Understanding terrorism

[lookout123]

I am starting a fresh thread with optimism that we can leave some of the name calling and condescension in the other already butchered thread. (deluded SOB, huh?)

This morning I have heard newsstories talking about BBC's refusal to label bombers as terrorists and Time magazine's interview with the 20 year old suicidebomber in training. I have been hearing arguments for some time that the key to ending the conflict between western culture (us) and islamic extremists/terrorists/bombers/whatever (them) is that we must first understand what has caused them to do what they do. I have also heard that their beliefs and actions can be directly tied to poverty and lack of opportunity.

I agree we should try to understand what caused the movement, and do our best to create an immunization for the root. long term solution. I also believe we should attack and destroy the symptoms whereever we can find them now. short term fix.

my concern is that if we really believe that poverty and oppression are the reasons X number of individuals murdered some people in London last week, X individuals blew up some trains in Spain, and 19/20 individuals hijacked some planes a few years ago, then why are these perpetrators coming from upper middle/upper class families? surely they didn't feel the sting of poverty. with resources, education, and desire could they not stimulate change in a more meaningful, less destructive way? i think this is where the argument for understanding the "difficulties of their lives" argument breaks down. if the murderers were unemployed, poverty sticken individuals I think that argument would hold some water - I would still disagree - but it at least would be arguable.

I can't find the link now, but i read an article yesterday written about Al Queda's recruiting in the UK. they are targeting educated upper/middle class muslims with technical skills. these aren't oppressed people. they are people with opportunity in front of them. what then is their motivation to kill and destroy civilians?

The 20 year old bomber in training in the Time article mentioned that his family is not happy about his decision, but they understand they can't change his mind. uh, wait a second. if i knew that my son was preparing to murder people and i couldn't set him on the right track i would absolutely have him arrested. i would love and support him still, but i would not stand by and watch his quest to become a martyr via killing civilians. that is just passive terrorism.

yesterday, I read a blurb that one of the national Islamic councils had written a scathing rejection of terrorism and the Al Queda movement. Of course, I also read a blurb from another that said while they don't support killing people - it is important to remember that Islam doesn't distinguish between soldier and civilian so it isn't terrorism, per se. hmmm.

today a suicide bomber in Iraq killed @ 27 people. one of them was a US soldier. at least 7 were Iraqi children. their crime? accepting candy from the US soldier.

do you really believe that poverty and oppression are the root causes of these murders? even if you do, does it excuse these murders?

[mrnoodle]

Originally Posted by lookout123

do you really believe that poverty and oppression are the root causes of these murders? even if you do, does it excuse these murders?

I think that poverty and oppression are the gasoline thrown on the fire of religious fervor and a culture that celebrates death by martyrdom.

It doesn't excuse the murders. If the culture of death is changed, it will be changed from within; that can't happen until the teeth of the monster are pulled by outside forces who have the strength to do so.

[jaguar]

You need to get deeper. 2 levels. Lets look at communism and socialism. Where do the activists and radicals come from? The upper middle classes, they have the time and education to understand and the money to effect extreme change, at the time, revolution. However those revolutions would never have worked without the mass support caused by inequity and lack of social mobility at the time. Today, you'll still find the vast majority of far-left activists on uni campuses but you won't be seeing revolution anytime soon, why? No popular support.

Do I need to bother drawing the parallels?

There has and always will be extremists, dangerous extremists of every colour, stripe and creed, driven by fevours as diverse as humanity itself. In general they are importent becuase they lack mass support. When you create circumstances where many turn to their cause as the answer to their plight, then you have a real problem. Thats where the "difficulties of their lives" argument stand up.

[jaguar]

As for the short term fix, sure, but every act retards change and the more heavy handed you are the more power and influence you bring to those who would rather see war than peace.

[lookout123]

But even in your examples, poverty is not the cause of the revolution, it is the honey that draws the masses to follow a leader who has never felt the sting of the supposed cause.

for poverty to truly be the cause of a communist revolution or an islamic jihadist uprising then those who are actually being oppressed would have to one day wake up and say "i don't like this anymore, who wants to follow me." what we actually see are wealthy individuals who have a vision for how they want to see the world (worker's paradise or sh'ria rule), a vision which surprise surprise puts them on top once the current system is tossed aside. these wealthy individuals exploit and deceive the very people they are affecting concern for.

putting a lamb in every pot and a suburban in every driveway won't stop this, because the leaders of the movement will just find a different fear to exploit and motivate.

so what is the solution? have a complete hands-off policy in the middle east? that would appease radar, but few others. the fact is that from it's earliest days Al Queda has maneuverd for the overthrow of middle east gov'ts for the goal of a unified Arab nation ruled by Sh'ria law. leaving them to their own devices may not be the best course of action with that in mind.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

I have been hearing arguments for some time that the key to ending the conflict between western culture (us) and islamic extremists/terrorists/bombers/whatever (them) is that we must first understand what has caused them to do what they do. I have also heard that their beliefs and actions can be directly tied to poverty and lack of opportunity.

