Article: Bin Laden's victory

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2003-03-23 02:20am

Found this on the Guardian website the other night. Dawkins should be familiar to any of you out there who have engaged in creationism/evolution debates.

Bin Laden's victory

A political system that delivers this disastrous mistake needs reform

Richard Dawkins
Saturday March 22, 2003
The Guardian

Osama bin Laden, in his wildest dreams, could hardly have hoped for this. A mere 18 months after he boosted the US to a peak of worldwide sympathy unprecedented since Pearl Harbor, that international goodwill has been squandered to near zero. Bin Laden must be beside himself with glee. And the infidels are now walking right into the Iraq trap.

There was always a risk for Bin Laden that worldwide sympathy for the US might thwart his long-term aim of holy war against the Great Satan. He needn't have worried. With the Bush junta at the helm, a camel could have foreseen the outcome. And the beauty is that it doesn't matter what happens in the war.

Imagine how it looks from Bin Laden's warped point of view...

If the American victory is swift, Bush will have done our work for us, removing the hated Saddam and opening the way for a decent Islamist government. Even better, in 2004 Bush may actually win an election. Who can guess what that swaggering, strutting little pouter-pigeon will then get up to, and what resentments he will arouse, when he finally has something to swagger about? We shall have so many martyrs volunteering, we shall run out of targets. And a slow and bloody American victory would be better still.

The claim that this war is about weapons of mass destruction is either dishonest or betrays a lack of foresight verging on negligence. If war is so vitally necessary now, was it not at least worth mentioning in the election campaigns of 2000 and 2001? Why didn't Bush and Blair mention the war to their respective electorates? The only major leader who has an electoral mandate for his war policy is Gerhard Schröder - and he is against it. Why did Bush, with Blair trotting faithfully to heel, suddenly start threatening to invade Iraq when he did, and not before? The answer is embarrassingly simple, and they don't even seem ashamed of it. Illogical, even childish, though it is, everything changed on September 11 2001.

Whatever anyone may say about weapons of mass destruction, or about Saddam's savage brutality to his own people, the reason Bush can now get away with his war is that a sufficient number of Americans, including, apparently, Bush himself, see it as revenge for 9/11. This is worse than bizarre. It is pure racism and/or religious prejudice. Nobody has made even a faintly plausible case that Iraq had anything to do with the atrocity. It was Arabs that hit the World Trade Centre, right? So let's go and kick Arab ass. Those 9/11 terrorists were Muslims, right? And Eye-raqis are Muslims, right? That does it. We're gonna go in there and show them some hardware. Shock and awe? You bet.

Bush seems sincerely to see the world as a battleground between Good and Evil, St Michael's angels against the forces of Lucifer. We're gonna smoke out the Amalekites, send a posse after the Midianites, smite them all and let God deal with their souls. Minds doped up on this kind of cod theology have a hard time distinguishing between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Some of Bush's faithful supporters even welcome war as the necessary prelude to the final showdown between Good and Evil: Armageddon followed by the Rapture. We must presume, or at least hope, that Bush himself is not quite of that bonkers persuasion. But he really does seem to believe he is wrestling, on God's behalf, against some sort of spirit of Evil. Tony Blair is, of course, far more intelligent and able than Bush. But his unshakable conviction that he is right and almost everybody else wrong does have a certain theological feel. He was indignant at Paxman's wickedly funny suggestion that he and Dubya pray together, but does he also believe in Evil?

Like sin and like terror (Bush's favourite target before the Iraq distraction) Evil is not an entity, not a spirit, not a force to be opposed and subdued. Evil is a miscellaneous collection of nasty things that nasty people do. There are nasty people in every country, stupid people, insane people, people who should never be allowed to get anywhere near power. Just killing nasty people doesn't help: they will be replaced. We must try to tailor our institutions, our constitutions, our electoral systems, so as to minimise the chance that such people will rise to the top. In the case of Saddam Hussein, we in the west must bear some guilt. The US, Britain and France have all, from time to time, done our bit to shore up Saddam, and even arm him. And we democracies might look to our own vaunted institutions. Are they well designed to ensure that we don't make disastrous mistakes when we choose our own leaders? Isn't it, indeed, just such a mistake that has led us to this terrible pass?

The population of the US is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the US leads the world by miles. You would think that a country with such resources, and such a field of talent, would be able to elect a leader of the highest quality. Yet, what has happened? At the end of all the primaries and party caucuses, the speeches and the televised debates, after a year or more of non-stop electioneering bustle, who, out of that entire population of 300 million, emerges at the top of the heap? George Bush.

