« Discovering the Truth about 9/11 | Main | Terror, life and death »
A serious policy against terrorism
I'd like to take this site away from tin foil hat territory, if you don't mind...
Let's also avoid Bush, swiftvets, negative campaigning and the SLCM and actually focus on policy issues...
I wrote back in May the following posts (when I had time to care about substantive issues...) which I bring again to your attention to start the discussion. Their titles are quite explicit:
A policy against terrorism
"It would be a great thing to see Al-Qaeda taking over Saudi Arabia or Pakistan"
The French experience with terrorism
So, how should Kerry wage the fight against terrorism? Do we agree here that it is essentially police action and diplomatic cooperation? So, and maybe more importantly, how should he package it for the public to make it palatable?
Posted by Jérôme à Paris on August 28, 2004 at 04:38 PM | Permalink
Comments
Speaking as one of the members of the Tinfoil Hat Society, (a bit like the Red Hat Society, but less stylish) I have no problem with addressing the issue of how Kerry should "wage the fight" against "terrorism". However, one of my problems in the dialogue is that the word itself, it's definition and usage, is very maleable ... and today all around the world completely bent out of shape. So I'm calling for a definition of the term. While we're at it we might define "insurgency". Then we can have the fine fun of drawing out how to do a "war against" a "concept". And while we're having fun, maybe we can try not to say "war on terror", which I know you didn't say, Jerome, but it's become part of the slippery, maleable and bent phenomenon that appears to me something rammed down our throats of late.
Slightly OT... I had the great pleasure of working at the all volunteer central county (in my S. Cal county) Democratic campaign headquarters today. My partner for the afternoon was a woman from Persia/Iran who's been in the US for a number of years, and is a US citizen. We had an interesting time together, and met many people who seem committed to real change in the US government, not just in the resident of the Oval Office. It was an adventure for me, and I was quite candid about thinking to the left of libertarians. But I digress, sorry. ;-)
On to terrorism ...
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 28, 2004 9:25:28 PM
Language, language and more language, Jerome--Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Turkish....all the great tongues that we simply refuse, in our cultural triumphalism, to master in any major way. How can we penetrate those fundamentalist movements without speaking their mother tongues? And have you ever heard of successful intelligence operations that omitted to do this? But we'll never meet this need if we don't have a President who can treat his own mother tongue with respect.
Posted by: alabama | Aug 28, 2004 9:56:02 PM
What I do in my own stubborn obstinate way, is to not use "their" words. I refer to the invasion of Iraq and not the "liberation" I talk about the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and not "peacekeeping operations". I speak of saboteurs and enemy agents rather than "terrorists". I refuse to label a religious leader a "radical cleric".
The people in charge of molding public opinion are very good at what they do. We just have to recognise their work. There was a comment in another thread at MOA that spoke of Russian propaganda. The telling statement came from a Russian living in that situation was "Yes, but we knew it was proganda". We so mindlessly go along with what the talking heads tell us.
So to win the war on terrorism all we have to do is say we won. Since no one could ever prove that they did win, I suppose no one could ever prove that you didn't either. Once that silliness is out of the way you can move forward on some kind of plan on how to share the remaining oil and water on the planet and maybe even work out how to avoid extinction or at least a massive thinning out of humans.
Cut to the chase.
Posted by: Dan of Steele | Aug 29, 2004 5:20:42 AM
Seems to me that playing fair, behaving according to the golden rule, and apologizing for the terror acts one has committed would not be bad ideas for starters. Begin to try to regain the respect of the world. No exceptionalism, no flag-waving, no Kodak-moments of bigotted patriotism reminiscent of Berlin ca. 1940. Start sharing, stop looting the poorer countries. Get serious about the protection of our environment. Use the military only where it makes sense, and cut down the insane 'defense' budget. Show some respect for others.
