Bomb in London

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Oh, Ragusa, you shed no new light here. We are all quite aware of the debacle the US finds itself in, regarding the terrorist situation. You, however, have dodged my question:

I repeat: "Just how do you propose to do that?"

The response you gave was again a criticism of what's wrong. I want to know your answer as to how to make it right -- and one that does not totally surround the UNITED STATES' actions. This is a GLOBAL issue, in case you haven't noticed.

[ July 14, 2005, 00:30: Message edited by: Spellbound ]

 

I think the most benefit could be gained from the aid of the powerful in Muslum societies.

But are the religious and political leaders of Muslum societies helping terrorism or curtailing it?

The political leaders who field terrorists are quickly demonized (unless you are a Saudi royal of course), but the religious leaders are often insulated.

Can the inertia of religious institutions ever be quickly changed?

I don't think the world (or US policy) is going to change anytime soon...

 

Spelly,

There is the british template.

People have been killing each other in Northern Ireland for 800 years. There is barely a chance to do something about the root causes - they are there and barely will go away.
The Brits had one advantage in Northern Ireland, it was basically their turf (though the catholics will disagree there) and had plenty of local allies, but the U.S. by changing their foreign policy can do something the Brits could not - adress a root cause.

The British approach took care to ensure that as little people as possible get killed, be them catholics, protestants, soldiers or terrorists. That sounds weird, I bet.

The 'Bloody Sunday' had bad repercussions for the British Army and their commanders were determined to never allow something like that to happen again.
That was at the time Sharon ordered his army to break the bones of the Palestinians who dared to throw stones.

In the year 1972 there detonated some 3 bombs a day in Northern Ireland. Bombs in Northern Ireland and IRA terror are next to zero now.
Breaking the bones hasn't helped solving the problem in Palestine. And that doesn't mean it's because the IRA goons hated the Brits less than the Palestinians the Israelis.

In Northern Ireland the British never resorted to collective punishment, air raids, bulldozing of homes or farms, or to cutting electricity or water. The British soldiers showed greatest self-restraint, even when IRA murderers assassinated the Queens cousin, Lord Mountbatten, or when they blew up a hotel in Brighton where Maggy Thatcher was about to hold a speech at the Tory convention - and almost managed to kill her. That gives great credit to their excellent discipline and professionality, and the understanding of their leaders.

Over the course of the conflict in Northern Ireland some 3.000 people died -- 1.700 civillians, some 1.000 British soldiers and Policemen and about 300 terrorists. What a crappy kill-ratio one might think.

But maybe that's why the Brits won: At the cost of taking losses they avoided that British soldiers would rightly be accused of criminal behaviour.

The british were also much stronger than the IRA, they had bombers artillery and tanks - but didn't use them. Look at Palestine and the pics of them kids throwing stones at Israeli tanks. Who is the bad guy? The strong guy, beating down the weak.

Criminal behavior, brutality, ambushes, atrocities, cruelty and harming civilians should be left to the terrorists.

That was key to deny the terrorists propaganda, images and a history of standing up against the Brits to aid their recruitment and funding.
In Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Gitmo etc. the U.S. provide Al Quaeda with all of that, aplenty.

That denying of propaganda is probably the reason why eventually the swamp dried up for IRA and UDA support in Northern Ireland - you cannot gain glory when you attack disciplined troops who will only return fire when they themselves draw first blood - that's british standard procedure in Northern Ireland - and who will arrest and trial you in due process and send you to jail. Fighting is a waste of time then, and to support those who want to fight a folly.
However, when you dare to battle the mighty U.S. war-machine and return to tell the tale, now that takes guts and luck - you're a hero for your people.

The british way takes immense patience and the willingness to, yes, take more casualties than to inflict on the enemy to get the mission done. The british approach of de-escalation requires an enormous inner strength and iron discipline.

Sadly, I fear the U.S. atm don't have what it needs to do that, the emphasis on force protection first is incompatible with that - to shoot first and ask later is a mission killer when the job is de-escalation. Of course it is sort of natural for troops to react to violence against them with force. To avoid that, you need to train them the neccessary methality. The British have succeeded to do that, while maintaining their troops remain top-notch.

The US government wants to be on the offensive. I fear it misunderstands the nature of war it is in now.

It should be remembered that Clausewitz pointed out that defense is the stronger form of war.

It isn't any different in normal life: He who defends himself is seen as being morally justified. To remain morally justified is key.

[ July 14, 2005, 02:09: Message edited by: dmc ]

 

You just don't get it. I had asked that we discuss this WITHOUT pointing fingers at the US or it's citizens....but that seems totally impossible for you.

