Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the we-don't-know-much dept.
Several people have reported that the US has begun military operations in Afghanistan. Bush is talking on CNN live right now. Bombing has begun on Kabul. More as we know it. Here the word
a on CNN and The CBC.
Suppress enemy air defenses (always step 1 of an air campaign)
Destroy Taliban military forces near Kabul from the air (hard, they're dug in)
Assist Northern Alliance to capture Kabul
(they're stuck about 30km away)
Declare victory.
Bin Laden may survive this. But that may not matter. Just getting the message across that allowing terrorists to attack the U.S. from your country means your government gets crushed may be enough to deter state-sponsored terrorism for a while.
Blair's the man
by
ColGraff
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I just have to say, I listen to Blair's speech a few minutes ago, and I douub the United States could have any better friend than Britain and Tony Blair himself. He was with us the day of the attack, he's been with us since, and he's with us now, and Britain's soldiers' lives are on the line along with ours.
I'm not normally a religous man, but I have to say: God bless the UK and Tony Blair.
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
It's just bizarre. Why the heck do it, if you don't take claim of it? What the hell did they gain... except, perhaps, to start WWIII?
IMHO, I think this was done in a rallying call by OBL to build up support for an Arab-led war against American/European colonialism. I think that the primary perpetrators, however, didn't expect the solidarity that nearly all countries showed towards the US.
OBL and other terrorists probably thought the USA would strike back swiftly and deadly against Afghanistan and other Arabian suspected countries. Taliban and other radical fundamentalist Muslim groups could then unite, using recent US attacks as the rallying cry for a Jihad. However, instead of retaliating immediately, the USA slowly built up an anti-terror coalition, diplomatically and systematically. As the coalition included all of the Americas and Europe, slowly the Arab nations joined as well, possibly for fear of being seen to support such terror. I think OBL didn't see this global coalition coming by any reckoning, and is now shitting bricks. Taliban's actions seem to imply this, as they themselves are calling this a US-led war against Islam, which it clearly isn't, especially as the USA has the support of other several Islamic countries.
So, I think that OBL or others would have claimed it if there hadn't been such worldwide sympathy and support for America. I think if they admitted to it while nearly all countries were officially condemning the attacks as atrocities, the terrorist group(s) would lose most of the public support they had hoped to gain.
I might just be cheesy here, but is anyone else reminded of "The Grinch who Stole Christmas" regarding the 9/11 attacks? Whereas the Grinch, being an inherent prick, basically struck at the small mountainous town to cause strife and discord, by stealing their 'Christmas'. Yet, though their physical Christmas was gone, the townspeople still banded together and sang, because their inner spirit couldn't be stolen. So too did these terrorists try to destroy something in America, either our safety, our sense of security, or try to destroy our status amongst other nations. However, the solidarity Americans showed after the attacks was incredible. Every block I walk down, there are flags and patriotic banners. Not people just calling blindly for revenge (well, some are) but there's definitely a feeling of unity here that I haven't really felt before (I'm 26, maybe it was like this in WWII or similar). Okay, just my 2 cents.
--
make world, not war
International coverage..
by
T.Hobbes
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The Terrorists: a perspective
by
D.+J.+Keenan
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The West is taking strong actions against mass terrorists. How well do we understand what we are about to do and what we have done in the past?
To begin with, it is arguably good that this happened. The West is wide open
to suicidal terrorist attacks, and if there were ever such an attack with a
nuclear bomb, things would be a lot worse. Many people have been warning
about this for some time. Now at least some preventative measures will be
taken, and the risks will be reduced. Nuclear bombs are actually trivial to
make if you have weapons-grade uranium (still a large "if"); so the risk is
significant. Bin Laden has been trying to arm himself with nukes for years.
If we want to understand what happened, we should ask what the terrorists'
motivations were for attacking. The terrorists seem to hate America for its
actions against Muslims in Palestine and Iraq (see below), and Islam teaches
that Muslims should aid other Muslims. So, what have been America's actions?
The Palestinians have been brutalized by the Israelis. Consider that the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that rarely had a people been in so
obvious need of international protection--last November, after seeing
children whose eyes had been blown out by Israeli bullets and watching 40000
Palestinians kept under curfew so that 235 Israelis could go about their
business (in Hebron). The Palestinians have repeatedly asked for
international observers, but always had this blocked by Israel and America.
Palestinians have long been tortured in Israel (this is government-
sanctioned). The recent UN report headed by American ex-senator
Mitchell made various recommendations, which were entirely accepted by
the Palestinian Authority and rejected by Israel. Basically all other
independent reports conclude that the Palestinians are treated abominably,
including severe economic deprivations. (This is not to say that Israel does
not have valid security concerns or grievances against Palestinians.)
Israel can only act this way because of American support. Indeed, America
supplies advanced arms, gives Israel's six million citizens billions each
year, and is often virtually the sole supporter of Israel in UN discussions--
such as discussions about Israel's violations of UN resolutions. So America
is an accomplice. Even the British Foreign Secretary has now acknowledged
that "One of the factors which helps breed terrorism is the anger which
many people in [the Middle East] feel at events over the years in Palestine."
Some people have claimed that Bill Clinton tried to achieve peace, and
so America should not be held to blame. But Israel only exists because
of American support. And America, under Clinton, did not use this power.
Under Bush Sr., things were different: Bush Sr. threatened to withhold
$10 billion in loans (strictly, loan guarantees), if Israel remained brutal.
This worked, and led to a viable peace process. The process could have
remained on track if America had forced Israel to keep it signed word.
In Iraq, American-dictated sanctions ban anything that could conceivably
be used for the military. For example, pencils contain carbon and carbon is
often used in nuclear reactors; so pencils were banned. The sanctions are
horrid. The sanctions regime is always supervised by a non-American (for
political/PR reasons), and the supervisors have always quit in disgust after
about a year, which says a lot. Iraq's infrastructure and economy are being
crushed, at enormous cost. For example, according to UN estimates, the
sanctions have resulted in the death of half a million children under five.
(None of his is to suggest that Saddam is undeserving of a very tight leash,
nor that this could be applied without the people suffering significantly.)
What does bin Laden say? Even if he was not directly involved in the attacks
(which seems unlikely), he is a leading member of the terrorist network; so
his words very probably count for something. And in the past he seems to
have spoken more or less honestly about his intentions. Moreover, his words
have motivated those who carried out the attacks. In a 1999 interview, he
said he wanted to instigate "... jihad against the Jews and the Americans"
and, citing the sanctions against Iraq, he added, "Our enemy is the crusader
alliance led by America, Britain, and Israel." And in 1998, he and four
others signed the World Islamic Front Statement, which advocates killing
Americans for three reasons: America's support of Israel, America's killing
of over a million Iraqis (a figure consistent with UN estimates), and
America's stationing its armed forces in the Arabian peninsula. Regarding
the third reason, the complaint seems to be partly that America is using the
peninsula as a base for aggression against Iraq--i.e. the second and third
reasons are closely related--and partly that Muslims consider the peninsula
holy and many do not want non-Muslims permanently residing there. (Bin
Laden is Saudi Arabian, and first became a terrorist mainly for the third
reason. Later, he drew many followers, and the other reasons became prime.)
So, this is not an attack on democracy and freedom per se, as George Bush
claims. Nor is it a culture-based "clash of civilizations", as some
commentators have tried to claim (alluding to a 1993 essay by Samuel
Huntington). Nor is it an attack based on spiteful envy of American wealth
and military might, as some others have groundlessly assumed. This is an
attack by Muslim fanatics on non-Muslims who have been brutalizing Muslims.
(Some people point out that Muslims sometimes also brutalize other Muslims.
This is true: any group of people will have internal conflicts, sometimes
very severe--as here--but still often pull together when attacked from
outside. This is generally true of families, for example. It is also true
of Americans--as this September has shown. It is something to be proud of.)
The terrorist attacks appear to have opened an enormous well-spring of Muslim
anti-American feelings. Muslim demonstrations against America have been
widely reported. The demonstrators, though, have generally said that they
are against the terrorist attacks. But they, and a great many other Muslims,
share the hatred felt by the terrorists, for the reasons given above.