Posted by: teuton | Aug 29, 2004 6:19:10 AM
Compare and contrast AIPEC, and PNAC.Then you will see the difference in that the choices we have picked, an International criminal investigation matter vs a military responce action, is the wrong one for the right reasons. And it has cost us dearly. While making others rich.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 29, 2004 9:48:50 AM
The State Department's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report now counts 208 terrorist attacks as having occurred in 2003, with 625 dead. When the report was released in April, it counted 307 deaths in a total of 190 terror attacks.
(...)
The number of people killed in terrorist attacks worldwide still declined in 2003 when compared with 2002, when 725 people were killed. But the decline was much less steep than originally reported, and the number of "significant attacks" -- those involving large numbers of casualties or property damage -- increased from 138 in 2002 to 175 in 2003, a 21-year-high.
(...)
The number of attacks originally reported was the lowest total since 1969, but Secretary of State Colin Powell said earlier this month that the reported decline was incorrect.
This makes terrorism a killer about on par with choking on pretzels - or other biscuits - excluding other foodstuffs such as chicken or fish, which are dangerous because of bones. Also far, far below eating rat poison by mistake or falling off ladders ..perhaps... on Friday the 13th. The WHO used to give stats. on these kinds of deaths, I don’t know if they still do. I remember being impressed by the lethality of illiteracy combined with textual labels, as well as the handicapping injuries caused by champagne corks.
Afaik, except for the big spike created by 9/11, where 3 000+ deaths are usually credited, terrorism deaths world-wide figure a slowly sinking curve. Police (it is police work) are learning all the time, and do prevent many attacks. Politicians too have slowly adapted (IRA, ETA, etc.)
Of course, it all depends on how one defines ‘terrorism’, what one counts, etc. One woman’s terrorist is another woman’s freedom fighter...
Obviously the US agency stats. quoted above point to a serious disconnect between media hype and what the US itself counts as terrorist acts, and show that problems of definition are not about to be solved soon.
Posted by: Blackie | Aug 29, 2004 12:23:25 PM
thanks for the relevant question.(asking relevant questions has become a distinct rarity in mainstream u.s. dialogue.) but, unfortunately, i won't be able to make much of a contribution because my sources (and many obvious inconsistencies made by the Bush Felons) point to the inescapable fact that the "Islamist terrorists" (identified by the 9/11 Cover-up Commission) work on behalf of uncle sam, i.e., tin-foil hat territory. (yet, where would the u.s. foreign policy be today without the (threat of) terrorists?)
Posted by: x174 | Aug 29, 2004 5:58:50 PM
From today's Washington Post on how Pakistan is losing control over militant extremists:
"The development is a disquieting one, foreign diplomats said, because it suggests that Pakistan's security services may be losing control over home-grown militants they once embraced as allies. . ."
Posted by: x174 | Aug 29, 2004 6:15:10 PM
common street whores
Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, two of the Republican Party's most popular politicians, open President Bush's nominating convention by calling him a leader unafraid of making unpopular choices to protect a nation scarred by the Sept. 11 attacks.
"He has not flinched from the hard choices. He will not yield. And neither will we," McCain said in excerpts of his Monday address released by the campaign the night before. . .
Giuliani, who was mayor of New York at the time, compares Bush with former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and former President Ronald Reagan, two leaders who he said rose above criticism to confront threats posed by Nazism and Communism, respectively.
"George W. Bush saw and described terrorism for the evil that it is and he will remain consistent to the purpose of defeating it while working to make us ever safer at home," Giuliani said in excerpts of his speech text.
---Consider these statements in light of Blackie's stats on causualties due to terrorism.
Posted by: x174 | Aug 29, 2004 6:27:54 PM
faltering bush felons play the terror card
Posted by: x174 | Aug 29, 2004 6:29:45 PM
Giuliani and McCain... Egad! Blue koolaid drinkers, or flat out greedy narcissists who know which side of the bread is currently buttered. I see no other possible ways to interpret their words. How anyone takes any professional politician at "his or her word" staggers my mind -- the dissonance, eardrum piercing.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 29, 2004 7:51:45 PM
@Kate Storm:
I don't see how you can put a palatable garnish on a plate of crap, but these people seem to have the knack.
