The root causes of terrorism
 

Terrorism, historically, can be classified in three categories:

#1- Geographical terrorism: a minority group is fighting for its independence against an oppressor that is more powerful. Since the minority group does not have an organized army, it uses terrorism to fight against its oppressor. The examples of this are numerous: The Irish against the British, the Palestinians against the Isareli, the Basques against the Spaniards, The Corses against the French…

#2- Ideological terrorism: a group with radical ideas wants to impose their ideology to the rest of their country, or to the world. Examples are communists, like the Rote Armee Faction, anarchists like the home-grown US terrorists, Religious like the Aum in Japan.

#3- Lone nut cases, or little groups with no special ideology or cause: School shootings are one example.

In the case of Al Quaeda, categories #1 and #2 could apply, and I believe that this is where a good debate can take place. There are those who say that if they were left alone in the first place, they would mind their own business, and all they want is `No infidels in their Holy Land`. And there are those say that what they want is destroy the western civilization, impose a radical version of Islam to the entire planet, which forces us to invade them and `democratize` them before they invade us…The irony of the whole situation, of course, is that they happen to be sitting on the world largest oil reserves. As a consequence, leaving them alone is not an option, and it almost looks like a happy coincidence that they are so threatening. But now, imagine what would happen if they spontaneously decided without any outside help to adopt all western values, democracy, abandon terrorism, and practice free trade of their oil, selling to the Japanese in Yens, to the Europeans in Euros, to the Chinese in Yuans and to the Americans in dollars. Would that be a satisfactory outcome to all of you ?

Aurel

This is an interesting topic Aurel.

I expect that (as with all things human) many situations defy such ready classification of cause and effect. I also expect that such defiance is further complicated by the fact that conditions and factors are constantly changing and evolving.

So as the example of how Jews went from being the scapegoats for the financial disenfranchisement of the german people to being something much more significant, so have other situations probably evolved from simple downtrodden Davids vs. tyrant Goliaths to debates of good vs. evil.

It's always much simpler to rally people around concepts of good and evil than to debate the validity of individual actions. People also embrace these concepts easily because they remove burdens of guilt or rational accountability for our actions. This concept is seen here on this board where people are physically revolted by some violent action against an American yet feel no such revulsion about thousands of Iraqis meeting a similar fate at our hands. The latent "goodness" of our actions excuses us the need to feel any real guilt.

So, as we rally support for "war" against terror or against Iraqis on the basis of good vs. evil, the terrorists use a similar tactic to rally against us. So the tangible, pragmatic reasons to take umbrage with each other that have exisited easily become twisted into epic idealogical struggles. Terrorism rooted in your type (1) becomes type (2) or even (3).

The cure in the minds of many is to eliminate the cause. Stop abusing people and the skilled leaders out there (and they are legion and endless) can get no traction to foment hatred against us. Invading a Iraq is probably as far from that approach to problem solving as you can get...

Interesting question, but it wouldn't work.
The Iraqis are still a majority Shiite, which links them hand-in-hand to the ruthless Muslim ideoligist structure in the region which has adopted regional fighting and an anti-western/jewish hatred as a way of life. They aren't willing to share even a couple hundred square miles to something non-arab.

It would also mean handing over all control of their oil profits to U.S. companies who need to recoup loss from that expensive war. When I fill up, I don't think that's a bad idea, but only because there's no alternative unfortunately. I also worry if all the major oil-producing countries turned on the U.S. at the same time. All the eggs would be in one basket.

I heard some socialist once say "imagine if their was worldwide peace, no competition between peoples, and everyone worked 3 hours a day and got paid the same". Ummmm right.

I just thought a Terrorist was a guy whose dog p!ssed on him when he was a kid.....and is trying to get back at the world for his humilation.

yep, that's pretty much what I'm saying. So, as the biggest dog, all we have to do is stop pissin' on people.

Thats a real Liberal position U got there Joe...a Clinton position of "I feel your pain" and "because you had a tough childhood it's all right to blow things up" ....America is truly to blame for everything that is bad in the world.... BIG BAD AMERICANS...

BTW It's the pi$$ing on other people that keeps U in your Porsche...JOE!

Otherwise you'd be pi$$ing in the little house out back....or *****ting in a hole in the floor...