Many Americans seem greatly confused by widespread Muslim hatred.
To them, the claim that America desires to control the world is ludicrous.
Especially since the end of the Cold War, America has tended to interfere
in the affairs of other countries only under extreme circumstances. The
Balkans is a good example--where Europe fretted fecklessly while tens
of thousands were killed or raped. Almost all Americans simply want the
world to develop in peace and prosperity--and, incredibly, they ask for
nothing in return despite being the world's greatest guarantor of this.
But, for many Muslims, it does not look that way. America helps a state
with which it is friendly--Israel--and tries to squash a state that is very
threatening and sinister--Iraq--and it ends up looking imperialistic.
Regarding the terrorists' motivations, it is interesting to compare the
reports given by American and British mass media. Broadly, the American
media has portrayed the terrorists as crazies who are against economic
modernization and Western culture. Broadly, the British media tends to say
that the terrorists are at least rational and that America partly inspired
the hatred that they feel by its support of Israel. (Of course British media
still strongly condemn the attacks and support the American people.)
Britain has not really supported America's actions in Israel/Palestine. In
fact, the previous Foreign Secretary (Robin Cook) was fired in part because
he was too blatant in his support for Palestinians. But Britain has--almost
alone (to my knowledge)--both aided and supported America's actions against
Iraq. The British media thus cites the main Muslim grievance in which
Britain is blameless and largely ignores the other. The American media
ignores both. Even considering some criticism is unacceptable, it seems.
The media made a lot of sacrifices when the terrorists struck. Hundreds
of millions of dollars in advertising were lost as commercials were pulled
from TV to make way for more news. And it was clear that many
commentators very much had their hearts in their work. I still believe,
however, that the media has done a disservice to people by failing to
present the terrorists' true motivations--even if they disagreed with them.
The big question now is what can/will be done to make things safer. Despite
all the hype, suicide bombers are rare. But, there are about a billion
Muslims in the world; so even if only one in a 100000 becomes a bomber,
that's 10000 overall. More people will now want to become bombers, though,
for three reasons: the success of the attacks on America, the hero status
often accorded suicide bombers (in Palestine as well), and the continuing
despair that many Muslims feel about the plight of Palestinians and Iraqis.
One obvious way to increase Western safety is to inspire less hatred and
give Muslims some hope for a better future. It was the crushing of hope
by Israel that led to the recent spate of suicide bombers there. America
is plainly well aware of this. Thus, although in the first week Israeli PM
Sharon was stating that he still wanted to conquer the Palestinians, on
September 18th he did an about-face--obviously under great American
pressure. Real peace needs to be brought to Palestine. Arafat wants it,
but with land; Sharon only wants victory, but might give in; and there are
extremists in both Palestine and Israel who will try hard to derail peace.
So lasting peace will hard to get, but maybe... maybe. As for Iraq actions,
this is under American control; so sanctions should ease rapidly... maybe.
In addition to these diplomatic efforts, there is going to be a military
effort. The one purely-American purely-military option that I've seen
that might potentially do something is to nuke Afghanistan. This would
be politically very difficult. It would also inspire so much hatred in the
Muslim world that for each terrorist killed, several more would be spawned.
Some people have suggested heavy (non-nuclear) bombing of Afghanistan,
to force the Taliban into expelling the terrorists. There are no substantial
military or political targets, however, and the Afghan economy is now
virtually nonexistent, thanks to international sanctions and an extended
drought. The UN estimates that by November (after snow starts falling), over
five million Afghans will be dependent on food aid--out of a population of 20
million. So if the objective is to crush Afghans economically, stopping food
aid would do more than any bombs. In fact, this is now happening, as relief
agencies flee the country out of fear of military action. Actual bombing
seems pointless, then, except perhaps as PR. Will a famine (induced by
bombing or threat thereof) compel the Taliban into expelling the terrorists?
This is dubious: the Taliban apparently shelter the terrorists because of an
Islamic custom--if someone seeks refuge in your tribe, you have to protect
him, regardless of the cost (the Taliban actually have little interest in the
world outside Afghanistan.) Inducing a famine is also risky: if a million
die, it will fuel more Muslim hatred. Would it be moral? You decide.
Some commentators have suggested that a large-scale military operation
against Afghanistan might trigger so much popular anger that it destabilises
some other Muslim countries. I cannot comment on this, but it should be
clear, in any case, that such operations will do vastly more harm than good.
Most senior people in the American government now apparently agree.
There has been much discussion about sending special forces into Afghanistan
(likely supported by small-scale bombing). This requires intelligence on
where the terrorists are hiding. Indeed, by now many of the terrorists will
be dispersed among the population: good intelligence from the ground is
essential for successful special-forces action against them. America
apparently does not have this intelligence itself. It might try to bludgeon
the ruling Taliban into supplying such intelligence, but it is very unlikely
that the Taliban could be relied upon to act in good faith, if they acted.
The Taliban, however, are very close with Pakistan (see below). So if
America were to work with Pakistan for intelligence, it might get somewhere.
The president of Pakistan has pledged full support, but this might mean
little. The support has to come from the people on the ground, and there
have been many demonstrations in Pakistan against helping America. I
know of three reasons for these demonstrations. First, Pakistanis are
Muslims (95%) and they blame America for what is happening to Muslims
in Palestine and Iraq. Second, they don't like being bullied by Westerners
generally. The third reason is more involved; briefly, it's as follows.
The current border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is actually just a line
of control (the Durand line), from a treaty that expired about five years
ago. It was never clear what was to happen when the treaty expired: likely
Pashtoonistan--an area overlapping both Pakistan and Afghanistan--was to be
made into a state. The Pashtoon people make up nearly half of all Afghans,
and they control Afghanistan; so likely Pashtoonistan and Afghanistan would
become one. The effect would thus be to have Pakistan cede territory to
Afghanistan. (A rough analogy might be how Britain ceded Hong Kong to
China after the expiration of a 100-year treaty/lease. The Durand treaty
was drawn up in the 1890s, when Pakistan was still a part of India.)
Pakistanis, especially in the military, are very reluctant to cede a large
part of their country to Afghanistan. That's why Pakistan created the
Taliban. The Taliban were given both military and religious training in
Pakistan. They also got lots of arms and money from Pakistan, which is
why they were able to conquer (most of) Afghanistan. They were largely
controlled by Pakistan, though. And under Pakistani control, they did not
force the issue of Pashtoonistan. (Lately, Pakistani control has weakened.)
Additionally, having some Afghan territory partially under its control gave
Pakistan some extra security from the threat of neighbouring India.
America has addressed this by telling Pakistan that unless it helps,
America might rid Pakistan of its nuclear installations and support
India militarily: in effect, saying that Pakistan would be liable to lose a
majority of its territory (to India) rather than a minority (to Afghanistan).
The president of Pakistan has made a televised speech warning people "bad
results could put in danger our territorial integrity." This should help
to focus the minds of those in the military, especially since Pakistan
has a military government. Yet, it has had little effect on the populace,
who are more motivated by sympathy for fellow Muslims. Will the
low-ranking Pakistani soldiers on the ground go along and will they get
enough intelligence from Afghanistan with little help from the populace?
My guess is that Pakistan will pretend to go along, and perhaps
even help find a way to get bin Laden--which is good for PR, but not for
really eradicating the terrorist network. Maybe America will eventually
help to formalize Pakistan's borders, which would facilitate greater
Pakistani support. I have not, however, seen this discussed publicly.
There also seems to be a common view that the Taliban should be removed
from government. Indeed, it would be very difficult to eradicate the
terrorist network without doing this. One approach would be to strongly
support the anti-Taliban forces that currently control under 10% of
(northern) Afghanistan. (This support might include bombing, but only on
a small scale.) Starved of external military support, the Taliban should
crumble quickly. A complicating factor is that any large military campaign
in the Afghan winter is very difficult, and winter arrives in about October.
Most likely, though, all this will be unnecessary: the Taliban should fall
on their own, now that they are no longer propped up by Pakistan. What
is in any case important is to avoid making it seem that this is American
imperialism, which would unite the populace and draw wide Muslim anger.
The military action, whatever form it takes, will make it difficult for the
terrorists to train or actively maintain their network in Afghanistan.
