Solid commentary, this.

That's a very tendentious - not to say dishonest - piece of selective quotation from Martin Amis. What he actually wrote was "The message of September 11 ran as follows: America, it is time you learned how implacably you are hated".

Note - something which should be obvious to anyone familiar with Amis' political writings - he is emphatically not saying that this is a sentiment he agrees with.

That's a very tendentious - not to say dishonest - piece of selective quotation from Martin Amis

How can you be so sure that Amis' interpretation is one of disinterest?
Is he quoting a message he or someone received or is he trying to put words to what he feels is the intended meaning of those acts?
Psychologically one attributes things from a subjective point of view and for example if I hated Britain/England implacably I would tend to describe July 2005 bombings in London in a manner similarly by giving vent how ever so subtly to my inner feelings.
Funny how neither I nor my associates who are neither American nor British associated those acts with implacable hatred but with criminal intent; but then how many times do those political pundits take upon themselves the yoke of biblical prophet and inveigh against "the wicked" with dire outpourings.

The still fuller quote follows:

"Terrorism is political communication by other means. The message of September 11 ran as follows: America, it is time you learned how implacably you are hated."

As David Aaronovitch interpreted it, Amis is suggesting 9/11 "was rational, somehow provoked and subject to the usual rules of politics." This seems a reasonable interpretation of what Amis is suggesting. If so, it doesn't place Amis in the still more exaggerated camp as a post-modern Baudrillard or a radicalized Berthold, but it would place him on the same side of the linear spectrum, if more to the center. (If a simplified, linear spectrun can be allowed here.)

I don't presume to know with any degree of certainty as I view Amis to be oddly ambiguous. I sense, more intuitively, that he desires to view it all from some type of aesthetic enclosure and remove rather than from a political/executive perspective, despite his overt mention of the "political" motive.

As such, this is in fact a subspecies of what Maistrovoy is addressing in viewing the West as having become "hollowed out," indulgent, lacking a certain gravity, unaware of itself at basic moral/political levels.

Martin Amis is considered to be a 'neocon' by most British leftists because of his essays on'"The age of horrorism"

Here's a quote from one part of the 3 part essay, where "one of Britain's most celebrated and original writers analyses - and abhors - the rise of extreme Islamism. In a penetrating and wide-ranging essay he offers a trenchant critique of the grotesque creed and questions the West's faltering response to this eruption of evil."
Palestinian society has channelled a good deal of thought and energy into the solemnisation of suicide-mass murder, a process which begins in kindergarten. Naturally, one would be reluctant to question the cloudless piety of the Palestinian mother who, having raised one suicide-mass murderer, expressed the wish that his younger brother would become a suicide-mass murderer too. But the time has come to cease to respect the quality of her 'rage' - to cease to marvel at the unhingeing rigour of Israeli oppression, and to start to marvel at the power of an entrenched and emulous ideology, and a cult of death. And if oppression is what we're interested in, then we should think of the oppression, not to mention the life-expectancy (and, God, what a life), of the younger brother. There will be much stopping and starting to do. It is painful to stop believing in the purity, and the sanity, of the underdog. It is painful to start believing in a cult of death, and in an enemy that wants its war to last for ever.

Amis is hated by leftist extremists because his views are fairly rational and moderate. Extremists on both sides of the red/blue divide blamed America for the 9/11 attacks.

For Amis to be labeled a "neocon" by the British Left means little. The greater part, certainly a huge quarter of the Left, deploy categorical, demonizing labels and agitprop as if it's the very air they breathe.

Indeed, Amis is no "neocon." He was not only vociferously against the Iraq campaign, he employed some of the same rhetoric as the Left indulged against that campaign - even while also deploring the reign of Saddam and sons Uday and Qusay. As Aaronovitch again put it, emphasis added:

"If Amis is open to any criticism over Iraq, it is that he explores Saddam Hussein's science fiction bloodiness - as he does in the short story In the Palace of the End - without the slightest realistic notion of how it might be brought to a conclusion."

It would be easy to excerpt several Amis quotes that are further suggestive of that type of ambiguity and "aestheticized" remove.

As to "extremists on both sides of the red/blue divide [blaming] America," there were a few fringe elements on the right, but there remains a massive ideological/political impetus on the Left that, from lowbrow to highbrow types and variously motivated, "blames America." Indeed, not only on "the left," but absolutely regnant within the zeitgeist and therein reflective of the success of the Left's long march through the institutions.

Btw, a bit OT (not really though), a link to a youTube documentary/commentary on the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Banna, Qutb, Zawahiri, bin Laden, Saudi financial influence, offshoots such as Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, etc.

I don't wish to quibble over Amis as such, he's a lesser article within Maistrovoy's concern, reflecting but a single example and the mildest one offered. But Amis reflects a subspecies within Maistrovoy's general frameing nonetheless, an aestheticized subspecies that is wont to detach itself from any realism that becomes too demanding, too taxing.