Now what exactly is the definition of the word "pi$$ing" in the context of this message?

aw, I was just taken a little liberty with your tongue-in-cheek comment about the roots of terrorism. The opportunity to segue that into a US-as-the-aggressor analogy was just too tempting.

I'm not sure how you equate pissin' on other people with the quality of either my toilet habits or my car; as your remarks in other contexts have lead me to believe that you do not subscribe to a zero-sum view of macro-economics. I'm sure that (as a good capitalist) you would be the first to acknowledge that Americans are economically successful in accordance with their own industriousness as opposed to us having truck with the fiscal exploitation of our planet-mates.

Pissin' in my context refers to events like Iraqnam. Pissin' on peoples sovereignty or economic well-being in a bogus context of doing what's best for them or for poster children like freedom, democracy and world peace. Iraqnam is the epitomy of such pissin'. There are many, many other examples of such pissin' and such pissin' has greatly gained momentum since the 1960's.

Bear in mind that I'm a union bustin', money lovin' capitalist myself. I just don't happen to think that our way of relating to the world is sustainable since Sept 11th. Technology makes us all too vulnerable to be cocky about foisting our idealogy on or trying to lead the world around by the nose. If we try to turn world domination into a zero-sum game we will all go the way of the dodo well before our time.

How many terror attacks have we had here in the states since the war with Iraq started. It seems like we have flushed most of them out into one killbox. Terror attacks happen every day over there. Why arent they happening here?

I don`t know. I was wondering about that myself. It is hard for me to beleive that the USA is so much more secure than it was before 9/11. One possible answer is that Al Queada likes to take time to plan things. Another answer is that Al Quaeda does not really exist as an ennemy, that it is a giant governement conspiracy to invade oil rich countries. After all, we have already seen that deception and manipulation can happen, with the WMDs :D

Aurel

Could it be when you have a big stinky terd it attracts fly's. Thereby the flys are gathering over there and not here. Which to me seems like a good thing.

Dont even start with deception and manipulation. If the Intel was bad it had been bad for a long time. You cant with good concious blame this on the current admin. If he had no WMD's why did Cliniton launch Cruise missles? For fun? For a good time? to spend our money? Come on you need to do better than that.

I understand your theory of terds and flies, but it assumes that the flies are really very stupid to gather all at the same place. Remember, thoses are the sames flies that were able to pull 9/11. And also, the idea that gathering them all at the same place and killing them will solve the problem is rather naive: bear in mind that each terrorist killed has a brother, a father or an uncle that can become terrorist in turn. I don`t see how this circle could end like that. Attacking the roots of terrorism seems like a more efficient strategy, hence the title of the thread. Now, what are those roots ?

Aurel

Well my friend, until it seems logical to strap explosives to ourselves and willingly blow up civilans and avoid military targets, in the name of god, we will never understand the true roots of terrorisim. As a memebr of the armed forces I understand the reasoning in attacking military targets. as horrific as it was I did not have a problem with the terrorists attacking the Pentigon, It is a military target. I take great exception in the choice of the WTC. That had absolutly no military value. As you can see I will never be able to see eye to eye with the terrorist. I suspect you dont either.

Now as to the roots point, if you are impoverished and have nothing better to live for than to die as someelses minion than life sucks. You dont see too many suicide bombers that are rich. Yes there are rich terrorists and sponsors of terror. But the rich ones let the poor ones die becuase they have nothing to live for. But if you improve thier living conditions and give them somthing to live for than you reduce the chances for youth to grow into terrorists. Its similar to the gang mentality, where they will do anyting for those that give them what they cant get in the world becuase they feel there is no oppertunity. In the 80's-90's this happend in Poland and a disease spread through the iron curtian called rising expectations that the soivet union could not meet with thier idiolgy. If by chance we succeed and Iraq becomes a thriving democracy where people can make as much as they want to, what will the neighboring countries that live in squaler want. You guessed it, a better life.

there is a book written by Joel Rosenthal called "the last Jihad" that discuses a hypothetical war with Iraq and a hypothetical plan for peace in the middle east. It was written a few years ago and I would bet that Pres Bush read it (well maybe he had to read to him, you know how those yale grads score on IQ tests) as well. If you havent read it, you should.

