View Full Version : How do you defeat someone willing to blow themselves up?
General X
04-18-2002, 01:35 PM
Not only that, but they cite it as an honor, or as an achievement. Mothers are proud to send off their children to blow up other children for no legitimate reason. I mean, it defies human nature. Mothers are supposed to hold their son's life dear, not gleefully have them killing themselves. Are these people so brainwashed that they don't know in their hearts, that their souls are so contaminated, that they can't see what havoc they are wreaking on themselves and other people? It astounds me that there is such evil, but what astounds me even more is that people don't want to believe it. They don't want to hear the truth, or see the truth. In some cases, there are no places where the truth can be heard. What do most Arab countries have? Only biased newspapers, state-owned television, Al Jazeera...
On the History Channel, there was a Special on Al Jazeera and the propaganda influences on the Arab World. One Saudi immigrant to the US commented on it, sayng, "They sometimes have 3 people, like you see on other news channels, debating about a situation. The problem is, they all agree with each other."
If someone would rather blow himself up than go to prison, this has to be a very hard enemy to defeat. How long will it be before the homicide bombers reach the United States, and the West? Imagine the chaos that would be caused by that. Even in a State so small as Israel, with a tight border patrol and trained army, homicide bombers get through. In America the security is so loose, in comparison to Israel. We are in no position to counter homicide bombings here in the US. We are not prepared for a carefully planned terrorist attack. There is too much space, too many potential targets, too few people in the INS... not enough border patrol. The seeds have been planted, in my opinion. In America today, so many people live secular lifestyles, not caring to accept American culture. They speak their own language in their home, and their loyalty is unquestionable- loyalty to their homeland that is. Saudis call themselves Saudis. Koreans call themselves Koreans. Pakistanis call themselves Pakistani. They rarely use the word American in describing themselves. Never before has mankind faced such a predicament, and I believe they will be put to the test. Please, let us not fail.
Mediocrates
04-18-2002, 03:39 PM
They fought the IRA to a stalemate, twice. Once it resulted in the free Irish state and the second time in this current situation. Clearly the definition of victory is quite different. No solution can't include a political solution.
OTOH terrorism is a thing not a philosophy. It can be beaten down just like any organization that needs money, manpower, logistics. Not totally but pretty badly.
McSceptic
04-19-2002, 06:21 AM
You're right to say terrorism is a method rather than a philosophy - it can be harnessed to almost any goal.
The IRA was defeated (although we don't say that, to keep them happy) but it needed a combination of incisive policing and generally good behaviour by the army and police. Where there were lapses, like Bloody Sunday, that helped fuel things for years.
The Israeli approach is too heavy handed. Both the British and the Americans know that to win in situations where there is broad support for the "terrorist" cause, you need a hearts and minds campaign alongside the stick. From where I'm sitting I just see stick and stick from the Israelis.
The other kind of "urban terrorism", like Bader Meinhof or Aryan Nations, has much shallower roots and is usually just a few disaffected individuals. That's why it's so important to be selective in the wake of Sept 11th. The handful of Al-Queda bad guys would like nothing better than for the West to brand all Muslims as terrorists and drive them into the fundamentalist camp.
Mediocrates
04-19-2002, 06:31 AM
and say " Meines Gott - it's just the way of the world now." Terroris, exists not exclusively because of some countries policies or because of poverty or education or media. Those are side effects of repressive totalitarian regimes who exploit their own people to their own ends. One could say the Saudi Arabia and the PLO and any number of other states simply export and outsource their own internal dissaffections. It's gets produced from their own tyranny and because it needs to go somewhere it goes to the west and to Israel.
Perhaps miltary solutions don't exist but then neither do humanitarian ones either. The solution is to remove regimes that foment this. Be it Arafat and Assad.
McSceptic
04-19-2002, 06:52 AM
PLO terrorism is pretty much focused on Israel. But I agree Saudi Arabia has used foreign adventures like Afghanistan as a pressure valve.
The trouble is, in most of these countries we already have pro-Western regimes. It's not clear to me that if they were toppled we'd get anything better, anytime soon.
Mediocrates
04-19-2002, 07:16 AM
Without Israel, Egypt, the larest recipient of US largesse would topple into civil war and anarchy. Their interests are not ours instead their interests are in keeping Mubarek's head on his shoulders. Similarly SA is the personal property of the Saud family and is a 'nation' effectively run by and for the benefit of, the 5000 Saud family members who occupy every high ranking slot in industry, the army and government. Wahabbism is what they espouse and Wahabbism is what they export all the globe. Their interests are not ours either. Their economic interest are in that 70% of their GDP comes from oil and 11% of our total oil cosumption is sourced their. But other than that there is no alignment of goals. How else do you explain Indonesia and Nigeria and Venezuela who also produce and export massive amounts of oil to the US yet are not obviously funding groups who wish to kill us? No it is the goal of Arab regimes to take what dollars and technology they can from us and use it to defeat us politically and culturally.
Israel is the thorn in the saddle for them. They will never come to terms with it until they remove it. Here was the emerging newly proud pan Arabist world - 250 million strong with new found oil wealth and they witnessed the bedraggled survivors of a poor hungry group, 90% murdered, plunked down in the only piece of rock with no oil basically kick their asses politically, economically, culturally. The Arab world's response is not to cooperate or even compete. It's to destroy. Because they understand that their own internal failures if left in place would only turn on them.
Mediocrates
04-19-2002, 07:18 AM
PLO terrorism is only focused on Israel since 1982. Before that it was across the mid east and western Europe. When the Israelis welcomed Arafat back to the west bank and set him up as the only person they were willing to deal with they gave him a home and offered up their throats.
alm0nd
04-19-2002, 11:21 AM
The answer is simple..... You can't !!!
