No, I don’t believe anybody can point to a historical precedent, as the United States has never been faced with a war quite like this one before.
Given our overwhelming military might, I would assume that we have more bullets/bombs, then there are terrorists in the world. It’s a simple question of doing the math, as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t know anything about Zakaria, one way or the other. The above quote would seem to support the invasion of Iraq. The Iraqis were never going to have freedom under Saddam. Now they have a possibility.
I suppose one could argue that an underlying cause of terrorism is the world’s failure to overthrow all the unfree governments – the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, North Korea, etc.
In a way, Zakaria’s point isn’t so different from Dershowitz’s. Not only has the world failed to overthrow these unfree regimes, the UN has even treated them with respect.
Well, I suggest you read Zakaria, then – the article I linked is only a couple of pages long, so I’m sure you can fit it into your schedule if you so desire.
However, you have completely missed my point (and Zakaria’s, for that matter). Do you not see how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has been perceived around the world? Even if you and others may truly believe you are “freeing” Iraq and giving them the opportunity to live in a prosperous and democratic society, but if neither Iraqis nor the rest of the Middle East believe your motivations, then in the end your motivations are irrelevant, because the reaction of the “liberated” will be the same as toward any other invading army; they aren’t going to welcome the 3rd Infantry with hibiscus leis and hot cups of tea. Sometimes perception might as well be reality, and the U.S. is an invading army, no matter how you spin it. To provide you the benefit of the doubt, you may see the U.S. military as a force providing opportunity to Iraqis, but you might not feel that way if you were an Iraqi staring down the barrel of an automatic weapon at a roadblock, or if your house or business had been leveled by a bomb, or if a relative had been shot in a misunderstanding with U.S. troops. And I really hesitate to give Bush et. al. the benefit of the doubt because of a) their track record and b) what they stand to gain in the extremely unlikely event that Iraq goes according to plan.
You seem to be failing to distinguish between actual terrorists and people who would ordinarily be nonviolent, but who support the violent expulsion of invaders in what they see as self-defense because they resent being told at the point of a gun what’s good for them, no matter how much reality may suggest otherwise. Even uneducated people sometimes realize when they’re being condescended to.
I’m not even going to address your second two points for now, because they are ludicrous. It’s like arguing with a Salvador Dali painting.
Hmm, so let me get this straight. The Leaders of Saudi Arabia do not have the right to invite US Troops into their own nation- becaue they are: A “corrupt” and B “not democratically elected”. However, Osama DOES have the right to speak for the entire Muslim world as he represents a half dozen cowardly terrorists huddled in a cave somewhere, hiding from the US forces? Riiiight. :rolleyes: Why do you accept the voice of this terrorist madman as the voice of all muslim people?
Note thet the Turkish Government, which is also a Muslim government, and democratic- which also allows women to vote- has no problems with US forces in Saudi Arabia.
The idea that the entirity of Saudi Arabi is “holy land”, and thus no foriegners are allowed in at all was made up out of whole cloth by ObL.
If we left- we’d be betraying an ally, and there is nothing to indicate it would quiet Osama in any case.
Yes, I was indeed trying to insult you within the Great Debate parameters.
And here’s why:
From this quote it appears you think terrorism started with 9/11.
How you can dismiss 2700 casualties in Northern Ireland (1969-88), or 800 murders by ETA (1959-99) or the Lockerbie bomb which killed 270 civilians as ‘minor problems’ is beyond me.
http://www.attridge15.freeserve.co.uk/ireland/ire_casualties.htm
http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/08/08/Spain.ETA.History/
I could have added Action Directe in France, or the Red Brigades in Italy, with their terrorist casualties.
Oh, but that’s all right with you because…
So thousands of European terrorist casualties mean we’ve been ‘lucky’?
What a caring person you are.
Of course it’s different if an American is killed…
"In 1986 President Reagan ordered an air assault on Libya in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin nightclub in which two American soldiers were killed. The attack on Tripoli killed Gaddafi’s adopted daughter and caused outrage in the Arab world. "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/lockerbie1.shtml
That article draws the conclusion that Lockerbie was a response to Reagan’s bombing.
Does that worry you at all?
Or is it only US casualties that count?
Do you not acknowledge that many European countries have faced terrorist outrages for decades?
This is a fascinating glimpse into the workings of your mind.
WW II involved countries, not terrorists.
We knew where to find and fight the Axis powers and took millions of casualties doing so.
There was the Geneva Convention to cover battlefield conduct and prisoners of war.
in case you haven’t noticed, none of that applies to terrorists.
