[Ask the Gulch] What are we going to do about the terroriete
Posted by JamesWright 8 years, 8 months ago to Ask the Gulch
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Islamic terrorists have been suppressed in some Middle Eastern countries by inflicting state terror on them. Saddam Hussein was very effective at containing radical elements with cruel, brutal measures. As a law-based society with a belief in individual freedom, that route isn't open to us.
A military solution would require genocide, the reduction of radical society to the point of extinction. Anything short of that will not eliminate the terrorists, unlike a conventional military victory where damaging the enemy state enough to end the conflict is sufficient. Again, we're not going to do that unless the threat is perceived as existential to our nation, and no other choice is left to us.
What we have to do is make the radical belief system illegal, starting in our own country. Monitoring and shutting down mosques that teach violent overthrow of our government is legitimate. Carrying out cyberwarfare against internet sites that try to radicalize young people is legitimate.
There are about 30 Muslim camps in our country that claim to teach self defense, but we know that many of them are nothing but terrorist training sites. Shutting down these systems should be a priority.
After we've started the culture war here, we can look at foreign locations that endanger our national interests and go after them. Economic forcing is an effective tool to make other nations take action to strangle the radical culture. The Saudis claim to be softening the strict Wahabist sect that dominates their culture. We must force them to speed up the process. Once the extremists are reduced to an ineffectual state, action against them becomes a law enforcement problem, more easily handled.
You win the internet comment of the day,strugatsky.
A radical muslim wants to kill you. A moderate muslim wants a radical muslim to kill you.
That's why they contribute so much money to those muslim "charities". They're funnelling money to the radicals.
I've often thought that if we had nuked Iran back in 1979, a lot of terrorism would have been prevented.
Islam Delenda Est.
I submit that no U.S. intervention in the Middle East is necessary unless you are committed to preserving Israel at American taxpayer expense: essentially distracting Muslim factions into attacking the U.S. rather than Israel or other heretic Islamist factions. As an analogy, the contention of interventionists that Hitler would have destroyed the USSR without U.S. aid, then compelled a surrender of Britain through U-boat strangulation, and then, in turn, destroyed the USA as a superior military force has often been advanced but never logically demonstrated or proven.
A fundamental flaw in this interventionist theory is the concept that modern warfare creates wealth-- that successive military victories over modern states (equally committed to national survival) necessarily make the victor wealthier and more powerful. Another flaw is the fact that, even if Hitler was successful in overcoming and destroying Stalin, Hitler would then have been directly facing the equally racist and expansionist Japanese empire along a broad Siberian-Mongolian-Manchurian front.
The problem with the interventionist theory of Neocons and Ziocons is that modern warfare generally leaves a "scorched earth" in its path. As a statist power drains the blood out of its own nation to advance its borders (as in the case of Barbarossa), it is simultaneously draining the blood out of its intended victim, so after hard-fought victory it is then compelled to move on to another adversary, another victim. This is why an ultimate confrontation between the two hypothetically surviving powers (Hitler and Imperial Japan) would have been inevitable--and in the meantime, the U.S. could have been "keeping its powder dry," preparing for eventual war with what would by that time have become the internally corrupted and drained surviving "victor."
This same scenario should be applied in considering U.S. options in the Middle East. Let Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, ISIS and whoever first slug it out (without U.S. participation in the fray)--and then see if that survivor genuinely remains a threat to U.S. interests. Newly achieved U.S. internal access to fracked oil reserves only buttresses the isolationist argument that the U.S. should remove itself from all Middle East confrontations.
It is in our interests not to help the Saudis who have instigated the mess in Syria, and strike a deal with Russia for our non-interference. The exchange might involve a closer tie between Russia and Israel, both of whom face real existential threats from radical Islamic forces.
I agree that we should step back and let Iran and Saudi Arabia conduct their power struggle. We should concentrate on keeping the danger of radical Islam away from our shores, but at this point I doubt seriously we can step back and simply say "Never mind." We've been involved too long already, so I expect incoming fire to continue.
