Terrorists, insurgents demands and desires

[Ed]

In all of the JREF caterwauling about the mid-east, the USA, Islam, terrorists, Iraq and so on I have been struck by a singular lack of constructive advice. It seems that discussions revolve around justification for various US/Brit efforts domestically and internationally on one hand and bitching and moaning on the other.

9/11 is not new tho' certainly the most attractive (from a media standpoint) terrorist manifestation. Point is that such activity has been ongoing for quite a little while.

People that bemoan our aggressive activity float notions about what distresses our turbined buddies. Things like our "support of oppressive regimes" or "our support of Isreal". As though such considerations are black and white.

My question (and the purpose of this thread) is to explore what "they" want, it's relation to foreign policy, and the basic doability of any sort of implimentation.

To begin with "support of oppressive governments" it seems to me that the US (and the rest of the world, to let out an ugly little fact) have supported some pretty nasty folks. OK, wrong. What would these people want? We know, for a fact, a couple of things: the Taliban represented an acceptable form of government to bin Laden and Zarquai believes that democracy is incompatable with Islam.

So what types of governments do we go for?

 

[a_unique_person]

I am quite happy to discuss what is a complex issue, that there are no easy answers to. I just don't like the attitudes that seem to imply a military action is all that is needed to resolve the problem.

 

[rikzilla]

I am quite happy to discuss what is a complex issue, that there are no easy answers to. I just don't like the attitudes that seem to imply a military action is all that is needed to resolve the problem.

Ed is asking for constructive ideas; not more bemoaning of other's "attitudes". So, what are your ideas? How would you handle terrorism if it were all up to you? That's what Ed's asking. All you are doing is pointing at the status-quo and saying "bad!"

Tell us your better idea.

-z

PS: As for me I'm almost happy with the way we are handling these enemy. We are at war, and are making war on them. If they could have blown up 30 London trains they would have; if they could have flown planes into buildings again they would have. They can't. They can't because we are bleeding their man-power in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[Ed]

I am quite happy to discuss what is a complex issue, that there are no easy answers to. I just don't like the attitudes that seem to imply a military action is all that is needed to resolve the problem.

I, personally, believe that we are in a death struggle with certain adherents to Islam. That is my considered judgement and you can feel free to disagree but that is not the topic of this thread (we will have to be satisfied with the other 33,456 for that).

I just want to discuss, first, what forms of government would not constitute a provocation, and whom would or would not be provoked. Is any sort of western foreign policy likely to reduce risk? The "suppressive governments" thing is bandied about. So, what is not oppressive?

Sometimes (like in the case of WWI) violence was due to the lack of ideas. Let's hear the ideas.

 

[Manny]

I am quite happy to discuss what is a complex issue, that there are no easy answers to. I just don't like the attitudes that seem to imply a military action is all that is needed to resolve the problem.

And Ed is giving you the opportunity to challenge those attitudes -- my attitudes, not to be subtle about it. I'll play along. No new wars in this thread, no "we're already in Iraq and now we have to...," no "Hey, I'm all for liberating Iran, too."

Imagine it's December 19, 2001. Last week Osama put out a tape praising the Sept. 11 hijackers. But yesterday organized resistance at Tora Bora collapsed. US soldiers took the caves, but did not find Osama or any of his top lieutenants. The last fire at the World Trade Center is being extinguished as we speak, and your intelligence tells you that Hamid Karzai is about to organize a provisional government in Kabul.

What now? You have complete charge of the world's continuing reaction to the terror attacks. What do you do?

 

[Rob Lister]

I, personally, believe that we are in a death struggle with certain adherents to Islam. That is my considered judgement and you can feel free to disagree but that is not the topic of this thread (we will have to be satisfied with the other 33,456 for that).

I just want to discuss, first, what forms of government would not constitute a provocation, and whom would or would not be provoked. Is any sort of western foreign policy likely to reduce risk? The "suppressive governments" thing is bandied about. So, what is not oppressive?

Sometimes (like in the case of WWI) violence was due to the lack of ideas. Let's hear the ideas.

I don't understand the topic or the question.

There are some in the middle east that want all western influence out, including the influence of democracy. That's part of what they want. There are others, a set that significantly overlaps the first group, that wants all western nations to freely accept, endorse, promote, and even mandate Islam. In the nutshell, they want to either convert us or kill us; either is fine.

Now, just because "some" of those in the middle east want this doesn't mean everyone in the middle east want this. The problem is that the ones that do want this are very influential and maintain such influence by damning the concept of democracy.

 

[Ed]

Is the extent of the contribution of people who are against US policy to complain?

 

[Rob Lister]

Is the extent of the contribution of people who are against US policy to complain?

Complaining only works in a democracy.

 

[Flo]

My question (and the purpose of this thread) is to explore what "they" want, it's relation to foreign policy, and the basic doability of any sort of implimentation.

