I'd like to 'reverse' a few things you've said to give a different perspective...
Maybe it's not supported by the "experts." But until you've walked a mile in the shoes of a Soldier, Marine, Airman or a Sailor in harms way because of these jihadists you'll be singing a totally different tune.
You'd be 'singing a totally different tune' about America is if you'd walk a mile in the shoes (or crutches, depending or disability due to injury) of a person affected by American military aggression (Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Libya, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, or Iranians living under the US/UK supported Shah, Iranians [500,000] killed by war with US supported Iraq, Iraqis affected by years of punishing sanctions and bombings, or anyone currently living in places like Uzbekistan under the current US supported dictator
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1484631,00.html] ... and others.
You're saying that it's not an historical evil??? So I'm Osama bin Laden, I can vaporize thousands of people and that's not evil? I'm Saddam Hussein and I can gas thousands of Kurds and that's not evil? I'm an imam preaching to my grade school class that America is the devil and that all good muslims should take arms against them- and that's not evil???
What's your definition of evil then?
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. "Ahistorical evil" means evil that comes out of nowhere - rootless, context-free evil with no cause. It has no history.
If you want to be relative about vaporizing people, while Osama can and has vaporized thousands, America is the country with the largest (by far) nuclear arsenal of which thousands of warheads are ready to be launched within minutes of an order with the effect of vaporizing many many millions of people. think about that... if George Bush decided to, many millions of people would be dead within hours. America is also the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against a civilian population.
At the time Saddam gassed the Kurds the US had nothing against it, and provided the chemical components in the first place for the war against Iran. Not a single politician in the US has ever had the courage to say anything about a decade of support for Saddam and apologize to the Iraqi people, or at least acknowledge it and admit the mistake.
Regarding the Imam... do you think that comments made by leading Israeli politicians about the 'destruction' (mass murder) of Palestinians and Iranians warrants US military intervention?
If Israel is able to advocate pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran because of a perceived threat, why is it not justified for Iran to think the same when faced with Israel's existing nuclear arsenal?
And isn't the US government currently on a huge campaign to recruit people to carry out and support their military missions by portraying Iraqis, Arabs, Muslims, etc. as threats that warrant the suppression of international law, human rights, civil rights and due process? Isn't the US dehumanizing Iraqis, not even acknowledging the extensive and methodologically impressive studies of civilian deaths? Isn't the US dehumanizing Iraqis by calling them "jihadists" and "terrorists" when in fact they are resistance forces? Terrorist organizations certainly have no monopoly on propaganda.
And you're absolutely right...it's almost impossible to make informed and effective policy against these jihadists. They cannot be reasoned with as they will listen to no reason. Jihadists want their "reward" as they martyr themselves.
I did not say it is impossible. I absolutely think it is possible to make informed and effective policy, but I think the way in which terrorism has been framed by the US prevents that from happening because the US wishes to absolve itself of its own responsibility for terrorism. It does not want to change its foreign policy, withdraw military bases, withdraw support for Israel, stop its invasions and occupations of Middle Eastern countries, alter its place in global capitalism. Have you read Bin Laden's statements, for example? They are quite clear and unambiguous in its grievances and they have nothing to do with "freedom". When terrorism and intelligence experts do their research, they're not just theorizing in their university offices - they are interviewing terrorists and collecting data and this data clearly shows that terrorism is caused by ideological, material and political (surprisingly, seldom religious) grievances. In fact, many "Muslim" terrorists do not identify as religious at all (see research on Hizballah, for example - out of 28 suicide bombers studied, only a small number were fundamentalist Muslims. 3 were actually Christian). This is why terrorism experts are important; soldiers using daisy cutters on perceived terrorists don't really know why terrorists are doing what they're doing; their investment in how terrorism works and why terrorists do what they do is completely removed from history. They are not there to understand the causes of resistance which is a long, complex history that most Americans, including most in the military, don't know the first thing about. They are there to suppress it and a certainly mentality is certainly needed to do that, one that is not compatible with the kind of perspective someone like Pape has of the issue.
It's also absurd to lump in everyone opposing the American military as "jihadists" when a large majority of the insurgency in Iraq is made up of Iraqis fighting what they see as a hostile force which occupies their country.
Ever heard of Kamikazee pilots during World War II? They'd get work themselves into a frenzy before they boarded their planes. When the US invaded Okinawa the Japanese civilians would throw themselves over cliffs to avoid capture- because they were TAUGHT that the americans would eat their children and do other horrible things to them.
This is one of the aspects of the psychology of war. Look at historical war bond posters. The only problem with this particular fight is that there's no way to contain all those who preach these atrocities and inhumanities as gospel. These teachings are being taught in Montreal, in Edmonton, in Vancouver, in New York, in Europe, in Indonesia, in Pakistan, and that's less than a percent of where these teachings are occurring. How do you orchestrate effective policy against a multi-national and intra national threat?
American soldiers in Vietnam were also worked in to a 'frenzy' when dealing with people who were completely dehumanized to them. Troops working themselves into a frenzy and dehumanizing the enemy is a routine part of war, including for Americans. There are countless videos of American troops doing exactly this in the US, videos captured by the troops themselves, by journalists and filmmakers. There is an ever-increasing number of troops testifying to their own participation in human rights violations and objecting to the tactics used in Iraq, testimony they give at their volition in public spaces to voice their disagreement with the occupation.
The preaching of radical religious views is not the threat. The threat emanates from people affected by American military action, almost always taken for economic interest (i.e. Supporting Saddam was in the economic interests of the US in the context of the Middle East in the 1980s). The solution is to stop creating generations of people who have strong reasons to resent the US, such as their countries destroyed, their democratically elected governments overthrown (Latin America, Shah in Iran, etc). The reason people who preach against America have power is because they vocalize the grievances that *already exist* on a mass scale. And these grievances aren't unique to ME countries, these are criticisms of the US and the West that also comes out of Western journalists, Western academics, human rights organizations, the UN. No one has to make up stories about American killing children because America really is killing children. America really is significantly interfering in the lives of people in devastating and everyday ways. The problem isn't that people are preaching, the problem is that much of what they're saying is actually based in truth and that's an atrocity America needs to change.
How do people in Middle Eastern countries orchestrate effectively against destruction by the US?