Capturing many terrorists, though, seems unrealistic. The threatened mass
bombing has made this even more difficult, since many Afghans have fled
population centres for safety: there seems no good way to find a terrorist,
who looks and acts ordinary, in their midst. If the Taliban are removed from
government, though, perhaps more Afghans would then supply intelligence.
There is also a lot of detective work underway. Within America, and some
other countries, this seems to be on track for some success, for identifying
terrorists and also for hindering their financing. There appear to be many
suicidal Islamic terrorists in the network that attacked America, though.
Estimates are rough, but there could be several hundred who have deeply
infiltrated the West. As an example, one of the highjackers had spent
several years in Germany getting a technical degree. The network has
supposedly spread to roughly 40 countries, which will hinder tracing it.
Also, there is no real command structure: there is only a network (like the
Internet is a network) with some people more influential than others; so even
if someone like bin Laden is caught, the network would hardly be eradicated
(a bit like taking out a few major nodes of the Internet would do little).
Tracing the network is thus going to take a long effort, but should succeed.
Diplomatic, military, and detective efforts could also be supplemented with
religious efforts, though I have not seen this discussed much. Bin Laden has
claimed that he is instigating a jihad. Jihads were fought many centuries
ago, against the crusaders. The jihad concept was then largely forgotten.
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA looked for ways to
help motivate the Afghans to fight (this was during the Cold War; so the CIA
was arguably justified). One of they ways the CIA came up with was the
revival of the long-abandoned notion of jihad. It worked (although the
defining event in the Afghan-Soviet war was probably America's decision to
supply the Afghans with shoulder-launched Stinger anti-aircraft missiles).
The Koran, though, teaches that a jihad should not harm women and children.
And bin Laden himself said (in 1999) that "God... has prohibited the killing
of women and children unless the women are active fighters." Fighting the
Soviet army fits with this. Crashing planes into the World Trade Center does
not. Of course, religious fanatics can twist anything ("America is a
democracy; so the people are directly responsible for what their government
does; so the women killed in the World Trade Center were active fighters."--
maybe?). But I believe that it should be possible to use the Koran, and
perhaps even Muslim clerics, to motivate Afghans against the terrorists.
What are the overall conclusions? In the short term, there is small, but
real, risk of another terrorist assault, against America or perhaps Britain
(or Israel). In the medium term, the terrorist network will be attacked and
largely eradicated, and America's resolve will make all countries very
hesitant about sponsoring other terrorist networks. Additionally, there
will be widespread, permanent, increases in security measures and both
domestic and international intelligence operations. Individual terrorist
incidents, however, do not require a sophisticated network or large
resources (remember Oklahoma City). It is not realistic to expect to be able
to prevent them all. In the long term, then, we also need to lessen the
causes of Muslim grievances, even if it means facing up to our past mistakes.
Re:To Those Who Are Screaming For Vengeance
by
mmontour
·
· Score: 5, Informative
9) Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.
You set up a very artificial scenario. The military person is almost certainly much better at hand-to-hand combat than the student. Even if the student punches back, he probably won't be able to incapacitate the military person. So why would the student think that punching back would stop further attacks, rather than escalating the intensity of those further attacks???
The only reason that "punching back" stops the violence is that the attacker's only goal is to incite the student to punch back. With more likely attack goals (trying to get your lunch money, doesn't like the color of your skin, etc) punching back will only stop the violence if you are strong enough to significantly hurt your attacker.
A student who is being attacked and knows he is outclassed can try to punch back and hope for the best. Or he can give in to the attacker's demands. Or he can run away.
Or he can run away, then find a way to "hit back" at his attacker in a different manner than hand-to-hand combat. A student, tired of being bullied at school every day, might decide to bring in a handgun. A terrorist organization with no chance of defeating the US military might decide to attack soft civilian US targets.
Sometimes it is necessary to punch back. However if you are one of the "good guys" who goes around punching people in the face in order to make this point, don't be surprised when they eventually change the rules and "punch back" in a way that really hurts you!
Disclaimer: Don't support the terrorists or their actions; agree that they must be hunted down. Just don't think that Bush's "Good vs. Evil" attitude is doing anything to reduce the chance of future terrorism.
Re:To Those Who Are Screaming For Vengeance
by
LS
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Your analogy is one of the worst I have ever seen. There are more holes in it than I wish to address, but I will point out a few:
* A single person commiting an act of unprovoked violence is not comparable to a complex political situation that sometimes involves violence.
* The US is the puncher, not the receiver of the punch. Our cold war and oilinterests cause us to meddle in the affairs of almost every country in the middle east. We aided Osama Bin Laden and put the Taliban into power. They used to be called "freedom fighters" in the past. Our sanctions in Iraq have caused the deaths of over 500,000 CHILDREN. We sponsored and trained terrorists in Nicaragua that resulted in over 30,000 civilian deaths. The list goes on. Now who is the aggressor here?
* A true pacifist is willing to die before hitting back. If someone thinks violence is evil, how can you combat evil with violence?
* And why would anyone take advice and learn lessons from an asshole who punches peaceful people in the face?
Turn your radio dial away from Rush Limbaugh and start finding out the true story, instead of knee-jerking off.
-- There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Stratfor.com
by
kruczkowski
·
· Score: 5, Informative
For anyone that wants better intel than cnn.com on what is going on, a site called stratfor.com exists. It's setup by x-military intel people who know this stuff, they have good info and a daily newsletter that is free and worth singing up for. They also provide their intel services to companys and media, but that cost a bit.
-- hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Re:Doesnt look that big right now
by
SubtleNuance
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Should the U.S. not retaliate or otherwise defend itself
NO, the US is attacking them. Someone committed a crime, not and act of war, and the US is responding by making war.
its always wrong.
perceive this as an attack on Islam
You do understand America has been backing the slaughter of Muslims in Isreal for 40 years. The Jewish feel for some reason that they deserve to displace Muslims because they are not Jewish. The Americans have been supporting religious-state politics all this time, they have been violating their own constitution by supporting Zionism - you are most certainly wrong when you say this is NOT an attack on Islam - it most certainly is.
America has backed anti-Muslim policies, politics and 'apartheid'(sp?)
America is not blameless.
Re:To Those Who Are Screaming For Vengeance
by
Chris+Y+Taylor
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"Nope. But I do believe that they were driven by revenge. (as if it's not obvious!)"
Then you are an idiot. Or at least I'll grant that you are just politically naive. The attacks on 9-11 have nothing to do with revenge. They were not "crimes of passion." The terrorist leaders may toss around the word "revenge" in the propaganda they use to recruit throw-away agents, but the fact is that such terrorist acts are cooly calculated attempts at political manipulation.
To quote the DOD definition, terrorism is "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to [cause] fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological... In other words, terrorism is a psychological act conducted for its impact on an audience."
The leaders of Al-Qaeda seek to establish a unified Islamic gov't over the entire Middle East. Is that evil? Well, they want a gov't where women are considered property, where the political leaders are also the religious leaders, where practicing a religion other than the "state religion" is punishable by death, and not incidentally where THEY are those revered religious/political dictators. I think that qualifies for evil in my book. Even if you don't believe in "good vs. evil" political simplifications, then surely it is an end result which almost all civilized people would not want to see occur.
So why would Al-Qaeda attack the World Trade Center if it really wants to take over Arabia? Because as long as the United States maintains a strong military presence in the region then any attempt to "unify the Muslim world" will almost certainly come to a swift failure. Al-Qaeda's first step is to drive the U.S. out of the region that they want to conquer and to sufficiently damage us that we would not have the resources to ever come back in. Al-Qaeda is manipulating the hatred and jealousy toward the United States among the many Muslims to further their own goals of political/military conquest. They murdered thousands of civilians in a surprise terrorist attack in an attempt to provoke the United States gov't into taking rash action that will further increase their political base (something Bush's advisors obviously foresaw, considering the huge emphasis that Bush and his administration are placing on winning the "hearts and minds" of the Afghans and other Muslim people) and also as the first step in convincing the public and the leadership of the United States that we must withdraw our forces from the Mid-East (like we withdrew from Lebanon and Somalia after terrorist related casualties in those areas) so that it will be ripe for their conquest. Sounds close enough to "evil" in my book.
As the song says "everybody wants to rule the world." Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri might actually be satisfied with just the Middle and Near East... maybe. I'm sure they don't see themselves as "evil." I'm sure they would tell you that they keep women uneducated and oppressed because that is their proper place in society... not because they hate them. I'm sure that they would explain that they execute people preaching other religions because they care about their citizen's souls and want to protect them from temptation. Then again, I'm sure that the Communists would have told you that they were doing what they did only because they cared so much for the Working Class. I'm sure that the National German Worker's Party officials would have explained that their actions were taken to bring back the pride and sense of self worth among the much maligned German people and to free them from the unfair terms of the Armistice Treaty forced on them by the evil French.
I will not try to argue that the United States is perfect. We have used ruthless means to achieve our ends. We have manipulated nations. We have supported oppressive leaders simply because they were the enemies of our enemies. It is a cruel world. International politics is a brutal jungle where the only rules are the ones that you can enforce. We have played by those "rules of the jungle" and perhaps in some ways we mirror the evil we try to fight. But aside from some (thankfully) rare acts by misguided leaders, our ends are generally good. If you can't agree with that, then I submit that they are at least better than the ends pursued by our enemies, whether those enemies are Al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussien, or the Chicoms.
Some people are upset that the United States is never perfect. The choice is not "which side is perfect." The choice is "which future do you want to live in?" The future the United States is fighting for will not be a utopia... but it will be better than the alternative. It is time to choose sides. And don't forget the saying "The Perfect is the enemy of The Good." If you wait for a perfect society to support, then you will never find it. It is time to throw in on the side of "The Good." As long as you argue that the calculated conspiracy of an oppressive, tyrannical fanatic is morally equivalent to the calculated conspiracy of the powers of Western Civilization to promote global stability and the continued existence of liberal, capitalist, democratic society, then you are on the wrong side... and you are being just as manipulated by Al-Qaeda's propaganda as are the poor, ignorant youths who they recruit to be "throw away" agents.
P.S. All the people who feared a stupid, rash, and vengeful retaliation by the United States need only look at the huge effort being put into helping the Afghan people and building alliances with local, freedom-loving Afghanis to see how wrong those expectations were. I am very proud of Pres. Bush and his administration. www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/10/06/ret.bush.radio/ index.html (remove the space before "index")
Re:The CIA taught Arabs the techniques of terroris
by
strider
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I think you use several very faulty lines of logic here and I will attempt to demonstrate them individually. I'd like to note that I think generally we would be on the same side regarding foreing policy, but I think in this instance I must firmly disagree.
First you imply that this is our fault, or deserved because of our funding of the Mujahadeen during the exuberant battle against the "evil empire" of the cold war. While I agree this was a mistake, let's not use that to claim that in any way justifies the current situation in that country. The Soviet Union invaded and we helped the rebels gain independence. This done we stopped helping them. They would have liked more money to set up a regime but we cared little after we won our battle. So we didn't help as much as we could/should have, is this reason to bomb us? NO. It does not follow that, since we declined to continue aiding the Mujahadeen as they set up a government we wronged them in such a way as to deserve 9/11. We helped create this monster yes, but isn't that all the more reason for us to step up to the plate and end it?
Next you have the bombing 1 nation every two years argument. Firstly few of these terrorist are victims of bombing. That aside, I wonder how many more peoploe would have died if we had not have dropped a bomb in the last 30 years? It sounds paradoxicall but unfortunately their are some seriously fucked up people in this world and sometimes you have to kill them. The US made mistakes, yes. But it made mistakes while generally *trying to do the right thing*. Explain to me how Somalia or Kosovo can be construed as the US profiteering from bombing? Come on. Perhaps our motives or our analysis haven't always been perfect, but they rarely have been purely economic profit. America had made mistakes like everyone else. You might want to research how much culpability Pakistan has in all this. Their crusade for Kashmire has caused them to fund some unsavory charecters. We all do stupid things. That does not mean the present situation is one of them or that America is evil.
Thirdly there is the profiteering from arm sales argument. This argument has been arround since after world war I where it gained popularity as an explanation for the horific wanton destruction from that war. Because a group stands to profit from a course of action does not mean that they are responsible for it. It is sometimes good grounds for suspicion but it nothing like positive evidence. I think your argument here is much stronger on issues like the missle defense system than on this. I really don't think Bush's main goal right now is "what do the defence contractors want me to do" regardless of how he may think on other occasions.
In the end I think this act is justified for one reason only; it may prevent future suffering. Terrorism like any other act of violence causes suffering. This action may create less suffering than it ends.
-- The preceding passage has been checked for spelling,
you will find no sentence without at least one mis spelled word
Re:The CIA taught Arabs the techniques of terroris
by
Guppy06
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"Please look beyond what you are being told. This is not an adult video game."
... and yet you try so hard to make it cut-and-dry...
""Abu Sayyaf... train[ed] terrorists in the methods taught by the CIA...""
Unfortunately, you seem to have neglected to mention that they've skewed quite far from the terrorist methods that they were taught. Back then, terrorist organizations tended to be married to one intelligence service or another, have clear and announced political goals, and took credit for an act immediately so that their victims could mull over why they had been attacked. Their goal is to motivate their victims through the use of terror.
On the other hand, what we have here is a lose network of terrorist organizations that do not rely on any one source of funds too heavily, have relatively obscure, religion-oriented goals, and tend not to immediately take credit. Instead, as we saw with the kamikaze attacks in New York and DC, it was more important for these people to do good by their God than to make a political statement.
In short, terrifying Americans and swaying their opinion one way or another is now only a secondary goal. Literally killing as many Americans as possible has moved up to #1.
If you think the CIA would teach the Afghanis what they did to us last month, I ask you this: If Afghanis hijacked an Aeroflot jet and flew it into the Supreme Soviet, is there any doubt in your mind that they would have sent in the full brunt of the Red Army into Afghanistan (complete with their NBC weapons) instead of the trickle we saw?
"Afghanistan is the 15th country the U.S. government has bombed in 30 years, an average of 5 countries bombed every 10 years. Will there be 5 more countries in the next 10 years?"
Would you rather we stay focused on one target and slowly grind it into the dust before moving on to the next?
When somebody threatens American insterests (like, say, blow up a few hundred of our Marines stationed abroad with the consent of the host government, or bomb airliners, or attack US-flagged oil tankers, etc.), it is both necessary to respond and to respond with the appropriate amount of force. If the amount of force is too little, the US is considered to a bunch of push-overs, with everything we own essentially up-for-grabs.
To quote Heinlein's Starship Troopers:
If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is
controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence.
If you think that we've been too violent in the past, where do you think we should draw the line marking where we respond violently (and how violently) and where we don't? If you can think of a better answer, maybe you should run for office. Or easier still, vote.
"The U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 people in that time."
That's an interesting figure you have there. I don't know where you got it (and I'm curious about it), but I have a feeling you've padded it with questionable sources. Sources like:
A Palestinian throws rocks and Moletov cocktails at an Israeli soldier. The soldier feels threatened and shoots the Palestinian. The gun used was an M-16, so therefore the US killed the Palestinian.
Iraq's government is busy threatening its neighbors, developing (more) NBC weapons, and trying to exterminate an ethnic minority in its own borders. The US government is squeamish about giving aid to such a regime, especially when its doubtful such aid would actually reach those that need it ("The Republican Guard needs that food more than you do."), but is willing to send such aid if Iraq demonstrates that it neither owns nor is developing weapons of mass destruction. Because Iraq considers its own weapons stockpile more important than the health and well-being of its people, the US is responsible for all deaths in Iraq due to starvation
Sound familiar? It's a real shame that you're not the only one that believes that the US is the prime cause for all of these deaths.
As for the rest, those that were bombed were given ample warning and the chance to back down from doing what they shouldn't have been doing ("Lybia, stop trying to claim international waters as your own." "Cuba, stop trying to take over Grenada." "Iraq, don't invade/get out of Kuwait." "Serbia, stop butchering Muslims."). However, they made a decision to invite attacks by US forces instead. If anything, these should serve as examples that soetimes words are just not enough.
... and now you all but flat-out say "Boeing helped the hijackers."
"Weapons making is EXTREMELY profitable."
... while getting executed for treason is not. Your name, your family, and your life aren't worth the billions you might make, especially when you're already rolling in it. You don't stay that rich for that long by taking risky chances like that.
On top of that, such companies also lose money on their consumer goods as the civillians who used to buy cars and planes and televisions and everything else say "Hey, there's a war going on. Maybe we should save our money..."
"There are people who do hidden things to push the U.S. government into conflict because they want the money."
Do you have proof? Do you even have circumstantial evidence? Do you have anything more than some shady website run by a certifiable paranoid?
"In the past ten years, parties to 45 current conflicts have taken delivery of over $42 billion worth of U.S. weaponry."
Was the US actively involved in any of those 45 conflicts through shady dealings? Was the US actively involved in any of those conflicts period?
Better yet, is there any reason to believe that those conflicts wouldn't be happening right now if US companies weren't selling them weapons? I've yet to see a gun that comes complete with the desire and will to kill another person.
It sounds to me that the US is the cause of all ill-will everywhere. If somebody wants to kill somebody else, it's probably because the CIA was beaming "hate waves" into them from a satellite in LEO...
You start your post stating that we all should "look beyond." But no amount of looking, no matter what you're looking at, is a substitute for thought and analysis. Perhaps you should consider that before you lazily pick up that "The US is the source of all evil!" banner that somebody else made for you.
Slashdot Mirror
The BBC report is here. Includes comment from a Whitehouse spokesman.
Get a map of possible targets here.
--jon
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
Bin Laden may survive this. But that may not matter. Just getting the message across that allowing terrorists to attack the U.S. from your country means your government gets crushed may be enough to deter state-sponsored terrorism for a while.
I just have to say, I listen to Blair's speech a few minutes ago, and I douub the United States could have any better friend than Britain and Tony Blair himself. He was with us the day of the attack, he's been with us since, and he's with us now, and Britain's soldiers' lives are on the line along with ours.
I'm not normally a religous man, but I have to say: God bless the UK and Tony Blair.
I'm the stranger...posting to
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
-Hermann Goering, Hitler's #2 man
More to come..
To begin with, it is arguably good that this happened. The West is wide open to suicidal terrorist attacks, and if there were ever such an attack with a nuclear bomb, things would be a lot worse. Many people have been warning about this for some time. Now at least some preventative measures will be taken, and the risks will be reduced. Nuclear bombs are actually trivial to make if you have weapons-grade uranium (still a large "if"); so the risk is significant. Bin Laden has been trying to arm himself with nukes for years.
If we want to understand what happened, we should ask what the terrorists' motivations were for attacking. The terrorists seem to hate America for its actions against Muslims in Palestine and Iraq (see below), and Islam teaches that Muslims should aid other Muslims. So, what have been America's actions?
The Palestinians have been brutalized by the Israelis. Consider that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that rarely had a people been in so obvious need of international protection--last November, after seeing children whose eyes had been blown out by Israeli bullets and watching 40000 Palestinians kept under curfew so that 235 Israelis could go about their business (in Hebron). The Palestinians have repeatedly asked for international observers, but always had this blocked by Israel and America. Palestinians have long been tortured in Israel (this is government- sanctioned). The recent UN report headed by American ex-senator Mitchell made various recommendations, which were entirely accepted by the Palestinian Authority and rejected by Israel. Basically all other independent reports conclude that the Palestinians are treated abominably, including severe economic deprivations. (This is not to say that Israel does not have valid security concerns or grievances against Palestinians.)
Israel can only act this way because of American support. Indeed, America supplies advanced arms, gives Israel's six million citizens billions each year, and is often virtually the sole supporter of Israel in UN discussions-- such as discussions about Israel's violations of UN resolutions. So America is an accomplice. Even the British Foreign Secretary has now acknowledged that "One of the factors which helps breed terrorism is the anger which many people in [the Middle East] feel at events over the years in Palestine."
Some people have claimed that Bill Clinton tried to achieve peace, and so America should not be held to blame. But Israel only exists because of American support. And America, under Clinton, did not use this power. Under Bush Sr., things were different: Bush Sr. threatened to withhold $10 billion in loans (strictly, loan guarantees), if Israel remained brutal. This worked, and led to a viable peace process. The process could have remained on track if America had forced Israel to keep it signed word.
In Iraq, American-dictated sanctions ban anything that could conceivably be used for the military. For example, pencils contain carbon and carbon is often used in nuclear reactors; so pencils were banned. The sanctions are horrid. The sanctions regime is always supervised by a non-American (for political/PR reasons), and the supervisors have always quit in disgust after about a year, which says a lot. Iraq's infrastructure and economy are being crushed, at enormous cost. For example, according to UN estimates, the sanctions have resulted in the death of half a million children under five. (None of his is to suggest that Saddam is undeserving of a very tight leash, nor that this could be applied without the people suffering significantly.)
What does bin Laden say? Even if he was not directly involved in the attacks (which seems unlikely), he is a leading member of the terrorist network; so his words very probably count for something. And in the past he seems to have spoken more or less honestly about his intentions. Moreover, his words have motivated those who carried out the attacks. In a 1999 interview, he said he wanted to instigate "... jihad against the Jews and the Americans" and, citing the sanctions against Iraq, he added, "Our enemy is the crusader alliance led by America, Britain, and Israel." And in 1998, he and four others signed the World Islamic Front Statement, which advocates killing Americans for three reasons: America's support of Israel, America's killing of over a million Iraqis (a figure consistent with UN estimates), and America's stationing its armed forces in the Arabian peninsula. Regarding the third reason, the complaint seems to be partly that America is using the peninsula as a base for aggression against Iraq--i.e. the second and third reasons are closely related--and partly that Muslims consider the peninsula holy and many do not want non-Muslims permanently residing there. (Bin Laden is Saudi Arabian, and first became a terrorist mainly for the third reason. Later, he drew many followers, and the other reasons became prime.)
So, this is not an attack on democracy and freedom per se, as George Bush claims. Nor is it a culture-based "clash of civilizations", as some commentators have tried to claim (alluding to a 1993 essay by Samuel Huntington). Nor is it an attack based on spiteful envy of American wealth and military might, as some others have groundlessly assumed. This is an attack by Muslim fanatics on non-Muslims who have been brutalizing Muslims.
(Some people point out that Muslims sometimes also brutalize other Muslims. This is true: any group of people will have internal conflicts, sometimes very severe--as here--but still often pull together when attacked from outside. This is generally true of families, for example. It is also true of Americans--as this September has shown. It is something to be proud of.)
The terrorist attacks appear to have opened an enormous well-spring of Muslim anti-American feelings. Muslim demonstrations against America have been widely reported. The demonstrators, though, have generally said that they are against the terrorist attacks. But they, and a great many other Muslims, share the hatred felt by the terrorists, for the reasons given above.
Many Americans seem greatly confused by widespread Muslim hatred. To them, the claim that America desires to control the world is ludicrous. Especially since the end of the Cold War, America has tended to interfere in the affairs of other countries only under extreme circumstances. The Balkans is a good example--where Europe fretted fecklessly while tens of thousands were killed or raped. Almost all Americans simply want the world to develop in peace and prosperity--and, incredibly, they ask for nothing in return despite being the world's greatest guarantor of this. But, for many Muslims, it does not look that way. America helps a state with which it is friendly--Israel--and tries to squash a state that is very threatening and sinister--Iraq--and it ends up looking imperialistic.
Regarding the terrorists' motivations, it is interesting to compare the reports given by American and British mass media. Broadly, the American media has portrayed the terrorists as crazies who are against economic modernization and Western culture. Broadly, the British media tends to say that the terrorists are at least rational and that America partly inspired the hatred that they feel by its support of Israel. (Of course British media still strongly condemn the attacks and support the American people.)
Britain has not really supported America's actions in Israel/Palestine. In fact, the previous Foreign Secretary (Robin Cook) was fired in part because he was too blatant in his support for Palestinians. But Britain has--almost alone (to my knowledge)--both aided and supported America's actions against Iraq. The British media thus cites the main Muslim grievance in which Britain is blameless and largely ignores the other. The American media ignores both. Even considering some criticism is unacceptable, it seems.
The media made a lot of sacrifices when the terrorists struck. Hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising were lost as commercials were pulled from TV to make way for more news. And it was clear that many commentators very much had their hearts in their work. I still believe, however, that the media has done a disservice to people by failing to present the terrorists' true motivations--even if they disagreed with them.
The big question now is what can/will be done to make things safer. Despite all the hype, suicide bombers are rare. But, there are about a billion Muslims in the world; so even if only one in a 100000 becomes a bomber, that's 10000 overall. More people will now want to become bombers, though, for three reasons: the success of the attacks on America, the hero status often accorded suicide bombers (in Palestine as well), and the continuing despair that many Muslims feel about the plight of Palestinians and Iraqis.
One obvious way to increase Western safety is to inspire less hatred and give Muslims some hope for a better future. It was the crushing of hope by Israel that led to the recent spate of suicide bombers there. America is plainly well aware of this. Thus, although in the first week Israeli PM Sharon was stating that he still wanted to conquer the Palestinians, on September 18th he did an about-face--obviously under great American pressure. Real peace needs to be brought to Palestine. Arafat wants it, but with land; Sharon only wants victory, but might give in; and there are extremists in both Palestine and Israel who will try hard to derail peace. So lasting peace will hard to get, but maybe ... maybe. As for Iraq actions,
this is under American control; so sanctions should ease rapidly ... maybe.
In addition to these diplomatic efforts, there is going to be a military effort. The one purely-American purely-military option that I've seen that might potentially do something is to nuke Afghanistan. This would be politically very difficult. It would also inspire so much hatred in the Muslim world that for each terrorist killed, several more would be spawned.
Some people have suggested heavy (non-nuclear) bombing of Afghanistan, to force the Taliban into expelling the terrorists. There are no substantial military or political targets, however, and the Afghan economy is now virtually nonexistent, thanks to international sanctions and an extended drought. The UN estimates that by November (after snow starts falling), over five million Afghans will be dependent on food aid--out of a population of 20 million. So if the objective is to crush Afghans economically, stopping food aid would do more than any bombs. In fact, this is now happening, as relief agencies flee the country out of fear of military action. Actual bombing seems pointless, then, except perhaps as PR. Will a famine (induced by bombing or threat thereof) compel the Taliban into expelling the terrorists? This is dubious: the Taliban apparently shelter the terrorists because of an Islamic custom--if someone seeks refuge in your tribe, you have to protect him, regardless of the cost (the Taliban actually have little interest in the world outside Afghanistan.) Inducing a famine is also risky: if a million die, it will fuel more Muslim hatred. Would it be moral? You decide.
Some commentators have suggested that a large-scale military operation against Afghanistan might trigger so much popular anger that it destabilises some other Muslim countries. I cannot comment on this, but it should be clear, in any case, that such operations will do vastly more harm than good. Most senior people in the American government now apparently agree.
There has been much discussion about sending special forces into Afghanistan (likely supported by small-scale bombing). This requires intelligence on where the terrorists are hiding. Indeed, by now many of the terrorists will be dispersed among the population: good intelligence from the ground is essential for successful special-forces action against them. America apparently does not have this intelligence itself. It might try to bludgeon the ruling Taliban into supplying such intelligence, but it is very unlikely that the Taliban could be relied upon to act in good faith, if they acted.
The Taliban, however, are very close with Pakistan (see below). So if America were to work with Pakistan for intelligence, it might get somewhere. The president of Pakistan has pledged full support, but this might mean little. The support has to come from the people on the ground, and there have been many demonstrations in Pakistan against helping America. I know of three reasons for these demonstrations. First, Pakistanis are Muslims (95%) and they blame America for what is happening to Muslims in Palestine and Iraq. Second, they don't like being bullied by Westerners generally. The third reason is more involved; briefly, it's as follows.
The current border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is actually just a line of control (the Durand line), from a treaty that expired about five years ago. It was never clear what was to happen when the treaty expired: likely Pashtoonistan--an area overlapping both Pakistan and Afghanistan--was to be made into a state. The Pashtoon people make up nearly half of all Afghans, and they control Afghanistan; so likely Pashtoonistan and Afghanistan would become one. The effect would thus be to have Pakistan cede territory to Afghanistan. (A rough analogy might be how Britain ceded Hong Kong to China after the expiration of a 100-year treaty/lease. The Durand treaty was drawn up in the 1890s, when Pakistan was still a part of India.)
Pakistanis, especially in the military, are very reluctant to cede a large part of their country to Afghanistan. That's why Pakistan created the Taliban. The Taliban were given both military and religious training in Pakistan. They also got lots of arms and money from Pakistan, which is why they were able to conquer (most of) Afghanistan. They were largely controlled by Pakistan, though. And under Pakistani control, they did not force the issue of Pashtoonistan. (Lately, Pakistani control has weakened.) Additionally, having some Afghan territory partially under its control gave Pakistan some extra security from the threat of neighbouring India.
America has addressed this by telling Pakistan that unless it helps, America might rid Pakistan of its nuclear installations and support India militarily: in effect, saying that Pakistan would be liable to lose a majority of its territory (to India) rather than a minority (to Afghanistan). The president of Pakistan has made a televised speech warning people "bad results could put in danger our territorial integrity." This should help to focus the minds of those in the military, especially since Pakistan has a military government. Yet, it has had little effect on the populace, who are more motivated by sympathy for fellow Muslims. Will the low-ranking Pakistani soldiers on the ground go along and will they get enough intelligence from Afghanistan with little help from the populace?
My guess is that Pakistan will pretend to go along, and perhaps even help find a way to get bin Laden--which is good for PR, but not for really eradicating the terrorist network. Maybe America will eventually help to formalize Pakistan's borders, which would facilitate greater Pakistani support. I have not, however, seen this discussed publicly.
There also seems to be a common view that the Taliban should be removed from government. Indeed, it would be very difficult to eradicate the terrorist network without doing this. One approach would be to strongly support the anti-Taliban forces that currently control under 10% of (northern) Afghanistan. (This support might include bombing, but only on a small scale.) Starved of external military support, the Taliban should crumble quickly. A complicating factor is that any large military campaign in the Afghan winter is very difficult, and winter arrives in about October. Most likely, though, all this will be unnecessary: the Taliban should fall on their own, now that they are no longer propped up by Pakistan. What is in any case important is to avoid making it seem that this is American imperialism, which would unite the populace and draw wide Muslim anger.
The military action, whatever form it takes, will make it difficult for the terrorists to train or actively maintain their network in Afghanistan. Capturing many terrorists, though, seems unrealistic. The threatened mass bombing has made this even more difficult, since many Afghans have fled population centres for safety: there seems no good way to find a terrorist, who looks and acts ordinary, in their midst. If the Taliban are removed from government, though, perhaps more Afghans would then supply intelligence.
There is also a lot of detective work underway. Within America, and some other countries, this seems to be on track for some success, for identifying terrorists and also for hindering their financing. There appear to be many suicidal Islamic terrorists in the network that attacked America, though. Estimates are rough, but there could be several hundred who have deeply infiltrated the West. As an example, one of the highjackers had spent several years in Germany getting a technical degree. The network has supposedly spread to roughly 40 countries, which will hinder tracing it. Also, there is no real command structure: there is only a network (like the Internet is a network) with some people more influential than others; so even if someone like bin Laden is caught, the network would hardly be eradicated (a bit like taking out a few major nodes of the Internet would do little). Tracing the network is thus going to take a long effort, but should succeed.
Diplomatic, military, and detective efforts could also be supplemented with religious efforts, though I have not seen this discussed much. Bin Laden has claimed that he is instigating a jihad. Jihads were fought many centuries ago, against the crusaders. The jihad concept was then largely forgotten. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA looked for ways to help motivate the Afghans to fight (this was during the Cold War; so the CIA was arguably justified). One of they ways the CIA came up with was the revival of the long-abandoned notion of jihad. It worked (although the defining event in the Afghan-Soviet war was probably America's decision to supply the Afghans with shoulder-launched Stinger anti-aircraft missiles).
