Patterico's Pontifications

2/26/2006

The Mosque Bombing: the Glass Half-Full Perspective

Filed under: General,Terrorism,War — Patterico @ 3:25 pm



Tom Bevan has an optimistic outlook on the bombing of the mosque in Samarra:

The Iraqi government is forming and the terrorists are running out of both time and options, so they turned to an unbelievably risky strategy that will either incite civil war or unite the country against their cause. This bombing smacks of being an act of last resort.

I’m not so confident that he’s right, but let’s hope.

6 Responses to “The Mosque Bombing: the Glass Half-Full Perspective”

  1. Which act do you think is more disrespectful of Islam, publishing cartoons, or destroying Mosques?

    Black Jack (d8da01)

  2. I’m afraid Bevan has partaken deeply of the kool-aid. He is amazingly uninsterested figuring out who these particular “terrorists” are. Without a look at this issue, his statement that

    that will either incite civil war or unite the country against their cause

    is meaningless. What cause? The bombers were apparently Sunni. If the “country” (Shiites?) unites against “their” (Sunni) cause, that is going to be a civil war. If Iran had a hand in it, and this comes to light, what coherence does his prediction have? He seems determined to be the last guy on the block still pretending that the insurgency is some kind of house of cards, destined to topple itself at any moment.

    In these dire circumstances, the inevitable soul-searching (strangely resembling back-pedaling) has yielded a more temperate, pragmatic, delayed, and bloody recasting of “optimism”, to wit: “civil war has yielded some fine societies.” And even then, there persists an idea that this civil war can be guided through its paces by U.S. oversight in some way. And as for those that opposed the war, well, even a broken clock is right twice a day…so goes the evolving narration of how the Bushies have always been right.

    I think Frank Fukuyama’s piece on the failure of the neocon idea painted our position in history starkly, and a lot of people spent last week readjusting their sights on the real possibilities. I have no argument with their doing so, but Bevan’s rehashing of the “last throes” theory hardly qualifies as an adjustment, let alone one based on reality.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  3. “Which act do you think is more disrespectful of Islam, publishing cartoons, or destroying Mosques? ”

    Which act is causing more violence?

    actus (6234ee)

  4. “Which act is causing more violence?”

    The cartoons were published about 4 months prior to the outbreak of violence in Muslim countries. It took some time to prepare and orchestrate the “outrage.” So, it will take time before we can measure the full extent of the violence generated by the destruction of the Shia Mosque. Besides, the Shia just don’t seem to get much good press in the West, not nearly so good as the “insurgents” anyway.

    In any case, it’s too soon to start examining violence levels, but then violence isn’t a measure of disrespect anyway.

    I notice you didn’t answer my question.

    Black Jack (d8da01)

  5. Black Jack – destroying mosques is on its face more disrespectful of Islam, unless the mosques are being destroyed to make room for a superhighway or some such general good.

    I may be in the minority here; I think the shiite response has been restrained, and better than we could reasonably have expected in the face of such provocation.

    aphrael (e7c761)


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