Wretchard reports an interesting take on what the war on terror really might be, as seen from Lee Harris' Tech Central column:
In a blood feud, every member of the enemy tribe is a perfectly valid target for revenge. What is important is that some of their guys must be killed -- not necessarily anyone of any standing in their community. Just kill someone on the other side, and you have done what the logic of the blood feud commands you to do.
In the blood feud there is no concept of decisive victory because there is no desire to end the blood feud. Rather the blood feud functions as a permanent "ethical" institution -- it is the way of life for those who participate in it; it is how they keep score and how they maintain their own rights and privileges. You don't feud to win, you feud to keep your enemy from winning -- and that is why the anthropologist of the Bedouin feud, Emrys Peters, has written the disturbing words: The feud is eternal.
A scary thought; but I disagree with the idea that "you don't feud to win". You don't feud to lose, either - and if we make it clear that anyone who wishes to "feud" with the United States (or the "Western Alliance") will wind up on the short end of the stick in short order, well, maybe there will be less of those who wish to pick one with us. A clash of civilizations, indeed, when our enemies realize that we do not play the feud games by the rules.
I like the concept, however, and one might say that the Isreali-Palestinian conflict has turned into a blood feud as well, with a tit-for-tat that is about to span generations. No one really wants justice for the Palestinians (except ironically the Isrealis, perhaps), or else the Saudis/Egyptians/Syrians would have taken them in long ago. Yassar Arafat understood the rules and played them well; he always pulled back from a deal at the last possible moment, denying his people numerous opportunities to live in peace, because to him the feud was eternal.
Does this bode ill for the Isreali abandonment of Gaza? Will the militants continue to fight, because the slaughters, the blood feud, is the means and the end?
Can there then ever be a true peace in the Middle East? Jordan seems to have been able to achieve one with Isreal; is that because they are the most Westernized? Is then Bush's plan to democratize the Middle East the only way for the concept of the feud to die?
Keep backing the President; for he know that which he does....
Link to Wretchard's Belmont Club post here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/07/two-points-of-view.html
No comments:
Post a Comment