My American friends, you know I love your country, how have we come to this? Yes, yes, Bush isn't quite as stupid as he sounds, and heaven knows he can't be as stupid as he looks. I know most of you didn't vote for him anyway, but that is my point. Forgive my presumption, but could it just be that there is something a teeny bit wrong with that famous constitution of yours? Of course this particular election was unusual in being a dead heat. Elections don't usually need a tie-breaker, something equivalent to the toss of a coin. Al Gore's majority in the country, reinforcing his majority in the electoral college but for dead-heated Florida, would have led a just and unbiased supreme court to award him the tie-breaker. So yes, Bush came to power by a kind of coup d'état. But it was a constitutional coup d'état. The system has been asking for trouble for years.

Is it really a good idea that a single person's vote, buried deep within the margin of error for a whole state, can by itself swing a full 25 votes in the electoral college, one way or the other? And is it really sensible that money should translate itself so directly and proportionately into electoral success, so that a winning candidate must either be very rich or prepared to sell favours to those who are?

When a company seeks a new chief executive officer, or a university a new vice-chancellor, enormous trouble is taken to find the best person. Professional headhunting firms are engaged, written references are taken up, exhaustive rounds of interviews are conducted, psychological aptitude tests are administered, confidential positive vetting undertaken. Mistakes are still made, but it is not for want of strenuous efforts to avoid them. Maybe such methods would be undemocratic for choosing the most powerful person on earth, but just think about it. Would you do business with a company that devoted an entire year to little else than the process of choosing its new CEO, from the strongest field in the world, and ended up with Bush?

Saddam Hussein has been a catastrophe for Iraq, but he never posed a threat outside his immediate neighbourhood. George Bush is a catastrophe for the world. And a dream for Bin Laden.

· Richard Dawkins FRS is the Charles Simonyi Professor at Oxford University. His latest book is A Devil's Chaplain (Weidenfeld & Nicholson).

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-03-23 02:28am

I stopped reading when he got to the allegations of racism. I tell you what, being a great biologist doesn't qualify you to comment on world affairs anymore than being a great linguist does. And I like Richard Dawkins, I find his writing to be enjoyable.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-03-23 02:38am

Interesting but ignores several key points. All over the world the sentiment has shifted a great deal. One poll I saw on CNN had support in Australia go from 18% to 78% in favor of war. People like a winner and Bush is winning so far. Sure some governments will no doubt be sour about what's he but the fact of the matter is everybody loves a winner.

Not to mention Iraq is the most secular of the Middle Eastern nations and if we do a good job of getting Iraq on it's feet a Islamic Theocracy is unlikely to take root. They Iraqi people so far seem happy enough to see the US in and Saddam out. Not to mention whatever they say, the arab governments won't come out and say it but they don't like Saddam either and want him gone.

The only real worry is the fact that thanks to all the propoganda force fed them the arab/muslim community is likely to be pretty pissed but at this point they're pissed anyway. This is hardly the disaster that he makes it out to be.

Could we perhaps have handled things a little better in the UN? Yes. Would it have made a difference in other nations votes? No.

Cal Wright · Post by **Cal Wright** » 2003-03-23 02:42am

Some Educated Guy wrote:My American friends, you know I love your country, how have we come to this? Yes, yes, Bush isn't quite as stupid as he sounds, and heaven knows he can't be as stupid as he looks. I know most of you didn't vote for him anyway, but that is my point. Forgive my presumption, but could it just be that there is something a teeny bit wrong with that famous constitution of yours? Of course this particular election was unusual in being a dead heat. Elections don't usually need a tie-breaker, something equivalent to the toss of a coin. Al Gore's majority in the country, reinforcing his majority in the electoral college but for dead-heated Florida, would have led a just and unbiased supreme court to award him the tie-breaker. So yes, Bush came to power by a kind of coup d'état. But it was a constitutional coup d'état. The system has been asking for trouble for years.

Who am I to criticise this. Fuck it, I've made myself look like a bigger fool. This guy, I'm taking it is NOT American by his statement, 'My American friends, I love your country.'. Thanks, it is lovely isn't it? Don't cover up your asshat opinions in roses and expect us not to smell the shit. Personally this article and his views seem pretty damned sound. He spent a few paragraphs going on and on, then hits us with this. Please.

Now what does this stament mean? "I know most of you didn't vote for him anyway, but that is my point." What's your point? He pretty much contradicts himself. That's right I didnt' vote for him. So what? Upset because of how he got elected. Yeah it's a lot of mired shit, but really out of the choices, Gore vs Bush, really, what's the damn difference. Nothing. The system has been asking for trouble? He's saying something about the constitution. Hey, no one's perfect, nothing works the way it's supposed to. If it did, we'd live in a world of Star Wars pal. It's worked for 200 years. Will it work for another 200? I dont' know. That's hard to say. Still, what's seriously wrong with our system? Point out what can be changed and how it will work out for the better without fucking everything else up. Go ahead. I'm listening.

