War and Peace

And now for the longest post ever.

A while back and on a variety of occasions I have discussed or heard discussed amongst family and friends the War on Terror and the problem of Islam. I have since come to the conclusion that most people don't know what the hell they're talking about. Being the enlightened and noble individual that I am I took it upon myself to construct a quick primer of the state of Islam and politics in the Islamic world for everyone's edification. This was all before I started residency, however, and as time ran short and I grew increasingly long winded the project got a bit out of control. Instead of being a few pages it grew into 9 or 10. So now, for those with the endurance, the fruits of my effort. Feel free to read, snooze, scoff, and let me know how I, too, don't know what the hell I'm talking about.


We’ve been fighting this War on Terror now for the better part of a decade. We’ve devoted billions of dollars, thousands of lives, countless hours, and unknown opportunity costs to combat what is essentially, for the most part, a war against militant Islam. Unfortunately, despite these investments few people have more than an introductory understanding of who this enemy is, and, equally unfortunately, for a great number of people this understanding is not a basic but budding knowledge of the threat, but rather a skewed caricature of an entire world of people. For what it’s worth then I’ve decided to momentarily pause my normally scheduled monotonous stories about things people don’t much care about to offer instead a hopefully broader and more complete view of the Muslim religion as seen in its people. At least to the extent that I can. I write this not because of any great affection for Islam – I care for the average Egyptians and Syrians as much as I care for any other foreign stranger which is admittedly not much – but because if we are to win a war so poorly defined we had better at least be able to clearly define our enemy.

Islam in the Middle East – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Iran, for the most part they’re all the same. Arabic synonyms for crazy. To hell with them all, literally. While to an extent such sentiments may be understandable, to not go beyond them is to do a disservice to those who we send abroad to wage our wars for us. Although we are not currently at war with any of the Middle Eastern factions, save our conflict in Iraq, we support a wide variety of actors who do and, depending on how things go, that fact may only be temporarily true. So are all the parties the same? No, of course not. Few would truly make such a claim, but few would also be able to explain why. The reality is these groups vary in many significant ways, and more in just the way they wish to send Israel back into the sea. This is seen most readily by the fact that it was only a few decades ago that, at varying times, both Syria and Jordan have gone to war with the PLO and its militias, and most recently the Palestinians have been at war with themselves. So to start let’s begin with the governmental players.

Syria: Nominally a republic, the country has been ruled essentially as an autocratic state complete with a powerful secret police for some time. It is, however, a secular republic, and as such has at times felt no compunction with aiding Christian militias in Lebanon or bashing Muslim heads in its own country. Truly, though, like most states in the Middle East the ruling family uses religion as an occasional tool for political manipulation more than anything else. It has been charged with and likely continues to support various terrorist groups throughout the region including Hezbollah and a wide number of Palestinian liberation bodies. Although Syria has accepted numerous refugees from Iraq, it is no great friend of the current government and its poorly policed border is allegedly a significant gateway for foreign combatants to enter the country. Early on in the second Iraq war claims were made that Iraqi WMDs and high ranking political figures were hiding in Syria, but this has never been substantiated and many fugitives allegedly in Syria were subsequently caught inside Iraq.

Lebanon: Currently a nation in relative turmoil as the Western leaning, democratically elected government continues to battle the rising power of Hezbollah. It was for many years dominated by its neighbor Syria as a result of its intervention in the destructive Lebanese civil war during the ‘70s and ‘80s, but they were kicked out only a few years ago after the allegedly Syrian supported assassination of a former Lebanese primer minister. The current muddle is further complicated by the demographics of the nation as it has substantial Christian and minority Islamic populations as well as a significant portion of its population with a fairly secular, Westernized world view. Due to this continuing confusion and as a result of the long years of war and occupation by Syria, the Lebanese military is not very well developed, and, despite a UN force in the region, the south of Lebanon is effectively controlled by Hezbollah.

