Madrid Bombing Group Announces Next Possible Targets

[Gamblor]

Don't you know by now ComedyLimp that if the terrorists tell you not to jump off a cliff, absolutely the last thing you must ever do is not jump off a cliff. Anything else would be appeasement of the most craven kind. Unless it's withdrawing troops from Saudi Arabia.

I took this to mean as follows:
One must do what is right regardless of what groups who commit terrorist acts demand via their actions.

My response was to right and wrong are not binary in that they are either right or wrong, but rather rights and wrongs must often be prioritized at the expense of other rights and wrongs. (i.e. some "rights" are more important than other "rights)

[MMMMMM]

Yes I am right, thank you, and your irrelevant sarcasm doesn't change anything.

[MMMMMM]

"M you have repeatedly made it clear that you oppose any objective that may be shared by a terrorist group regardless of whether it is right or wrong."

No, I haven't. You are misinterpreting my remarks.

"THat is my point about the cliff analogy. Any step that may help resolve a conflict is regared as giving in to terrorism or weakness, even ones that would significantly reduce the the terrorist threat. That you really believe the Spanish should have voted for a government that shamelessly played politics with the Madrid bombings simply to show that they refuse to "give in" to the terrorists, despite the fact that they largely opposed the occupation before the bombings, shows how stubornly ingrained this belief has become. I can see that the result may encourage AQ to time its attacks around elections (though given this is an ageold terrorist tactic I hardly see any need for encouragement) but the idea that the result is to blame for AQ's statement that they will attack other US allies is absurd."

I guess your views about what is most important are different than mine. Not giving in to terror and blatant blackmail is higher on my list than it is on yours, apparently, and I don't think terrorists should be able to sway the votes of a country to what they desire with a handful of well-placed bombs. I also don't think a government "playing politics" is anywhere nearly as important a matter. Heck, governments and candidates "play politics" all the time. But "playing politics" is a hell of a lot less serious a matter than demanding a change of politics at gunpoint or bombpoint, or executing attacks to let the populace know that they are about to make a decision that will either result in more horrific attacks or not.

[MMMMMM]

"The flaw in your argument is that you don't seem to realise that withdrawing from Iraq might be the right thing to do and might actually constitute progress towards defeating terrorism."

I am convinced it wouldn't be.

"You seem to have this blindspot that requires you to consider Spain's actions to be capitulation and appeasement when that need not be the case at all."

It seems pretty obviously so.

"If the motivation were appeasement or giving in to terror blackmail why did the new government not just say we are pulling out full stop? As I understand what they have said, if the US, UK and Spain do handover control to the UN by June 30th then the Spanish troops can stay as part of an Internationalised security force. Surely if they wanted to reduce their own short term risk they would be out by next Wednesday?"

No, the terrorists are sufficiently delighted with the current results as they stand.

"Or consider this. If I were OBL sitting in my cave plotting my "War Against Freedom" (and possibly other abstract nouns to be announced later) what is the very best thing that can happen now? Bush announcing the imminent invasion of Syria would be pretty much like flopping a straight flush from his perspective -- and yet it is something that would get huge support from the usual NeoCon and Freeper loonies (not that I am saying you are a neocon or likely to support such a move you understand)."

You seem to put a lot more faith in public opinions as a controlling aspect of terror than you do in the nuts and bolts: depriving them of sanctuary and weaponry and finances is very powerful and probably more powerful than the public opinion stuff you mention. So is capturing or killing them.

"What's the worst thing that can happen from OBL's perspective (apart from the Rangers actually finding him)? How about the US ceeding control of Iraq to an international security force under UN control? That would rob him of lots of great anti-US propaganda, make the US seem maybe not so bad after all to lots of moderate Arabs, etc."

If you actually think withdrawal at this juncture would help stabilize Iraq at this point you are living in a dreamworld. The problem ISN'T making the terrorists or moderate Muslims mad--they're angry anyway--the problem is that the organized militant jihadists still have room and funds to operate. But their freedom of operation is slowly being constricted and eventually will be largely taken away from them.

