Fighting terrorism

[harleyquinn]

Originally posted by GForce: well if not violent crimes, even educated people ARE capable of doing crimes and other bad things. Enron. Watergate. Clinton's affairs. GW Bush wanting to remain in Iraq for another 5 years (yeah right! Not an army of occupation my b***!) ETC.

I never said it eradicates violent crime, only that it lessens the chance of it. I rarely, if ever, speak in terms of absolute. There's always exceptions to any rule and there's usually generalizations made.
Both my stance on education helping to eliminate terrorism and the teachings of sociology are, as I stated in those posts, generalizations, so arguing me by pointing out those that don't fit those generalizations make no sense, at least not to me, because I never said that my arguments were absolutes. I also stated that the comment about education was my opinion, not a fact.
I have no problem with people not agreeing with me, your just as free to your opinion as I am to mine, I just wish people would not act as if I had stated something as an absolute when I made sure to put in my post that I was NOT applying the statement to all.
Rant off. Thanks for listening. Someone distract Johnny so we can get his beer!!!

[johnny]

You dare touch my beer, and there will be one more terrorist to fear.

Damn, did i just come up with a good songtitle ?

[Timber Loftis]

I can understand terrorism in socio-economic terms. You can characterize it as a religion vs. other religions if you like, but the bulk of the beef terrorists have is with the socio-economic disparity between European-descending countries and all the darker-skinned peoples of the planet. When faced with what is tantamount to outright oppression, when faced with the hijacking of other cultures by consumerism, Pepsi and Brittney, Californication, and Disneyfication, when faced with liberalism so rampant it would be considered outlandishly offensive merely 25 years ago (even in the US), yet having it simultaneously crammed down your throat, and all in the face of the world's mightiest armies, WHAT DOES ONE DO? Form a rebellion, band all oppressed nations together and fight the infidel dogs? Not likely. Besides, we'd be stupid to assume all repressed folks can agree on common goals and means to achieve them, despite the fact they are all in the same boat right now.

In the face of such frustration, I think it is very understandable that one who loves his country, his people, and his ideology would be so valiant as to sacrifice his very existence in an act that just might whittle away at the oppressive culture. Whether these acts spark social reform within 1st-world nations that make them address the problems of disparity (e.g. Israili-Palestine peace talks) or whether they sow the seeds of social upheavel and outright rebellion in those oppressor nations, or whether they just make the oppressor nations try really hard to leave other nations the hell alone, the terrorist has achieved his goal to some small degree.

The problem the terrorist faces is that sometimes those oppressor nations behave just as irrationally as the terrorists do. Sometimes, they use a single awesome event of terror (9/11) to inspire an outright manhunt of the agents of terror, chasing them willy-nilly across the globe with all their technological might and even going on a near-crusade and toppling a few barely-related countries in the process. In these instances, the terrorist's goals are thwarted by the axiom: for every irrationalism, there is an equal and opposite irrationalism.

Now, being from the oppressor, rather than the terrorist, part of the world, the question becomes how to deal with those we subjigate. Well, we can make them love us and join us or fear us and cower -- or we can annihalate them altogether.

Love us:
1. Throw money at the problem. Use more of what the oppressed peoples hate -- Disney and Pepsi and Pokemon and video games -- to slowly break their will and assimilate them into the live-on-credit, drive-SUVs, waste-money, sue-others-for-all-your-ills people we all should be. This is the loooong road to change.

NOTE: on this issue, aside from "throwing money" and increasing the standard of living in these countries, one of the MOST EFFECTIVE tactics for long-term social reform is EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN. Honestly -- if anything in the post can be called sincere, this is it. Helps control the population too.

Fear us:
2. Topple a few countries, round up a bunch of terrorists. Execute them if you are lucky enough to live where the namby-pamby liberal path has not progressed so far as to make that legally intolerable. This is our path to date since 9-11.

Destruction:
Two varieties (as I see it)
1. Outright annihalation of all forms of radical Muslinism. A/k/a Crusades 2003, sponsored by Bud Light, coming to a desert near you. Use Iraq as a model. Enter, topple the government. Again, throw money at the problem as you are rebuilding the country. This is unlikely, and would spark open rebellion in oppressor nations due to the humanitarian concerns of the citizens. Some people simply prefer soft-oppressionism over hard-oppressionism. Serves the oppressor nations right -- they shouldn't have let their people get so spoiled, sensitive and namby-pamby to begin with.

2. Outright annihalation of fundamentalism. All religious-based governments are hereby outlawed. Be whatever religion you want, pray to Allah, Satan, or Anna Nicole the Fertility Goddess for all we care, but your government must be secular. Select another type of government, and we will send our tanks in and reboot and reinstall for you.

Anywho, some random thoughts. Hope they help.

[ 06-24-2003, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Grendal]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Timber Loftis:

The problem the terrorist faces is that sometimes those oppressor nations behave just as irrationally as the terrorists do. Sometimes, they use a single awesome event of terror (9/11) to inspire an outright manhunt of the agents of terror, chasing them willy-nilly across the globe with all their technological might and even going on a near-crusade and toppling a few barely-related countries in the process. In these instances, the terrorist's goals are thwarted by the axiom: for every irrationalism, there is an equal and opposite irrationalism.

Ok I hope Im reading this properly and excuse me if Im not but I dont agree with the terrorists being thwarted as you say. I think that the toppling of countries and regimes just adds fuel to their fire, reenforces their beliefs and gives them that much more reason to pull folks into their cause. I personally think that the world reacted and did exactly what Mr Bin Laden expected they would,(in the case of 911) thereby handing all that much more power to him.

[Timber Loftis]

I don't think anyone predicted the degree to which the USA has taken action against terrorism, especially extending its campaign to all states where terrorists do/can hide. Even if it was predicted, I don't think it has strengthened Bin Laden. New leaders are being captured everyday, some in just the last few days. I'm not claiming full success, I'm just saying that the reaction to 9/11 was not the typical reaction. In fact, it was much more akin to Israel's reaction.

Yes, maybe that does fuel the fire of anti-US sentiment. And certainly the terrorists would sacrifice their own organization's existence to drive the US to war with other Muslim countries. But, in the end that too would be self-defeating. Terrorists are forcing issues the countries and religions they claim to support are simply ill equipped to have forced.0

Irregardless, my general point was that your range of options are limited when addressing this problem. While there may be infinite steps you can take under each type of reaction, the number of TYPES of reactions is quite finite.

I was also pointing out that the proper way to view this is quite possibly one of subjigation. We are experiencing what every oppressive culture has experienced. And, whether we intend it or not, we do oppress those with weaker economies and cultures. It's simply the way it is. It hasn't gotten to the point where a "Master Mentality v. Slave Mentality" view or a Master/Slave relationship applies, but it is moving in that direction. In a hurry.

[Ramon de Ramon y Ramon]

A random thought of my own: however unlikely it may seem but I managed to find a common denominator between DameonRules' and Timber's posts. The notion that terrorism is a phenomenon that first appeared in world history in 2001, or shortly before that.

Other than that, Timber, however thought-provoking your post sure is, it seems to me you might be overestimating the demonstrative hence educational value of the "grand theory of everything at the expense of a myriad of oversimplifications and sweeping generalizations"-approach. I'll grant you though that the entertainment value is considerable.

[Faceman]

*something very simplified coming across*

A wise sentence I once heard (IIRC it's from Gandhi): "A human must be willing to die for something but he also must not be willing to kill for something"

Now to my simplification:

Our western (oppressing) country's people prototype mostly lacks the ambition to die for a cause (may it be freedom, their country, their lover or just their fancy SUV) but DOES hesitate to kill for a cause (in Europe we do )
The terrorist prototype is always willing to die for his cause but sadly also to kill for it.

I strongly believe that you can't extinct this threat with violence. Death Penalty is NOT a proper deterrent for suicide bombers.
What you can do by force (i.e. "Crusades" to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran) is damage large terrorist organizations and thus keep the problem away from the western hemisphere.
In short: Destroying Al-Quaeda will ensure that terrorist acts in the US, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, ... are minimized. It won't stop suicide bombers in Gaza or at embassies in Kenia.

