G & H? No, not Gieves & Hawkes, bespoke tailors, but “grievance and humiliation”. That is, the view of the Left is that Islamist terrorism is caused by various grievances – such as the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, Israel’s “occupation” of “Palestinian lands”, and so forth. The occupations in turn lead to humiliation and these fuel terrorism. If we, the west, and especially the US, get out of Muslim lands, hand the Palestinians a state of their own, the causes -- grievance and humiliation -- and therefore the occurrences of terrorism will abate.
The Right’s “Great Satan thesis”, on the other hand is this: that Islam has a basic beef with the west, with its freedoms, with its democracy, with the whole concept of man making laws because only Allah should make laws and Allah's laws should cover every aspect of our lives -- there should be no such thing as separation of church (or mosque) and State. We, the west, and especially the “Great Satan”, the US, are the infidels, the unbelievers, the kuffars, and must be fought wherever we are regardless of specific grievances or humiliations -- because that is what is laid down in the Koran and in the Hadith, the sayings of the "prophet".
The G & H brigade appears to believe that G & H is all it is. That is, if the grievances and humiliations are resolved, then all will be resolved. In other words, the Left believes that resolution of G & H is not only necessary, it is also sufficient. Resolving G&H will resolve Islamist terrorism.
(Of course this view ignores these points: (a) that there are plenty of other peoples, of other creeds, who have grievances and suffer humiliations who do not resort to suicide murder on a savagely regular basis and (b) that the 911 attacks happened while the US, the west, was in withdrawal from Muslim lands, indeed was virtually nowhere in Muslim lands).
The “Great Satan thesis” believers, on the other hand, seem to accept that theirs is not the only motivating factor. That is, that Islamists not only hate the west for what it is – the land of kuffars who must be fought in all time and in all places – but also that G & H are contributing factors. That is, they believe that G&H are necessary to ameliorate, but NOT sufficient to ameliorate Islamiist terrorism.
The G & H view would have us inter alia leave Iraq and Afghanistan, for these are key G & H factors.
The Great Satan thesists believe that even if we leave Iraq and Islamists will still hate us for who we are and we shall have given away something for nothing.
Still, it’s worth considering: if G & H is indeed a factor – and that would appear to be unarguable – then if we reduce it, if we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, would terrorism reduce, and would that be worthwhile, given that – if we believe the Great Satan thesis – there would still be the desire to fight the west and that it may even by strengthened by a withdrawal?
There’s not enough evidence either way, in my view. Not enough evidence to say that with reduction of G & H there would be reduction in terrorism, or if there would be emboldened Islamists to take strength from withdrawals and thus intensify our battle with expansionist Islamism. And that makes the Obama formula – cue gritted teeth – a reasonable bet. That is: increase the numbers of troops with a surge, clear areas to pass over to local forces, and get out.
Money saved in supporting troops could go to increased special forces activity and increased intelligence activity. I cannot believe that we cannot find Muslim apostates who would be able to penetrate Islamists’ forces and make us aware of impending 911’s.
Meantime, the Islamists agenda continues through non-violent means. That is, the agenda of installing Shariah law in the west, via various means covert and overt, continues and that is also where governments should put resources: just giving attention would do for a start.
References:
The Humiliation thesis:
