You’re getting a bit off track here since this is a debate about terrorism, and not a debate about war. Yes, they both involve the slaughter of children, but I would like to focus on the terrorism side of things. You’re free to start your own debate entitled, “Do we need a zero-tolerance policy on war?”
But to bring your example into the context of this debate, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an incredibly difficult decision that Truman didn’t exactly take lightly. But more importantly, do you see the way the first bomb didn’t even accomplish its goal? They blew up Hiroshima and the Japanese kept fighting. For all they knew, the result might have been the same after Nagasaki. I’m of the mind that the acts were justified when considering the scale of the war, and the potential for future loss of life. But just how many cities would that justification cover? If the Japanese didn’t surrender, would you then advocate going through the list of Japanese cities alphabetically? And also notice that the US blew up Japanese cities, while at war with Japan. They didn’t blow up a couple of resorts that Japanese people visit. And they didn’t blow up the city of a country aligned with Japan. In this case, at least the bombing was relevant.
A second aspect to consider was Truman’s mood after the bombing. Was he proud? Did he celebrate? Does the US have an annual celebration of the sacking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
The final aspect of this is how to apply your example to a modern day scenario. What I mean by this is that we justified the use of two nuclear bombs to end WWII, could we apply those principles now? Would the US be justified in bombing Mecca to end terrorism? After the fact, would we say, “Its horrible the US killed all those innocent people and destroyed the most holy of Islamic sites; HOWEVER, al Qaida brought it on themselves, they had the opportunity to stop, and the US did it to save future innocent people from the constant threat of terrorism.”
Would that be a sane, or an insane plan? Rational, or irrational?
Well, you didn’t say it, but I infer from your answer that Truman was, indeed, sane and rational, despite his blowing up thousands of civilians. So the simple act of killing civilians can’t automatically make someone insane or irrational, can it?
Ah ha! But aren’t we engaged in a War ON Terror ™?
Really, isn’t terrorism (though, when we’re talking in country in Iraq, it’s more like guerilla warfare) just an asymetrical method of fighting a war? At least from the POV of the people doing the bombing? It’s not like they can carpet bomb us or roll through with tanks. How is it any different than if we destroy a power plant in an effort to reduce the enemy’s ability to make war?
If the only answer is ‘well, we’re the good guys,’ you should just quit. Because I assure you, they think they are the good guys too.
Now you’re trying to equate terrorism with guerilla warfare, and I believe apply some sort of cultural relativism. The answer is no, terrorism is not an asymetrical method of fighting a war. It involves targetting civilians, with the sole purpose of killing civilians, and instilling fear within the civilian population. To act as if “civilians die” means all things are equal, we could end up calling medical testing terrorism because sometimes people die. Nice try though.
Al Qaida could have chosen to wage guerilla war on the US (such as flying a plane into the Pentagon), they could have even chosen civil disobedience (such as Greenpeace). Instead they chose to target civilians, something that most of us have agreed is not allowed in war. If, on the other hand, Al Qaida’s plan had been to say, “We’ll destroy US power production and distribution until the US can no longer wage war on Islamic countries,” we would be into an entirely different debate.
There’s no question they think they’re the good guys, and frankly I don’t care. What’s important here is how they percieve their actions, and how we percieve those same actions. We see ourselves as good, but at the same time we recognize that targetting civilians is wrong. They see themselves as good, but see targetting civilians as acceptable.
“Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.”
– Sun Tzu–
That was true in conventional battles in the 6th century BCE as it is in this unconventional war. You label the enemy a bunch of insane monsters that just need to be exterminated you will have a really tricky situation on your hands.
You overlook what will generate more recruits for their cause. Either there are a large amount of mentally ill folk in that region or there is something else going on that needs to be understood and dealt with.
Terrorism is horrible, it comes across as irrational because it targets innocent people who have nothing to do with the cause these people feel they have. But the people engaged in the terrorism still have a reason to use it. They will not set up large armies in the desert to fight because they can not win that way. Guerrilla actions still require money arms and large numbers. Globally they can not do this. They fight in the only way they can against larger more powerful countires.
Are they justified in doing that? No. The killing of inncoents is wrong and immoral. Should we then ignore why they choose to do so or simply label them as cowards afraid of a stand up fight? Again No. How can you win if you don’t know why they fight?
Maybe if we spent more time looking at the hows and whys of their organization instead of playing whack a mole with jackhammers we can stangle off their recruitment and eventually make them finally fade away. England’s techniques are more police work than military action and I believe that will have more of a positive effect in the long run than invading a country would.
Besides how exactly does a zero policy work? What does it mean? I’m sure right now the Western Governments are allowing some terrorism to happen. SO what are you actually proposing
You guys keep quoting Sun Tzu as if I’m advocating a Zero Inteligence policy. I have never meant to suggest that we label them all crazy and then sit back and wait. What I am suggesting (and I’ll say this again later in this post) is that we be a little more choosy in how we label them. There seems to be an agreement amungst all of you that labeling them as insane will bring us certain doom. That’s good, that’s a first step, you all get a cookie. Blind labels, and wrong labels, and niave labels will cause us to lose. That as always been my premise, and I have never meant to suggest we simply label them insane.
The insane part of this debate popped up when I first used the analogy of rape, and the all too common trend of justifing, or applying qualifiers, to rapest: “He shouldn’t have raped that 8 year old; but did you see what she was wearing?” By applying the label of “he did it because of her clothes,” we ignored all of the underlying causes of rape and child molestation. When we were able to recognize that there may be more to the situation, psycologists were able to study rapests and gain a better insight–know thy enemy, and then label them correctly. All I am asking for is proper labelling, and more specifically labelling that does not suggest we tolerate terrorism.