James Wright
The books are "Iran's Deadly Ambition" by Ilan Berman and "Winning the Unwinnable War" by Elan Journo
Fundamental Islam does not assimilate. It takes over.
Beyond that, Islam needs to be recognized as a theocracy (not just a religion) that is militantly opposed to the US Constitution. As such, an educational program should be launched teaching the true meaning of Islam. Islamic schools that breed martyrs need to be shut down, along with mosques that practice and preach militant rhetoric. It is ironic that it is quite acceptable today to completely shut down anyone disturbing a delicate flower's safe space, but hate rhetoric advocating the killing of US citizens is not only allowed, but encouraged with taxpayers' funds! If the American Muslims are willing to break away from the Cairo and Saudi Islamic schools and transform Islam similar to the way Christianity was transformed since its Inquisition heyday, then perhaps is could in the future be viewed as a peaceful religion, as opposed to today's (and unchanging since the 7th century) "the religion of peace," meaning submission. [For those unaware, the correct translation of "Islam" is "submission." The meaning in that there will be peace on earth when everyone submits to Sharia. I am willing to be called a "bigot," but I am not willing to submit to Sharia.]
The battle is between those who love death and those who love life.
Any attempt to sugar-coat the truth and appease the enemy of life is evil.
legal"?!--This is American?! And then why is not
the Communist Party illegal in the United States?
--No, the terrorist actions should be illegal (though I believe they already are) but there is a difference between a belief and an action. If
people are actually being trained to overthrow
our government, (for instance, being drilled in
the use of guns or other such weapons for it,
yes, then the centers where it takes place should be shut down. Otherwise, possibly
surveillance.
Koran to see what it said about different things (such as murdering "infidels"), but didn't finish it, and eventually returned it to the library. But there are plenty of Communists already in the U.S. Were they born here, then?
As to the communists in the US, today most are native born, but there were those that immigrated here and simply didn't admit to their party membership. Vetting immigrants was never a perfect process. Some have been quite notorious spies that have books written about. But to this day, immigration (not sure about visits) to people admitting membership in the communist party or other organizations who's goal is a violent change of the US government is forbidden.
Then again...Pol Pot went after the engineers...
Diego Gambetta & Steffen Hertog
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/106...
"In Engineers of Jihad, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog uncover two unexpected facts, which they imaginatively leverage to narrow that gap: they find that a disproportionate share of Islamist radicals come from an engineering background, and that Islamist and right-wing extremism have more in common than either does with left-wing extremism, in which engineers are absent while social scientists and humanities students are prominent."
Personally, I advocate for prosperity as a weapon of war. The United States State Department has never been an information source for reality, reason, and rights, which are the pre-conditions to prosperity, which is the antidote to terrorism, especially religious fundamentalism. The USA government in Washington DC never stood up for capitalism against communism, and suffered Viet Nam as a consequence. The Iran Hostage Crisis was another consequence of that broader lack of principles.
That said, however, realize that in American history both leftwing terrorists and rightwing terrorists have struck in the midst of our own prosperity and abundance and open markets in times of more apparent reason. The Wall Street Bombing of September 16, 1920, and the Oklahoma City Bombing of April 19, 1995, are just two examples.
It is a common fallacy to say that crime is caused by poverty. Crimes are committed by individuals who fail to think. There is no way to prevent that. However, it is also true that people generally do not kill for what they can buy or die for what they can sell.
"In Nelly Hanna's biography of Isma'il Abu Taqiyya, Making Big Money in 1600 (American University of Cairo Press, 1998) she tells of how he expanded his home to meet the needs of his large and successful family." -- "A Man's Home is His Market" here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
Capitalism largely ended war. Though the years 1814-1914 were marked by minor military conflicts such as the Crimean War and the Boer Wars, the time also was hallmarked by the Six Weeks' War, as different from the Seven Years' War and the Hundred Years' War...