You can't "defeat" them. you should understand them and come to a fair agreement that satisfy everybody. This way everybody wins and nobody is "defeated" except the real evil terrorists.
see how simple is the answer ?
NewsGuy
04-19-2002, 06:27 PM
Originally posted by alm0nd
The answer is simple..... You can't !!!
That may be a simple answer, and indeed the answer that the Islamic terrorists would like the world to believe. But it is certainly not true.
The way to defeat suicide bombers is not only to try to kill them before they strike, but also to make them understand that the consequences of their actions will have a terrible impact on their friends, families, homes, towns and religious leaders. This is called a deterrent.
In simple terms, if the suicide bombers understand that the things they care about most will be harmed, then they will not be so quick to commit mass murder against their innocent victims. At that point, they will reconsider the wisdom of their decision.
You can't "defeat" them. you should understand them and come to a fair agreement that satisfy everybody. This way everybody wins and nobody is "defeated" except the real evil terrorists.
The terrorists simply need to be killed. As for the general Palestinian population, of course there should be a fair agreement, and in fact there were many fair agreements that were offered by Israel.
The problem was that the Palestinian leadership rejected any peaceful outcome and decided to try terrorism. So now, it has become obvious that the Palestinian leadership must be changed, so there will be a chance of movement on the final end to the hostilities.
L@mplighterM
04-19-2002, 07:34 PM
Originally posted by alm0nd
The answer is simple..... You can't !!!
You can't "defeat" them. you should understand them and come to a fair agreement that satisfy everybody. This way everybody wins and nobody is "defeated" except the real evil terrorists.
see how simple is the answer ?
How do you pacify a spoilt child that has the give me?s? Buy the store.
How do you pacify Arafat? Give him all of Israel.
Pretty simple: you dismantle the organizations that build the bombs and brainwash the bombers.
alm0nd
04-21-2002, 01:57 PM
The way to defeat suicide bombers is not only to try to kill them before they strike, but also to make them understand that the consequences of their actions will have a terrible impact on their friends, families, homes, towns and religious leaders. This is called a deterrent.
you dismantle the organizations that build the bombs and brainwash the bombers.
Let me ask a two questions ... although I alredy know the answers...
Can you kill all the Palestinians?
Can you brainwash all the Palestinians?
it has become obvious that the Palestinian leadership must be changed, so there will be a chance of movement on the final end to the hostilities.
If I said that I want to "change" Sharon.. Just because I don't like him, would you agree with me?
L@mplighterM
04-21-2002, 02:12 PM
Quote from AlmOnd:
Let me ask a two questions ... although I alredy know the answers...
Can you kill all the Palestinians?
Can you brainwash all the Palestinians?
If you?re Arafat you can!
Arafat already has!
NewsGuy
04-21-2002, 07:44 PM
Originally posted by alm0nd
Let me ask a two questions ... although I alredy know the answers...
Can you kill all the Palestinians?
Can you brainwash all the Palestinians?
If I said that I want to "change" Sharon.. Just because I don't like him, would you agree with me?
Almond,
I would never support violence against all Palestinians and I haven't seen anyone in this forum ever advocate such a bizarre idea.
Personally, I understand that in the big picture, the Palestinians will be the future neighbors of Israel and that a substantial peace is much more effective than a substantial war.
As far as terrorists and suicide bombers, though, I agree with President Bush in that you cannot negotiate with terrorists, and therefore, they must be eliminated to save the lives of their future potential victims.
As far as "changing" Sharon, I am certain that if Sharon was to carry out the same activities as Arafat, then Sharon would be changed immediately by the Israeli voters and put on a public criminal trial. This is because Israel is a first-world democracy and has an open political system to replace its leaders, as well as an open justice system that is independent of political considerations.
In Arafat's case, though, he is a brutal and corrupt dictator in a regime which has no mechanism for elections and where the court system is 100% under the control of Arafat. Therefore, it's necessary for that two-bit murderer to be eliminated, so a new and hopefully better leadership can be put in power, who will have the ability to stop the bloodshed.
Mediocrates
04-22-2002, 07:23 AM
Arafat has merely the good fortune not to succumb to cancer or heart disease, senility or kidney failure as his brethren: Papa Doc Duvallier, Mobuto, Idi Amin, Pinochet, Pol Pot. He also has the good fortune to not openly represent religious Islam at a nexus of history where religion, even mainstream religion is excoriated by the left which is I suspect, if you prod, one of the reasons he is so openly supported by the left.
....that and the cool kaffieyh they get to wear. It's this years Che t-shirt and black beret combo.
Originally posted by alm0nd
Let me ask a two questions ... although I alredy know the answers...
Can you kill all the Palestinians?
Can you brainwash all the Palestinians?
There is no need to do it. I do not believe for a second that the terror organizations represent all Palestinians, not even a majority of them. Dismantling such organization would equal liberating the Palestinians from a dictatorship.
Luke90
12-07-2004, 11:28 PM
The IRA was defeated (although we don't say that, to keep them happy) but it needed a combination of incisive policing and generally good behaviour by the army and police. Where there were lapses, like Bloody Sunday, that helped fuel things for years.
The Israeli approach is too heavy handed. Both the British and the Americans know that to win in situations where there is broad support for the "terrorist" cause, you need a hearts and minds campaign alongside the stick. From where I'm sitting I just see stick and stick from the Israelis.
Well said McSceptic.
If there is ever going to be peace, ordinary israelis and palestinians are going to have to understand each other's positions even if they cannot accept or condone them.
Very few people on this forum seem to acknowledge that the palestinians have ANY reason to be angry.
Surely you aren't too blind to see that they have at least some genuine grievances with Israel.
Well said McSceptic.
If there is ever going to be peace, ordinary israelis and palestinians are going to have to understand each other's positions even if they cannot accept or condone them.