And here's a clue that might hit close to home: People tend to go on the offensive when they are attacked -- repeatedly. Unbelievable.

 

That's why his name is Rag-USA.

On a related point, it is the 20th anniversary of the first foreign terrorist action in New Zealand. In 1985, barbaric french terrorists / spies blew up a Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, that was anchored in one of our ports (killing one person who was unlucky enough to be on board whilst everyone else had gone into town). NZ's response consisted of singing protest songs, some stern words to Francois Mitterand, and lots of making fun of the French in cartoons. Well, it must have worked because they have never tried anything similar since.

 

Ragusa,

With no offense of any kind intended I think your analysis of the situation in N.Ireland is extremely lacking in parts. You say the British cannot address the root cause of the problem, they most definitely can and if history in Ireland shows us anything it is that their presence is the root cause of the problem, a point admitted by many British politicans after consideration themselves. How that is going to be resolved is anyone's guess at the moment, the most likely solution been demographical change eventually at the moment. Also, you say collective punishment was never employed against nationalist areas, wrong again, internment was at first exclusively used against nationalists only and suceeded in alienating that particular community even more. Your figures for deaths in the Troubles are also somewhat off, a more generally agreed figure is around 3,600 dead between 1969-1994.

The British did not use artillery or bombers etc as they are not exactly selective weapons and their use would have entailed knocking down sections of the areas in dispute that held people actually loyal to them. Also, they did not bomb the Republic of Ireland because that govt. was if anything more succesful in locating IRA weapons and capturing them than the British themselves. Also, bombing it would have meant an actual war, which no doubt the Irish with their much inferior weaponry would have lost but only at the cost of many British lives and an incredibly damaging view of Britain been generated throughout the world. The British were well aware how bad they looked after the first Anglo-Irish war and I am sure did not really want to repeat the experience.

If support has dried up for the IRA or UDA or their political wings then the last election results in N.Ireland in this years general election are hard to understand. They seemed to show a massive polarization there, with nearly a quarter of all votes cast for Sinn Fein and over 30% voting for the loyalist main party, the DUP. The more relatively moderate parties of the two sides have effectively been put on the back burner.

As to British standard operating policy in the North there's been more than enough evidence over the years to suggest that the accusations of collusion with loyalist terrorists and shoot to kill policies have been in effect whatever the public relations says to the contrary.

With around 8 million people living here in England of Irish descent getting too openly heavy handed in N.Ireland would have been a very foolish idea. The British are not idiots, they know doing that would provide lots of room for the IRA to recruit here and in the Irish Republic. Also, contrary to the nice rosy picture shown around the globe both the IRA/UDA etc maintain the capability to return to terrorist activity any time they choose.

 

If it all comes back to oil again, then why not accelerate plans for an economy that is not based on oil (given that we're going have to do this eventually anyway)?

 

Harbourboy, good question - I have been reading several books on alternative energy methods lately and many of them look like they could be practical if enough time and money were invested. Admittely there were some hilariously stupid ones relying on the concept of over-unity devices* (essentially devices that produce more energy than you put in) but some other methods like micro-cavitation etc looked promising. However, changing the oil based economy would not just upset the middle east but many of the key companies in both America and Europe who have a fairly major influence on our politics. It will be a long, uphill struggle I think, motivated finally by desperate need that will see our energy production methods changed.

*Possibly the most ridiculous one was the guy attmepting to explain how we was going to exploit zero-point energy.

 

Harbourboy -- I think that's an intruiging idea as well. The only problem I see with it is the time it would take to affect such a change -- so that we don't have a complete breakdown economically. And if that were our sole solution -- we'd be leaving ourselves at the mercy of these radicals for a long period of time, with a lot more lives lost.

I had thought about economic sanctions -- but many of these sects are funding by internal, family wealth -- and I'm not sure how you go about affecting that.

 

There are no quick-fix solutions because the problem has arisen over such a long period of time. It's not just a reaction to recent Bush / Blair political decisions (although that may have been useful in providing some "justification"), it's something that has been growing and developing for many years. Some would say it is more the result of decisions made after World War II which helped provide an environment in which some of these brands of fundamentalism could thrive. But I find the whole thing far to complex to try and contemplate.

I still think the main thing that each of us as individuals can do right now is to help show that they can never win and that we will not allow them to change the way we live. That involves trying to carry on with our lives as much as possible to show how little impact they have on us.

 

So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. We must be ready to take legitimate Arab grievances seriously and acknowledge that their experience of the west is one that has left many Arabs feeling humiliated and used. We cannot seriously claim to care for the rights of Arabs living in Iraq when it is obvious that we care so little for Arabs living in Palestine. When speaking of terror let us not forget that September will mark the annivesary of the massacre at Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, where 1,400 Palestinians were massacred in 1982 by Christian gunmen with the tacit consent of the Israelis.