The Koran, though, teaches that a jihad should not harm women and children. And bin Laden himself said (in 1999) that "God ... has prohibited the killing
of women and children unless the women are active fighters." Fighting the
Soviet army fits with this. Crashing planes into the World Trade Center does
not. Of course, religious fanatics can twist anything ("America is a
democracy; so the people are directly responsible for what their government
does; so the women killed in the World Trade Center were active fighters."--
maybe?). But I believe that it should be possible to use the Koran, and
perhaps even Muslim clerics, to motivate Afghans against the terrorists.
What are the overall conclusions? In the short term, there is small, but real, risk of another terrorist assault, against America or perhaps Britain (or Israel). In the medium term, the terrorist network will be attacked and largely eradicated, and America's resolve will make all countries very hesitant about sponsoring other terrorist networks. Additionally, there will be widespread, permanent, increases in security measures and both domestic and international intelligence operations. Individual terrorist incidents, however, do not require a sophisticated network or large resources (remember Oklahoma City). It is not realistic to expect to be able to prevent them all. In the long term, then, we also need to lessen the causes of Muslim grievances, even if it means facing up to our past mistakes.
Douglas J. Keenan
Some sources:a nscript_binladen1_990110.html w a.htm n dex.html t /newsid_1552000/1552900.stm
The 1999 interview with Osama bin Laden-- http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/tr
The 1998 World Islamic Front Statement-- http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fat
Some insights into Afghanistan-- http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2001/June/Afghan/i
The home page of the Palestinian Authority, with many more related links-- http://www.pna.gov.ps/
Links to insightful news stories on Afghanistan, Israel, Pakistan, etc.-- http://www.economist.com/countries/
A UNICEF news release on child mortality in Iraq-- http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm
A BBC report entitled "Explaining Arab Anger" [September 19th]-- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_eas
9) Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.
You set up a very artificial scenario. The military person is almost certainly much better at hand-to-hand combat than the student. Even if the student punches back, he probably won't be able to incapacitate the military person. So why would the student think that punching back would stop further attacks, rather than escalating the intensity of those further attacks???
The only reason that "punching back" stops the violence is that the attacker's only goal is to incite the student to punch back. With more likely attack goals (trying to get your lunch money, doesn't like the color of your skin, etc) punching back will only stop the violence if you are strong enough to significantly hurt your attacker.
A student who is being attacked and knows he is outclassed can try to punch back and hope for the best. Or he can give in to the attacker's demands. Or he can run away.
Or he can run away, then find a way to "hit back" at his attacker in a different manner than hand-to-hand combat. A student, tired of being bullied at school every day, might decide to bring in a handgun. A terrorist organization with no chance of defeating the US military might decide to attack soft civilian US targets.
Sometimes it is necessary to punch back. However if you are one of the "good guys" who goes around punching people in the face in order to make this point, don't be surprised when they eventually change the rules and "punch back" in a way that really hurts you!
Disclaimer: Don't support the terrorists or their actions; agree that they must be hunted down. Just don't think that Bush's "Good vs. Evil" attitude is doing anything to reduce the chance of future terrorism.
Your analogy is one of the worst I have ever seen. There are more holes in it than I wish to address, but I will point out a few:
* A single person commiting an act of unprovoked violence is not comparable to a complex political situation that sometimes involves violence.
* The US is the puncher, not the receiver of the punch. Our cold war and oil interests cause us to meddle in the affairs of almost every country in the middle east. We aided Osama Bin Laden and put the Taliban into power. They used to be called "freedom fighters" in the past. Our sanctions in Iraq have caused the deaths of over 500,000 CHILDREN. We sponsored and trained terrorists in Nicaragua that resulted in over 30,000 civilian deaths. The list goes on. Now who is the aggressor here?
* A true pacifist is willing to die before hitting back. If someone thinks violence is evil, how can you combat evil with violence?
* And why would anyone take advice and learn lessons from an asshole who punches peaceful people in the face?
Turn your radio dial away from Rush Limbaugh and start finding out the true story, instead of knee-jerking off.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
For anyone that wants better intel than cnn.com on what is going on, a site called stratfor.com exists. It's setup by x-military intel people who know this stuff, they have good info and a daily newsletter that is free and worth singing up for. They also provide their intel services to companys and media, but that cost a bit.
h tm
Some links
http://www.stratfor.com/home/sitreps.htm
http://www.stratfor.com/preview/specialproject.
(And no I do not get a commotion for this ad)
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Should the U.S. not retaliate or otherwise defend itself
NO, the US is attacking them. Someone committed a crime, not and act of war, and the US is responding by making war.
its always wrong.
perceive this as an attack on Islam
You do understand America has been backing the slaughter of Muslims in Isreal for 40 years. The Jewish feel for some reason that they deserve to displace Muslims because they are not Jewish. The Americans have been supporting religious-state politics all this time, they have been violating their own constitution by supporting Zionism - you are most certainly wrong when you say this is NOT an attack on Islam - it most certainly is.
America has backed anti-Muslim policies, politics and 'apartheid'(sp?)
America is not blameless.
"Nope. But I do believe that they were driven by revenge. (as if it's not obvious!)"
/ index.html (remove the space before "index")
Then you are an idiot. Or at least I'll grant that you are just politically naive. The attacks on 9-11 have nothing to do with revenge. They were not "crimes of passion." The terrorist leaders may toss around the word "revenge" in the propaganda they use to recruit throw-away agents, but the fact is that such terrorist acts are cooly calculated attempts at political manipulation.
To quote the DOD definition, terrorism is "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to [cause] fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological... In other words, terrorism is a psychological act conducted for its impact on an audience."
The leaders of Al-Qaeda seek to establish a unified Islamic gov't over the entire Middle East. Is that evil? Well, they want a gov't where women are considered property, where the political leaders are also the religious leaders, where practicing a religion other than the "state religion" is punishable by death, and not incidentally where THEY are those revered religious/political dictators. I think that qualifies for evil in my book. Even if you don't believe in "good vs. evil" political simplifications, then surely it is an end result which almost all civilized people would not want to see occur.
So why would Al-Qaeda attack the World Trade Center if it really wants to take over Arabia? Because as long as the United States maintains a strong military presence in the region then any attempt to "unify the Muslim world" will almost certainly come to a swift failure. Al-Qaeda's first step is to drive the U.S. out of the region that they want to conquer and to sufficiently damage us that we would not have the resources to ever come back in. Al-Qaeda is manipulating the hatred and jealousy toward the United States among the many Muslims to further their own goals of political/military conquest. They murdered thousands of civilians in a surprise terrorist attack in an attempt to provoke the United States gov't into taking rash action that will further increase their political base (something Bush's advisors obviously foresaw, considering the huge emphasis that Bush and his administration are placing on winning the "hearts and minds" of the Afghans and other Muslim people) and also as the first step in convincing the public and the leadership of the United States that we must withdraw our forces from the Mid-East (like we withdrew from Lebanon and Somalia after terrorist related casualties in those areas) so that it will be ripe for their conquest. Sounds close enough to "evil" in my book.
As the song says "everybody wants to rule the world." Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri might actually be satisfied with just the Middle and Near East... maybe. I'm sure they don't see themselves as "evil." I'm sure they would tell you that they keep women uneducated and oppressed because that is their proper place in society... not because they hate them. I'm sure that they would explain that they execute people preaching other religions because they care about their citizen's souls and want to protect them from temptation. Then again, I'm sure that the Communists would have told you that they were doing what they did only because they cared so much for the Working Class. I'm sure that the National German Worker's Party officials would have explained that their actions were taken to bring back the pride and sense of self worth among the much maligned German people and to free them from the unfair terms of the Armistice Treaty forced on them by the evil French.
I will not try to argue that the United States is perfect. We have used ruthless means to achieve our ends. We have manipulated nations. We have supported oppressive leaders simply because they were the enemies of our enemies. It is a cruel world. International politics is a brutal jungle where the only rules are the ones that you can enforce. We have played by those "rules of the jungle" and perhaps in some ways we mirror the evil we try to fight. But aside from some (thankfully) rare acts by misguided leaders, our ends are generally good. If you can't agree with that, then I submit that they are at least better than the ends pursued by our enemies, whether those enemies are Al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussien, or the Chicoms.