Failing to think may independently cause crime and poverty.
Like poverty, crime has no 'cause.' It is the ground state, the default, the lack-of-something. In metaphysics, we say that "nothing is not a special kind of something." So, too, in ethics, is poverty not a different kind of productivity.
In The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs wrote: “To seek 'causes' of poverty in this way is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes.”
See my essay on "The Roots of Poverty" here:
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
I think about the times I've rented cars, tools, or living space. I feel like I take good care of it because theoretically I would be responsible for damages, and I would feel like a criminal allowing to be damaged just b/c I think the owner won't catch me. I wonder if it's only people with at least some criminal inclination who treat their stuff differently from others'. I also wonder if the poor (not the same as criminal) would tend to trash their own stuff and treat other people's stuff no better.
Shift forward to today and read Ilan Berman's book "Iran's Deadly Ambition", which is to rule the world.Iran recruits the terrorist, trains him, funds him and directs him. Had we listened to Elan Journo, in his 2009 book "Winning the Unwinnable War", things would have been far different now.
James Wright
And it has been expanded into a book. (My university library has it only in electronic format. My city library does not shelve it all.)
First of all, it is not so much poverty per se or the lack of education per se as it is the perception of thwarted ambitions. If you read the biographies of Dylann Roof, Timothy McVeigh, and Eric Rudolph, you see the same frustration.
Unlike their Islamic counterparts, American rightwing terrorists tend to come from those bucolic, romanticized small towns and rural areas.
The sociology of cities does underscore the point you made about the lack of industry. "Engineers of Jihad" looks at the differences among terrorists from Singapore versus the Palestinians, for instance. Industrial centers are commercial centers where strangers co-operate.
However, if you read the biographies of the September 11 hijackers, you will see that they came from middle class or upper class families. Their economic aspirations were not frustrated.
As for the oil-rich nations, perhaps the ones that fit your model are in west Africa. The Gabon is stereotypical, being ruled by a single family that gets its money in cash. The only paved road is the five miles from the palace to the airport. The Gabon is not a center of Islamic Jihad. On the other hand Saudi Arabia is. Rather than grinding poverty, the foreign workers there in all industries across all ethnicities tend to do as well as anywhere else. Waiters and welders make about the same standard of living there as where you live.
You are right about the disparity between the ruling families and the foreign workers. That was a factor in Kuwait. No one was willing to fight and die to save the country when Iraq invaded. The royals fled and the Palestinian workers welcomed Saddam Hussein's army. That is why Saudi Arabia hired the USA to defend them against Iraq. It was not clear to the al-Saud family that they had enough native fighters to save them in case of an invasion.
However, it was that very American presence in Mecca and Riyadh and Medina that inflamed the Wahhabi.
That all being as it may, the ruling families all along the Gulf know full well that their prosperity depends on foreign workers. They simply do not have enough of "their own people" to do all of the work, let alone to sacrifice them in a senseless war. Qatar and Dubai are centers of international trade.
Most of all, these terrorists - right wing, left wing, Islamic, Christian, Hindu, communist, whatever - do not come from any one place. Though statistical trends are clear, the fact remains that crimes are committed by individuals.
You might say that you only want to imprison people who commit objective crimes such as robbery or murder. The problem is more basic than that, however. We know for a fact from statistical outcomes that isolating offenders is expensive and wasteful. What does seem to work is re-integrating them into the community by first introducing them to themselves.
See "Moral Reconation Therapy" here:
http://www.moral-reconation-therapy.c...
and see The Redhook Justice Center here:
http://www.courtinnovation.org/projec...
There are many stories from the Middle East about Palestinian fighters and others who were turned around once their eyes were opened (from the inside). The People's Liberation Army of China made great strides against the Nationalists by treating their captives well and then releasing them.