Egypt: One more nation on the extensive list of Arabic republics who’s actual governance tends to stray from republicanism. Political parties are technically allowed and elections technically take place, but President Mubarak is into his fifth term and most votes are far from free and fair. Also like other Arabic semi-autocrats, Mubarak makes an issue of Islam often only when it is politically expedient, and his continued poor rule fuels resentment which is frequently channeled into fundamentalist Islamic bodies that provide social services that the state otherwise fails to offer. One such group is the Muslim Brotherhood which has won ever larger portions of the legislature in recent elections -- though it is still a minority -- despite its repression by the government. In the grand scheme of things Egypt has played a relatively moderate hand with Israel and was the first Arabic state to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Palestine: Currently under divided rule with Fatah, the long standing lead party of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in control of the West Bank, and Hamas, the most recent electoral victors, in control of the Gaza strip. Because of Hamas’s long history of violence towards Israel and its continued stance that Israel has not even the right to exist, its mini-state is in under nearly complete blockade by the Israelis and the Israeli government has continued to refuse to transfer taxes collected on the PA’s behalf. Despite the focus on the religious nature of many of the actors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many players have had significant competing nationalist ideologies in addition to their spiritual belief with their patriotism frequently taking dominance over their religious zeal. The Al-Aqsa’s Martyr Brigades is one such example, and next to Hamas and Hezbollah this Fatah associated militant group is a major competing terrorist organization. Due to the long standing nature of the conflict and the continued dominance of the Israeli government in many Palestinian controlled areas a sizeable portion of the Palestinian population does not even live in Palestine but instead inside a number of refugee camps in neighboring states. Fatah, though historically a fairly corrupt organization, has moderated significantly under the current leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, also known an Abu Mazen, and is currently receives significant Western and Israeli support.

Israel: Although not frequently advertised, Israel has a significant Arab and therefore Muslim population of its own. For the most part living in peace as citizens of the Israeli state, their support of its actions and policies is weak. Most importantly, though the Jewish community continues to grow in Israel, it is not doing so as fast as the Israeli Arab community.

Saudi Arabia: Unlike much of the Arab world, Saudi Arabia makes no pretenses about the autocratic nature of its rule, and also unlike a good portion of the Arabic world Saudi Arabia’s Muslim population is fairly homogenous embracing a particularly belligerent form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. Although these facts can be exaggerated at times, the fact of the matter remains that in the end when all things are considered Saudi Arabia is a net exporter of terrorism both in terms of financial resources and foreign fighters. There are hints of liberalization here and there and elections have taken place at very minor levels, but the house of Saud is likely to remain in power and through the same means for a very long time.

The Mini-States: The Middle East also has a collection of other statelets situated all along the periphery of the Arabian Peninsula. These include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, UAE, and Oman. While grouping them altogether does them something of a disservice as they are rather diverse, they are important not for these reasons but because of their wealth (with maybe Yemen being the poor exception.) This wealth gives them an influence far disproportionate to their size or population, and like with so many rapidly growing, autocratic states, growth has become the new ideology. Nationalism and religious fundamentalism have their adherents for sure, and the vast majority of the Muslim population in these countries are undoubtedly pious by most standards, but the essential fact remains that, for many of the Gulf states economics is the first priority. In this sense, some Muslims worship a wide variety of gods.

Hezbollah: The Party of God. A little bit Palestinian guerrilla movement, a little bit Iranian terrorist puppet, a little bit Lebanese political party, and a little bit religious charity organization. Hezbollah is a multi-faceted, multi-faced organization whose variety of talents has allowed it to adapt and expand remarkably well in the oft changing world of Middle Eastern politics. Although for a long time it was only one of many players in the region, it has risen to an esteemed position after Israel’s ill fated war against it in Lebanon only a short while ago. Having survived the power of the Israeli war machine while the whole time lobbing crudely made rockets into Israel-proper, Hezbollah has made itself into something more than simply another terrorist organization. Violence aside, the group has been active in Lebanese politics and has provided critical social services for many years. All that aside, the paramilitary group is unique also in its tactics. For one, although it has used suicide bombings in the past, such attacks are not a staple in its arsenal. Its use of rockets, though poorly guided, kidnappings and attacks on Israeli military positions on the other hand strongly support its claim that it is not a terrorist body but instead a paramilitary organization that should be respected as a resistance force. Moreover, though Hezbollah professes an ideology crafted at least in part by the Iranian ayatollahs, its aims are generally much less radical and more limited than what is practiced in Iran. For all these reasons, and its success in its use of violence, Hezbollah had widespread support in the Middle East and is, in many ways, almost a state unto itself.

Islam in Iran – The rest of the Middle East is nice, but Iran is where the money is. Syria and Palestine, for all their efforts, have never made it into the Axis of Evil. They will always be second tier to the nuclear ambitions and extensive terror network of the Iranians. The place even has a nefarious sounding spiritual leader, the Ayatollah. If that doesn’t sound sci-fi bad guy enough, well, perhaps Ahmajinedad would do it for you? That’s at least incomprehensibly foreign.