Very few people on this forum seem to acknowledge that the palestinians have ANY reason to be angry.
Surely you aren't too blind to see that they have at least some genuine grievances with Israel.
people with geniune grievances usually dont adopt the mass murder of innocent civilians - mainly women, children and the elderly - as their primary policy - chosing this path over peaceful negotiations where they could have recieved what they allegdly wanted.
Mediocrates
12-08-2004, 03:58 AM
Surely you aren't too blind to see that they have at least some genuine grievances with Israel.
So? I accept that there are poor hungry people in my town. I accept that mommy drinks and dad beat you. I even accept that it is inevitable that you will take drugs and live on the streets trading sex for crack as a result and that none of it is you fault and the entire universe owes you an apology, a puppy and a middle class lifestyle for free for you and your great great grandchildren. I do not accept that you get to murder people which will neither get you what you want nor will it endear you to the people you're killing, just for the sake of having something political to say upon the world's stage.
rhodescholar
12-08-2004, 06:26 AM
You're right to say terrorism is a method rather than a philosophy - it can be harnessed to almost any goal.
The Israeli approach is too heavy handed. Both the British and the Americans know that to win in situations where there is broad support for the "terrorist" cause, you need a hearts and minds campaign alongside the stick. From where I'm sitting I just see stick and stick from the Israelis.
It is important when making such statements that you have FACTS at your disposal.
Dont take it too personally, but too many people like you who come along and espouse thier views with .10% of the information necessary to comment. In the early 1970s, the British army had tanks rolling thru irish neighborhoods on a regular basis, and used means as aggressive, if not more so - than israel uses. And i might add that the massive volume of terrorism that has been unleashed on israel over the past 4 years dwarfs what britain had to deal with.
Were any other western country faced what israel has had to, plus a terrorist army placed on its n border with thousands of rockets aimed at its cities -it would have reacted with FAR more agressiveness.
The North demolished the South in the Civil War. The US Nuked Japan, who had bombers very willing to "blow themselves up." Germany was turned to rubble.
Defeatists are everywhere, and they seem to share a French view of things - one that Arafat ascribed to the Jews, that they care about life and comfort so much that they are unwilling to fight, to kill, and to die - to be uncomfortable, to protect their long term freedom. It is this perception of weakness that gives the Jihadists strenght, not a love of death, but a hope of victory for the cause by the sacrificing of their own lives.
Its is a very modern idea to think that life is so precious as not to be given up rationally for the cause. Remember that from WWI and earlier, for the common man, fighting in ANY war meant you had a very very good chance of dying. And yet people still went to be cannon fodder, because they believed in their cause, or simply because they could not get out of it.
The Arab terrorists are no different than these soldiers other than their purposeful depravity in attacking non-combatants.
They are scum, not all that brave or special, and morally repugnant. The defeatists, on the other hand, are also scum, they just have uncommon cowardice.
minusthejihad
12-08-2004, 07:22 AM
At least this Luke90 guy is reading through more than just the latest threads. But there's not much more I can add to Mediocrates statement, as usual, poignant and right to the point. :)
Luke90
12-08-2004, 12:22 PM
In the early 1970s, the British army had tanks rolling thru irish neighborhoods on a regular basis, and used means as aggressive, if not more so - than israel uses. And i might add that the massive volume of terrorism that has been unleashed on israel over the past 4 years dwarfs what britain had to deal with.
True, but as McSceptic said we've learnt since then (in many peacekeeping operations) that tactics like that ultimately fail.
Leaving aside any humanitarian arguments (because I'll just be dismissed as a bleeding heart hippy idiot) heavy-handed tactics will never be more than a short-term solution.
Israel has been fighting these terrorists since it was born and is still fighting.
So they haven't worked yet.
I even accept that it is inevitable that you will take drugs and live on the streets trading sex for crack as a result and that none of it is you fault and the entire universe owes you an apology, a puppy and a middle class lifestyle for free for you and your great great grandchildren.
Is it just me or have you made the (possibly questionable?) deductive leap from me criticising your position to being a drug-addicted prostitute living off benefits.
How can I have a serious debate with you when you show me that level of disrespect?
KettleWhistle
12-08-2004, 12:28 PM
True, but as McSceptic said we've learnt since then (in many peacekeeping operations) that tactics like that ultimately fail.
Leaving aside any humanitarian arguments (because I'll just be dismissed as a bleeding heart hippy idiot) heavy-handed tactics will never be more than a short-term solution.
Israel has been fighting these terrorists since it was born and is still fighting.
So they haven't worked yet.Humanitarian arguments? Somebody is shooting at you, but you're not allowed to shoot back is humanitarian? And talking about tactics that fail, Israel's have been very successful.
Is it just me or have you made the (possibly questionable?) deductive leap from me criticising your position to being a drug-addicted prostitute living off benefits.
How can I have a serious debate with you when you show me that level of disrespect?
Totally missed the point.
minusthejihad
12-08-2004, 12:45 PM
True, but as McSceptic said we've learnt since then (in many peacekeeping operations) that tactics like that ultimately fail.
Leaving aside any humanitarian arguments (because I'll just be dismissed as a bleeding heart hippy idiot) heavy-handed tactics will never be more than a short-term solution.
Israel has been fighting these terrorists since it was born and is still fighting.
So they haven't worked yet.
Some may argue they haven't worked simply because Israel's tactics aren't heavy-handed enough. Have you ever noticed how heavy handed dictatorships or occupiers like Saddam's, Assad's, Castro's or Hezbullah's rarely ever face any insurgancy, yet when countries like Israel or the US occupy those same people, they are free to demonstrate against the occupier and even find the freedom to plot to kill them? Thats because countries like the US and Israel take civilized approaches to fighting those who try to kill them while trying to allow the innocent to live normal lives.
