The Real Battle in Iraq

There was a short article buried in today's NYT —3 Insurgent Groups Warn Iraqis Against Voting—which I thought deserved more prominence.

Everyday you hear about the violent attempts to disrupt things in Iraq but there's precious little regarding the core reasons behind it. The tacit implication seems to be they're justified because we've invaded their land, but there's clearly more ominous rationale behind it:

"The militant group Ansar al-Sunna and two other insurgent groups issued a statement warning that democracy was un-Islamic. 'Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit,' the statement said. 'This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God - Muslims' doctrine.'"

I'm no longer convinced that aggression is the way to combat these forces, but I am convinced that you have to address the core issues head on if there's going to be any progress in the Middle East. I'm continually dissappointed that there doesn't seem to be much real discourse on the philosophical disconnect highlighted by the above comments.

Unfortunately, these are not merely the sentiments of a few isolated radicals. I recall reading a NYT Magazine article on the philosophy of Qutb, the intellectual 'father' of Osama Bin Laden. Qutb's problem with the west was our dis-integration of spirituality and public life. Ironically, I agree that this is a problem, though I obviously disagree with both his definition of spirituality and his means of achieving the integration.

You don't have true love, true worship, true honoring of God without free will, without choice. In this sense any religion can only achieve its highest expression when practised within a pluralistic, free, democratic society. Perhaps the best way to combat terror inspired by the beliefs above is to demonstrate to the world that spirituality integrated with one's entire life can exist and even fluorish in a democratic country.