The truth is Iran has been and is doing a whole mess of bad stuff, and there is legitimate reason to combat and, to an extent, fear its activities. The truth is also, on the other hand, that Iran is a great deal more than the sum of its villains, and it’s important to appreciate this fact. While the country is a supporter of terrorist organizations in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere -- and indeed part of its very own Revolutionary Guard, the Qods, is technically classified now as a terrorist organization itself -- Iran has also supported our war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and currently supports the war on drugs as executed in Afghanistan. Although many of its people, predominately Shiite in a Sunni dominated religion, are quite willing to support their faith through violence, many of its people are similarly led by irredentist yearnings for a return of the glorious Persian empire. Additionally, in many of its larger cities such as Tehran, the capital, there are significant bodies of fairly well educated, modern, and secular leaning Iranian citizens as well. In the mid 1990’s with the change in rule from Ayatollah Khomeini to Ayatollah Khamenei there was even brief hope for the democratic liberalization of the state under the reforms of then President Mohammad Khatami. This obviously was not successful, but nevertheless it had the support of a significant percentage of the population and indicated to both the leadership in Iran and the rest of the world that the Iranian people are not a homogeneous, theocratic mass.

Iran offers an excellent and under appreciated example of the compartmentalization of religious thought. Islamic fundamentalism requires a willful suspension of disbelief, but it would be foolish to then assume that this same unreasoning behavior is applied to all aspects of a zealot’s life. By and large it is not, and instead such faith is but one irrational belief held by an otherwise rational actor. Now as with so many things craziness often begets craziness, but treating all adherents of such faiths as being beyond the bounds of reason is unfounded. Iran’s foreign policy is powered as much by nationalism and realist politics as it is a hunger for the expansion of revolutionary Islam. The same country that champions a violent, anti-intellectual brand of religion is also the state with the fastest growing rate of publications in scientific journals in the world. The same country that seeks to export Islamic theocracy only a short while ago supported Orthodox Christian Armenia over Shia Islamic Azerbaijan in their conflict together. And the same country that seems to be now resolutely set on developing atomic weapons and flexing its muscle in the region was only a short time ago, under the leadership of organizations in the United States and the reformist government of Khatami, open to negotiating a resolution to not only the nuclear issue but the wider issues of terrorism and regional stability as well. Because of all this although negotiations may in the end turn out to be fruitless and a compromised peace may be impossible, to assume this from the get go would be to do a disservice to those who would directly fight the ensuing war and all the generations that would have to deal with its repercussions. The Iranians are zealous, but they are not crazy. In the end we may have no choice but to resort to violent conflict, but to jump forward to such a conclusion without expending every reasonable resource otherwise would be both unthinkably ignorant and unforgivingly foolish.

Islam in Africa – After establishing a solid foothold in the Middle East Islam quickly spread both east and southwest. In the latter it quickly replaced various Christian and pagan sects deeply entrenching itself in the states of North Africa helping to create a region that is distinctly different from the rest of Africa at large. It is here where Al Qaeda based itself for a number of years, it is here where some of the worst, most abhorrent violence has been committed in the name of religion in the modern era, and it is here where militant Islam is, in some states at least, expanding its domain.

Algeria: In the grand scheme of things and in the small scheme of things Algeria is insignificant. Like many other African states it has never had much in the way of a stable, impartial government nor has it has it ever had much in the way of a sizable economy outside of its modest oil reserves. What is has had, however, and may be experiencing a renaissance in is Islamic extremism. Shortly after independence from France, fundamentalist Muslims in the country began clamoring for power along with their fellow nationalist, socialist, and autocratic compatriots. Although they initially had little success in time they gained prominence through the development of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), an organized political party, and later through the Islamic Salvation Army and Armed Islamic Group (AIG). It is with this rise that Algeria can serve as an interesting historical teaching point as had full democratization taken place as was scheduled in the early 1990s the Islamic Salvation Front would have come into power having won a significant majority of the first round elections. As many of its leaders openly advocated a return to sharia based system of rule the military intervened before the second round of elections could take place thus sparking the civil war which would crush the FIS and AIG only after the beheading of thousands of Algerian security personnel and civilians at the hands of the latter. During this time the military committed its own share of war crimes and so, despite its eventual victory, violence still occasionally flares and anger still occasionally lingers. A small splinter faction of AIG has reorganized under the Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.

Sudan: Long before the Sudanese government was smashing the heads of various African groups in the Western Sudan (Darfur) it was smashing the heads of various African groups in the Southern Sudan. And long before it became a dictatorial state focused primarily on survival, it was a dictatorial state focused on the expansion of fundamentalist Islam. Today the government continues to exist only through the wiles of its rulers and the strength of its limited oil exports, but its public patronage continues to remain primarily Arabic Muslims around Khartoum and the northern half of the country. It is this group of peoples who have traditionally held power in the Sudan, and who continue to support the state’s repressive behavior against minority populations elsewhere in the country. Although its pan-Islamic torch bearing credentials do include briefly housing Osama bin Laden and allowing for the development of Al-Qaeda training camps, to cast the Muslim population of Sudan in this light would not be entirely appropriate. Islam in Sudan serves primarily to darken already drawn racial and ethnic dividing lines. The country is at odds with itself, and violently so, between the aforementioned Arabic Muslims in the north and the Christian and Animist Africans in the south and west. As the nation is increasingly torn apart and resources become ever fewer, these populations have had to compete more and more fueling the cycling violence. With this in mind, Islam has become less a call for jihad and more simply one more ethnic characteristic to distinguish the haves from the have-nots.