What about poor old Gore. If you believe that had Gore been elected, the US would be better off, or that the 9/11 attacks would not have occured, your shitting yourself. Did we not have problems with Clinton over there? Huh? So why would it, if Gore had been elected things would magically be perfect and fine?

Like I said, most of this article has great points. But every peak has it's valleys. This one just stuck out like a fucking sore thumb.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-03-23 02:49am

I liked it a lot until he began going on about the election. Yeah, Bush is a moron; yeah the election was mired with uncertainty, but what does that have to do with the war on Iraq? He had an excellent piece up until that point.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-03-23 02:52am

After we crushed Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Arab Street shut up and Islamist terror group recruitment even in countries where we were not directly operating plummeted. The same thing will happen after we finish in Iraq; it won't make the average Muslim angry - It will strike fear into him, a healthy fear of American power.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-03-23 03:21am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:After we crushed Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Arab Street shut up and Islamist terror group recruitment even in countries where we were not directly operating plummeted.

Proof?

The same thing will happen after we finish in Iraq; it won't make the average Muslim angry - It will strike fear into him, a healthy fear of American power.

Works wonders on the Palestinians ... oh wait.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-03-23 04:59am

Stormbringer wrote:Interesting but ignores several key points. All over the world the sentiment has shifted a great deal. One poll I saw on CNN had support in Australia go from 18% to 78% in favor of war. People like a winner and Bush is winning so far. Sure some governments will no doubt be sour about what's he but the fact of the matter is everybody loves a winner.

That jump was recorded in the first 6-10 hours of the campaign when there had only been targetted strikes on HQ. Now that we have reports of cluster bombs hitting suburbs as well as the other political parties (Labor, Greens, Democrats) all banding together against it.

And also Labor just won another state election...

The UK is losing a gov't over this, Spain might and hopefully Australia will too.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-03-23 09:47am

Vympel wrote:
The same thing will happen after we finish in Iraq; it won't make the average Muslim angry - It will strike fear into him, a healthy fear of American power.
Works wonders on the Palestinians ... oh wait.

Palestinians are more pissed with Israel then with the US. Their anger is understandable since the US government plays favorites with Israel. Personally, I would withdraw ALL support for Israel if I was president. The US doesn't need allies that actively spy on it.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2003-03-23 10:07am

Durran Korr wrote:I tell you what, being a great biologist doesn't qualify you to comment on world affairs anymore than being a great linguist does.

Pfff, I've heard something very similar from fundies so many times that I lost count ages ago: "you are/xxxx is not a theologian, you are/he is not qualified to critizice the bible, christianity Etc.". I belief that it is one of the basic tenents of Democracy that every man has a voice.

BTW Korr, what qualifications do you posses that qualify you to comment on world affairs? In fact what would qualify someone to comment on world affairs?

What I don't understand is why is he ranting about the elections? Sure they were such a debocle that it wasn't funny, but what do they have to do with Iraq is beyond me.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2003-03-23 10:22am

I get somewhat tired of people saying the U.S. plays favorites with Israel. While the U.S. supports them in many ways we are more of a leash than a crutch. I have no doubt Israel could cut a 100km buffer zone out of surrounding Arab countries if it wanted, and noone in the arab world can stop them. Merkeva's are damn good tanks and the army is well trained. The U.S. only supports them because we always have since the formation of the state and the unwarrented attacks on Israel by surrounding Arab nations. It isn't gonna change anytime soon when you have a pseudo-nation that performs massive numbers of suicide bombings as the other side, hell Palestine is lucky it hasn't gotten targeted by the U.S. as part of anti-terror campaigns. Gotta love American hypocrisy.

As for civilian casualties. This is a WAR. People die in war. Pull your heads out of your asses. This isn't Dresden or Tokyo. We aren't nuking Hiroshima again. If you don't like war then you convince Saddam to stop gassing Kurds and Killing civilians using peaceful U.N. resolutions then come back and scold us. Were doing what most of the Arab world wanted us to do and if you can't accept it, Tough Shit.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-03-23 10:45am

Pfff, I've heard something very similar from fundies so many times that I lost count ages ago: "you are/xxxx is not a theologian, you are/he is not qualified to critizice the bible, christianity Etc.". I belief that it is one of the basic tenents of Democracy that every man has a voice.

He has the right to comment and say what he wants. That doesn't make him an expert as he (and others) seem to think he is.

BTW Korr, what qualifications do you posses that qualify you to comment on world affairs? In fact what would qualify someone to comment on world affairs?

He can comment but he's just a voice on a message board not any sort of expert.

What I don't understand is why is he ranting about the elections? Sure they were such a debocle that it wasn't funny, but what do they have to do with Iraq is beyond me.