"But hang on isn't that giving in to terror blackmail?"

Yes it would be which is one of many reasons why withdrawing from Iraq prematurely would not be a good idea.

[MMMMMM]

What you must understand is that IRA terrorism or Basque/ETA terrorism is quite a different animal than Islamic terrorism.

The IRA and the Basque separatists have specific goals and agendas which could negotiated with. They want(ed) specific things. Militant Islamic fundamentalists however are simply violently opposed to everything non-Islamic.

If you gave the IRA everything it wanted the attacks would cease (not saying that would be the answer to the problem, but that attacks would cease). But what the Islamists jihad warriors want is something far greater and truly impossible.

They want the whole Middle East, Spain and eventually Europe and the entire world to become Islamic. A couple years ago al-Qaeda released a statement demanding that the UK and USA stop interfering in the Middle East, stop supporting Israel, and that the USA and UK convert to Islam or face further attacks. Their position is fanatical, impossible, and wholly irrational. The caliphate isn't going to be restored as they dream it will (must) be. Islamic law (Shar'ia) isn't going to eventually be implemented all over Europe. Islamic Theocracy isn't going to replace democracy everywhere. But nothing less will truly satisfy the radical Muslims, the Islamists, and they are waging a jihad to precisely this end. The affairs in Israel and Palestine are a sidenote. The Islamists want One World Under Islam and they are willing to strive, fight, and die for this fanatical religious vision--and they say so: in speeches, writings, and actions. We are facing a fanatical ideology which does not hold human life in nearly the same regard we do. Observe the death-cultism of the suicide bombers, too. It is a much different scenario than with the IRA.

[MMMMMM]

Andy you must try to look a little (or a lot) deeper.

I'll be away for at least a week so I won't have time to elaborate, best wishes in the meantime.

[superleeds]

A terrorist is a terrorist, pure and simple. They see no possible way to bring about the society they want and so they resort to terror tactics. 'My terrorist is more insane than yours' is utter crap as an argument.

I suggest you read a book about the IRA before you start making glib comments about their goals and methods. Heres a start

[andyfox]

I read your post carefully, and chose to comment on one point. Both our enemies and our leaders always mention god in their speeches, telling us that he's on the right side, i.e., the side that is doing the speaking. Same thing leaderes were doing a thousand years ago.

Anyway, see you back here when you return.

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
A terrorist is a terrorist, pure and simple.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok.

[ QUOTE ]
They see no possible way to bring about the society they want and so they resort to terror tactics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't mean to speak for M but I believe Ms point is that the society the IRA terrorists want and the society the Jihadist terrorists want are far different.

[ComedyLimp]

"If my take is correct the Northern Ireland experience and the actions of the British government in response to terrorism in the 80's lead you to this conclusion"

Yes. Militarily we had a *much* simpler problem than that which faces us now. We had a relatively small number of terrorists in a small country that we actually governed and another small country that, whilst not exactly close allies, were at least resolutely oppossed to terrorism. In the 70s and much of the 80s many in the UK were convinced that the problem of IRA terrorsim could be solved via sending in the army and rooting them out and either shooting or arresting them. So we attemtped to solve the problem through a combination or military means, security measures, a "pragmatic" approach to the civil rights of terror suspects (internment, military tribunals, etc.) and so on.

This strategy, despite it being faced with a far more tractable problem than the problems we face with extremist Islamist terrorists, basically achieved nothing beyond killing a few thousand (mostly) innocent people. Both sides carried on for 30 years in a bloody stalemate until everyone was so exhausted that eventually a political process got started and we are where we are today -- with an uneasy and incomplete peace but with a sense of hope and progress and no meaningful terrorist problems (spliter groups like the Real/Continuity IRA although much more bloody are relatively simple to deal with).