Somalia: Like the rest of North Africa, most Somalis have always been Sunni Muslim -- in fact Somalia is one of the most homogeneous predominately Muslim nations in the world currently. It has only within the last decade, however, that the faith has begun to be militarized. Like in Chechnya, Islam existed in the Horn of Africa for centuries as a religious practice primarily and a political movement rarely if ever. Power was centered mainly along family and clan lines, and allegiance was not to religion but to these. This state of affairs continued mostly unchanged till collapse of the state in the early 1990s with the political vacuum that resulted thereafter. With the country torn apart by warlords, the UN supported transitional government impotent to affect change, and no hope for greater than a decade many Somalis began to look for a new savior in radical Islam. They found this in the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which promised security through a harsh justice based on sharia. With religious judges leading the movement Somalia was on its way to a kritocracy before Ethiopia intervened on the transitional government’s behalf. The end result is more conflict, more disorder, and a population increasingly divided and desperate for order. Like in so many states fundamentalist Islam has risen not necessarily because of its perceived superiority to all other forms of government, but rather because it is superior to chaos and uncertainty.

Islam in South Asia – The story of Islam in South Asia is much like the story of Islam worldwide but on a grander scale. With Chechen terrorist groups in Russia seizing elementary schools and opera houses, entire regions of Pakistan untamable, and Muslims populations in the hundreds of millions much of what can be said about the faith in North Africa and the Middle East can be said here but with greater intensity. Most the region’s believers are too poor or indifferent to care to offer themselves as martyrs for the fundamentalist cause, but nevertheless the passion and fervor of those who do mean that the oft-neglected Far East may be just as important as the Middle East in the ongoing War on Terror. As the oil fields present in the region are developed and the nuclear capacities of some of its states grow, this will only be more true on into the future.

India: There are approximately 1.5 billion adherents to the Muslim faith worldwide by some estimates. Over 130 million of them live in India making it the world’s third largest Muslim nation losing its second place status only recently to Pakistan. It has an Islamic population roughly equal to the entire populations, Muslim and otherwise, of Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined, but despite this few know anything about India’s faithful. Part of this relative anonymity stems from the simple fact that there is no civil war in India. There are essentially no separatist groups, the struggle in Kashmir is mostly a Pakistani import and most Kashmiris wish for either complete independence from both states or to remain within India; there are no active Islamic terrorist groups in India, the recent attacks led by the upstart Indian Mujahideen being an exception; and communal violence is relatively rare for a state as large and diverse as the state of India, this in spite of a violent divide and multiple wars both past and recent against its Islamic neighbor Pakistan. Islam is by no means progressive, liberal, or enlightened in India, but nevertheless it has been remarkably peaceful in recent years.

Pakistan: After being routed in the cities and mountains of Afghanistan the Taliban dissolved into its rural towns and scattered caves, and then into neighboring Pakistan. In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North-West Frontier Province they found like minded neighbors, many of them their fellow ethnic Pashtuns, willing to provide shelter and support. Those who were less agreeable were assassinated in the now typical style of most militant Islamic groups throughout the world. Pakistan as a nation has for year struggled to come to grips with itself as a nation and it has in many ways been waging a smoldering civil war between its various populations and competing theological brands of Islam. In this sense the conflict with the Taliban is but one more manifestation of a larger, longer problem. Along the border various tribal groups sharing many religious, racial, and cultural similarities with the retreating Taliban long supported the mujahideen who came to fight the Soviets, then other Afghanis, and now American and NATO forces. Their allegiance is primarily to their tribes and kind, being fiercely independent, but then also to their brothers in arms the Taliban. This all in spite of the efforts both militarily and otherwise by the national government.

On another level further away from the rural border radical Islam has found root in non-Pashtun but sympathetic Pakistanis throughout the country. Political, military, and economic support is extensive and the Taliban has even reorganized itself in a variety of smaller suborganizations and political parties. Even in the government, formerly headed by the nominal US ally Pervez Musharraf, sympathizers provide intelligence and arms especially in the quasi-independent national spy network the Inter-Services Intelligence whose sometime rogue agents and generals often do as much to undermine the state’s stated intentions as support them.

Despite this extensive support, however, militant Islam continues to remain a minority belief as the tribal groups favor independence over a caliphate, majority of Taliban support continues to come primarily from the Pashtun minority suggesting political Islam will remain fused with the Pashtun nationalist movement, and even in recent elections the major radical Islamic party coalition, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), rarely obtains more than ten percent of the vote.

