05 May 2010

counterterrorism

Graduate level

A statistic like this should be trumpeted from the hills, but it also shouldn't have to be. Military triumphs over extremist groups and radical militants are rare. Of modern examples, I can think of maybe one: the military arm of the Tamil Tigers who were brutally put down in Sri Lanka by an all-out assault on their stronghold, including thousands of innocent civilians in the crossfire and having to hunker down for artillery or air strikes. And even crediting that one as a victory assumes that they will stay down.

Most of the time, a country should be well enough off to use police and law enforcement tactics or to encourage the organisations involved to become political and non-violent rather than aggressively resistant to government institutions that are often perceived as the core of disagreement and trouble. I don't foresee Al Qaeda becoming one of the latter groups, ala the PLO or the Muslim Brotherhood; some of their beliefs and issues are too radical even among radical or fundamentalist Islam to be taken seriously as a political movement. And while it may be possible to claim that military strikes and foreign entanglements involving previous Al Qaeda strongholds have disorganised and weakened their institution to the point that they are throwing up fizzling bomb attacks on American soil, it is also plausible that regular law enforcement methods, things like tracking financing and communication between suspects and co-conspirators, arresting or detaining violent activists, and so on, have had a significant impact. None of these required new and broad powers involving systems of surveillance, or the suspension of habeas corpus rights, or the torture and death of suspected terrorists (some of whom were determined to be innocent by their captors), or even the suspension of the simple right to a jury and judge to examine dispassionately the evidence we could amass against them.

Among libertarians and indeed many Americans and Westerners, this perception that it was necessary to proactively and violent lash out against not merely radicals but all Muslims, as a perceived and general threat to our way of life, has become a problem of its own. I don't see the percentage in claiming our interest must be the eradication of the philosophies and ideologies of over a billion people, perhaps even by eradicating the people themselves if necessary through wars of aggression, often accompanied by a claim that only the Muslim is a terrorist and comfortably sweeping under the rug dozens of organisations and free radicals who bomb, maim, and kill for reasons totally unrelated to Palestine, Mohammed, or the historical schism between Christianity and Islam. This has rarely been a strategy which we have looked kindly upon when conducted by others nor one which has gathered a history of being successful in its aims. I do see the percentage in claiming that our interest should be to restrain people who act with violence and malice in accordance with their own interpretation of those beliefs and ideologies.

The difference between these two notions has a great deal of importance on how we should react, such as with resolve rather than terror. Treating our enemies here as little more than common thugs removes from their capacity the thin reed of hope that they are martyrs to some great cosmic cause and discloses to themselves the enormity that they are indeed no more than a criminal disposed to hateful actions such as the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians. It also has the advantage of limiting the opportunities for ourselves to engage in the slaughter of civilians and thus having to wage the uncomfortable cognitive battle "justifying" such actions. Instead, the most serious attention is granted to people who wish to dispose of our criminal safeguards and protections against government powers at the slightest hint of danger (never mind that those sanctions exist for a good political/philosophical reason, were often revered even by these same foes now, and historically are more effective at engaging these types of foes) and engage in rhetoric soaring our dispersed and often ineffective foe to that of a great and worthy enemy for our brave and honorable armed forces. Our most powerful and righteous weapon (that of democratic human rights protected in our homes and nations) is thrown aside in order to find comfort in hiding behind a gun.

If one is Al Qaeda or a like-minded group, all they have to do is live by Napoleon's maxim to survive: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

5 comments:

Sun Tzu said...

I always bore people when I stray into foreign policy it seems....

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more.

I will put it in far simpler and less eloquent terms.

Happy and satisfied people don't blow shit up. They have too much to lose.

Yes, everyone can point out those few amazing cases of westerners who became radical muslims, but those cases are just that, the amazing few.

It takes a special type of hopelessness to worship a man you can't see so deeply that you blow shit up in his name and to stop other people from calling him mean names.

The best defense against terrorism is, in my opinion, creating people with jobs and futures of their own choosing to look forward to. Give people opportunities, choice and information and very often they will end up sitting in Starbucks or Fazolis debating the latest NFL draft pick and worrying about their weight instead of as a dead suicide bomber.

Sun Tzu said...

There are a couple caveats to the theory. Engineers seem to go crazy and like blowing things up. That includes the non-Muslim variety. The seem to like things to be a tidy and orderly way and most people, well, they tend to be of a sort to make things...untidy and chaotic. Makes us a little less attractive and predictable than piles of rubble created by explosive charges and bullets.

There's also the issue that the violent radical Muslim tends to be a westernized college student who seems to be pissed about Americans/Israelis/etc blowing up Muslims in some far off place they've probably never been while reading about it sitting at Starbucks and then hearing about it some more from a one-dimensional line from somebody with a story to sell and things need done. And not the guy who is getting his village blown up. Who is pissed for other reasons. Non-crazy, wholly understandable, and non-religious features to that kind of rage and aggression.

But yeah, people who are prosperous and happy don't need to blow things up. They have arguments they need to win over those busted draft picks and a few pounds to gain eating cheese flavored crackers.

Anonymous said...

I think that is less a caveat than a distinction. Most people respond to stuff blowing up. I do. It's awesome, as in awe inspiring. I love it. I love fireworks and harmless explosions around campfires and buildings being demolished. It must be the excitement combined with the comfort of a fire or just witnessing the destructive side of nature. Us modern folk often avoid and demonize destruction instead of worshiping multiple gods as the ancients did. Whatever the reason, there is a distinction between blowing stuff up and enjoying the spectacle and wanting to kill people. I did not make this distinction as I should have.

I believe, and I may be mistaken, that most (as in the highest percentages) violent muslims are found in poorer countries (or in the poorer areas of more wealthy countries) with populations that are mostly muslim. I was also led, maybe falsely, to believe that most of the people committing the violence are not rich. That rich people maybe financing the situation, but not actually committing the acts.

Yes, there are a significant, but smaller, number of westernized muslims committing violent acts. These muslims probably share a common uniting factor, they are the outsiders. The muslim community has turned it into an us against the world situation and the world keeps saying, "Yes, yes it is us against you. You must fight us because we will needlessly persecute you for stupid things like wearing different clothing."

Here is a caveat: I fucking despise cheese flavored crackers. Really, truly hate them. Really. I could pretty easily be tempted to blow up the cheesy cracker factories with the promise of a check for my family and the ability to watch the show either in an afterlife as a reward for removing their sodium from children's diets or before the cops catch me.

Sun Tzu said...

Technically I was referring to killing people with the engineers. They are statistically more likely to become terrorists. Anywhere in the world. Than any other major profession.

Rich people are agitating and recruiting, then wandering off into Pakistan or Afghanistan or wherever to be trained. There are certainly lots of violent Muslims in those poor countries. But as I said, most of them have a pretty damn good reason to be pissed off at some one. Their homes were destroyed. They're a little less likely to be pissed off because Allah told them it was a good idea. Even though that may be the "justification" they would provide.
Here's the article on the Islamists that I'm in part basing this thesis
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/renouncing-islamism-to-the-brink-and-back-again-1821215.html#
I had some money to put on the table for that one here
http://suntzusaid.blogspot.com/2009/11/timeouts.html
It's possible that our contact is skewed being in Western countries. But in reality it's mostly Western worldly Muslims who could ever constitute a threat to Western citizens living in Europe or America anyway. A bunch of guys living in caves and huts in the Hindu Kush are not our fight. And they know that.

I'm fairly sure that neither cheese crackers (cheese and crackers are okay...but cheese infused crackers...) or NFL draft picks are on my to-do list. This unfortunately means that people take my misanthropy to be a sign of impending doom.