YES, there are more things that need to be understood and dealt with! Its not just US foreign policy, or US troops on Islamic land, or that the US sides with the Jews, or what ever other bullshit reason people use to make themselves feel good.
Here is where I disagree with your assessment. Having a “reason” doesn’t make it rational. Neither does having a plan or discipline as others have suggested. My point in applying terms like insane or irrational is that when a group or a person decides to blow up a school, they have to rationalize in their own minds and/or to their followers. If our own media reports other school bombings in a neutral tone, it makes their rationalization all the more simple. If, on the other hand, we can condemn these actions unequivicably, their job is just slightly harder.
Exactly, know why they fight, and label it appropriately. But please at least recognize that hatred, ignorance, and a lust to kill play a significant role. US foreign policy is then their justification, their way of rationalizing it in their head. And as a backup, Islamic terrorists look to their Koran for inspiration, and use their Imams to back them up. Catholic and Protestant terrorists follow the same path. As did the Crusaders of the 11th century.
Yes, exactly, look at the real hows and whys.
Okay, I have never once suggested that this Zero Tolerance (I wish I used a better term) implies that we currently let terrorists go free. This has nothing to do with law enforcement, military, or the judicial process. Please, for anyone else that may read this, please, this is not at all what I ever suggested, not once, ever.
Zero tolerance (damn I wish I had used a better term) means that we condemn the targetting of civilians–full stop. That we stop adding buts and howevers at the end of ever statement. The Palestine/Israel conflict was the worst case for this, where after every single attack on both sides there was always a condemnation, and then a justification. “The Palestinian Authority condemns these recent bombing of a nightclub; however, the Zionists shouldn’t have stolen our land.” OR “The Isralis shouldn’t bulldoze the houses of suicide bombers; however, the Palestinian people should stop supporting the bombers and their families.” Every time there is an attack, we speak out of both sides of our mouths, and to me that suggests tolerance, which I’m asking for an end to.
I don’t see how we can repudiate terrorist actions more than we do. But I do think you have to acknowledge that some of us can have 2 parallel, but independent, discussions without one taking anything from the other.
Terrorists are bad. They are horrible people, quite often unstable, and, whatever their goals, they have chosen the wrong way to fight for them. Innocent people should not be targets. Terrorists should be tracked down and subject to the full force of law. Where peaceful apprehension is impossible, we understand that killing these terrorists is necessary.
These terrorists did not spring fully formed from Osama’s head. Like it or not, we have armed them with a lot of hate for westerners, and in some cases, armed them with real weapons. Much of their justification for civilian attacks is our seeming assault on their civilians through the projection of our power- militarily, economically, and culturally. Our foreign policy has been abysmal in that area of the world, and now, we’re reaping what we’ve sown. We should do something different if we don’t want to see this continue. That means a drastic change in our foreign policy- both long term, and in the prosecution of this ‘war.’
See how easy that is? Why do you think statement 2 takes away from statement 1?
Well here is teh problem as I see it. Aside from the wrong choice of words (Zero Tollerance) I think you are misunderstanding what is actually going on.
From Day One the US Governement’s line has been approximately “These are mere Killers who hate freedom and attacked because they want the west to become like them.”
While it makes for good propaganda and an easy way to look at the conflict it gives no way to find a solution to the problem. If they are merely freedom hating killers we can never find a way to stop them except killing every last one of them.
Or so we would be lead to think. It is actually a lazy way of looking at the problem. It resolves nothing and in the end actually radicalizes people on the fringes and eventually shifts moderate people into the radical camp.
You seem to think that if we listen to their justifications somehow that will weaken us. I’m not sure why. You may think their rationalization is a line of Bullshit but I think you are just trying to simplify a very complex situation.
That solves nothing.
I don’t think anyone is saying that it is only US policies that are to blame. What they are saying is the West must take some of the blame for the conditions that lead to radicals gaining so much influence.
You can’t go meddling in the affairs of countires through colonization (the early part of the 20th century) and then creating and assisting states that change the status quo and not accept some responsibility for that.
Simply condemning the killing and saying nothing else will not bring this conflict to any closer resolution.
The reason we have quoted Sun Tzu is that he is talking about this very thing.
We have to understand their mind set. Most of these people actually believe they are fighting crusaders, or to remove troops from the holy land or are against the US support of Isreal. Sure perhaps their leadership is full of shit but that doesn’t mean these folks don’t believe it. It doesn’t invalidate their grievences.
Before you assume that I agree with them, I do not. I do however try understand why they think they are right doing this. That is a completely different thing. The only way to win is for the West to do just that and then use that as a weapon against the terrorist groups. I do not advocate conceding to demands but rather find a way to look understanding to the people and address these things grievences
All right, then what do you think the proper label is? What are the terrorists’ real motivations, if it’s not insanity and it’s not anger at Western actions (including US foreign policy)? What label would you apply that (1) isn’t absurdly simplistic and (2) wouldn’t suggest in your mind that we tolerate terrorism?
Do you think it’s ever appropriate to say things like “the Zionists shouldn’t have stolen our land” or “the Palestinian people should stop supporting the bombers and their families”? If so, it seems like your problem is just that people don’t wait long enough between condemning violence and discussing its causes and ways to undermine them. No “moment of silence” in between, if you will. How long do you think they should wait?