I agree we should try to understand what caused the movement, and do our best to create an immunization for the root. long term solution. I also believe we should attack and destroy the symptoms whereever we can find them now. short term fix.

This thread is predicated on assumptions that actually create the problem. For example (Point 1) we should identify and fix the reasons for the problems? After how many hundreds of years, if we don't understand the problem by now, then we are the problem.

The problem is found in a loosely organized Muslim Brotherhood. This 1400s organization continues into the twentieth century by murdering Sadat of Egypt, nearly toppling Asad of Syria, and threatening Saddam of Iraq. It has other faces such as terrorism in Chechnya. Now tell me how we are suddenly going to stop or fix what has been ongoing long before the United States even existed.

That assumption that we are going to fix the problem is part of the problem. But then more assumptions only make the problem worse. It was their problem. Why does the US have to fix things that are not US problems? The Muslim Brotherhood was a regional problem that would have remains a regional problem had we not decided to fix the region - impose democracy on those nations - remove a Saddam that was a diminishing threat even to his neighbors. A problem to be fixed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.; not the US. If we did as promised - rescue Kuwait and get out - then the Muslim Brotherhood would have nothing but antagonistic respect for the US. But the US lied. We did not leave. We therefore ensnarled ourselves into the quagmire.

We could have left. We could have left the region with Saddam in power - a diminishing threat that was only a regional problem. But somehow we have low intelligence, high testosterone leaders who always need to do things without any smoking gun reason. This mistake is why we are expected to read and learn from the Pentagon Papers; learn history so we don't make the same mistakes. This is why intelligent people routinely mock those whose only reasoning is sound bytes - ie Rush Limbaugh and George Jr.

Having followed leaders with many sound bytes and no intelligence, we are targets of the Muslim Brotherhood. Just a second reason that assumptions in this thread are really a reason for Islamic based terrorism. We insisted on fixing the region without even understanding the problem; instead of letting them fix their own region (Point 1). And then we lied about what our intentions were. We stayed when we said we would leave (Point 2). We stayed using some nonsensical reasoning that we are god's people and therefore could only do good? That we will fix things by imposing democracy? We even lie to ourselves!

A third assumption is its all about Al Qaeda. That's playing propaganda games to avoid the issue. It plays right into the hands of Muslim Brotherhood. Classic guerilla warfare tactics. Get us to attack a ghost enemy. It’s the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Qaeda was only one dandelion in a grassy field full of dandelions. If we are not going to be honest about whom we have antagonized, then we are right back in the Viet Nam syndrome all over again. Point 3 - Lookout123 has even assumed an enemy that does not physically exist as he has defined it. More reasons why his assumptions are the problem.

There is no master arch enemy called Al Qaeda. Calling Musab al-Zarquawi a member of Al Qaeda is to brainwash Americans into a concept they can better understand - an evil empire. That's why the Muslim Brotherhood survived so long. It is not a monolithic enemy in the sense that Lookout123's assumptions imply.

A fourth false assumption was to assume Saddam and Muslim Brotherhood are same. Or that they were all enemies of their people. Or that Saddam was a problem that needed fixing. We have created a perfect training ground for terrorism - Iraq. We destroyed a force that was keeping the Muslim Brotherhood in check. And now we have made it easy for these Islamic fundamentalists to not only train, but also recruit. We never first learned what the real threat was - instead inventing myths about weapons of mass destruction. We lied to ourselves - that is 70% of those reading this post. Muslim Brotherhood was never (in modern history) the growing threat that it is today. Every day the US stays in Iraq only provides the Muslim Brotherhood with more troops. Why? We even lies about what were threats to America.

So we declare victory at hand because we have killed more 'terrorists' this year than last. Vietnam all over again; where it was our own assumptions that created the problem. We repeatedly violate principles of warfare that were even well understood and written in 500 BC. How in hell do we ever expect a victory when we even deny basic concepts of war? Amb. Bremmer (who was given the Freedom Metal for making things worse) being a classic example of the Ugly American.