Is it just me or have you made the (possibly questionable?) deductive leap from me criticising your position to being a drug-addicted prostitute living off benefits.
How can I have a serious debate with you when you show me that level of disrespect?
Yes, you missed the analogy. He wasn't talking about you per say, aw hell, I can't believe I have to eexplain this.
Luke90
12-08-2004, 12:46 PM
I think you missed my point.
What I was saying was
1. I'm not going to talk about humanitarian arguments (or at least not now) because I know from reading many other threads that no such arguments will be taken seriously.
2. Instead, I'm arguing that if Israel's tactics are so successful why are they still having to fight so long after the fighting began.
Luke90
12-08-2004, 12:48 PM
Yes, you missed the analogy. He wasn't talking about you per say, aw hell, I can't believe I have to eexplain this.
I'm not stupid.
I know it was a generalisation, but it's insinuation was effectively that anyone
who disagreed with him was beneath contempt and their opinion was worthless.
minusthejihad
12-08-2004, 01:01 PM
Its just that we get a couple people a week pop in here and drop the same old lines:
Surely you aren't too blind to see that they have at least some genuine grievances with Israel."
If you would read through the forum, you would see that except for a few immature posters in here, the majority of pro-Israel posters have and will agree with you about those concerns without a doubt.
A person like Medio, who has over 4000 posts is probably a little tired to re-invent the wheel and start all over. I admit, I only went through that ride once myself. After all, we have to type here. Anyway, he has an incredibly unique ability to cut right through all the PC bull and get right to the chase. His use of analogy is quite impressive too. You just happened to be the Patsy in this case. But I will tell you, even someone like me who jocks his writing and witty, snarly comments, is not immune from his sharp tongue and fingers! :)
KettleWhistle
12-08-2004, 01:26 PM
I think you missed my point.
What I was saying was
1. I'm not going to talk about humanitarian arguments (or at least not now) because I know from reading many other threads that no such arguments will be taken seriously.
If you have a serious argument, it would be taken seriously.
2. Instead, I'm arguing that if Israel's tactics are so successful why are they still having to fight so long after the fighting began.
I could ask along the same line, why is the crises in N. Ireland not resolved yet? And that's not even a conflict between two different peoples, or people with fundamentally different cultures.
But to address your question, a multitude of reasons. None of which have anything to do with Israel's attempts to defend herself. The very nature of the conflict changed over the years. It is not like Israel is fighting the same people or the same war. So far Israelis have been very adaptive, and used effective methods to protect themselfs.
While attacks against Israel have been reduced, especially suicide attacks - given a direct negative consequence to the suicide bomber's family that is different from a rocket launcher or sniper - mostly because a lot of terrorists get away or are not clearly identified - Israel has not eliminated them.
Why?
Because, short of the destruction of Israel and the dhimitude (subjugation and 3rd class citizenship, with slightly more rights than a black man in a Slave State before the civil war), ethnic cleansing, or genocide of the Jews in Israel will not satisfy most Pal Arabs.
They have been indoctrinated in hate, especially post-Oslo, unwilling to give up the "right of return" which is just a nice way of saying that they want the above, and THEY THINK THEY CAN WIN.
Israel has only killed something over 3000 Pal Arabs over more than 4 years of war...less than 1/10 of the population (the population is probably growing, car accidents probably kill more, and of the 3000 the great majority are terrorist group members, combatants, likely combatants or possible combatants.)
After all, they have oil on their side. They have France and England and Europe and China and Russia on their side. They have the inevitability of Islam! They have the Arab womb! And they have cowardly Westerners who are unwilling to kill, much less die, to protect their freedom, and are more than happy to let Jews die.
True, but as McSceptic said we've learnt since then (in many peacekeeping operations) that tactics like that ultimately fail.
Funny you say that since teams of British troops are been deployed to train in the Negev desert. There the IDF will train them in urban fighting before been sent off to Iraq. Obviously the British are keen to learn about tactics which ultimatley fail.
Also - the British bombing of Serbia and the attempted assination of Milosovich was far more heavy handed then any Israeli action. Mind you Milosvich was not in the midst of committing terror attacks against innocent civilians in the streets of London or Manchester.
Generally, when one hears of Europeans and others describing Israeli actions to stop terror attacks against its own civilians as "heavy handed" it provides for a good opporutnity to remind them of their own bloody hypocrisy - and when I say "bloody" I mean it quite literally.
Setting European's colonial past and Britians actions in Nrth Ireland aside one can easily focus on current events:
1. Current actions of British in Iraq and Afghanistan - Israeli actions pale in comaprison
2. Nato bombing of Serbia and the attempted assination of its leader - Israeli actions pale in comparison
3. French occupation of the Ivory Coast and bombing of its army + killing of its citizens - Israeli actions pale in comparison
4. Assination of Green peace enviromental activists in New Zealand by the French govt - dont even need to comment there
Inetersting none of the above including my points 2 and point 4 pose a direct threat to British citizens riding the buses or Tube of London or sitting in a cafe along the beachside of Brighton or of French citizens shopping in Paris...unless of coarse the last point with the environmental activists might prevent them from buying fur.
Roland
12-08-2004, 10:17 PM
The North demolished the South in the Civil War. The US Nuked Japan, who had bombers very willing to "blow themselves up." Germany was turned to rubble. The South is defeated but still has KKK. Terrorists. Germany was completely crushed and divided and had fourty years of "communism" in the soviet zone plus "capitalism" in the west but still has old and new Nazis. Terrorists. (I don't know much about Japan's internal problems, maybe one of you does.)
N.-Ireland still pokes in it's own old wounds from a century-old war. The history of being defeated still keeps the IRA alive. Terrorists.