PS: I know my grammer and spelling suck, you have commented on it before, I apologize but I was in special ed during some of the developmental years of my life and missed some valuble learning. I will continue in my attempt to improve.

Araine,

I can feel in your writing how sincere you are, and the grammar does not matter at all as long as your heart is at the right place. Sorry for commenting on it: I did not know you yet. I`ll read the last Jihad, when I get a chance.

Aurel

Quit whining..he called me a t*rd. Consider it a badge of honor...He only resorts to that crap when you have beaten him.

The reason there are terrorists is simply because it works. It is just like what Bin Laden said after Somalia when Clinton did nothing....he said that he made tens of thousands of our troops run like Frenchmen by killing a few of them. He said it worked...will work again..and as thus, they would keep doing it.

That is why we can never let it work. No matter how tough it gets!

How have you beaten me exactly Mr. Finstone ? Just for your information, the purpose of mindfull debates is not always to beat eachother. But I have to assume that in your simplistic vision of life, there are the good ones and the bad ones, that the good ones need to kill as many bad ones as possible, and that is it. :rolleyes:

You say: The reason there are terrorists is simply because it works.

Now, tell me, because what works ? What is their goal ? What are they asking ? Why are they acting in such a radical way ? Something must be pissing them badly for them to do all of that. This is what I`d like to know.

And you can use the french as a typical example of weasels all you want.
The fact is that they are living peacefully with a population over 20% muslim now. And even better, we have assimilated those muslims, and made them adopt our values. Those who are too radical get thrown out of the country. Also, there can be lessons to learn from de Gaulle, who solved the crisis of Algeria in the 60s, a situation very similar that with Iraq now. Well, except that there was not that much oil in Algeria. You seem to want to stick to the war against terror mantra, and not look beyond that.

Aurel

damn, he got me again!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1082816254.jpg

If calling others tu*ds is what you call mindful debates, I guess you are winning! People winning arguments rarely resort to vulgarity. Desperate tactics are chosen by desperate men.

If the terrorists think it works that is enough to make them do it. Their current goal is for us to stay out of the middle east...if they succeed, next time they will want something else. Once you pay blackmail, you will always pay blackmail.

Bin Laden was very clear in his "declaration of war" that terrorism worked for him so well against the Clinton administartion (with no respose) that he would continue to use the tactics......

Truth hurts doesn't it? If French life was so good, you would not reside in the US. You are a guest in this country and all you do is trash our people and government...don't whine when we return the favor.

Great job Finstone ! You demonstrated, without a doubt, that you are the smartest and the coolest. Therefore, you win the Grand Prize: Go pick it up here. Hurry up ! SmileWavy

Aurel

Aurel
I will not even dignify your post by clicking on your link. I am sure that it will be as childish as your earlier posts. Call names, post cartoons....continue to prove you are not capable of dignified discourse....If you don't want an argument...go back to your liberal sites and post where no one knows the truth.

At the risk of prolonging the continued debasement of this excellent thread, I have to ask this question (feisty on a Monday AM)...

Fintstone, my learned friend, please edify me here. We can all see the anti-Iraqnam "truths" pretty plainly. Please list the pro-Iraqnam "truths" for us, would you please. Truths - not opinions or theories or fearmongering.

I'll start you off with something to shoot at (pun intended):

(1) 10000+ dead Iraqis.
(2) 500+ dead Americans (and more every day). Actually, more have died since GWB declared the war over than before.
(3) NO WMD (like that has anything to do with anything)
(4) A few hundred billion dollars wasted.

Please list the pro-Iraqattack truths will you?

That's OK, forget about it. I just remembered a quotation from a guy very knowledgeable about fearmongering and building cases for going to war. It all seems pretty clear if you think about it in this perspective...

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."

Makes pretty good sense, eh?

Oh, the writer of that famous quote?

None other than that gregarious, war-lovin' crazy guy himself...

Adolph Hitler.

Those are easy.

If the ratio of Iraqi/American casulties is 10,000/500, I consider that means the war is going quite well.

WMD were hidden from inspectors..they are still hidden. I have no doubt that I could hid a couple of barrels here in NM and you could never find them.

