‘they’ became us in their resistance to our empire.
Just a thought.
ritter is short on memory, remember the Maine? it was israeli checkpoints guarding the road that let that truck in and israel’s hope was the loss would bring american support to ensure its control of lebanon.
until israelis accept palestinians as human beings with rights to life, property etc. israel will continue its occupation with american supplied hardware and economic aid.
“Those who wage jihad, or holy war, tend to view martyrdom not only as a risk worth taking but as a noble and just end in itself.”
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
Which terrorist said that?
Earthian, excellent intervention, particularly the last three paragraphs of your post.
Scott Ritter has come a long way from being a Marine and has made serious and respectable efforts at understanding the world we live in, but, as Earthian implies, he still needs to take another step in the process of divesting himself from the ideological mindset that his membership in the Marines gave him: he must now stop fetishizing his Marine experience. Indeed, the Marines are not sacred cows, but a certain type of historical institution created by a certain type of ruthless, elitist interests.
I thought Usama stated from the get go that 9-11 was about 1, American boots on the ground on the Arabian peninsula and 2, Palestine. Even if that attribution were disputed though,
the idea that “bin laden and his circle of followers opportunistically picked up on Palestine as the issue of the moment” because “(9-11 didn’t hold the imagination of the Muslim world”
is convoluted/absurd; made me cringe to read, as did the comment quoted in the first post by oaxaca, for which I required several aspirin.
Our rapacious quest for global dominance will have more and more peoples uniting to face their common tormentor.
Don’t want mosquito’s? Drain Swamp. Thanks Noam C.
I used to respect Ritter, I thought he was one of the few Marines with a brain, I was deceived.
When I was stationed in Benghazi a friend of mine was in an accident, both drivers were hauled up in front of a Libyan Judge who told my friend ” If you hadn’t been here it wouldn’t have happened”.
This is the case with the Marines outside the USA, they shouldn’t be there and if they get killed participating in unlawful acts then who cares, I don’t. I have no sympathy for the merceneries killed in Iraq and Afgahnistan, they knew it was an illegal act against the UN charter, they had no authority to invade any country, but they did and they deserve all they get.
I’ve been reading material by Ritterfor the last 7 years - ever since 9/11, when the “world changed”. I respect his expertise and even-handedness. He’s been right on the money in everything he’s written so far. He’s an expert on the Mid-E issues and sees them correctly. CHI1088 AND CURMUDGEON99 are right. Others of the posters are either misreading the Ritter piece or dazzled by their own armchair fantasies. I don’t know much about the Mid-E myself. I know only that what Ritter has said in the past 7 years has consistently made sense and been borne out by events.
So put out that pipe, and shut up and pay attention.
Medusa, you say “I’ve been reading Ritter for 7 years” and “I don’t know much about the mid-east myself” well, connect the dots!
And may I strongly suggest Informed Comment, a web-site by Juan Cole, and every word Noam Chomsky has ever written to help with your vacuum of awareness.
As far as shut-up and pay attention, thank you for sharing your point of view.
Sorry after seven years of study you are still self-described ignorant, maybe you don’t read carefully or well.
Because if you can read at all, and you still don’t know what is up after seven years by your own admission, it is your sources (read scott ritter.) Hhhmmmm…which? Best wishes.
Medusa, if you don’t know much about the Middle East, how can you describe Ritter as an expert?
At any rate, let me restate somewhat differently in what way Ritter is wrong in the above article of his. He is in error on at least two major counts:
1) what motivates armed, militant Islam is not martyrdom, but rather the resolve to drive U.S. imperialism out of the lands of Islam and its societies — martyrdom is merely a poor’s weapon; it is the weapon of those who have so little to lose that they might as well lose their lives in one last effort to get the aggressors and those who humiliate them out of their territories and their societies;
and
2) Al Qaeda’s concern for the Palestinian plight is at least ten years old.
Al Qaeda is an anti-imperialist organization; it has its origins in the Islamist struggle against Soviet imperialism, and nearly since its foundation it has been waging a war against U.S. imperialism. To be sure, anti-imperialism is not its exclusive motivation; it has two other major goals: the overthrow of the Saudi regime, and the instauration of the caliphate.
Because everything he’s described and predicted has been borne out by subsequent events. I explained that. Don’t quibble.
I already heard about points 1 and 2 and don’t disagree, non-expert though I am, but he did’t argue about those. He talked about the futility of and the delusion that bumping of a superannuated ex”terrorist” would fix the problem, whatever that is defined as by the imperialist dopes of the West.
Martyrdom - don’t underestimate the power of that - that’s how Christianity got its biggest influx of believers way back in the late Roman empire. It’s a perverse way to get glory, but people do it. Martydom is a means, not an end to the goals you identify.
I’m a fan of Scott Ritter even though his perspectives appear to marginalize American participation in global terrorism. However his statement that said… “The horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were intended to accomplish this, but in fact backfired when the majority of Islam expressed revulsion at the murder of thousands of innocents” …only makes me think of where I was on that fateful day. In the city of Peshawar (pronounced peh-SHOWER) in Pakistan (pop. 2,982,816 in 1998) on 9-11, the people celebrated as everyone young and old flooded the streets. Free food was given out, music played and millions of rounds from old AK-47’s were fired into the night sky. There was hugging, crying and laughing everywhere. The celebration lasted for several days and when I asked timidly why everyone was so happy, they responded in kind that ‘it was about time that America suffered!’. Those scenes of euphoria didn’t make it on CNN (Pakistan is an ally afterall) but I’m sure that Peshawar wasn’t the only muslim city in a festive mood on that horrific day.
While Americans don’t dance around when they see the daily suicide massacres in Iraq, our indifference to the bloodshed doesn’t go unnoticed either. The whole world seems to lack empathy for our fellow human beings when they’re ‘foreigners’.