Chechnya: Our self-proclaimed but oft-doubted ally in the War on Terror, Russia, has worked for over a decade to crush the insurgencies in the Caucasus. Insurgencies, it claims, are inspired and motivated by the radical ideologies of Al Qaeda and its leaders. This, by and large, is now true, but it was not always so. For centuries Islam in Chechnya and much of the surrounding region was certainly part of the people’s identity, but it never provided it. People were pious, but generally speaking not zealous. When they rose up against Russian rule during the fall of the Soviet Union they did so primarily as angry, oppressed Chechens, not angry, divinely driven mujahideen. The USSR under Stalin and to a lesser extent later Soviet leaders brutalized the Chechen population and the end result was simmering anger and animosity. It was these restrained emotions which led to the first civil war which yielded Chechnya its de facto independence from the Russian state. As the Chechen people were by and large not prepared to fight a war against such odds, during this period, they needed and relied upon the assistance of foreign fighters and Panislamic groups elsewhere. Like in Iraq, however, much of the native population soon regretted this decision as the Wahhabi extremists dominated and later co-opted the conflict for their wider goals of jihad in the former Soviet Union. With a significant degree of freedom secured and tensions stable, the now primarily Muslim fundamentalist leadership led the struggle into neighboring Dagestan which invited a powerful wave of Russian response. The second time around Chechnya was not so lucky and the region is once again under Russian rule. Violence still simmers but unlike in the first few years of the conflict in the early 1990s, it now occasionally erupts elsewhere in Russia in the form of large scale bombings and mass hostage taking. The conflict in Chechnya is now less a secessionist movement and now more a terrorist driven push to remove Russian influence and establish a “Caucasus Emirate” throughout the region. Islam in Chechnya is radicalizing, and we have both the global terror network and the Russian state to thank.

Islam in East Asia – Whether it be the relatively short history of the faith in the region, the fact that it is overwhelming dominant in few states, or simply because East Asians just don’t seem to make the best religious fanatics, for whatever reason Islam in East Asia, where present, in many ways lacks the heart that it possess in much else the world. Jihad simply is not as catchy despite the fact that the area holds 15 – 20% of the world’s Muslim population.

Indonesia: Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation, and yet it is not part of any axis of evil, not part of any state sponsor of terror list, does not significantly export mujahideen, nor is it even a theocratic state. It is far from Westernized but also far from radicalized and is great evidence that there can be a middle way. The world’s Muslim faithful need not be either for us or against us. They can simply be boring, indifferent citizens concerned more about their daily lives than advancing the cause of either global jihad or American national security. Indonesia like just about every nation with a significant Islamic population has some groups that have mobilized politically and militarily along religious lines -- in Indonesia’s case the most powerful would be Jemaah Islamiyah which seeks to establish an al Qaeda style emirate in Southeast Asia mostly by bombing tourist hangouts -- but we should not fail to realize that these groups are often loathed as much by their fellow country men as they are by any democracy loving, freedom seeking Westerner actually aware of their existence.

Philippines: Fundamentalist thuggery at its greatest. If you want to see religious zeal transformed into little more than violent, criminal warlordism turn to the Philippines. The country is vastly Roman Catholic thanks to centuries of Spanish colonization, but pockets of Muslim predominance remain scattered throughout the island chain. These Muslim majority regions are also for a variety of reasons some of the poorer areas in the Philippines leading to an unorganized uprising of a large number of small, militant religious organizations seeking independence. The most famous of these is the Abu Sayyaf: a terrorist band consisting of a couple hundred well armed, well equipped militia and criminals whose major contribution to jihad has primarily been the kidnapping of foreigners for ransom. Although they have thin ties to al Qaeda, ideology aside their primary concern has long been the economic survival of their ransom and extortion business.

Islam in the West – Much of the present conflict is often presented in “clash of civilizations” terms where some combination of the secular or Christian West is pitted against the reactionary Muslim East. It makes for some great television viewing. It frequently, however, ignores the ways in which the two are melding. Muslim populations in the United States and Europe are increasing. In the former they are often assimilated and have obtained living standards on par with the rest of their new found society. In the latter, on the other hand, they are often politely ignored or passively oppressed leading to their continued sheltering away from society and living standards below that of the average citizen. Switching sides completely, liberal democracy and the respect for political and civil rights have made some inroads into the traditionally Muslim world. Turkey, though certainly in need of further reform, has modernized and liberalized in a way that makes it difficult to imagine that less than one hundred years ago it was still the Ottoman Empire.