If you want an inappropriate sick parallel on your level of thinking comparing WW II and terrorism:
the US only joins in the fight against evil when it is attacked (Pearl Harbour / 9/11)
(Obviously I apologise for this nonsense to decent Americans, because there were diplomatic reasons why the US behaved as it did, and we are all grateful for both the military support and the Marshall plan afterwards.)
So where would you like Bush to invade next?
Do feel free to give cites backing your reasons.
Meanwhile here is something from a better-informed American:
"our Administration’s obsession with apprehending and punishing terrorists without paying equal attention to conditions which spawn terrorists, conditions to which we ourselves contribute or which we fail to recognize and rectify.
…
Unlike America, European countries have long experience in combating terrorism-the IRA in Britain, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang in Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Basque terrorists in Spain and Arab terrorists in France and Austria. Years of patient police work, plus dogged diplomacy in places like Northern Ireland, plus attention to conditions which breed despair and cynicism have largely ended threats in Europe, without the need to put any of the countries on a war footing."
Perhaps I can help your comprehension.
I said:
‘can you cite the Parliamentary debate where the people (especially the women) invited the US troops in?’
and
'I am saying that only the opinions of a small group of rich family dictators get to decide what troops are allowed into the sacred “Muslim holy lands & traditions”! ’
So I said the leaders of Saudi Arabia do not consult their people over inviting US troops in - in fact, they don’t consult them over anything.
Which means that there is a potential breeding ground for terrorism.
Next do please give your cite for my ‘accepting Osama as a spokesman’.
(Oh, that was another of your strawman, was it?)
Of course Bin Laden has no right to dictate anything, nor kill those he opposes.
But do try to understand this - why do you think he can recruit people who are willing to die killing Americans?
Partly it’s because he can say to people, especially in Saudia Arabia, “Your corrupt Government, which pays no attention to what you want, is making deals with infidels to desecrate our holy places.”
Funny, I thought the Turkish government was secular.
Still it’s good to know that a country that refused, despite incredible US pressure, to let US troops invade Iraq through its territory, is the one you quote to support US policy in yet another country.
Well you clump together a number of things.
I believe all Muslims agree that Saudi Arabia is ‘holy land’, because it contains Mecca.
I understand that certain Western customs (drinking, gambling, women wearing Western clothing, converting peoople to Christianity) offend Saudis.
And having foreign troops stationed on your soil is always potentially tricky.
But it doesn’t really matter if all US troops are behaving perfectly in Saudi. As I said earlier, the point is that Bin Laden can spout propoganda and recruit terrorists who are not worried by the threat of the death penalty for murder.
I ask you again:
why do you think he can recruit people who are willing to die killing Americans?
I think it is quite likely that one reason for the invasion of Iraq was to reassure the Saudis so the US could withdraw the troops. Now Saddam is gone, how would withdrawing US troops ‘betray our ally’? Who is going to invade Saudi?
And are you suggesting that keeping the US troops on will help with terrorism?
So what other countries have done to combat terrorism sucessfully or not for decades is simply irrelevant because it never happened to the US ? No wonder people accuse Americans of being historically and geographically ignorant.
Second paragraph is just as bad. Never mind that if all current terrorists just dropped dead now they would be replaced overtime. Terrorists dont come with targets painted on them either... military solutions arent the answer. (They might help if you have a cohesive policy to stop more from being created.)Right on Spot !! This is where some very ugly mistakes keep popping up. Currently Russia is an “ally” of sorts… so Bush keeps quiet about Checyna. When Checens blow up some americans then Bush will wake up.
Time and time again the US has shot its own foot... training Fidel, Noriega and Osama too.Yes, I’d agree there.
The real war, ultimately, is the war on “inequity”. Every time an American corporation sets up a factory somewhere in the Third World and pays slave labour rates to children, that’s just another red flag to a bull which sends the signal “Look at the capitalist Yanqui exploiting our poor so that they can walk in their pretty shoes” and so it goes, and so it goes.
Rightly or wrongly, there is a huge body of opinion amongst the poor of this world that the Western World (and the USA in particular) tends to rape the impoverished of this world and gives very little back in the way of genuine altruism.
And then, to make things worse, the USA has made some dreadfully improper mistakes these past 50 years in propping up some very shitty regimes in the name of “fighting the good fight” during the Cold War. For mine, THAT is the true source of terrorism these days - it’s a state of affairs which has been decades in the making. Indeed, when the Iranians stormed the US Embassy in 1979 they proudly held effigies of Uncle Sam with banners underneath proclaiming “The Great Satan”.