The ETA still claims territories in Spain and France. Terrorists.
Afghanistan - the rule of the taliban has been broken (I hope it is not only propaganda or limited to major cities) - the taliban are still there. Terrorists.
I can't imagine a house still standing in Chechnya from what I have not heared, but there is trouble that made it to schools in Beslan and to Moscow's musicals. Terrorists.
The Arab terrorists are no different than these soldiers other than their purposeful depravity in attacking non-combatants.
The arabs have been defeated in Israel. Israel has defeated it's neighbours.
Some of those who define themselves as palestinian live in refugee-camps, in Israel, in Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, wherever. Defeated. Bus? Cafe? Checkpoint? Booom! Terrorists.
So is defeat the root of terrorism?
If yes - there would be no such thing as a (winnable) war against terrorism - because all enemys have already been defeated. More victories make more Terrorists.
Luke90
12-09-2004, 05:05 AM
Funny you say that since teams of British troops are been deployed to train in the Negev desert. There the IDF will train them in urban fighting before been sent off to Iraq. Obviously the British are keen to learn about tactics which ultimatley fail.
The Israeli's do have a lot of experience in urban combat, there's no doubting that. However, out and out fighting will only ever be a short-term solution and british troops have a lot of experience in the neccessary follow-up of military policing/peace-keeping.
If you have a serious argument, it would be taken seriously.
I've read several examples of people making rational humanitarian arguments against some Israeli policies on this forum and they're invariably dismissed as idiots, with almost no attempt at sensible counter-arguments so I'm not gonna go there.
I could ask along the same line, why is the crises in N. Ireland not resolved yet?
It is largely resolved. Just recently the two sides came very close to agreement on a renewed (it worked for some time recently) power-sharing government. The IRA agreed to destroy their weapons stores and the violence has all but stopped.
You are right. Like I said, Terrorism is like Crime, it will NEVER be completely erradicated. What is important is a combination of tough negative consequences not just for the actions but even to some extent the beliefs, if the actions were severe enough (see Germany's laws and Japan's pacifist constitution) along with a discrediting of the philosophy by showing that it cannot be succesful.
That is what has MARGINALIZED neo-nazi's and the KKK. That's why, in the US, the KKK barely exists, and its actions are limited to stupid rallies and web hate sites, while in the more and more permisive Europe, where the media pretty much promulgates new left wing anti-semitism not to mention does not differentiate between general conservative anti-immigrantism and super-right wing hate-based anti-immigrantism (there is a difference, but confusing the two, not differentiating, takes a lot of the former and pushes them together with the latter, giving more power to guys like Le Pen or German anti-immigrant parties) anti-semitism, naziism etc. is back on the rise.
Meanwhile, Israel never had a complete victory over the Arabs. It did not march into Damascus or Cairo or Riddya. Had it, then there is much more chance that there would be peace today - an analogy can be made to the outcome of WWI and the aftermath with Germany versus WWII. Israel never "won" the wars, they just "won" by not being destroyed and not allowing the Arabs to committ genocide.
The South is defeated but still has KKK. Terrorists. Germany was completely crushed and divided and had fourty years of "communism" in the soviet zone plus "capitalism" in the west but still has old and new Nazis. Terrorists. (I don't know much about Japan's internal problems, maybe one of you does.)
N.-Ireland still pokes in it's own old wounds from a century-old war. The history of being defeated still keeps the IRA alive. Terrorists.
The ETA still claims territories in Spain and France. Terrorists.
Afghanistan - the rule of the taliban has been broken (I hope it is not only propaganda or limited to major cities) - the taliban are still there. Terrorists.
I can't imagine a house still standing in Chechnya from what I have not heared, but there is trouble that made it to schools in Beslan and to Moscow's musicals. Terrorists.
The arabs have been defeated in Israel. Israel has defeated it's neighbours.
Some of those who define themselves as palestinian live in refugee-camps, in Israel, in Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, wherever. Defeated. Bus? Cafe? Checkpoint? Booom! Terrorists.
So is defeat the root of terrorism?
If yes - there would be no such thing as a (winnable) war against terrorism - because all enemys have already been defeated. More victories make more Terrorists.
Luke90
12-09-2004, 08:44 AM
anti-semitism, naziism etc. is back on the rise.
That may well be but I think there will always be a rise and fall of such parties. It did worry me though how close Le Pen came to winning.
Meanwhile, Israel never had a complete victory over the Arabs. It did not march into Damascus or Cairo or Riddya. Had it, then there is much more chance that there would be peace today
You're probably right about that but I don't think the ends would have justified the means.
minusthejihad
12-09-2004, 10:21 AM
I think its about time we ask Luke what HIS solution is, as all I hear is:
You're probably right about that but I don't think the ends would have justified the means.
I've read several examples of people making rational humanitarian arguments against some Israeli policies on this forum and they're invariably dismissed as idiots, with almost no attempt at sensible counter-arguments so I'm not gonna go there.
Go there already. We are interested. Unless you do not have a solution, why you holdin back?
Roland
12-09-2004, 10:23 AM
You're probably right about that but I don't think the ends would have justified the means.
Tell that to the Bush govt. :rolleyes:
KettleWhistle
12-09-2004, 10:42 AM
The South is defeated but still has KKK. Terrorists. Germany was completely crushed and divided and had fourty years of "communism" in the soviet zone plus "capitalism" in the west but still has old and new Nazis. Terrorists. (I don't know much about Japan's internal problems, maybe one of you does.)KKK are not representatives of the South. They are headquatered in some village in Indiana, a Northern state. The original Klan was started right after the civil war in the U.S. as an organization that would provide support to widows of Confederate soldiers. It was not meant to be a racist organization, and the founder distanced himself from it when the racist radicals took over it. The modern-day Klan, however, has no relation to even that organization. It consists of a couple hundreds of nutcases scattered around the country. The only people they've been hurting recently are themselves: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/11/24/klan.initiation.ap/
I lived in the Midwest for several years, and I've seen a Klan "rally" once. It was actually quite pathetic. A couple dosen of scuffy looking young guys dressed in hooded robes were carrying an old man--their leader, the "Great Dragon"--on a chair attached to a stretcher. It was in predominatly black neighborhood, and most people were just watching these clowns as they would hurl insults into the crowd. There were also a couple of black kids who got some eggs to throw at them, but seeing how pathetic the whole show was, they decided not to do it.