Europe: There are terrorists in Europe, but there are no European terrorists. Although much of Europe has seen its share of violent attacks over the last decade it has not been by any organizations seeking to enshrine sharia law or resurrect a caliphate in places where Islam once held sway, but rather by groups and individuals seeking to punish or pressure their respective governments to behave differently elsewhere. To cease their support in the war on terror, to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, to stop printing caricatures of Mohammed in the newspaper. These acts are often perpetrated by individuals with no allegiance to the involved state and receive no identity from its culture. They come from communities that have lived in isolation, unassimilated into their host populations. Arriving separate, living separate, and feeling separate many members of Europe’s substantial Muslim immigrant population turn to what they bring with them, their family, friends, and mosque for support and sometimes this includes radical ideologies. The population boom began with an influx of migrant laborers after World War II and has accelerated as Europe’s own population contracts with negative growth rates. Europe’s terrorism problem is in many ways a civics problem and as long as liberal Europe continues to be synonymous with white Europe the problem will likely only grow.

United States: A handful million citizens of the United States subscribe to the Islamic faith. Like most countries and America in particular they are a diverse lot. Recent studies and opinion polls, however, indicate that on average most American Muslims are middle class, fairly well educated, and only recently immigrated. Perhaps alarmingly a sizeable portion, about 47%, claimed they considered themselves Muslims first and American’s second according to a 2007 survey. Additionally, amongst the younger parts of the population up to 15% supported the idea of suicide bombings against civilian targets in the defense of Islam in some circumstances. These worrisome statements noted, it should also be known that roughly an equal number of Christians in the United States say the same thing concerning their priority of faith over state, and when the same poll was posed to Americans in general (with references to suicide bombing and Islam removed and the statement more general) an even greater percentage of Americans, young and old, felt the bombing of civilians was at least sometimes justifiable. There very well may be sleeper cells in our midst, but when phone surveys and sociological studies are presented by pundits in the media to suggest evidence for a subversive fifth column of dastardly Muslim Americans amongst us it is best to keep in mind the clunky nature of such studies.

Turkey: A secular state by its constitution, part of NATO, seeking to be part of the EU, and almost 99% Muslim, Turkey exists in many ways as the next step in what the West wishes the East to be. Both democracy and Islam are alive and well often, perhaps surprisingly, serving to reinforce one another. The Justice and Development Party, Turkey’s main religiously based political party (though unofficially so), has grown stronger as the threat of a direct coup by the secular military wanes, but it is also the Justice and Development Party which is currently one of Turkey’s biggest champions for joining the EU helping to push forward many important reforms which have helped control long standing inflation in the country. Claims are often made that Turks are not “real” Muslims as they tend not to be as conspicuous in their faith as many of their neighbors, but nevertheless polls have consistently shown that most Turks believe religion to be “very important” to their lives.

The End? – In summary, closing, and conclusion: it’s complicated. The war on extremist Islam, more formally known as the War on Terrorism, covers dozens of countries, deals with different ethnic groups, languages, histories, and cultures, and is involves a multitude of actors with wildly varying motivations. Nationalism, racism, politics, tribalism, economics, survivalism, and petty hatred all have as much influence if not more in differing parts of the world. To lump them all together in order to fashion a convenient sound bite or trite war doctrine is foolish and dangerous. In complex cases we must resist the urge to muscle through dismissing some facts here and arbitrarily grouping other unrelated facts there in an attempt to quickly establish order. All of Islam is not our enemy. All of Islam need not be our enemy. Despite their unifying religion, varying creeds and differing cultures, politics, and histories make all the parties to the conflict worthy of their own nuanced approach. A little bit of tedium in the short term to correctly identify threats and recognize potential allies is what will carry this war. When things get murky it will be essential that we fight smarter and not just harder.


Ok. End diatribe. And now for something a little more peaceful. Finally, here are Rachel's photos of our trip to Greece some five months ago.

Greeeece

Just in case general consensus was that I had no yet discussed Greece enough, I'm on it.

So as we left off we were on an island. Well we left that island and immediately went to another island, this one by the name of Santorini -- which, for some reason, always makes the Sublime song "Santeria" come up in my head. Literally. Every time. I think it's pathologic.

Anyway to Santorini.

Santorini: A ring of volcanic islands in the Mediterranean complete with small, white villas perched atop treacherous cliffs and a central, steaming volcano composed of nothing but igneous rock and tropical umbrellas. Here we met up with a variety of other UTHSCSA travelers, and successfully crashed Adam and Jen's honeymoon (which I would do again later on by myself). We did more of the standard tourist things including boarding an "old-fashioned" boat to take to us to the volcano, a couple of visits to other islands, towns, and beaches, dancing at the local discos, and a swim in a natural hot springs which, despite their name, had no ability to actually warm anything. The views were continuously amazing, and especially so at night where the patchy strands of city lights separated by hundreds of feet of black cliffs from the dimly reflecting ocean surface below made it seem as if you were walking amongst a city in the sky.