Some many years ago in a very contentious discussion with MaggieL, I was strongly forthright about the concept. You better damn well have a smoking gun before unilaterally attacking another nation. A point so obvious that the concept is better proven than god. Without a smoking gun, then no strategic objective can exist. Without a strategic objective, then no exit strategy and no goal to win. We have that in Iraq because no smoking gun existed. George Jr has no strategic objective other than to fix the region according to American assumptions - impose democracy.

We had no smoking gun. Therefore we have no strategic objective. All this while, we are only making more dandelions and providing those dandelions with a field to train and with anger to make them dangerous. And so we have a fifth assumption that creates more misunderstanding of a US / Islam conflict (which even our best friends the Saudis tried to warn us about). Fifth assumption - we are going to fix their society. Bull. Only they can murder one another in enough numbers to eventually want to fix their society. That is the history of democracy. Democracy or other stable government cannot be imposed. It must be earned.

Does the word "meddling" better summarize the real problem?

The assumptions posted and implied by Lookout123 are really the problem. It will only get worse until we confront the assumptions and myths - such as this monolithic enemy called Al Qaeda. Every week in Iraq means we will create more dandelions that become a new branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Not a nice picture. Meanwhile, remember this date I constantly cite: when the world changed- 1 Aug 1990.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

But even in your examples, poverty is not the cause of the revolution, it is the honey that draws the masses to follow a leader who has never felt the sting of the supposed cause.

Poverty is nothing more than a symptom. Like famine, poverty is created first and foremost when the people do not even have a functioning government.

You can fix the symptoms of poverty - build infrastructure - and poverty remains. That is a conundrum that NGOs, World Bank, IMF, etc are all confronting. For even where poverty and famine have been successfully diminished (ie Uganda), corruption in government quickly reverses all the accomplishments.

Arguing poverty as a reason for conflict is bull. That assumption was long since buried by lessons of post WWII history. Poverty is only another symptom of the same problem that also creates revolution, terrorism, etc. Every attempt to solve poverty in a corrupt society has always failed. Any attempt to solve poverty without eliminating the reasons for revolution is stupidity. Learn from lessons taught by 1970s Thailand in their northern provinces. Unfortunately too many have opinions without first learning from where poverty was successfully diminished; where revolution was eliminated.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by lookout123

But even in your examples, poverty is not the cause of the revolution, it is the honey that draws the masses to follow a leader who has never felt the sting of the supposed cause.

It's the same thing. There are always revolutionary would-be leaders wandering about, but there is no revolution, because people are relatively comfortable with the system as it is. A cadre of fanatics only becomes a revolutionary force when they attract popular support.

[russotto]

Oppression is the reason for the bombings. They want more oppression and they want to be the oppressors and the 1st world stands in their way. Arguing over whether that's because 1st world governments are less oppressive or that they want to do the oppressing themselves is beside the point.

You can talk about root causes, but if the root cause is basically that they -- the terrorists -- want Western governments to act in a way that isn't acceptable to anyone else, then the root cause can't be fixed. If they won't give in either, then the only solution to the problem is removing their ability to commit these acts in the first place.

[lookout123]

then the only solution to the problem is removing their ability to commit these acts in the first place.

ok, then what does that mean? how do we do that? what extremes are we willing to go to?

[tw]

Originally Posted by russotto

... then the only solution to the problem is removing their ability to commit these acts in the first place.

Cannot be done. History demonstrates you cannot stop the problem by killing more people, embargoing their supplies, restricting their actions, or forcing a new government upon them. All those solutions only make more enemies. Problem must be identified and its root cause must be eliminated. As demonstrated earlier, even the assumptions in Lookout123's original post are intentionally distorted to only promote or disguise a failed American leadership problem. Intentionally distorted as to even blame everything on some mythical Al Qaeda.

Furthermore, after the invasion, there is a one year grace period. The invading nation only has something like one year to change things for the better. This mental midget president (using the same intellectual brainstorming from Adm Bremmer, et al) had no plans for the peace until seven months after "Mission Accomplished" was declared. Too little too late. We waited too long to solve anything. Our only solution lies in getting others to take over. Others who don't have the stigma of being ugly Americans.

Root cause, from the perspective of Americans, is that we decided to fix the region. Therefore we tried to fix a problem that was not a problem (Saddam), invented threats that did not exist (WMDs), empowered the real threat (Muslim Brotherhood), and made Americans a target (trying to force American ideals such as democracy down their throat).