The thing that is so immeasurably bewildering to me is that given the Iranian Hostage crisis of 1979, and the Beirut US Marines Barracks bombing of 1983, and the blatant taking of US hostages during the Lebanon Civil War circa 1985 - well the thing that’s so stupefyingly bewildering to me is that so many Americans have only just woken up since 9/11 to what’s actually been brewing for so very, very long. It’s as though the great majority of Americans have been living (all these years) in some giant protected fantasyland of endless Wall Street Takeovers and non stop coke fuelled 24 hour Parties - never even remotely aware of the terrible doom which was massing outside of the city gates all this time.
The ultimate irony - given the benefit of hindsight - was that the true enemy all along WASN’T the Communists - but rather, the despair which stems of entrenched poverty. Every time some arrogant American has held up his forefinger and shouted “We’re Number One”, another nameless, faceless recruit signed up somewhere to show that same American what being “Number One” really means. The whole ugly shit fight is a mixture of arrogant exploitation being met head on with bitterness and jealousy. Neither side of the gulf has a particularly noble pedestal to stand on in my opinion.
Whoa… great post Boo Boo Foo… especially on why have americans only wakened up on 9/11.
Only a little comment on the entrenched poverty… it might make some terrorists… but if that were the case then Africa should be full of terrorists and its not. Terrorism is very political in nature… Still one wonders if there were less poverty in these areas if education and prosperity would have avoided terrorism… not impossible.
In order to win, you have to look at both historical precedents and what terrorists need.
A terrorist just can’t do it by themselves. They need some orgainzation, training, materials and other types of aid.
You can draw a loose similarity between modern terrorists, and the equivalent of their day, pirates.
In order for pirates to exist they needed safe harbors (both literal and figurative,) and tacit support of friendly powers. In some cases they would operate under a flag of marque. What this meant was that if you were sailing under an English flag of Marque you enjoyed friendliness and tacit support from English forces. You on the other hand did not attack English ships. You preferentially attacked England’s enemies.
Terrorists have their equivalent. They are tacitly or outrightly supported by certain countries, given shelter aid and training, or just allowed to stay their unimpaired.
When the political landscape changed and the pirates’ support network vanished… so did the pirates.
You win by terrorists not by going after them. After all, this is what they want. They are good at hiding. They don’t engage conventionally. They are not vulnerable conventionally.
The support networks that terrorists rely on however are vulnerable conventionally.
Whether or not you agree with the way Bush is approaching this, there is a logic to it.
The message that we are sending is that we not tolerate nations or entities that support terrorism. We will destroy any countries that do.
Instead of being a fairly safe form of activist warfare, terror support is becoming very risky.
If we can make it stick, and if we can get the world behind us, we will win. Without support organized terror will crumble.
This is, I believe the logic that is guiding Bush’s actions. I happen to agree with it. I however wish that Bush were a better statesman and could better garner the support.
On the other hand, it is a ruthless approach if it’s to work. It’s a tough sell.
Besides living with terror, I don’t see another way. Appeasement is folly. Appeasement would show that terror works. Let it work and it will never go away.
Well Rashak - I would contend that there is indeed great violence and quasi forms of terrorism within Africa - however, because the nature of that continent is still exceedingly tribal in nature, often the targets are internal per nation state - as averse to pointing to the Western World (or the USA in particular) as the convenient scapegoat.
Certainly, I don’t think I’m stretching reality to suggest that nation-states which have made long term consistent commitments to world class education invariably take away the fertile soil for religious extremism in particular. I genuinely believe that history shows that countries which perpetuate poor education therein perpetuate the cycles of bitterness and blame-shifting which exists amongst the impoverished and disenfranchised.
As Karl Marx himself noted - the easiest populace to manipulate is the poorest educated.
That may be the message Bush says he’s sending, and you may believe him, too. But the message that the world is getting is the one that will have an effect. Given that Iraq had jack shit to do with terrorism, as you well know by now as well as does the rest of the world, what message do you think they’re getting? Who looks like the bad guys, and why? You know that, too, and you also know why.
Another conceptual error on your part. It isn’t countries but governments that provide such sponsorship, governments that for the most part aren’t responsive to the people you support “destroying”.
The position you support so fervently will not only foment more terrorism, but is itself terrorism. It takes a special form of self-delusion to think the world will be pacified that way. Hell, with most of the US military’s ground forces tied up in a single shithole country, who is even going to be afraid of it anymore?
The analogy doesn’t fit, sorry. The reason is: Pirates wanted to survive, martyrs don’t care. Actually the guy sentenced to death in Bali was happy about it!
The safe harbor for the 9/11 pilots were among others Hamburg and Florida. Please don’t invade! After the attacks, they didn’t need a harbor anymore.