The beauty of the island aside, curiously enough the singularly most memorable event was a conversation I had with a slightly older Greek woman I encountered when we were attempting to find our friends in another group that had come out later (Neeti, Shailee, Ruchie, Neha, Sandra, Annie, Anne). After thoroughly searching the entire grounds of the hotel listed on the their itinerary I heard a clanging noise coming from the locked up main office building. I knocked on the door and said, "hello!" A few seconds later, the door unlocks, and out pops a woman fresh from the shower and in a towel to inform me that she would be out to talk with me in a few minutes. Thinking she could perhaps tell us where our friends had run off to or if they had even arrived yet I agree to the rendezvous and waited outside. She returned and our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello, have some American girls arrived?
Woman: American girls?
Me: Yes, some American girls arrived today?
Woman: You want a room today?
Me: No. I am looking for some friends. Like six Indian girls, an Asian girl, and some white ones.
Woman: Your friends need a room? How long?
Me: They're staying here for a few days. Did they arrive today? About eight American girls.
Woman: We don't have room today, but we do tomorrow. Would you like to stay tomorrow?
Me: Did some girls arrive today? From the airport? About ten of 'em?
Woman: You want a room?
Me: No.
Woman: You and your friends need a room we can give you room.
Me: Yes, we'll think about it. Thank you. Goodbye.

The actual conversation was about three times as long, but with a couple more, "do you want a room?" thrown in.

Crete: After Santorini I joined the long lost group (the Indian girls + Sandra, + Ann(i)e), and we took a fast boat over to Crete where we missed a bus, got on another bus, got in a taxi, and then finally arrived at our hotel in Chania somewhere around midnight. The hotel clerks, very friendly people, graciously waited up for us and then kindly served us an early breakfast treat of raki which, like ouzo, is a Greek hard liquor. Unlike ouzo, however, it tastes only like alcohol. Finger nail polish remover actually, but the Greeks never tired in giving it to us for free. In Crete we went to a gorge. The largest gorge in Europe allegedly, but after seeing it I feel the title of simply "gorge" is appropriate enough. We left Crete via night ferry, shared in some drama, and arrived into Athens our final destination the next morning.

Athens: we saw the Acropolis. Despite droves of people and large quantity of scaffolding it was a pretty amazing place. I was not aware of the number of structures which make up the hill top complex, and all along the way are a variety of other ancient Greek structures that wrap around the mound upon which the Parthenon itself is perched. I can only imagine how spectacular the experience must be alone and without all the signs of current reconstruction efforts. Aside from Meteora, Athens and Santorini made the trip. We spent a few days in Athens total, but the rest of our activities were fairly unexceptional and I've grown tired of listing them. One final advisory, though, the Acropolis, due to the high volume of traffic its stone walkways receive, is quite a slippery place. The race between Anne and I for the most falls was a close one, but, style points aside, I think I won.

As a minor finale, the best food in Greece: Mousaka. I keep calling it the "Greek lasagna" and some day someone will agree with me.

As a grand finale, I offer you Paul's pictures. Thanks to heavy investments in technology it can be said that his photos are, for the most part, entirely better than mine. Enjoy.

Greeece

Aside from not riding mopeds, I did other things in Greece as well. Specifically, I went places. And these are some of those places:

Houston - Not only did I make the mistake of deciding to take public transportation to the airport, I made the mistake of doing it in Houston. The price for this error was about three hours of commuting, abrasions on my feet where my new sandals were not in agreement with my anatomy, and my arrival into the check-in area just as the KLM personnel were pulling up the ropes. That and the standard layer of sweat and grime that seems to perpetually cling to the humid air in Houston. Ro was gracious enough to let me stay at her place so that I could attempt this foolish endeavor, and I am grateful for her kindness. Especially when she kindly let me steal her Obi Wan Ginobli shirt which, it turns out, has no actual power to make the Spurs play better.

Amsterdam - I was here long enough only to hear my name paged overhead as my flight threatened to leave without me. Thank you Dutch customs.

Thessaloníki - The regional capital of Macedonia and the graffiti capital of the world. Here we all collectively, save Megan I guess, learned that Greeks, though generally friendly people, are terrible at giving directions. I am pretty sure Paul, Rachel, and Liz would have had to camp out in Liz's giant green suitcase had we not found them. Once settled we saw some sites, played some Uno, and, later, caught a train. Despite the locals' recommendation of Applebee's for a good restaurant, we had our first Greek dinner at a popular tourist trap after being advised by what may have been a prostitute.

Meteora - We arrived at night, wandered a bit, and then conveniently found the only French place in town where, despite the limited English spoken by the owner and the limited French spoken by us, we stayed for a night and were comforted by the French iconography and pictures of Charles de Gaulle. That was actually in a small town called Kalambaka. Meteora itself, a collection of towering stone spires and medieval Greek Orthodox monasteries, has no hotels and is an amazing and unique little enclave nestled in the middle-of-nowhere Greece. We taxied up and visited a few, but the real adventure began when we took one of the mapped out "hiking trails." In reality, however, these were less "hiking trails" and more "suggested places for a good hiking trail." The path started out accessible and clearly demarcated enough, but it quickly gave way to a difficult to penetrate collection of holly, silkworms, and loose rock. Never ones to back down we continued on towards our goal, a fourth monastery, only to completely bypass it and have Liz somehow lose her glasses along the way. A dapper looking Greek monk or goat now undoubtedly has a nice pair of light green lady shades. We departed the next day via bus as the trains were not working thanks to some May Day strikes. Where's some Pinkertons when you need 'em?

Athens Part 1 - Not much to say. We had some gyros, Megan had a crepe, Liz replaced her glasses -- I am pretty sure Liz and I saw an 80 year old transvestite -- and we went on the ferry. After I ran to four or five different ferry ticket queues stupidly looking for our tickets at the wrong place that is, but I've said too much.

Paros - Our first island. Lots of little towns spread out over a fairly large, relative to the rest of the Cyclades, island. Here I learned to drive like a Greek though I cannot say I quite ever learned to park like one. Here we also learned that we had arrived far too early in the season to actually enjoy anything in Greece. Megan couldn't find her kayaks, Liz's butterfly reserve was closed, and the mine/cave on Antiparos was inaccessible. Thankfully there was ouzo; unfortunately it tasted only partly like licorice and mostly like alcohol. As a result of the limited options we spent a lot of time at the grocery store, examining the cheeses. Actually that was the girls' thing; I couldn't decide on how much coke to buy. (Friendly coke, not coke coke.) It was also here that we learned that for Megan the louder you shake the plastic Yahtzee cup the better. I did not miss never playing that game again. We eventually left Paros again by ferry but this time without the ticket issues.

That's the first half of the trip in brief. Or, alternatively, "What I did in a Foreign Country for Nine Days in Two Hundred Words or Less."

Greece

Greece was fun. It was also sad. I will now dwell on the sad parts.

Or rather the sad part. There was only one really for me at least. (Or I guess two, but let's continue on with one.) And that was May 8th, 2008, in Santorini. The saddest day of the year. After weeks of waiting the opportunity finally arose to cast off the compact car, dismissively scoff at the public bus, and briefly rest our weary feet by renting ourselves some mopeds. No matter that some in our group did not wish to do so, that there was no real "need" for mopeds, or even that there was no "good reason" to rent some. To hell with some people! Screw having reasons for doing things! We're riding mopeds!

Or so that was the plan. It turned out, however, that not only does Greece require some sort of special Greek moped license, but even if you can find a less reputable dealer willing to overlook such requirements, they still require that you know how to ride one. What the heck? What's with all these regulations Greece? Why you gotta be like that? At least that's what I would have said had I not instead tried to bluff my way through the process. In the end while I can give short, evasive answers with the best of 'em, once seated upon a moped I do not know what to do. Seems there are a lot more switches, buttons, and levers than I imagined. I kind of always thought it would just be a bike with an engine, but apparently it's a bike with an engine and a sixteen button minimum. After staring confusedly at both the bike and the dealer for a good five minutes while repeatedly assuring him I knew what I was doing, I resigned myself to my fate, he removed the keys, and I got off.

The dealer also repeatedly offered up an ATV as an alternative throughout our protracted struggle, but I wanted nothing to do with such silliness. ATVs!? Seriously! I left Greece feeling strongly about a great many of things, but the strongest of which I felt concerned tourists and four-wheelers. Who's going to take anyone seriously who rides around town on a big, slow, lumbering vehicle designed, in just about every way, for off-road travel. My patients would not respect me were word to get out. I would not respect myself. The site of a troupe of four-wheelers inching along the side of a farm road thinking that by somehow driving mostly on the edge of the road it would allow other vehicles to easily pass is a site I saw all too often and that I will likely not soon forget. Look! Now I've almost talked more about ATVs than mopeds! Ridiculous!

So Paul and Rachel zoomed off merrily on their moped, and I slinked away to an Internet cafe where I sulked for a good hour before I found other things to do. The end.

On a not sad note, here're my photos. No captions yet. Try and guess what everything is.

Paul and Rachel having the happiest time of their lives.

What the heck does moped even mean? Motarized pedestrian? Myeh.