Btw, an afterthought. Recall that Bill Clinton, for example, attempted at one point shortly after 9/11 to "understand" jihadists' motivations by recalling 1099. That type of Carteresque "understanding" is silly and is morally obtuse.

Cf., do any types of sectarian Christians recall the fall of Constantinople in order to justify homicide/suicide attacks or a general "jihadist" or imperial world view? Do any Jews recall the collapse of the second temple, to a paganism, in order to justify imperial conspiracies and a "jihadist" outlook? Do Zoroastrians yearn for a restored Persian empire via homicide/suicide "offerings" and a general imperial/militant view? The questions are silly and answer themselves.

When Clinton recalled 1099, it was patently silly and morally obtuse to do so. When Jimmy Carter I or Jimmy Carter II (Obama) say something similar, or suggest policies that are consonant with those sentiments, it is similarly silly and deluded. That fact doesn't place Clinton in a radical Left frameing in the same sense a Berthold or a Baudrillard are radicalized and deluded, but it places them on the same side, if more moderately, of that spectrum nonetheless.

Those are facts, pivotal facts imo, and need to be evaluated, appreciated as such, weighed in the balance. They have real import in the real world.

As David Aaronovitch interpreted it, Amis is suggesting 9/11 "was rational, somehow provoked and subject to the usual rules of politics."

Can somebody delineate the "usual rules of politics"?
Assuming that these rules permit defining 9/11 as rational due to provocation then may I extrapolate them and say permit a politician the rationale of killing another due to provocation?

a link to a youTube documentary/commentary on the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Banna, Qutb, Zawahiri, bin Laden, Saudi financial influence, offshoots such as Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, etc.

Democrats and Republicans (and most world leaders) have a long-running policy of supporting and legitimizing the Saudis who fund the Muslim Brotherhood and MB franchises like CAIR, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Hamas and al Qaeda.

This long-running policy of allying with terror supporters has had more influence over the exponential growth of sunni terrorism worldwide than Martin Amis, Susan Sontag and Jean Baudrillard combined.

Mary, well, yes, though that serves misdirection rather than much focus and cogency as applied to Maistrovoy's concerns.

The oil, petrodollar and general strategic interests and the realpolitik resulting from those interests are not the concerns being addressed by Maistrovoy, which latter concerns are a major and elemental force in and of itself. Maistrovoy's concerns reflect a different type and quality of force, domestic and internal, within the west, rather issues on the inter-national front. But they are an elemental quality and force in the world, regardless.

Further, at some basic level those oil, petrodollar and strategic interests demand a realism, demand a level of realpolitik, so again, that requires a different type of critique and a different approach to still other concerns.

Further, at some basic level those oil, petrodollar and strategic interests demand a realism, demand a level of realpolitik..

No, they really don't require us to be allied with terrorists and fascists. We just think they do.

To attempt to be more clear, I'm conceiving of two types or degrees of realpolitik: a realpolitik′ and a realpolitik″ wherein the former is conceived as a full-bore realpolitik, a la a Walt/Mearsheimer or, differently, perhaps a Kissinger. By contrast, I was invoking the latter, wherein a more limited, an attenuated realpolitik″ more simply accords a respect for a sober-minded, realistic quality, a certain gravity, a certain comprehension of the real world and the realities "out there" that need to be responsibly faced, while avoiding any mere cynicism or similar forms of presumptive, "cold detachment."

Oil, petrodollars and the general set of strategic and inter-national interests involved in this different, but related subject are not going to go away simply because we want them to. That doesn't mean we should allow ourselves to become entirely amoral either. Nor are such "moral" concerns something other than a type of realistic concern themselves, assuming a responsibly conceived position is staked out.

Oil, petrodollars and the general set of strategic and inter-national interests involved in this different, but related subject are not going to go away simply because we want them to.

We get less than 20% of our oil from Saudi Arabia, and the economies of the Arab oil-producing states combined are weaker than Spain's. While the Muslim world cannot agree on many things, most Muslims agree that they hate the Saudis. Allying with these relatively poor, uniformly hated troglodytes is not helping our standing in the world.

However, our leaders sincerely believe that they must ally with terrorists and fascists in the interests of 'strategic interests'. Terrorism, like piracy in the 16th century, has become an essential tool of statecraft. In the 16th century, nations quietly sponsored 'privateers', who stole from and harassed enemy nations. In those days, one man's privateer with letters of marque was another man's pirate.

Now, nations fight their wars through the indirect manipulation of terrorist proxies. This is a lousy, self destructive and stupid way to fight a war but most people believe that allying with terrorist states is a safer way to threaten enemies than using MAD or nukes.

While the right wing is just as culpable in this stupidity as the left, the left's embrace of dimwitted pacifism (and the general acceptance of pacifist views) is probably to blame for our reliance on these failed strategies.

In the 16th century, they probably thought that the use of pirate proxies was safer than the use of cannons and big fiery ship battles, but in the end, they realized that pirate wars caused more trouble and damage than conventional wars, because pirates were not restricted by any reasonable checks and balances and they had access to advanced weaponry. At this point in time, we may be coming to the same realization.