Wasted is a matter of opinion. Based on the ratio above, I would consider the money well spent. Much better spent than the money we pay to the relatives of 911 victims after the terrorists come here.

No need to list truths, just wait for Mr Bush and listen to his remarks....

Even if the victor tells the truth...the liberals rewrite history to make them look like the bad guy...note the recent movie about the Alamo.

"If the ratio of Iraqi/American casulties is 10,000/500, I consider that means the war is going quite well."

Finstone,

from the 10,000+, most represent innocent women and children killed, more than 3 times dead than 9/11

great way to fight terrorism, you would think, eh?

I've been looking long and hard Finstone, but I just can't seem to find a single item of fact in your statement of opinion.

But you should feel free to write again if you are able to come up with a single fact in support of Iraqnam.

That is simply not true. But even if it were, that is a very small fraction of those civilians killed by Saddam on a routine basis.

I don't think that it is necessary to waste the time posting reasons to go to Iraq...because there are simply no reasons not to. Saddam was given every opportunity to meet the terms agreed to after the first gulf war and did not. The UN gave him an ultimatum..he did not comply. Everything else is ancillary. Simple as that.

To save some typing..I agree with this article:

April 23, 2004, 8:33 a.m.
Myth or Reality?
Will Iraq work? That’s up to us.

By Victor Davis Hanson

Myth #1: America turned off its allies. According to John Kerry, due to inept American diplomacy and unilateral arrogance, the United States failed to get the Europeans and the U.N. on board for the war in Iraq. Thus, unlike in Afghanistan, we find ourselves alone.

In fact, there are only about 4,500-5,500 NATO troops in Afghanistan right now. The United States and its Anglo allies routed the Taliban by themselves. NATO contingents in Afghanistan are not commensurate with either the size or the wealth of Europe.

There are far more Coalition troops in Iraq presently than in Afghanistan. As in the Balkans, NATO and EU troops will arrive only when the United States has achieved victory and provided security. The same goes for the U.N., which did nothing in Serbia and Rwanda, but watched thousands being butchered under its nose. It fled from Iraq after its first losses.

Yes, the U.N. will return to Iraq — but only when the United States defeats the insurrectionists. It will stay away if we don't. American victory or defeat, as has been true from Korea to the Balkans, will alone determine the degree of (usually post-bellum) participation of others.

Myth #2: Democracy cannot be implemented by force. This is a very popular canard now. The myth is often floated by Middle Eastern intellectuals and American leftists — precisely those who for a half-century damned the United States for its support of anti-Communist authoritarians.

Now that their dreams of strong U.S. advocacy for consensual government have been realized, they are panicking at that sudden nightmare — terrified that their fides, their careers, indeed their entire boutique personas might be endangered by finding themselves on the same side of history as the United States. Worse, history really does suggest that democracy often follows only from force or its threat.

One does not have to go back to ancient Athens — in 507 or 403 B.C. — to grasp the depressing fact that most authoritarians do not surrender power voluntarily. There would be no democracy today in Japan, South Korea, Italy, or Germany without the Americans' defeat of fascists and Communists. Democracies in France and most of Western Europe were born from Anglo-American liberation; European resistance to German occupation was an utter failure. Panama, Granada, Serbia, and Afghanistan would have had no chance of a future without the intervention of American troops.

All of Eastern Europe is free today only because of American deterrence and decades of military opposition to Communism. Very rarely in the modern age do democratic reforms emerge spontaneously and indigenously (ask the North Koreans, Cubans, or North Vietnamese). Tragically, positive change almost always appears after a war in which authoritarians lose or are discredited (Argentina or Greece), bow to economic or cultural coercion (South Africa), or are forced to hold elections (Nicaragua).

cont.

Myth #3: Lies got us into this war. Did the administration really mislead us about the reasons to go to war, and does it really now find itself with an immoral conflict on its hands? Mr. Bush's lectures about WMD, while perhaps privileging such fears over more pressing practical and humanitarian reasons to remove Saddam Hussein, took their cue from prior warnings from Bill Clinton, senators of both parties including John Kerry, and both the EU and U.N.

If anyone goes back to read justifications for Desert Fox (December 1998) or those issued right after September 11 by an array of American politicians, then it is clear that Mr. Bush simply repeated the usual Western litany of about a decade or so — most of it best formulated by the Democratic party under Bill Clinton. Indeed, we opted to launch that campaign in large part because of Iraq's work on WMDs.

No, the real rub is whether Iraq will work: If it does, the WMD bogeyman disappears; if not, it becomes the surrogate issue to justify withdrawing.

Myth #4: Profit-making led to this war. Then there is the strange idea that American administration officials profited from the war. Companies like Bechtel and Halliburton are supposedly "cashing in," either on oil contracts or rebuilding projects — as if any company is lining up to lure thousands of workers to the Iraqi oasis to lounge and cheat in such a paradise.

This idea is absurd for a variety of other reasons, too. Iraqi oil is for the first time under Iraqi, rather than a dictator's, control. And the Iraqi people most certainly will not sign over their future oil reserves to greedy companies in the manner that Saddam gave French consortia almost criminally profitable contracts. Indeed, no Iraqi politician is going to demand to pump more oil to lower gas prices in the country that freed him. Some imperialism.

All U.S. construction is subject to open audit and assessment. A zealous media has not yet found any signs of endemic or secret corruption. There really is a giant scandal surrounding Iraq, but it involves (1) the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, in which U.N. officials and Saddam Hussein, hand-in-glove with European and Russian oil companies, robbed revenues from the Iraqi people; and (2) French petroleum interests that strong-armed a tottering dictator to sign over his country's national treasure to Parisian profiteers under conditions that no consensual government would ever agree to. The only legitimate accusation of Iraqi profiteering does not involve Dick Cheney or Halliburton, but rather Kofi Annan's negligence and his son Kojo's probable malfeasance.

Myth #5: Israel has caused the United States untold headaches in the Arab world by its intransigent policies. The refutation of this myth could take volumes, given the depth of daily misinformation. Perhaps, though, we can sum up the absurdity by looking at the nature of West Bank demonstrations over the past few months.

The issues baffle Americans: Some Arab citizens of Israel, residing in almost entirely Arab border towns and calling themselves Palestinians, were furious about Mr. Sharon's offer to cede them sovereign Israeli soil and thus allow them to join the new Palestinian nation. Others were hysterical that two killers — who promised not merely the "liberation" of the West Bank, but also the utter destruction of Israel — were in fact killed in a war by Israelis. Both of the deceased had damned the United States and expressed support for Islamicists now killing our soldiers in Iraq — even as their supporters whined that we did not lament their recent departures to a much-praised paradise.

Elsewhere fiery demonstrators were shaking keys to houses that they have not been residing in for 60 years — furious about the forfeiture of the "right of return" and their inability to migrate to live out their lives in the hated "Zionist entry." Notably absent were the relatives of the hundreds of thousands of Jews of Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, and other Arab capitals who years ago were all ethnically cleansed and sent packing from centuries-old homes, but apparently got on with what was left of their lives.

The Palestinians will, in fact, get their de facto state, though one that may be now cut off entirely from Israeli commerce and cultural intercourse. This is an apparently terrifying thought: Palestinian men can no longer blow up Jews on Monday, seek dialysis from them on Tuesday, get an Israeli paycheck on Wednesday, demonstrate to CNN cameras about the injustice of it all on Thursday — and then go back to tunneling under Gaza and three-hour, all-male, conspiracy-mongering sessions in coffee-houses on Friday. Beware of getting what you bomb for.

Perhaps the absurdity of the politics of the Middle East is best summed up by the recent visit of King Abdullah of Jordan, a sober and judicious autocrat, or so we are told. As the monarch of an authoritarian state, recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual American aid, son of a king who backed Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, and a leader terrified that the Israeli fence might encourage Palestinian immigration into his own Arab kingdom, one might have thought that he could spare us the moral lectures at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club — especially when his elite Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers were just about to murder American citizens in Kosovo while terrorists in his country tried to mass murder Americans with gas.

Instead we got the broken-record Middle East sermon on why Arabs don't like Americans — as if we had forgotten 9/11 and its quarter-century-long precursors. Does this sensible autocrat — perhaps the most reasonable man in the region — ever ask himself about questions of symmetry and reciprocity?