Some people are upset that the United States is never perfect. The choice is not "which side is perfect." The choice is "which future do you want to live in?" The future the United States is fighting for will not be a utopia... but it will be better than the alternative. It is time to choose sides. And don't forget the saying "The Perfect is the enemy of The Good." If you wait for a perfect society to support, then you will never find it. It is time to throw in on the side of "The Good." As long as you argue that the calculated conspiracy of an oppressive, tyrannical fanatic is morally equivalent to the calculated conspiracy of the powers of Western Civilization to promote global stability and the continued existence of liberal, capitalist, democratic society, then you are on the wrong side... and you are being just as manipulated by Al-Qaeda's propaganda as are the poor, ignorant youths who they recruit to be "throw away" agents.
P.S. All the people who feared a stupid, rash, and vengeful retaliation by the United States need only look at the huge effort being put into helping the Afghan people and building alliances with local, freedom-loving Afghanis to see how wrong those expectations were. I am very proud of Pres. Bush and his administration. www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/10/06/ret.bush.radio
I think you use several very faulty lines of logic here and I will attempt to demonstrate them individually. I'd like to note that I think generally we would be on the same side regarding foreing policy, but I think in this instance I must firmly disagree.
First you imply that this is our fault, or deserved because of our funding of the Mujahadeen during the exuberant battle against the "evil empire" of the cold war. While I agree this was a mistake, let's not use that to claim that in any way justifies the current situation in that country. The Soviet Union invaded and we helped the rebels gain independence. This done we stopped helping them. They would have liked more money to set up a regime but we cared little after we won our battle. So we didn't help as much as we could/should have, is this reason to bomb us? NO. It does not follow that, since we declined to continue aiding the Mujahadeen as they set up a government we wronged them in such a way as to deserve 9/11. We helped create this monster yes, but isn't that all the more reason for us to step up to the plate and end it?
Next you have the bombing 1 nation every two years argument. Firstly few of these terrorist are victims of bombing. That aside, I wonder how many more peoploe would have died if we had not have dropped a bomb in the last 30 years? It sounds paradoxicall but unfortunately their are some seriously fucked up people in this world and sometimes you have to kill them. The US made mistakes, yes. But it made mistakes while generally *trying to do the right thing*. Explain to me how Somalia or Kosovo can be construed as the US profiteering from bombing? Come on. Perhaps our motives or our analysis haven't always been perfect, but they rarely have been purely economic profit. America had made mistakes like everyone else. You might want to research how much culpability Pakistan has in all this. Their crusade for Kashmire has caused them to fund some unsavory charecters. We all do stupid things. That does not mean the present situation is one of them or that America is evil.
Thirdly there is the profiteering from arm sales argument. This argument has been arround since after world war I where it gained popularity as an explanation for the horific wanton destruction from that war. Because a group stands to profit from a course of action does not mean that they are responsible for it. It is sometimes good grounds for suspicion but it nothing like positive evidence. I think your argument here is much stronger on issues like the missle defense system than on this. I really don't think Bush's main goal right now is "what do the defence contractors want me to do" regardless of how he may think on other occasions.
In the end I think this act is justified for one reason only; it may prevent future suffering. Terrorism like any other act of violence causes suffering. This action may create less suffering than it ends.
The preceding passage has been checked for spelling, you will find no sentence without at least one mis spelled word
... and yet you try so hard to make it cut-and-dry...
""Abu Sayyaf
Unfortunately, you seem to have neglected to mention that they've skewed quite far from the terrorist methods that they were taught. Back then, terrorist organizations tended to be married to one intelligence service or another, have clear and announced political goals, and took credit for an act immediately so that their victims could mull over why they had been attacked. Their goal is to motivate their victims through the use of terror.
On the other hand, what we have here is a lose network of terrorist organizations that do not rely on any one source of funds too heavily, have relatively obscure, religion-oriented goals, and tend not to immediately take credit. Instead, as we saw with the kamikaze attacks in New York and DC, it was more important for these people to do good by their God than to make a political statement.
In short, terrifying Americans and swaying their opinion one way or another is now only a secondary goal. Literally killing as many Americans as possible has moved up to #1.
If you think the CIA would teach the Afghanis what they did to us last month, I ask you this: If Afghanis hijacked an Aeroflot jet and flew it into the Supreme Soviet, is there any doubt in your mind that they would have sent in the full brunt of the Red Army into Afghanistan (complete with their NBC weapons) instead of the trickle we saw?
"Afghanistan is the 15th country the U.S. government has bombed in 30 years, an average of 5 countries bombed every 10 years. Will there be 5 more countries in the next 10 years?"
Would you rather we stay focused on one target and slowly grind it into the dust before moving on to the next?
When somebody threatens American insterests (like, say, blow up a few hundred of our Marines stationed abroad with the consent of the host government, or bomb airliners, or attack US-flagged oil tankers, etc.), it is both necessary to respond and to respond with the appropriate amount of force. If the amount of force is too little, the US is considered to a bunch of push-overs, with everything we own essentially up-for-grabs.
To quote Heinlein's Starship Troopers:
If you think that we've been too violent in the past, where do you think we should draw the line marking where we respond violently (and how violently) and where we don't? If you can think of a better answer, maybe you should run for office. Or easier still, vote.
"The U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 people in that time."
That's an interesting figure you have there. I don't know where you got it (and I'm curious about it), but I have a feeling you've padded it with questionable sources. Sources like:
- A Palestinian throws rocks and Moletov cocktails at an Israeli soldier. The soldier feels threatened and shoots the Palestinian. The gun used was an M-16, so therefore the US killed the Palestinian.
- Iraq's government is busy threatening its neighbors, developing (more) NBC weapons, and trying to exterminate an ethnic minority in its own borders. The US government is squeamish about giving aid to such a regime, especially when its doubtful such aid would actually reach those that need it ("The Republican Guard needs that food more than you do."), but is willing to send such aid if Iraq demonstrates that it neither owns nor is developing weapons of mass destruction. Because Iraq considers its own weapons stockpile more important than the health and well-being of its people, the US is responsible for all deaths in Iraq due to starvation
Sound familiar? It's a real shame that you're not the only one that believes that the US is the prime cause for all of these deaths.As for the rest, those that were bombed were given ample warning and the chance to back down from doing what they shouldn't have been doing ("Lybia, stop trying to claim international waters as your own." "Cuba, stop trying to take over Grenada." "Iraq, don't invade/get out of Kuwait." "Serbia, stop butchering Muslims."). However, they made a decision to invite attacks by US forces instead. If anything, these should serve as examples that soetimes words are just not enough.
... and now you all but flat-out say "Boeing helped the hijackers."
"Weapons making is EXTREMELY profitable."
... while getting executed for treason is not. Your name, your family, and your life aren't worth the billions you might make, especially when you're already rolling in it. You don't stay that rich for that long by taking risky chances like that.
On top of that, such companies also lose money on their consumer goods as the civillians who used to buy cars and planes and televisions and everything else say "Hey, there's a war going on. Maybe we should save our money..."
"There are people who do hidden things to push the U.S. government into conflict because they want the money."
Do you have proof? Do you even have circumstantial evidence? Do you have anything more than some shady website run by a certifiable paranoid?
"In the past ten years, parties to 45 current conflicts have taken delivery of over $42 billion worth of U.S. weaponry."
Was the US actively involved in any of those 45 conflicts through shady dealings? Was the US actively involved in any of those conflicts period?
Better yet, is there any reason to believe that those conflicts wouldn't be happening right now if US companies weren't selling them weapons? I've yet to see a gun that comes complete with the desire and will to kill another person.
It sounds to me that the US is the cause of all ill-will everywhere. If somebody wants to kill somebody else, it's probably because the CIA was beaming "hate waves" into them from a satellite in LEO...
You start your post stating that we all should "look beyond." But no amount of looking, no matter what you're looking at, is a substitute for thought and analysis. Perhaps you should consider that before you lazily pick up that "The US is the source of all evil!" banner that somebody else made for you.