On the other hand, I have never proposed that Israel not “fight.”
However, as long as any loon with a bomb can get the two sides to stop talking, both sides are letting the worst elements set the terms. To the extent that Northern Ireland is marginally more peaceful now than ten years ago, it is the result of committed people continuing to talk even when the fringe on the other side resorted to violence. The same is true (to a lesser extent) in Spain with the Basque independence movment.
There will always be some jerk ready to commit violence in order to prevent discussions. Demanding that there be peace before there can be peace is simply declaring that one does not really want peace.
Withdrawl to the '67 borders is not the issue. If Israel moved back to the '67 borders tomorrow, there would still be bombings from some of the more radical groups out there that don’t want Israel to exist at all, not even in the pre-'67 borders. So my question was, when the demands of the bombers are such that there is no room for negotiation, then what do you do (as per Blalron’s suggestion). If the Israel issue is to thorny, then simply forget it and refer to the first hypothetical I brought up.
It would appear, as an outsider, tha becoming a suicide bomber isn’t the first alternative of career choice for people. It also appears that advocating or even condoning suicide bombing isn’t the first choice of parents and gov officials. It seems that SB are one of several last resorts.
Perhaps if there were other effective alternatives, (or alternatives that were perceived as effective), there would be a disinclination to become or condone suicide bombing.
The occupation doesn’t help, for astart Israel uses roughly 1/3 of it’s army resources on just defending the settlements and even more maintaining the occupation. Also the occupation is a gift from God to these extremists as it creates hopelessness among the Palestinian population which allows them to recruit. There would still be bombings yes, but there would almost certainly be a sharp decrease in their incidence. There is no military solution, Israel has been absolutely ruthless to the point of breaking international law, yet the no. suicide bombings and attempted bombings still increase.
Israel must take away the key constiuency for recruitment for agencies like Hamas, by allowing the Palestinians to at least have the chance to live unmolested.
I didn’t really want to get into an Israel debate, I just wanted to show that Blalron’s idea was unworkable. So, while I’ll concede that the Israel/Palestine issue isn’t so black or white, let’s not limit the discussion to this area of the world (since the OP did specify suicide bombers worldwide).
Can’t we simply agree that his solution is unworkable (that’s all I was getting at anyway)? Forget I mentioned Israel and focus on my first hypothetical then.
Alright, sorry Zev, I won’t mention Israel (I don’t particularly like getting into Israel debates either as I feel that the same ground is covered again and again), but yes I do agree with you that Blarons solution is unworkable as:
It allows anyone to destroy the peace process.
Some extremists cannot simply be negoiated with.
Looking to Northern Ireland (no suicide bombers but an analgous situation), several steps must be taken:
recognize the legitmacy of the grievances of the groups
Try to rectify the situation, wherever possible especially on a small scale (for example in Northern Ireland reform of the RUC).
enter into negoitations with groups that are willing to negoitate over the larger, more complicated issues (like the sovereignity of Northern Ireland)
Also, though suicide bombing may show a greater level of fanaticism (or possibly a lack of alternative methods), I don’t think there is much difference between walking into a shopping mall and blowing yourself up and planting a bomb in the shopping mall and blowing it up from a safe distance, in terms of illegitmacy and barbarity.
Your only answer to zev’s assertion that negotiating is not workable is to negotiate???
borowing from his analogy, say there was a white supremacy group going around bombing malls and churches on a somewhat daily basis, demanding that segregation be reinacted, or all blacks be forced out of the country and back to Africa.
Do you negotiate with them? Do you appease them with segregation so that the followers who would be happy with that are content, and therfore lessen their ‘resources’?
Do you find some way to give them an “alternative” to suicide bombing civilians?
I think the only solution on the issue would be to somehow take the popular support from the fanatics and hiunt them down unmercifully. Israel can do some of the hunting, but that would increase their support. A future Palestine would have to take over that roll and assure Israel that they would take responsibility on palistinians bombing in Israel. And show it with overwhelming deonstrable actions. Otherwise Israel would have evry right to invade Palestine again.
If Mexicans kept running across the border and blowing Americans up without significant Mexican attempts at stopping such, most citizens would demand an invasion.
The US has to explicitly state its policy rather than having the policy and lying about it:
"Control your fanatics or we’ll control your country."
We’ve already done 2 islamic countries, and there are plenty more. American Imperialism (I mean real imperialism, no bones about it–the country becomes our territory and we rule it however we want) is the ultimate solution, but if these countries would crack down on their extremist factions so they have no place to hide, then suicide bombing will decrease substantially.