” JohnR February 26th, 2008 1:50 pm
I think an important point that Noam Chomsky regularly makes( but Scott Ritter and other knowledgable analysts never seem to recognize ) is that the U.S. and the “coalition of the willing” don’t oppose terrorism in general; they only oppose it when it hampers their own efforts to dominate the globe economically, militarily and geopolitically.”
THEY OPPOSE IT when it bothers them and they’re therefore not the ones committing the acts being referred to as terrorism.
“What to do with individual terrorists like Mughniyeh?”
GIVE THE FREEDOM FIGHTER a respectful burial. After all, it’s what he was about.
“The same thing you do with terrorists like General Pinochet?”
ABSOLUTELY NO COMPARISON to be made between the two.
“Use the international system to formally charge and try them.”
HANG THEMSELVES FIRST and then try to come back as ghosts, if they can, in order to try to prosecute anyone else? Okay, I could go along with this.
” chi1088 February 26th, 2008 1:54 pm
I’m very close to idolizing Ritter.
I am 19 and a part of the peace movement in America. Having read Waging Peace, part of his book Target Iran, and now this profound essay, I could not promote the wisdom of Scott Ritter enough.
He understands America’s militaristic adventurism so much ….”
KEEP ON DREAMING KID. For just a kid, you sure do seem to think you know a lot more than you do.
Scott Ritter is human and definitely errs, and referring to Mughniyeh as a terrorist is stupidity or bigotry on Ritter’s part, for Mughniyeh was resistance fighter, not really terrorist; not enough to merit being mentioned. Try Israel and the USA, Britain, NATO, UN “peackeeping” forces, … for examples of real and significant terrorism, and then you’ll start to learn something substantial about [reality].
Ritter may be suffering from something or a condition that Robert Fisk evidently does suffer from too when it comes to Hezbollah, and it’s called bigotry.
Some suggestions:
“Hezbollah and the ‘Unknown Knowns’”, by Ramzy Baroud, Feb 23 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8167
“Video: George Galloway: ‘YOU DON’T GIVE A DAMN’.
‘George Galloway Vs Sky’ for EvilGoblin” (9:24),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASWhfJcTA3Q
He spoke correctly in that, but might have toned himself down a little. Nonetheless, I love the kind of [real] passion that he expresses. It is real, true passion, and that only happens when we truly love and recognize TRUTH, which he very clearly does.
He’s asked, by the moronic Rupert Murdoch SkyNet News reporter about Mughniyeh’s and/or Hezbollah’s terrorism, and he answers this in whole truth, and solidly. She can only keep trying to speak over him, clearly trying to prevent him from being heard, which of course is done because she’s LYING her soul away to perdition, while he is passionately truthful and in defence of human rights and international laws.
Yep, lots of energy does he have.
Normally I would read the article, but given that I started by checking reader posts and immediately saw that he’s referring to Mughniyeh as ‘terrorist’, then I’m not going to waste my time.
the comments and replies to ritter’s article amaze me … why is it so necessary to be right or wrong … can’t we share opinions analyze the differences and determine a course for the future … his article was excellent as it provoked thought and comment … stop the name calling and wise-ass remarks …thanks for some insightful and thought provoking material
Somewhere the men that make money from the military industrial complex is laughing at all of us.
Peace and love is the only solution.
No bluroo because that’s compromise a deseease which the perfect in Washington D.C. don’t suffer from.
If you wish to know who are the bad guys then just look at who attacked who, that’s how your local judge in a lawful society would decide. Every person has a right to defend themselves and that is all the Arabs are doing, they’re not in the USA or Europe doing patrols, kicking in doors, raping and murdering, that’s the role of the freedom fighters.
Ritter wanted to make a name for himself and appear on the side of justice but being a marine it eventualy became clear his real motives.
Who is a terrorist? Who is a freedom fighter? Who is a brutal dictator? Semantical arguments aside, no one has the right to commit violent acts against other human beings. No one has the right to dominate other people economically, psychologically, or spiritually. If these things are granted to be axiomatic, then a global system of mediating justice is necessary to ensure them. The other alternatives are a violent anarchy spiraling the human race towards a rapid self-extinction or an eternal hegemony of one ultimately victorious faction( the perspective adhered to by the “neocons”).
Confronting the enigma of Scott Ritter and what he could never acknowledge, see todays article by Noam Chomsky,
‘The Most Wanted List’ - International Terrorism http://www.tomdispatch.com/
In his above post, bluroo expresses amazement at the other posts’ contents and he wonders, “why is it so necessary to be right or wrong?”
The answer is very simple: truthfulness to the facts is at stake. When I said above that Ritter was wrong about at least two things, I meant that he was not being truthful to the facts (in all likelihood not intentionally, by the way). And I indicated one reason why he might have gotten these things wrong: he is lacking the concept of imperialism and of the resistance (armed in the case under discussion) and the blowback imperialist oppression always produces.
bluroo goes on to ask, “can’t we share opinions, analyze the differences and determine a course for the future?”
Of course, we can and people do plenty of that on this site, but does that activity somehow require that we abandon a commitment to upholding the truth and rectifying falsehoods?
I already granted (in my first post above) that Ritter is a good man, and thus a man whose writings are worth reading and learning from. If they were not, I would not dignify them with a response, for some writings are so beneath contempt that they are not even worth correcting.
In my post of 2/27, 12:32 am above, I wrote: “martyrdom is merely a poor’s weapon.”
I left out a word from that sentence; it should have read: “martyrdom is merely a poor man’s weapon.”
Sorry about that.
Martyrdom is actually the desperate man’s weapon. E.g., look what happened with the US torpedo bombers at the Battle of Midway.