Crusoe: Maybe retalitation won’t stop skyjackers like those involved in the Sept. 11 atrocity, but it will dissuade many other terrorists. Remember, some terrorists, like McVeigh (until yesterday, this homegrown product was the worst terrorist in U.S. history) and IRA members, are not hellbent on losing their lives. I am concerned about reducing domestic as well as imported terrorism.
While our allies may admire us for our good qualities, I think many neutral and enemy nations only respect our might.
True. I have my doubts that retaliation will dissuade any terrorists (again, I don’t think terrorism and a rational evaluation of the consequences go hand in hand) but it may deter other nations from supporting, covertly or overtly, terrorist groups. I do not support the idea of punitive strikes without evidence, though.
I’m not sure that might earns respect, only fear (and hate).
I don’t think that even nuking entire continents to total evaporation will dissuade these terrorists. They are allegedly in a holy war, and this action yesterday demonstrates that there is no sacrifice, no heinous action they won’t do for the cause of disrupting our way of life. The stakes are high, I say, even higher than that against the Nazis. The strikes the US makes, and they will make them, has not only be decisive, it has to be total.
My opinion is that retaliation wouldn’t affect much the situation if they are limited to the parties which actually bear the responsability for the terrorist attack.
The only way out for the western countries would be to be able to stand on a solid moral ground. Which is absolutely not the case currently. If you discuss any issue related to the involvments of the US in the middle east with someone from this area who has some politic interest, any argument involving a situation when US action was morally defendable is countered by a one meter long list of cases when they were clearly only pursuing their own interests at the expense of the local people. And actually, looking at the recent history of this region, they are right.
The situation is such that any ennemy of the US is likely to be considered, just for this reason, as a hero by a lot of people. Saddam Hussein is a perfect example of this. Try to say that Saddam has invaded another country, and you’ll be answered :
-They attacked him only because he has the cojones to stand against the US
-They attacked him only because there was money (oil) involved.
-Why are they allied with the Saudians, then? Aren’t they worse than Saddam? And what about Israel? Aren’t they occupying also the land of other people and killing them?
-Children are dying each day due to the embargo, or by collateral dammages of the bombings which still take place on a regular basis. How can they do that? How do they dare to criticize us when they don’t mind to let people dying?
And much more other arguments along the same line…It’s unfortunately extremely easy to prove that western countries have no firm moral ground to stand on in the middle east.
Even if the western countries suddenly decided to act in a morally defendable and benevolent way, a long time would be needed for the past wrongs to be forgotten. And anyway, I’m affraid it won’t happen any time soon. Because countries are essentially egoist in nature. A slight benefit for one’s country (financial, strategic, whatever) will in most case be prefered even if it involves a major wrong-doing towards another country. The fact that quite all middle east countries are dictatorships is unfortunately more a pretext than a cause when western foreign policy is involved. There’s no way one can seriously pretend at the same time that Iran is an evil ennemy while Saudi Arabia are good and friends.
Coming to the original question : I think that a retaliation on people who are actually responsibles for what happened in NY will be understood by many people. At least, it won’t worsen the situation. But say, carpet bombing some country out of desire for revenge certainly will. Nobody in the middle east will accept the idea that the death of more innocent civilians will make it for the american deaths. And rightly so.
In my opinion, the US should certainly retaliate. But they should be careful and discriminating doing so. And they should rethink their whole foreign policy in the middle east if they want to achieve any long-term result.
And finally, extremist muslims won’t dissapear over the night. They’re firmly installed. Terrorism won’t cease tomorrow, whatever the US could do. But at least it could lose, on the long run, part of its popular support.
oh! And I would like to add something which seems to appear unclear to a lot of people. Muslim extremists aren’t running around saying : “our muslim countries are great examples, long live to our dictators”. They are saying to people : “our goverments are f***** off, corrupted, rotten. Help us replace them with real muslim governments, and there will be no more unjustice, poverty, etc…” . They are fighting as much against their own governments than against the western values and countries, and actually probably much more. They are convincing people who feel desperate and helpless because they offer them hope.
So,saying “Muslim countries are all dictatorships” or something to this effect is no argument against a hardcore muslim. He will agree with you. But not because they are muslims countries. Because, in his view, they aren’t. Because they are led by corrupt leaders who accepted corrupted western values.
