Reflections: Leaps of logic By Hani Shukrallah The conspiracy theory is doing the rounds already: the Mossad's done it, or the CIA. It might even have been the two -- acting in cahoots. The thinking may be more convoluted than usual this time around, but it is no less popular for all that. There is a peculiar logic at work here, since the proponents of this and similar conspiracy theories (the 9/11 incarnation being the most widely-known) are invariably the very same people who will point out vehemently that "what goes around comes around". They will go to great lengths to show, quite rightly, how US and Israeli violence and brutality bear the brunt of responsibility for all and any counter-violence. But they will go even further to deride those among us who would condemn such instances of "counter-violence" as being insensitive to the enormous suffering of our own people, even as we allegedly toady up to the West by expressing abhorrence for attacks on civilians, kidnappings and video-taped butchery. One would have thought that the one line of thinking cancels out the other. Either the act of violence in question was the cynical and villainous work of insidious intelligence bodies (� la Reichstag Fire), which would make it doubly repugnant. Or, it is the partially -- or wholly -- justified reaction to a much greater and much more terrible violence, which, presumably, gives it some legitimacy. Yet, the same persons seem to have patently little trouble suggesting both arguments at once. There is logic, of a kind, in the apparent incoherence, however. For in both arguments, "we" stand blameless -- saved the onerous, distressing task of critically examining structures of thought and ways of being that are prevalent among "us". More significantly, perhaps, such thinking helps us to avoid stumbling on the potentially frightful realisation that there is no "us", in any real, ideological or political sense; that a shared cultural, national or religious identity by no means makes Arabs and Muslims an undifferentiated mass, a monolith with a single body and one mind. Not surprisingly, this preposterous notion of a distinct Arab/Muslim "mind" is in great vogue on the other side of the "civilisational faultline" -- where, in fact, its origins are deeply rooted. Once again, we may expect a host of American, Israeli and other "Western experts" will soon be pontificating on the Arab mind's propensity to conspiracy theories. This is no more than half-baked Orientalist rubbish; the kind of racist nonsense that in today's world is permissible only where Arabs and Muslims are concerned. It is no less racist for the fact that some Arab "intellectuals" have zealously undertaken the role of "witnesses for the Crown" -- providing elaborate testimony as to the inherently backward and irrational characteristics of the minds of the rest of us. But first let us consider yet another significant thread in the conspiracy theory tapestry. This has to do with the classic ' whodunnit' question: who stands to benefit? But, here again, there is a rather peculiar logic at work. If anyone had any doubts at the time, it is now glaringly evident that George W Bush and his neo-con cabal jumped at the 9/11 atrocity as a "golden opportunity" to pursue their "New American Century" strategy, both at home and abroad. And as the current presidential campaign has demonstrated overwhelmingly, not only are the Republicans' prospects of another term in the White House almost wholly dependent on milking 9/11 for all its worth, but also, and more dangerously, the neo-cons have had astounding success in setting the terms of the American debate, possibly for a long time to come. However consistent Kerry's criticism of the war on Iraq may or may not be, it is amply evident that the neo-con "war on terror" agenda of fear at home and "preemptive" aggression abroad dogs the Democratic mindset no less than it does the Republican during the current stage of US politics. Such recognition of the "benefits" derived by the neo-cons, in particular, and by those driving for militarised US global hegemony in general, from 9/11 and the hobgoblin of "Islamic terror" is by no means sufficient reason to conclude that it was the neo-cons themselves that have " done " 9/11. For that you need concrete evidence, not mere speculation, as even Hercule Poirot would tell you. (Pearl Harbor provided Franklin D. Roosevelt with a "golden opportunity" to renege on his electoral promise to stay out of WWII, but there is very little doubt, I would think, that it was in fact the Japanese that conducted the attack -- even if they were goaded into doing so by Roosevelt, as some US historians suggest.) In fact, the much more obvious (logical) conclusion to be drawn from such recognition is that the strategy and tactics openly adopted by our marauding Jihadists, whether they are affiliated with Al-Qaeda or not, does great service to the enemy. Reason enough, one would think, to denounce it on political/strategic rather than just on moral grounds. But to acknowledge that such acts of violence render great service to imperial and Israeli designs -- to the point of accusing the beneficiaries of having committed the acts themselves -- while at the same time expressing various degrees of sympathy for these acts is to fly in the face of the most basic rules of logic and coherent thinking. Which brings us to the blame debate -- a most ridiculous debate if ever there was one. Since 9/11 Western pundits have not tired of hectoring Arabs and Muslims to stop blaming the West and Israel for the rampant ailments of their "failed" societies, and to start looking critically at themselves. Arab neo-liberals have taken up the call with typical zeal. The Taba bombings, no less than 9/11, suicide bombings in Israel, the butchery in Iraq, and so forth, are all to be attributed, not to American and Israeli invasions, occupations, violence and brutality; not to indiscriminate bombings, assassinations, torture and horrible humiliations; but to the Arab/ Muslim rejection of modernity. On the other side of the barricade, these facts of American/Israeli violence and oppression are offered as justifications of acts of counter-violence, however morally horrifying and politically damaging. Ad nauseam, the refrain is repeated: "why is our blood so much cheaper than 'their's'?" For all its overwhelming preponderance, this is a debate over nonsense. Social and political phenomena are explainable. This is a fundamental tenet of rationalism, be it of Western or Moetazalite roots. But to identify causal connections between particular events or phenomena implies very little, if anything at all, in terms of justification, whether on moral, legal or political grounds. If the relentless, tedious debate testifies to anything, it is to the failure of both the Western and the Arab/Muslim "minds". It so happens that the Taba bombings are directly and most profoundly connected to the ongoing butchery in Palestine and Iraq at Israeli and American hands. It also so happens that, brutal, horrifying and morally repugnant, last week's bombings -- which took the lives of scores of civilians, including at least ten Egyptian youths, mostly of working class origins -- contribute nothing at all to the cause of Palestinian, Iraqi or Arab liberation, and a lot to the perpetuation of their oppression.