So I wouldn't call them terrorists. They are more a bunch of losers, and I'm sure they understand that as well.
The arabs have been defeated in Israel. Israel has defeated it's neighbours.
Some of those who define themselves as palestinian live in refugee-camps, in Israel, in Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, wherever. Defeated. Bus? Cafe? Checkpoint? Booom! Terrorists.
So is defeat the root of terrorism?
If yes - there would be no such thing as a (winnable) war against terrorism - because all enemys have already been defeated. More victories make more Terrorists.The problem in Israel, is however, much different. They didn't just "defeat the Arabs." The conflict now is not the same as it was in 1948 when 5 armies went there to kill all the Jews. It is not the war of attrition of the 1950's and 60's with Egyptian and Syrian troops shooting at people from across the border, and the PLO doing same from within Jordan. Nor is it anything like the first intifada. The nature of the conflict has changed. Israel has adopted. But the real question is whether it is Israel's fault. I would say that to blame it on Israel is no different than to blame a rape on the victim of that crime. And that's what it seems you're trying to insinuate. As in: "Don't be too hard on these rapists because you'll cause them to rape more people. You should try to reconsile with them, and not punish them for their crimes."
Luke90
12-09-2004, 10:56 AM
I think its about time we ask Luke what HIS solution is
I don't have a solution and certainly not one that can be summarised in a post.
I came here to debate about the issues and I argue with what I disagree with.
I'm probably not as knowledgeable about these matters as many others here and I am a noob.
Probably over time I will develop my opinion about how things should be resolved.
If I come up with the answer I'll let you all know ;)
Go there already. We are interested.
Minus - you may be but many others don't seem to be.
I'll probably get to other arguments sometime but in this particular topic I've been trying to approach it from a different angle in an attempt to be taken seriously.
Which has worked with some exceptions.
The question, Luke, is a comparative question of "what can Israel do to ensure its survival" versus what can the Pal Arabs do to ensure that they get ALL OF THEIR DEMANDS for the 23rd Arab state.
If the Pal Arabs were willing to abandon a literalist "right of return", outlaw groups that seek to destroy Israel (just as Israel has outlawed parties seeking to transfer the Arabs) and accept reasonable deviations from the 67 armistace lines, maybe getting some of Israel proper back in return....well, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But the right of return, or a hudna, or anything else that leaves Israel a vulnerable target....can you demand that a nation assist in its own destruction, and very possibly the genocide of its people.
Luke90
12-09-2004, 11:50 AM
The question, Luke, is a comparative question of "what can Israel do to ensure its survival" versus what can the Pal Arabs do to ensure that they get ALL OF THEIR DEMANDS for the 23rd Arab state.
I understand that, but I don't have an answer.
For now, I'm going to keep debating on specific issues which I have a clear-ish view on.
For me to give an overall summary of what should be done would be silly and rightly dismissed as over-simplistic.
If the Pal Arabs were willing to abandon a literalist "right of return", outlaw groups that seek to destroy Israel (just as Israel has outlawed parties seeking to transfer the Arabs) and accept reasonable deviations from the 67 armistace lines, maybe getting some of Israel proper back in return....well, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
yes of coarse - give them a little slice of this and a little slice of this part of Israel proper, perhaps even a slice of Jerusalem...if only they give up the their aspirations to murder us all...
at the end of the day they (the Arabs) are virtually not held accountable to the consequences of their past actions (including rejecting the UN partition in 48 and starting numerous wars and terror campaigns since then). If only they give up their aspirations to mruder us..they will have their own state and everything else.
wait a minute, what am I talking about? giving up aspirations to murder us is not a perquisite to get what or at least most of the things that they demand, including their state which was outlined in the so called "roadmap" and recieving US$ 1 billion from Israel a year plus hundreds of millions a year in funds from the EU and US.
The Israeli's do have a lot of experience in urban combat, there's no doubting that. However, out and out fighting will only ever be a short-term solution and british troops have a lot of experience in the neccessary follow-up of military policing/peace-keeping.
Yes, the British have quite a record in police and peace keeping with no hints of heavy handedness anywhere. As a matter of fact the British are well known for their policing around the world. Ask the Irish or the indiginous inhabitants of any country. Have a little chat with the citizens of Serbia or in Afghanistan where they carry out pre-emptive strikes against terrorists. Considering that Britian never experienced almost daily terror attacks on its civilians on its own soil on an almost daily basis claiming 10-30 victims at a time - mostly women, school aged children and the elderly, I wonder how they would respond if they did?
I've read several examples of people making rational humanitarian arguments against some Israeli policies on this forum and they're invariably dismissed as idiots, with almost no attempt at sensible counter-arguments so I'm not gonna go there.
Can you post some examples of people been insluted and dismissed for posting rational humenterian arguments?