“But if america takes over their countries it will just piss them off more and there will be more bombings.”
Nope, because all protesters, radicals, and dissidents will be locked up in internment camps, indefinitely. There will be curfews, random inspections, soldiers quartered in homes, troops and cameras on every street corner. Plastic silverware for everyone. Martial law to an extent never seen before in the history of mankind. Take their children away, re-educate them (brainwash them to respect life and not be or support hateful killers), and once the parents die off and the next generation comes into adulthood, we can ease off on the martial law and allow more and more freedom.
Either we can do it or the current islamic governments can do it. We should give them a year to implement it; if they don’t then we take over every one of their countries.
And the best part of kalt’s solution is that by completing eliminating everybody’s human rights entirely, it gives the terrorists no freedoms to hate us for. Everybody wins!
Please, this thread was not meant to be another forum for Israel bashing, let’s stay closer to topic.
If was to take you hostage and demand that the government raise taxes, what is the best response by the government?
This is really what I wanted to ask, its just that few terrorists (or freedome fighters) ask for such things.
Point is, after a terrorist group has chosen your government as a target and has begun to make demands, how do they respond without encouraging all other terrorist? And without fueling future acts?
In my stupid case, the government could never raise taxes for fear of giving in and causing more terrorist acts to get higher taxes. They also could never lower taxes for fear of encouraging more violence.
Okay, I have to apologize again, I didn’t quite read threw all the posts.
Spite made good points, but its a bit too easy when you have something clearly wrong like white supremacy. Try it again with something less clear cut.
What if the homeless in your city started blowing things up, suicide or not, demanding more funding for the homeless. Even if their demands are small and reasonable. Today, they set off a bomb in a cafe, and made an announcement that there would be more such acts if government funding does not increase.
I like this example, let’s stick with this. Do you hunt down and kill all homeless people? Make life even harder for non-militant homeless? What if there are people with homes helping them out?!
Suicide bombing is just one tactic used by terrorists. One should deal with it exactly as one deals with any type of terrorism. It is harder to interdict because our normal police actions asssume that people do not want to get hurt, much less die. But it is still simply one of many tactics used by terrorists.
Having said that, you are still left with the question of how do you deal with terrorists. And that is the $64k question… Beyond “not negotiating with terrorists”, I wish we knew the answer to that one.
So the USA is going to invade and control all of Africa and half of Asia and declare martial law and control … Does it occurr to you taht the USA does not have 1/10th the resources needed for such a thing and that the entire world would unite against the USA? it is totally unfeasible (not to mention incredibly stupid).
Kalt, while I find your theory intriguing, you have to admit that increasing military action would incite more terrorism, even just for the short term; and that short term would suck. How many 9/11’s are you willing to endure before the problem was solved, assuming that this would actually solve the problem?
I suspect the solution to suicide bombers specifically is going to end up being technology-based rather than sociological. Probably portable Semtex sniffers and privacy invasive, see-through-your-clothes type scanners.
There are sociological approaches, but the problem is that the motivations of suicide bombers are so varied and aren't necessarily logical. (The Bali night club bombing and the two attacks on the Twin Towers weren't preceded by any demands, they were pretty much just acts of hate and defiance. The only way the West could meet Al Qaeda's demands would be by ceasing to exist or by converting en masse.) So you have some very, very long term solutions involving education, raising the living standards of much of the world population, and eliminating the people who preach hatred just for the sake of hatred.
And you have some short term solutions in which, I’m afraid, I have to agree with C. K. Dexter Haven. Terrorist bombing works well against civilized societies, but what it does is make them less civilized. So eventually you go after the bombers, and then their families, and then their friends, and you make them sorry they were ever born, either economically, judicially, or militarily.
And you have to win the war of public opinion as well, which makes this latter part so hard. You somehow have to make the world understand that however oppressed or wretched the society the suicide bomber comes from, and however worthy their cause, exploding a bomb on a bus, or in a cafe or on a campus is the act of a despicable coward and any civilized person should spit at their memory and piss on their grave.
Actually, I have been wondering how long till the suicide bomber supply runs dry? They don’t really have a realistic impact in the grand scheme of things and its seems they (the ones stupid enough to do it) will eventually die off faster than they can be recruited. You will never eliminate them, but it seems the number should dwindle to just about zero pretty soon.
Or I could be totally wrong. In which case, we put Kalt in charge!
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