And 50%+- of us seem to want seconds.
Posted by: Trotsky's Ghost | Aug 29, 2004 8:08:02 PM
TG: and 50%+- of us seem to want seconds.
As I said: staggering... and in my dreams I'm now impatiently waiting for the long overdue mother ship to pick me up for the return trip to my real home world. ;-)
[/unrepentant tinfoil moment]
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 29, 2004 8:50:48 PM
Jerome--
What teuton said @ 6:19am.
Posted by: RossK | Aug 30, 2004 12:28:00 AM
I don't really see how "terrorism" differs intrinsically from other forms of organised crime...
Insurgency against an armed invasion force is, I believe, a human right recognised by the Geneva Convention and other documents of international law; so the term "terrorism" with its implications of extra-legality is inappropriately applied to such insurgency. It is applied more appropriately, I think, to actions which target non-combatants for blackmail (hostage taking) ops or random vengeance killings.
The "terrorist" is not morally distinct, special, and separate in my mind from the guy who kills his wife's suspected lover "to teach her not to mess around," or kidnaps a child and demands money from the parents. In each case a human being is forcibly converted into a bargaining chip or a "message," and the fundamental crime is the dehumanisation and reification of that human being. To "send a message" to another player in a war game (whether overt or covert, uniformed or in mufti) by murdering some third party, is simple thug-ism and oughta be dealt with as we (try to) deal with other Mafia-type behaviour: investigation, murder trials, etc.
What makes "war on terror" so absurd and morally vacuous is the extreme selectiveness w/which the pejorative is applied. As with HUAC and "anti-Americanism" or Stalin's secret policemen and "anti-social tendencies," it becomes merely an all-purpose label for whatever the ruling elite don't like, whatever gets in their way or annoys them.
The opposite of terrorism is the rule of law, due process, rules of evidence, etc. Until the US stops deliberately undermining international law and diplomacy, no really effective way of dealing with international Mafia-style thuggery seems likely to emerge. Right now the US seems to be treating the problem like a gang war between two rival Mafia families (Us and Them), meeting thuggery with thuggery, repression with repression, religious extremism with religious extremism, corruption with corruption, etc. --
a negative-sum game, counterproductive in the long run (just ask those who lived through the Five Families war, or the Thirty Years' War).
IMHO law and order are seldom found to function well in corrupt, arbitrarily-ruled, poverty-stricken banana republics. When enough people are sufficiently desperate or enraged, even cutting off hands or heads doesn't stop violent crimes. So if Americans want law and order (i.e. no terrorism, a feeling of safety in ordinary life) then I suggest they start working hard on: reducing grotesque extremes of wealth and poverty worldwide; promoting glasnost and punishing corruption and cronyism in both government and business (and trying to enforce some separation between the two); ensuring fair and open elections and more democratic electoral methodologies such as IRV; cooperating in the establishment and enforcement of international law and human rights protocols, etc. -- i.e. some housecleaning at home plus being good neighbours and good citizens of the global 'hood, instead of trying to be the toughest Don on the block. Just my $0.02 (and a very sleepy one at that)...
Posted by: DeAnander | Aug 30, 2004 2:13:37 AM
It blows my mind every time a see one of these. What is the point? I want to ask the driver how he's doing in the "fight"?
Posted by: beq | Aug 30, 2004 9:19:31 AM
beq,
I like this testament better, and just ordered two shirts for my dear husband and me.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 30, 2004 9:26:42 AM
Tee Hee. Gotta get one to go with my Tom Bihn T.
Thanks!
Posted by: beq | Aug 30, 2004 9:36:01 AM
thanks for the link, Kate_Storm!