Is there anything like a Commonwealth Club in Amman? And if not, why not? And could a Mr. Blair or Mr. Bush in safety and freedom visit Amman to hold a public press conference, much less to lecture his Jordanian hosts on why Americans in general — given state-sponsored terrorism, Islamic extremism, and failed Middle Eastern regimes — have developed such unfavorable attitudes towards so many Arab societies?

What then is the truth of this so-often-caricatured war?

On the bright side, there has not been another 9/11 mass-murder. And this is due entirely to our increased vigilance, the latitude given our security people by the hated Patriot Act, and the idea that the war (not a DA's inquiry) should be fought abroad not at home.

The Taliban was routed and Afghanistan has the brightest hopes in thirty years. Pakistan, so unlike 1998, is not engaged in breakneck nuclear proliferation abroad. Libya claims a new departure from its recent past. Syria fears a nascent dissident movement. Saddam is gone. Iran is hysterical about new scrutiny. American troops are out of Saudi Arabia.

True, we are facing various groups jockeying for power in a new Iraq; and the country is still unsettled. Yet millions of Kurds are satisfied and pro-American. Millions more Shiites want political power — and think that they can get it constitutionally through us rather than out of the barrel of a gun following an unhinged thug. After all, any fool who names his troops "Mahdists" is sorely misinformed about the fate of the final resting place of the Great Mahdi, the couplets of Hilaire Beloc, and what happened to thousands of Mahdist zealots at Omdurman.

So, we can either press ahead in the face of occasionally bad news from Iraq (though it will never be of the magnitude that once came from Sugar Loaf Hill or the icy plains near the Yalu that did not faze a prior generation's resolve) — or we can withdraw. Then watch the entire three-year process of real improvement start to accelerate in reverse. If after 1975 we thought that over a million dead in Cambodia, another million on rickety boats fleeing Vietnam, another half-million sent to camps or executed, hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving in America, a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, an Iranian take-over of the U.S. embassy, oil-embargos, Communist entry into Central America, a quarter-century of continual terrorist attacks, and national invective were bad, just watch the new world emerge when Saddam's Mafioso or Mr. Sadr's Mahdists force our departure.

This war was always a gamble, but not for the reasons many Americans think. We easily had, as proved, the military power to defeat Saddam; we embraced the idealism and humanity to eschew realpolitik and offer something different in the place of mass murder. And we are winning on all fronts at a cost that by any historical measure has confirmed both our skill and resolve.

But the lingering question — one that has never been answered — was always our attention and will. The administration assumed that in occasional times of the inevitable bad news, we were now more like the generation that endured the surprise of Okinawa and Pusan rather than Tet and Mogadishu. All were bloody fights; all were similarly controversial and unexpected; all were alike proof of the fighting excellence of the American soldiers — but not all were seen as such by Americans. The former were detours on the road to victory and eventual democracy; the latter led to self-recrimination, defeat, and chaos in our wake.

The choice between myth and reality is ours once more.

um yeah, sure...

that's very nice....

see you around, OK?

Yep .. . and the part tabs said about getting pissed on.

We've got binladn an company whom have been pissed on, and they have the power to con the impoverished to do their dirty-work. (die for me . ..ur-ah. . .i mean die for allah. . .yeah, that's it .. .allah. . .he'll give you 17, n'no. . . 19 virgins in the after-life. . .Yeah; thats the ticket!)

I will agree with joeclarke to some extent. It is very likely that we pissed on Saddam, by kicking his ass out of Kuwait. (I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the Bush 41 camp gave Saddam a wink & nod about taking Kuwait . . ..just as a set-up. But sheesh, what a greedy dictator. . .how many more palaces did the guy really think he needed? )

I thought this thread was interesting (hindsight being 20/20) regarding relative changes in the positions of some of our European friends regarding Islamic fundamentalism.

I thought it was interesting because it shows you've been a troll and bomb-thrower here for over a decade.

Wow, and I thought I held a grudge. Finny's going on 11 years.

Lunacy is forever.

Yet the song remains the same...

No grudge here. Aurel is a good guy and a friend. I do think that he and most Europeans have changed their positions on their happy, assimilated Muslim immigrants though.

Yet you are the one with the cheap shot...