Before 1 Aug 1990, America was not a target of Islamic fundamentals. What changed? It starts with the policy of intervention rather than the 'well proven by generations' policy of prevention or containment. This 'self serving' George Jr policy change caused America to become a target. Policy change is the mistake we made then and is the solution today - as our regional allies repeatedly remind us. Exercising that solution is difficult. Not difficult to execute. But difficult to get a leader with enough balls to do it.

In Vietnam, we could have left at any time. Instead we only doubled the American death count to protect a president's ego. When we finally did leave, then Vietnam was solved for the better. Leaving was the only solution for Vietnam. But self serving leaders such as Nixon did not have the balls to change an obviosly flawed policy - domino theory. Obviously the current president also does not have the balls nor intelligence. Everything for him is always so haaaarrrrdd.

[Articrono]

Originally Posted by tw

The problem is found in a loosely organized Muslim Brotherhood. ...we are targets of the Muslim Brotherhood. ...It plays right into the hands of Muslim Brotherhood. ....Get us to attack a ghost enemy. It’s the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Qaeda was only one dandelion in a grassy field full of dandelions. ...There is no master arch enemy called Al Qaeda. Calling Musab al-Zarquawi a member of Al Qaeda is to brainwash Americans into a concept they can better understand - an evil empire. That's why the Muslim Brotherhood survived so long. It is not a monolithic enemy in the sense that Lookout123's assumptions imply.

While I agree with much of what you're saying, I think you're contradicting yourself a bit. You say that there is no "evil empire", that Al Qaeda is a false target. But you continue to cite the "Muslim Brotherhood". How is it not an enemy in the sense that Lookout123's assumptions imply? What, exactly, is the goal of this "Muslim Brotherhood"? It seems like a hazy "evil empire" Al Qaeda replacement. Please expound?

[Undertoad]

So... what made Bali a target?

What made Madrid a target?

What made New Delhi a target?

What made France a target?

What made Israel a target?

What made Riyadh a target?

What made Istanbul a target?

Lots of root causes to address here

[Undertoad]

Austin Bay quotes bits out of a NY Times story on the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by Islamists. Why do they hate us? They don't really, emphasis mine:

Breaking a self-imposed silence that had confounded court officials here, a young Muslim man coolly accepted responsibility Tuesday for the brutal slaying of a controversial Dutch filmmaker, adding that he would do it all over again if given the chance.

Shaken by the horrific death of the filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, the Dutch heard for the first time Tuesday the voice of his assailant, who spoke of the murder in the same matter-of-fact manner in which some witnesses say it was executed.

Bicycling to work last Nov. 2, Mr. van Gogh was shot at least six times before having his throat cut.

The defendant, Muhammad Bouyeri, the 27-year-old son of Moroccan immigrants, showed no remorse, saying he had killed Mr. van Gogh based on his religious beliefs.

“I acted out of conviction and not out of hate,” Mr. Bouyeri told the court. “If I’m ever released, I’d do the same again. Exactly the same.”

He added his actions were based on “the law that instructs me to chop off the head of everyone who insults Allah or the prophet.”

Mr. van Gogh - along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician - received death threats after their short but provocative film about abuse of Muslim women was broadcast last year on Dutch television.

Mr. van Gogh once compared fundamentalist Muslims to practitioners of bestiality. He had also written a book, “Allah Knows Better,” that was critical of Islam.

Mr. Bouyeri, who mentioned Mr. van Gogh’s expletive involving animals in court, said he chose his victim because he had insulted God, not because he had offended Muslims.

“As a Moroccan, I never felt offended,” said Mr. Bouyeri, who has passports from both the Netherlands and Morocco.

[russotto]

Originally Posted by tw

Cannot be done. History demonstrates you cannot stop the problem by killing more people, embargoing their supplies, restricting their actions, or forcing a new government upon them.

Worked on Carthage. Troy, too. Also Germany after WWII. The American South. Examples abound.

All those solutions only make more enemies. Problem must be identified and its root cause must be eliminated.

And if the root cause is simply that they like killing Westerners? That they find our very infidel existence intolerable?

Others who don't have the stigma of being ugly Americans.

Or ugly Brits or ugly Spaniards or...

Before 1 Aug 1990, America was not a target of Islamic fundamentals. What changed?

Nothing, that's a false premise; Islamic fundamentalists used to take (and kill) hostages rather than blow people up.