You will not by any means, listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected...our future security will be in their inability to injure us...and in the terror with which the severity of the chastizement they receive will inspire them. -- George "Town Destroyer" Washington's instruction to Major General John Sullivan regarding the Iroquois, 1779
Posted by: b real | Aug 30, 2004 10:20:28 AM
Once one give a platform to 'terrorists' one also accords their cause some credibility. Gangsters, criminals, and the crazed will rush into the breach as it will provide them with support and media coverage, which may lead to all kinds of earthly glory...
Kidnapping in Baghdad is a big business. Its main, possibly only, motive is financial. A well heeled Iraqi fetches up to 10 000 dollars, those who negotiate toughly can get a rebate. A foreignor potentially provides much more. (Sums paid are not published.) I have read that boys or young men fetch more than young women, as girls are spurned once it is suspected they may have been raped.
The two French journalists kidnapped recently were held for 9 days without demands. The Iraq column in my daily newspaper was blank...sad. Then, suddenly a demand emerged: Repeal the law that forbids Muslim girls to wear headscarves in schools. Someone went: Eureka! By framing the kidnapping (just a random grab, I guess) as a religious-political issue, media coverage is assured, as are big bucks. The families and/or employers alone could probably never have offered more than 100 000 dollars for each (say), but if the Gvmt. is put into play, the sums can be astronomical. It was difficult to find an anti-Iraq or anti-Muslim issue to pin on France. The kidnappers must have gone on the internet and see the endless blah about 'freedom' in France!
I'm being cynical here but the underlying point is essential. The US is doing all it can to promote this kind of strife, and gangsters, if it is in their advantage, will follow that lead.
Posted by: Blackie | Aug 30, 2004 10:39:17 AM
Blackie: if you want to see what really kills people, try cigarettes, for instance. WHO predicts 8% of mankind will die of it, which makes roughly 500 mio people. Even Hitler was an amateur compared to the sheer size of such genocides.
Concerning these 2 journalist dudes, I suppose they were kidnapped by the average thugs, for money, but then, as happen in Chechnya notably, and more and more in Iraq, another groupd with a serious grudge bought them for a fair sum, and intends to use them for their own particular cause. That's the best explanation I see for the full week without any solid news about it: they were on the Iraqi black market for hostages.
"So to win the war on terrorism all we have to do is say we won."
Well, Bush just shot himself into the foot with that one. Now he can't declare victory and pack.
Can we win? I don't think we can win it!!
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Aug 30, 2004 11:26:36 AM
By saying what he said, they can now continue the perpetual war on terrorism (also incorrectly known as the "war on terror") as they seem to have planned all along. If continual containment (a different sort of "cold war") is their only forseeable goal, they can keep it up forever, economically pillaging the the people of the US, and invading and plundering any nation they claim gives aid and comfort to the faceless enemy. It is Orwell's concept with a tiny twist.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 30, 2004 10:02:03 PM
President Bush says that the troubles in Iraq are the result of unanticipated "catastrophic success." But that catastrophe was predicted by many experts. Mr. Cordesman says their warnings were ignored because we have "the weakest and most ineffective National Security Council in post-war American history," giving control to "a small group of neoconservative ideologues" who "shaped a war without any realistic understanding or plans for shaping a peace."
Paul Krugman, NYTimes
Posted by: x174 | Aug 31, 2004 3:12:06 AM
Just sent this short note to Richard A Posner at the NYTimes in response to his critique of the 9/11 Commission Report, The 9/11 Report: A Dissent
"Obviously you've hit on a central weakness of the 9/11 Commission Report: fraud begets fraud. Is there anyone in the media interested AT ALL in exploring the serious inconsistencies in the official explanation of what happened? Until some of the people in the media begin getting serious about ACTUALLY investigating what happened on 9/11, I think that it is naive to expect that the self-serving, bureaucratic machinations will amount to anything more than unending truckloads of tripe -- like your anemic article. If you and your ilk are not going to get serious about the facts, you should just go to bed."
Posted by: | Aug 31, 2004 3:40:01 AM
@x174:
Thanks for Krugman and Cordesman.
As always, they hit the mark.
Posted by: | Aug 31, 2004 9:21:40 AM