It is largely resolved. Just recently the two sides came very close to agreement on a renewed (it worked for some time recently) power-sharing government. The IRA agreed to destroy their weapons stores and the violence has all but stopped.[/QUOTE]
NIreland peace process stumbles http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/08/1102182342753.html
Ultser deal stalls over arms proof
http://search.theage.com.au/siteSearch.ac?q=IRA&ss=age
Only as recently as last year there was a big riot because 6-9 year old catholic girls wanted to go to school. On their first day at school they were escorted and shielded by the military and riot police. The place is a mess or better still a war zone where the British and even the IRA have a lot to answer for. The quite now is just a brief lull - just like Oslo was once a brief lull.
even though the IRA might be in the wrong and did not meet up to its disarment requirments I have no sympathy for the British - the reason should be obvious. Maybe Israel should take this conflict on as part of their foreign policy and invite both sides for peace talks in Jerusalem?
Roland
12-09-2004, 10:53 PM
KKK are not representatives of the South. They are headquatered in some village in Indiana, a Northern state. The original Klan was started right after the civil war in the U.S. as an organization that would provide support to widows of Confederate soldiers. It was not meant to be a racist organization, and the founder distanced himself from it when the racist radicals took over it. The modern-day Klan, however, has no relation to even that organization. It consists of a couple hundreds of nutcases scattered around the country. The only people they've been hurting recently are themselves: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/11/24/klan.initiation.ap/
I lived in the Midwest for several years, and I've seen a Klan "rally" once. It was actually quite pathetic. A couple dosen of scuffy looking young guys dressed in hooded robes were carrying an old man--their leader, the "Great Dragon"--on a chair attached to a stretcher. It was in predominatly black neighborhood, and most people were just watching these clowns as they would hurl insults into the crowd. There were also a couple of black kids who got some eggs to throw at them, but seeing how pathetic the whole show was, they decided not to do it.
So I wouldn't call them terrorists. They are more a bunch of losers, and I'm sure they understand that as well.
LOL! I did't knew that. Scratch one off the list.
Reminds me of some neo-nazis here, who are divided into hooligans-with-outfits and some who try to do politics. You'll take the hooligan-like guys seriously because it won't matter if they were neo-nazi-styled or not - they just want trouble and break some noses. The others want to tell you some kind of message - even publicly and because democracy here has some disadvantages they are officially allowed to candidate for elections (Their only hope is campaigning with populistic slogans in certain areas were voters are fallible). They don't pose a serious threat because sensibility is very high and they never fail to show their dumbness to any audience.
There are some dagerous exceptions, though.
But we have the GeStaPo - ahem ... StaSi - oops ... the police dealing with them.
The problem in Israel, is however, much different. They didn't just "defeat the Arabs." The conflict now is not the same as it was in 1948 when 5 armies went there to kill all the Jews. It is not the war of attrition of the 1950's and 60's with Egyptian and Syrian troops shooting at people from across the border, and the PLO doing same from within Jordan. Nor is it anything like the first intifada. The nature of the conflict has changed. Israel has adopted. But the real question is whether it is Israel's fault. I would say that to blame it on Israel is no different than to blame a rape on the victim of that crime. And that's what it seems you're trying to insinuate. As in: "Don't be too hard on these rapists because you'll cause them to rape more people. You should try to reconsile with them, and not punish them for their crimes."
Had Israels wars not ended with ceasefires, but fought on for a WW2-style total victory, would Israel have lost one of them in the end?
Is dividing the country - or better: rearranging borders and transporting people a good solution?
All rapists are terrorists.
Luke90
12-10-2004, 12:10 AM
NIreland peace process stumbles http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/...2182342753.html
Ultser deal stalls over arms proof
http://search.theage.com.au/siteSearch.ac?q=IRA&ss=age
Only as recently as last year there was a big riot because 6-9 year old catholic girls wanted to go to school. On their first day at school they were escorted and shielded by the military and riot police. The place is a mess or better still a war zone where the British and even the IRA have a lot to answer for. The quite now is just a brief lull - just like Oslo was once a brief lull.
I'm well aware of that.
As I said the talks didn't quite get there, but they were very close.
Yes, there are still huge problems to be resolved between the two sides and there is a lot of residual anger on all sides, but it is no longer accurate to describe it as a war zone. I may turn out to be wrong, but I believe it is more than a temporary lull this time. Both sides seem committed to peace and they are very close to agreement. Even the IRA agreed to disarm.
Neo-nazi's are by definition, losers.
But its the revival of some of the far right groups, along with some of the more socially acceptable far-left hate groups, that is troubling.
Meanwhile, Israel would not have lost the wars.
Ask Germany and Poland and Austria, or Turkey and Greece, if population exchanges and the ethnic peace that they bring are "worth it".
Israel certainly should have been allowed by the international community to march into Damascus and Cairo, and do some damage. Then it would have been the Arabs who were "suing for peace", and Israel would have been able to give back a lot of land, the west would have been able to intervene, and Israel would have secure borders and the refugee problem more or less taken off the table.
Instead, we have had 3 wars ended ala WWI, and, just like WWI, they just led to more hostilities in the future.
LOL! I did't knew that. Scratch one off the list.
Reminds me of some neo-nazis here, who are divided into hooligans-with-outfits and some who try to do politics. You'll take the hooligan-like guys seriously because it won't matter if they were neo-nazi-styled or not - they just want trouble and break some noses. The others want to tell you some kind of message - even publicly and because democracy here has some disadvantages they are officially allowed to candidate for elections (Their only hope is campaigning with populistic slogans in certain areas were voters are fallible). They don't pose a serious threat because sensibility is very high and they never fail to show their dumbness to any audience.
There are some dagerous exceptions, though.
But we have the GeStaPo - ahem ... StaSi - oops ... the police dealing with them.
Had Israels wars not ended with ceasefires, but fought on for a WW2-style total victory, would Israel have lost one of them in the end?
Is dividing the country - or better: rearranging borders and transporting people a good solution?
All rapists are terrorists.
Roland
12-10-2004, 06:11 AM
Neo-nazi's are by definition, losers.
Yes.