Defeating the terrorists also means defeating their poisonous belief that peoples of different faiths and ethnic origins cannot coexist peacefully. Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Qur'an that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other.

 

I agree with all of that. However, I think if we could just send in paid assassins, of the "Carlos" calibre, to get the Bin Laden's of these sects, disbersement of the rest could follow. These fanatics are beyond reasoning with - they don't see the world like we do. Their every frame of reference is different -- there's nothing to parley with. It's like dealing with an alien on a rampage.

SatansBedFellow -- True -- but what we are dealing with here ARE the Bin Laden's of the world.....who take Chapter 2 to heart a bit more than the quote you just stated, unfortunately. If that weren't the case, we wouldn't have the problem to begin with.

 

Spellbound - cool! That's exactly what we need. Hi-tech assassins. That would rock. It could be a bit like Mission Impossible in that we would disavow their actions if they were caught or killed. Then, in later years, we could make movies based on their exploits. Awesome!

 

Errr, and you do think that the price that's already on Al Quaeda leader's heads doesn't produce the desired effect?

Some goon like carlos was basically not a high tech terrorist but a vain troublemaker and coward murderer with conspirative experience. His skill and capability were certainly vastly below that of any U.S. SpOps operative.

That is, the U.S. do what you suggest already, without significant success over the last years.

U.S. special forces are exactly the sort of high tech killers you refer to.

 

I was kind of hoping harbourboy was been somewhat tongue in cheek with his post, given the comparisions to Mission Impossible and all.

 

Ragusa,

Our special forces cannot move amongst the natives in this part of the world, they are too close knit of a society. Sometimes you have to set a thief to catch a thief.

 

Marcus -- so was I. Assassin or not -- it does no good, if we can't FIND these people. That's the frustrating thing about it all. Eventually they'll surface, but who knows when.

 

Hopefully he'll die from some easily curable disease. That would be a break.

 

Concerns about "Islamic extremism" and disapproval over violence motivated by it are growing in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries, according to a major new survey that also found declining support for Osama bin Laden in most of the Islamic world, with the exception of Jordan and Pakistan.

And there it isn't even clear what exactly 'muslim extremism' means to muslims. Some define it as the "violent removal of non-Muslim influences" while others saw it as the imposition of strict sharia laws.

Asked what causes Islamic extremism in their country, pluralities in Lebanon and Jordan cited "U.S. policies and influence," while similar pluralities in Morocco and Pakistan cited "poverty and the lack of jobs."

At the same time, the survey found that support for terrorism and other forms of violence has mostly declined in the Islamic world compared to 2002 when PGAP first posed the question.

Seemingly, terror and mindless killing are a thing the Muslim world as a whole does not support. It is easily forgotten that that was also so around 911 when the U.S. got broad sympathy in the Muslim world. Point is, the U.S., as the rest of the West in general, get sympathy when they are perceived as the victims of terror.

Not try to take into context this: London Bombers Were Angered by War in Iraq. The logical conclusion is that when the West is perceived as the agressor, they do not get sympathy.

It is also interesting to hold the motivation of the terrorists against the general lack of approval for acts of terror in the Muslim world. Muslims do get what's right and just and what's not, that applies to Western policies as well as to acts of terrorism or what the Koran sais.
This indicates that the bombers are a minority. It seems as if Islamist terror is a sort of desease, somewhat like Ebola, that is too lethal to sustain itself.

In fact 'Islamic extremism' alienates most people in muslim world. The brutality and cowardice of Islamist's acts of terror work to undermine their own support.

Now that is a hopeful sign. When the West, and especially the West's most agressive actor, the U.S. act sensible, Islamist terror is doomed. If not, the problem is nurtured.

That's the choice: An end in terror or terror without end. Your pick.

That doesn't mean that by de-escalation alone future acts of terror can be prevented, but their number can be reduced and the duration limited while doing rigorous law enforcement and intelligence work.
Perhaps disappointing: There will not be something like a decisive victory, or an 'Endsieg'. The terror will simply slow down and eventually pass away.

When the Brits started to switch over to de-escalation it still took them many casualties and decades to calm the Northern Ireland down.

But one thing is sure: They would still be fighting in a little Beirut of their own making had they resorted to Fallujah-style attacks on IRA and UDA terrorists.
In my eyes the refreshingly non-jingoistic response of the Brits to the London bombings got it just right. Their approach works.

[ July 16, 2005, 16:22: Message edited by: Ragusa ]