"Let's assume the parallels are valid, what course of action would you recommend"

The IRA prospered becuase a significant minority of the Northern Ireland population had legitimate grievances with the British Government. They were poor, abused by the Protestant majority, denied jobs, housing, etc. The vast majority of these people were perfectly reasonable, normal people who would no sooner plant a bomb than you or I but because of the percieved injustices and a sense of powerlessness they supported the IRA to as greater or lesser extent. Indeed many of them explicitily supported the terrorists by from something relatively benign like voting Sinn Fein to looking the other way, to providing practical help for the people actually blowing people up.

The key thing is that if it were not for these people it would be relativelt simple to round up the IRA (and the various Loyalist terror groups). However, given the deep immersion of terrorists within the fabric of an actual communnity that gives them tacit support and comfort, rounding them up becomes pretty much impossible. Or rather you can so it but only by rounding up and locking up everybody (and there was a short period in the 70s when the British came fairly close to actually trying this).

Now wind forward to the current situation where there is a political process in place that is addressing the fears and problems of the Catholic minority (and, equally, the security concerns of the Protestant majority). Now the IRA pretty much has zero support for its armed stuggle and terrorism, whilst not exaclt going away, ceases to be a factor. So for exmaple look at the way the various splinter groups despite a few initial successes and, in Omagh, just about the worst atrocity of the whole period quickly withered and died without the support of the community.

Note also that the Catholic community doesn't require nailed on, gift wrapped solutions to all their problems to stop supporting the IRA -- simply a sense of hope and getting a fair shake is enough to bring along the majority of people in a process that undermines the terrorists. At some decidelt wobbly points in the process the IRA could quite easily have pulled out of the process and put us back to square one -- the fact that they didn't was largely becuase the idea of political soliution and no more bombs was so hugely popular with their natural constituency that, once the process was underway, they didn't have much choice but to stick with it.

The parallels with the Middle East should hopeful be obvious and i re-iterate my earlier points: You cannot win via (solely) military means and treating it like a war and basically its a question of winning "Hearts and Minds".

So, despite the predictable chest thumping and cries of "Appeaser" and the like from the Right I firmly believe that the best thing the US can do to help solve this problem is to make changes to its foreign policies. A solution to the Israel-Palestine problem is the single biggest and most important issue and while this is obviosuly not anything but simple I think that with a strong enough President with the right courage and leadership the US could go a long way to making it happen. This is not to say that the US shouldn't be utterly ruthless in dealing with the actual terrorists, and that the military and security services don't have a huge role to play -- just that you can't have one without the otehr.

[An aside: I don't really want to get into the Israel issue as frankly one big issue is enough. Suffice it to say that although I would probably be thought of as a Liberal in US circles and think we should proceed with a negotiated two-state settlement ASAP, I am not one for the unhelpful demonising of Israel and sweeping under the carpet the fact that the likes of Hamas are murderous loonies. As a friend of mine in Tel Aviv is fond of saying, the great tragedy of the region is that everybody knows what the eventual solution will be -- you can pretty much write it down now -- and the only real question is how many more years each side is going to spend killing each other before they get around to sorting it out.]

So overall I believe that the US's problems start with the way they are percieved by ordinary Arabs and that this perception is at the heart of al-Qaeda's support. Convincing oridnary Arabs that the US is not the Great Satan and not the cause of all their problems is the crux of the matter and with this the defeat of al-Qaeda becomes eminently possible which, short of nuking half the planet, it currently isn't.

Finally a quick word about GWB. Post 9/11 the US had this huge reserve of support and goodwill from prety much the whole of the world. Such has been the staggeringly bad way in which Bush has gone about tackling the problem and with the breathtakingly ill-advised Iraq situation in particular that all this goodwill has pretty much been frittered away without achieving very much in terms of solving terrorism.

Consider this: Many, many perfectly ordinary and decent people with mainstream, reasonable views, in my country -- your closest and staunchest ally -- believe that the Bush administration via it misguided foreign policy is causing more problems than its solving. If the frightfully nice vicar in a village in Oxfordshire thinks your government is as much part of the problem as the solution what chance do you have of convincing the market trader in Bagdhad?

Matthew
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