I think we should start with who "they" are exactly. I don't think you can put all muslim terrorists in the same bag, even though they often refer to each others, or pretend to speak for/with each others. Reasons for their actions vary with circumstances, countries, political situation, etc.:

there is a clear difference between an OBL, clearly a madman with a multiple and totally irrealisable agenda (from being the next Caliph of Mecca, ousting the Sauds, to destroying the West, and most likely satisfying his inner taste for murder and mayhem - but the latter is my personal opinion), and the Hamas, clearly madmen but with relatively defined goals that could be negociated around (disclaimer: I don't consider the destruction of Israel is negociable or even to be discussed in any form), or Indonesians in Aceh, etc.. See this piece of opinion for an idea of what I'm talking about http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1526665,00.html


Clearly, nothing we, the West are gonna do, admit, correct, change, will ever satisfy the OBLs of the World, and other terrorists with less loony agenda should not get what they want through violence. There is an urgent need, IMO, to get directly at those in a sort of "police operation" and to make sure they are in no situation to further their actions and firm their grip on their primary victims, i.e. the people they send to death or maintain in a dire state of oppression and poverty, before we claim to bring solutions to terrorism by the circonvoluted, and totally unefficient to date, way of "spreading democracy", especially when it is done in such a ruthless way (and neglected elsewhere).

 

[Leif Roar]

Sometimes (like in the case of WWI) violence was due to the lack of ideas. Let's hear the ideas.

The first thing we should do is to realise that the "War on Terror" rethoric is counter-productive and abandon it. We should realise that terrorism is a danger that faces any free nation and that while this danger can be reduced it can never be eliminated.

On the home-field, the way to defend against terrorism is the way most nations have been doing it for decades. Gather intelligence about potential threats, track suspected terrorists, try to learn their plans. Defend vulnerable installations, perform such security procedures and standards as are useful to prevent or limit attacks, and does not unduly limit the freedom of the citizens. Have trained units of police or military that can respon quickly and competently to the terrorist actions that we are not able to prevent before they take place. Finally, have emergency services that are trained and equipped to handle the aftermath of any attack we're not able to stop.

On the political scene, work to marginalise terrorist organisations by isolating them from political and financial support. Deny them bases and safe havens of operations through diplomacy, cooperation with other nations and, when necessary and unaviodable, direct military action (re Afganistan.)

Work to gain the support of the populations the terrorists recruit and find support in, by countering the terrorist's arguments and helping to resolve such grievances as make the population respondent to the terrorist's rethoric. Tread lightly and avoid to alienate people needlessly.

Yes, we tried to do all this prior to 9/11, and it failed us then. That doesn't mean that the fundamentals are wrong -- only that we weren't good enough at performing them. No, doing all of the above to the best of our abilities will not guarantee there's not another 9/11 sometime in the future -- but then nothing else can guarantee that either.

 

[Ed]

They hate us for, among other things, our support of despotic regimes.

What regimes are acceptable. Simple question.

 

[Leif Roar]

They hate us for, among other things, our support of despotic regimes.

What regimes are acceptable. Simple question.

So, in other words, you're not actually interested in discussing what we should do to prevent terrorism, but just want to score rethorical points?

 

[RandFan]

The first thing we should do is to realise that the "War on Terror" rethoric is counter-productive and abandon it.

I've heard this claim a number of times but no one ever explains why. I don't agree with you, however it's hard to offer a rebuttal when you offer no argument.

This point of yours, as is the rest of your post, off topic. I would love to debate your points if you want to start a new thread or post it in one of the other ones. Just PM me to let me know where it is.

 

[Leif Roar]

I've heard this claim a number of times but no one ever explains why. I don't agree with you, however it's hard to offer a rebuttal when you offer no argument.

Sorry, I should have explained my reasoning in more detail on that matter.

This point of yours, as is the rest of your post, off topic. I would love to debate your points if you want to start a new thread or post it in one of the other ones. Just PM me to let me know where it is.

Hmm, yes, it seems it is. I thought Ed was calling for ideas in general, but that wasn't the case. My mistake. I'll make a new thread from my post.

 

[Ed]

So, in other words, you're not actually interested in discussing what we should do to prevent terrorism, but just want to score rethorical points?

We are in this mess because of our historical support of, amoung other things, despotic regimes. This is regularly trotted out as a way of blaming the US for many dire things. So I ask, what regimes are acceptable? If our policy of support for various nasty folks really isn't a problem, then say so and we can move on, in an orderly way, to other bad things that the US has done and see what the better alternatives are.

And, no, I don't want another long, rambly discussion about pie in the sky ways to prevent terror. I want to focus on those specific things that are regularly identified as being major contributors and to discuss them in an orderly manner.

 

[Luke T.]