He simply usuing the standard lefty bullshit that because the 2000 Election was a little weird (but legal) Bush is some power mad dictator attempting to illegally grab power.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2003-03-23 03:12pm

I like how the article ignores the fact that, despite Bush's comments, there ARE perfectly legitimate reasons for going to war with Iraq and have been since the Clinton presidency. Remember Saddam firing AA missiles at British and American jets patrolling the no-fly zone? Remember Saddam's slaughter of the Kurds? I've been advocating removal of Saddam for years now.

Sure, I recognize Bush's reasons as political pandering... doesn't mean the war itself is unjust.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-03-23 03:16pm

weemadando wrote:Now that we have reports of cluster bombs hitting suburbs

Do tell.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-03-23 04:53pm

BTW Korr, what qualifications do you posses that qualify you to comment on world affairs? In fact what would qualify someone to comment on world affairs?

None, but you don't see me publishing my opinions for millions to read and take seriously.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2003-03-23 05:13pm

paladin wrote:Palestinians are more pissed with Israel then with the US. Their anger is understandable since the US government plays favorites with Israel. Personally, I would withdraw ALL support for Israel if I was president. The US doesn't need allies that actively spy on it.

If you're going to remove alliances with nations that spy on us, you'll also have to remove all alliances with China, Japan, France, Russia, and Germany. Those are just the ones I know about; there are almost certainly more. France is the worst about spying on our industry. Almost all nations spy on their enemies and their allies, to ensure that nothing's being done behind their backs.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-23 05:25pm

Dark Hellion wrote:I get somewhat tired of people saying the U.S. plays favorites with Israel. While the U.S. supports them in many ways we are more of a leash than a crutch.

Ah yes, billions of dollars per year in aid and 36 separate UN security council vetoes to quash resolutions against Israel are a "leash"

(you know, those vetoes which unreasonable states use in order to quash resolutions against their allies).

I have no doubt Israel could cut a 100km buffer zone out of surrounding Arab countries if it wanted, and noone in the arab world can stop them. Merkeva's are damn good tanks and the army is well trained.

Sure, but with such a large amount of "occupied territory" to manage, they'd have even more problems than they do today.

The U.S. only supports them because we always have since the formation of the state and the unwarrented attacks on Israel by surrounding Arab nations ...

The subject of the US/Israel connection is not in violation of our board moratorium on Israel/Palestine arguments, but it's pretty obvious where you're going. Drop it.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-03-23 05:31pm

Darth Wong wrote:Ah yes, billions of dollars per year in aid and 36 separate UN security council vetoes to quash resolutions against Israel are a "leash"

Yeah. That's a darn effective leash. Those billions and all those vetoes have gone a long way toward keeping Israel alive. Without it they'd probably be short on cash and under sanction.

Darth Wong wrote:(you know, those vetoes which unreasonable states use in order to quash resolutions against their allies).

Yup. This is a case where the US should be helping resolve the matter rather than obstructing the solution.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2003-03-23 06:24pm

Durran Korr wrote:I tell you what, being a great biologist doesn't qualify you to comment on world affairs anymore than being a great linguist does.

You lot don't seem to value training in this area given the amount of scorn your ilk spewed on IR students/degree holders, so what background, pray tell, qualifies someone to comment authorititively on world affairs? If training isn't good enough, then what is?

EmperorChrostas the Cruel · Post by **EmperorChrostas the Cruel** » 2003-03-23 06:50pm

Our "lot", doesn't give AUTOMATIC credibility to ANYONE, giving ANY point of view, just because the opinionator is a college graduate.
In fact, the college degree makes you suspect, of having stupid ideas, that the real world would cure you of, if you can come down out of your ivery towers, long enough to get a fucking JOB!

It is a hallmark of the left, too give degreed people automatic credability.

One of the MAJOR differences, the right and the left have, is in fact, the credability of "intelectuals", most of which haven't figuered out what is common kwowledge to the rest of us. (Like the dismal failure of communism, a favoured theory among the idle foolish.)

EmperorChrostas the Cruel · Post by **EmperorChrostas the Cruel** » 2003-03-23 07:11pm

Damn, my fingers are not fast enough!

To the average American, if you have a degree, and DON'T get a "real" job, IE private sector, in a PROFITABLE business, you are considered an over educated fool, and or parasite.
Teachers, don't get much status.
This is a shame, as non professors, as opposed to college teachers, realy work hard.
The exception is in trade/tech schools. Very highly respected.
English and linguistic majors have 2 possible jobs.
Teacher, or professional student.(translator, ok 3!)
Science majors at least have to learn SOME critical thinking, math/reasoning skills.
Poli sci? They end up in public service, economists, or activists!