According to my upper statements there are two ways of quelling terrorism.
1.)
Make people unwilling to kill:
To achieve that you need education as Harley noted correctly. And not any but "good" education. Good education does NOT mean a Ph.D, it means teaching people philosophy, religion or in short values like "life may no be taken deliberately by humans". EVERY major religion and philosophical movement teaches that "thou shalt not kill" (they also make the exception that there may be legal requirement to do so but that's another story).
You can train people to be highly skille pilots, sappers, doctors, lawyers, engineers,... and still NOT educate them. This is to be avoided.

2.)
Make people unwilling to die:
Like Timber said: Throw money at the problem. Once every Palestinian drives a Volvo they won't be willing to die anymore. Why should I die for "insert religious or political cause here" when I can still live a good life without a major change. The richer people get the more expensive get their lives (this is sad but true) and idealist who will throw away a well provided family life for the good of their country or their fellow men are rare.
So once people in Mali, Chechnya and Afghanistan start worrying about their retirement funds and stop worrying about getting food for tomorrow there'll be a lot less terrorists around.

There is of course the irrealistic way of combinig both. Providing people from the poor countries with education, leave their religious values mostly untouched AND support their economy to increase their quality of life -
but who would sew all these footballs then? Nike stocks would plummet and then we'd be poor. Ah - a vicious circle.

[IronDragon]

This next part is just speculation on my part, I have no facts to back them up, but based on where many (not all, just many) of the terrorists backgrounds, it looks like they are from backgrounds where a good education is not easily available (key word good, not just any education), and therefore, it's near impossible for them to get a good job and provide for their family.

America’s home grown terrorist have access to good education. So I don’t buy that one and I don’t really buy the economic link.

I believe terrorism has its roots in fundamentalist religion. Any fundamentalist religion.

Currently most of us are thinking terrorist in connection with the middle east but lets be honest most terrorist attacks do not cross borders. Think of Oklahoma city and the columbine shootings and the Michigan militia. Look at what the people of Ireland have been doing to each other over generations.

[Grendal]

Originally posted by IronDragon: quote: This next part is just speculation on my part, I have no facts to back them up, but based on where many (not all, just many) of the terrorists backgrounds, it looks like they are from backgrounds where a good education is not easily available (key word good, not just any education), and therefore, it's near impossible for them to get a good job and provide for their family.

America’s home grown terrorist have access to good education. So I don’t buy that one and I don’t really buy the economic link.

I believe terrorism has its roots in fundamentalist religion. Any fundamentalist religion.

Currently most of us are thinking terrorist in connection with the middle east but lets be honest most terrorist attacks do not cross borders. Think of Oklahoma city and the columbine shootings and the Michigan militia. Look at what the people of Ireland have been doing to each other over generations. [/QUOTE]Ill agree that terrorism is NOT an issue of education, its an issue of religion. Its been said that more education is the key...well just what kind of education are we talking about here? And whos going to teach it? If your thinking that your going to teach a middle eastern country (ya Im gonna stick with those guys just for examples sake)that peace is a better way...good luck. Consider just for a second who we are talking about..a people who have had thier religions for longer than christianity has existed. Countries with history that goes back thousands of years. There is nothing that you can say that they want to listen to. These folks have never experienced peace,(well ok sporadically) or luxury or any sort of democratic society. Their entire society and lives revolve around religion and have for longer than North America has been populated by white folks. THEY DO NOT KNOW ANY DIFFERANT! Its hard to get someone exited about something they cant even visualize. Great Im ranting here. As for Columbine and Oklahoma City I wouldnt call that terrorism just some Screwed up ppl. Yes they were violent rampages but they had there own reasoning behind them they werent doing it "to clense the world of infidels"

[johnny]

Faceman, i don't think you can buy off the Palestinians hate towards Israel. Volvo's ? Yeah right... do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds ? Maybe they'll be happy if they get to drive it around in Jerusalem, without any Jews left in it, but other than that, i don't think this would be very realistic.

And you can't throw money at every problem, it hasn't the same value to everyone as it has to us. Bin Laden is from a very wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, yet he chose a long time ago NOT to go drive his Volvo, but live in a cave in Afghanistan to fight the Sovjets.

You're dealing with totally different people here, who we will probably never learn to understand. We didn't understand them 1000 years ago, and we still don't understand them today.