They hate us for, among other things, our support of despotic regimes.

What regimes are acceptable. Simple question.

I don't know that we ever found any despotic regime "acceptable." Our foreign policy has been one of pragmatism. The lesser of evils. Not only was the Middle East/Southwest Asia a source of natural resources, but it also served as a forward staging area against the USSR. We had a lot of forward deployed materiel there. We took what "friends" we could find.

I believe we exerted whatever influence we could toward despots. "Play nice or we stop giving you toys (jets, tanks, etc.)."

While we looked outward toward the USSR from these countries, their rulers looked inward for their enemies. And they committed atrocities against these domestic enemies. And we were known to provide intel to the despots against their internal enemies to help them retain their power. Meanwhile, the USSR was supplying succor to the rebels. One big chess game of pawns and kings.

Everybody wants sovereignty. Nobody likes outsiders meddling in their affairs. But that isn't the way the world is ever going to work.

Solution? A Nobel prize to whoever comes up with a workable one.

On top of that, there will always be the maniacs who want to take over the whole world and exterminate anyone who isn't like them. And those people simply need to be crushed.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

We are in this mess because of our historical support of, amoung other things, despotic regimes. This is regularly trotted out as a way of blaming the US for many dire things.

This isn't quite a straw man, because I have seen the argument presented exactly that way, but it's not exactly the strongest version of the argument.

The way I would put it is that the US has supported despotic regimes that oppress and impoverish their people, and ignored their atrocities against their people (like Hussein's infamous gassing, which did not seem to be a significant matter to the USA at the time), and so it is seen as the ally of such regimes.

In much the same way that people who fund terrorist organisations are quite reasonably seen as bad over here, people who fund tyrannical, murderous regimes are quite reasonably seen as bad over there.

So I ask, what regimes are acceptable? If our policy of support for various nasty folks really isn't a problem, then say so and we can move on, in an orderly way, to other bad things that the US has done and see what the better alternatives are.

The way I would put it is that it is not so much what regimes are acceptable, but what attitude to and what actions towards different regimes are acceptable.

US policy has always seemed to me to be to do whatever best serves the interests of the US oil elite, which is usually to install and/or maintain ruthless governments which keep their people poor, and themselves and US oil companies rich. This is much better from the point of view of the oil industry than any kind of democratic, popular government.

If you want a constructive suggestion, the USA has the whip hand when it comes to, for example, Kuwait and Israel. Both only exist because of US support. If the USA insisted on reforms directed towards human rights, equal rights, universal quality education and so on in Kuwait the Kuwaiti government is in no position to cause too much fuss. This would demonstrate clearly a commitment on the part of the USA to make life better for the people of the middle east, as opposed to a commitment to exploit them to benefit the US oil elite.

Similarly the USA could make continued military aid to Israel conditional on the seperation of church and state, equal rights for all citizens, fair compensation to the families of those killed by the IDF's policy of assassination and so on.

There have been plenty of complaints aired on this board that anti-war posters are too soft on Islamic fundamentalist sensibilities. A good demonstration of even-handedness would be to take a very hard line with fundamentalist Jewish sensibilities and fundamentalist Islamic sensibilities simultaneously.

And, no, I don't want another long, rambly discussion about pie in the sky ways to prevent terror. I want to focus on those specific things that are regularly identified as being major contributors and to discuss them in an orderly manner.

As long as you don't beg the question by choosing to define specific suggestions you don't like as "pie in the sky", and defining the current policies as "guaranteed pie any day now".

 

[Mycroft]

I am quite happy to discuss what is a complex issue, that there are no easy answers to. I just don't like the attitudes that seem to imply a military action is all that is needed to resolve the problem.

I smell straw.

Who said that?

 

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by Ed
I just want to discuss, first, what forms of government would not constitute a provocation, and whom would or would not be provoked. Is any sort of western foreign policy likely to reduce risk? The "suppressive governments" thing is bandied about. So, what is not oppressive?

I don't buy it. I think there is just a type of mind that will rationalize barbarism no matter how extreme.

Take this interview with Oliver Stone . A month after 9/11 and he's ranting about conglomerate control of the media and describing the attack as a "revolt" on the same. Crazy? Sure, but it fits within his worldview.

The human brain is programmed to find patterns and explanations, it's just that for some people it's easier to use their imagination than to do actual thinking that involves looking at evidence.

 

[Kerberos]

They hate us for, among other things, our support of despotic regimes.

What regimes are acceptable. Simple question.

And wrong question, the point with the stop supporting despotic regimes is not that we should decide on some different form of regime that we should support, but simply that we should adopt a hands of approach to the question. If they adopt a Jeffersonian democracy; great - If they adopt a dictatorial system then well; suck to be them. I personally don't like this idea very much, but on the other hand I don't think the alternative is working out great either, though I of course hope I'm wrong.