Well that hardly makes you an expert, then, does it? See, there are lots of countries other than the United States out there that have experience of terrorism - decades of it in fact - and have countered it with different methods and varying degrees of success. The one common thing observable about their approaches to fighting terrorism is that military action in the recruiting grounds of the terrorists serves only to inflame the populous and create new recruits. Cf. Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland vs the situation now, and Israel/Palestine and the situation there.
It’s not like they’re standing out in a field arranged in neat rows waiting for you to whack them. The nature of terrorism is that it’s asymmetric warfare. It doesn’t matter that the US has enough bullets to kill them all ten times over: they’ve got weedkiller and semtex and people who want to be “martyrs”, and every time you go stomping around in the recruiting grounds whacking them while incurring “collateral damage” on their communities, you’re encouraging more people to join up. Those who ignore history are etc. etc. It’s an intel and police, not a military, matter.
What organizational infrastructure did Tim McVeigh use? Or Theodore Kazinsky? Or the anthrax letter guy?
I don’t really see any similarity between a few, lone nutjobs (timothy mcveigh and the unabomber), which people repeatedly bring up, as to point to some similarity between them and various global, islamic terrorist groups, which are comprised of many thousands of suicidal nutjobs, which have declared war on western civilization. What exactly is the point in mentioning these two ? Are they part of some terrorist organisation that poses some great threat to the world community ? Let’s not detract from the real problems here.
I also don’t agree that police actions alone will solve this problem, as one does not merely send a police man into a hostile country inorder to arrest some bad guy. In certain cases police work is required, and in other cases military might is required. Face it, many countries on the face of this earth are inherently ruled by evil people, and they might need to be dealt with in a military fashion. If anybody asks for a cite, regarding what I mean by “Evil” people, I will refer to Bush’s axis of evil speech. That speech only mentioned 3 countries, I can think of quite a few more, that fall into that category.
I also don’t buy into the argument that terrorists have any valid reasons for their murdering ways. I find this to be mere excuses for terrorists and their ilk. One does not allow a bunch of murdering savages to dictate the foreign policies of civilized nations. These violent people will only end their violent ways, when they are 6 feet under ground.
What’s next ? I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody here suggests a truce with Al Qaeda. I would consider anybody who would suggest such an absurd idea to be a Quisling.
Did you miss my references to the IRA, ETA, Action Directe, Baaader Meinhof and the Red Brigades then?
Of course they kill mainly Europeans, so they don’t interest you. They’re not ‘real problems’ (except to the innocent civilians they kill) :rolleyes:
And of course you don’t think Europe is part of Western Civilisation. if you did, you might recognise that there is a wealth of experience of dealing with well-funded terrorist groups who have some support amongst a population that will shelter them.
And where is the police work in Bush’s strategy? He invades Iraq ignoring the rest of the World who suggest other courses of action. Have a look at the Hutton enquiry which is ongoing in the UK. Tony Blair could easily have to resign (almost certainly some top politicians will have to go) over his published reasons for the UK joining in the Iraq war. Blair ludicrously exaggerated the threat from Iraq to the British Parliament because he knew Bush was going in anyway.
Perhaps you could tell us which countries, particularly in Europe, you think the US should deal with in a military fashion.
Well of course it’s so nice you can distinguish between terrorists and freedom fighters.
Presumably the US colonies which attacked Britain were freedom fighters.
You don’t learn much do you?
Perhaps you could define ‘civilised nations’. Include in your answer ‘CIA overthrow of Chile’, ‘Saudi Arabia - US ally’ and ‘Human rights in Guantanamo Bay’.
In any case consider the Middle East. Assume purely for purposes of analysing the consequences of your statement above that Israel is a civilised nation and the Palestinians are murdering savages.
So we have a highly sophisticated and heavily armed nation (with nukes) and billions of dollars annually from the US for military spending. And they can’t eliminate violence from a poverty-stricken bunch.
Perhaps there is something wrong with your idea? Could it be that if people think they are oppressed and that life is hardly worth living, that they will turn into suicide bombers?
of course you’d just use the nukes, wouldn’t you?!
What’s next ? I wouldn’t be surprised if you suggest genocide (as per above). I would consider anybody who would suggest such an absurd idea to be a murderous lunatic.
??? not that it is even remotely relevant, McVeigh acted in concert with other people. There is even a possible tie to Al Quada in the Phillipines. The “anthrax letter guy” had weapons- grade material. That took a group of people to develope.
Pirates say “arrr,” terrorists don’t.
That doesn’t disqualify the analogy.
What you’ve cited is a difference. No analogy is perfect, and a difference doesn’t make it invalid.
The analogy applies not because of the differences but because of the similarities.
Both terrorists and pirates needed support. That’s the domain of the analogy, not martyrdom.