I have been wrestling with the question of what would be an appropriate retaliation, and have concluded that a massive military operation will achieve no positive results, and would probably do more to further the goals of world terrorism than to suppress it. But we cannot sit by and do nothing, and appear impotent against these terrorists; that could only serve to encourage new atrocities. So, what to do? I think we should examine the reasons that the terrorists give for hating America, and then redouble those activities. According to The U.S. State Department, as cited in this ABC News report, the stated goals of Osama bin Laden are as follows:
[ul][]Driving U.S. forces from the Arabian Peninsula.[]Removing the Saudi ruling family from power.[]Liberating Palestine.[]Overthrowing what he calls corrupt, Western-oriented governments in predominantly Muslim countries.[/ul]I believe that the terrorist agenda is much like that of Bre’r Rabbit and the briar patch; provoke your enemies to do the very thing that will further your goals. If we invade Afaghanistan, or mount punitive military operations within any Muslim country, we will alienate Arab sensibilites, and bin Laden wins. If we can hold our natural desire for retribution and revenge in check, we can construct a response which will do much more to discourage terrorism that indescriminate bombings of civilians. To this end, I think we must become much more engaged in the Middle East, especially in those areas in which the terrorists want to diminish our influence. To whit:[ul][]Strengthen our ties to Saudi Arabia by playing to their own fears of bin Laden; if it can happen in New York, it can happen in Riyadh. Increase our military presence on the Saudi Peninsula.[]Redouble our efforts in the Israeli/Palestinian peace process; constructive engagement with both sides is the only way to maintain our influence in this conflict. If we abandon either side, we will lose.Use this abominable act to strengthen ties with all the nations in the region. Most Muslim nations, even those who oppose us, have condemned this act; we have an opportunity to do exactly what bin Laden wants to destroy.[/ul] We must not take actions which may make us feel strong in the short run, but play into the hands of the terrorists in the long run. Those that are advocating massive military retaliation are being manipulated by bin Laden; we must not let him win. If it were possible to selectively eliminate those responsible for this atrocity, I would say go for it; but that simply isn’t possible. Instead, we must take the long view. and demonstrate that terrorism cannot be used to achieve political goals. This is the only way it will be eradicated.
56 years ago, America and her allies won a war against Germany and Japan, a war bloodier than this one is likely to be. Yet today Germany and Japan are America’s bosom friends. Germany, indeed, has promised us full military support in retaliating against the terrorists, and Japan might have too if her constitution did not forbid military action outside her immediate borders. Our former enemies are now our friends even though, in the effort to topple and punish the governments that attacked us, we killed many innocent people and even used nuclear weapons against Japan.
These nations are now our friends because, after our victory, we were kind and magnanimous to the people, helped rebuild the infrastructure that had been destroyed by war, and made it stronger than before. We gave them working democratic institutions. Then we got the hell out and let them run their own affairs.
If it comes to a war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, or whatever country may harbor the terrorists and refuse to give them up, we should prosecute the war relentlessly until the government behind the terrorist actions is destroyed, and see that no one involved in the terrorist action escapes punishment. But afterward, we should extend our hands and make Afghanistan, Sudan, or Iraq the garden spot of their respective continents, help them rebuild, and try to leave behind a friend and ally where there was a terrorist nation before.
No, it is not guaranteed to work, but it has worked before, and both our country and our former enemies are the better for it.
I like the last post, as I came looking for a thread of this type to write something similar to Danimal’s post.
In summary I wanted to say: In the 1930’s it seemed like most Japanese were in favor of a militaristic Empire of Japan and that they would react to violence with more violence, but by 1945 the beliefs of most Japanese had changed to where they wanted to stop the cycle of violence, even though they had taken the last punch.
There are people out there who who advocate Terror against the US and other Western nations because of those nations support for the State of Israel. What kinds of things would need to happen for the collective beliefs of those people to change; to change in a way that they would stop reacting to retaliatory violence against them by increasing their suicidal fanaticism?
I’ve got a few thoughts.
The first is that for extremists, there is probably nothing that could affect this. So I think there will have to be a process of separation (geographically) of people that support the right of anyone (specifically Israelis/Jews) to ** purchase ** land from willing Palestinian sellers for their Homeland, from people who would deny this right. (Here is a summary of my beliefs about Israel; believe me I will be doing reading to educate myself more fully: In early 20-th century, zionists were trying to form a homeland in just this way, and were attacked by Palestinian Arabs who did not want them “moving into the neighborhood”).
An easy way to get this geographic separation is to let the people that are interested in peace and would like to separate themselves from their more fanatic neighbors, to let them move away and begin new lives under a different social system: To let them emigrate from Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and immigrate to wherever they want, including the US.
This seems to be completely against the mounting ideas of closing borders, and restricting (everyone’s) rights, but consider this: If you son has the opportunity to get into John’s Hopkins Medical School, do you think you would be a little more concerned about him becoming a suicide bomber than if his only other alternative was a day laborer in Israel?
Taking Afghanistan as an example, an invasion would not harm everyone in the country, nor neceesarily be a net harm. You could allow the people that wanted to live in a fundamentalist Muslim state to go and form one. You allow the people that do not want to, and who would respect the rights of other people to move away or stay in some secular part of the country as they wish.
You try and resolve disputed claims of land ownership in what is now Israel. For most of the Palestinians there, I imagine their biggest asset is not claim to land, but the potential labor in their bodies and their human capital, which if they were allowed to use anywhere, by immigrating freely, would lead to a more peaceful world
I really don’t see where we have a choice. We must punish whoever planned, executed, supported, etc. these heinous acts. I agree that civilians should not be targeted, but neither should they be exempted, if the terrorist factions are hiding among them. I know it sounds callous , but the terrorists targeted civilians for their purposes, so they should be prepared for whatever it takes to achieve our goals. If we didn’t fight back, the schoolyard bully would constantly be picking on us, and our friends would lose respect for us. I also believe, that in addition to destroying their military infrastructure, we need to target businesses, roads, bridges, media stations, etc. If the civilian population is inconvenienced enough, maybe they’ll prevail upon their (new) leadership to play nicely in the sandbox next time.