But its the revival of some of the far right groups, along with some of the more socially acceptable far-left hate groups, that is troubling.Well, I don't see enough revival to be seriously troubled. at least our far left and right groups are kiddies compared to US's or Israel ones.
Meanwhile, Israel would not have lost the wars.
I'm not so sure. Egypt, the Arab peninsula Iraq and Syria and what not is a big chunk to conquer.
Ask Germany and Poland and Austria, or Turkey and Greece, if population exchanges and the ethnic peace that they bring are "worth it". No. After 50 years some ppl still feel treated unjust.
Israel certainly should have been allowed by the international community to march into Damascus and Cairo, and do some damage. Then it would have been the Arabs who were "suing for peace", and Israel would have been able to give back a lot of land, the west would have been able to intervene, and Israel would have secure borders and the refugee problem more or less taken off the table.
Agreed.
Instead, we have had 3 wars ended ala WWI, and, just like WWI, they just led to more hostilities in the future.
Yes. WWI really ended with WWII. Are we having WWIII already?
Israel has banned Kach. I haven't seen the PA ban parties that say the WB should be Juden-rein - that's official policy.
The religious parties are mostly very locally intersted, more about getting their subsidies and protecting their way of life. They could be troubling in the future, but as of now, they are just representing their constituents, not demanding hate.
The Republican party in the US is not "far right" in terms of reactionary. Bush has more minorities and women around him and in his cabinet than any president in history. Sure, I disagree with the over-lassiaz faire polices of Bush, and a lack of tact in foreign relations (though I agree in general with the principles) but this is not the party of Strom Thurmond or even Pat Buchanon.
Israel would never have gone as far as Iraq. It may have gone to Damascus and Cairo, and that's about it...maybe towards Amman but that's doubtful. I don't think Israel would have overstreched that much.
We're in WW4.... which in many ways is just an offshoot of WW2 and WW3 (Cold war).
Mediocrates
12-10-2004, 07:24 AM
what is this thread about? anyone?
defeatism...and tangents related thereto. (or maybe its another "what is the cause of their anger since we assume you cannot win militarily"...and tangents thereto).
Mediocrates
12-10-2004, 08:51 AM
Oh. Well here is how you 'beat' people who are willing, some would say brainwashed to blow themselves up, of course we really don't care they blow themselves up if they didn't all alone...
1) Target the infrastructure of terrorism and the people who manage it from the middle levels up with a ferocious unbending singleminded ruthless passion. Kill them all in the middle ranks and anyone standing next to them.
2) Move up the chain until you reach the next to highest levels of the terrorist organization table and blot them out too. Strike them from the face of the earth.
2a) Do not pay them to kill you. Destroy their funding wherever you find it.
3) Ignore the babbling classes.
4) Instill a hearts and minds program from the bottom up to give the lowest ranks not only a reason to not kill you and be happier with their lives but more importantly the skills to backfill those social, political and infrastructural middle ranks you just obliterated.
5) Continue ignoring the babbling classes.
6) Give them a choice - now that you've tasted what modern civilized society is like, you can clean your own house or go back to living in the dust. Your call.
7) Remember that few people really are interested in your personal vision of democracy and allow the effect of middle class affluence take those emerging people over in whatever form it takes.
8) Convert the terrorists sentiment into a real political party. This is the only way they will fully disarm.
minusthejihad
12-10-2004, 10:16 AM
Oh. Well here is how you 'beat' people who are willing, some would say brainwashed to blow themselves up, of course we really don't care they blow themselves up if they didn't all alone...
1) Target the infrastructure of terrorism and the people who manage it from the middle levels up with a ferocious unbending singleminded ruthless passion. Kill them all in the middle ranks and anyone standing next to them.
2) Move up the chain until you reach the next to highest levels of the terrorist organization table and blot them out too. Strike them from the face of the earth.
2a) Do not pay them to kill you. Destroy their funding wherever you find it.
3) Ignore the babbling classes.
4) Instill a hearts and minds program from the bottom up to give the lowest ranks not only a reason to not kill you and be happier with their lives but more importantly the skills to backfill those social, political and infrastructural middle ranks you just obliterated.
5) Continue ignoring the babbling classes.
6) Give them a choice - now that you've tasted what modern civilized society is like, you can clean your own house or go back to living in the dust. Your call.
7) Remember that few people really are interested in your personal vision of democracy and allow the effect of middle class affluence take those emerging people over in whatever form it takes.
8) Convert the terrorists sentiment into a real political party. This is the only way they will fully disarm.
I'm down with that. Sounds like a plan. Whats stopping you for running for office?
KettleWhistle
12-10-2004, 12:09 PM
There are some dagerous exceptions, though.
As there are everywhere. We do have domestic terrorists. Army of God (http://www.armyofgod.com/)is a perfect example (the link to their web site contains highly graphic material, not for the faint of heart.) They are anti-abortionists who believe in killing abortion doctors and blowing up clinics that provide family planning services. But the vast majority of people, even among those who are strongly anti-abortion, reject their views, and wouldn't hesitate to report them to the police. This is very marginal group, with less than 100 adherents among millions of U.S. anti-abortionists.
All rapists are terrorists.
Rapists are not terrorists. They are some of the worst criminals, but the word terrorist is being thrown around too freely nowadays, and it doesn't apply to rapists. Likewise it doesn't apply to governments. Terrorists are illegally assembled groups or individuals who kill to make a political statement.
Luke90
12-10-2004, 12:48 PM
1) Target the infrastructure of terrorism and the people who manage it from the middle levels up with a ferocious unbending singleminded ruthless passion. Kill them all in the middle ranks and anyone standing next to them.
I'm mostly with you on that except I may have problems with "anyone standing next to them" depending on what exactly you mean by it and I think that's a very important issue.
4) Instill a hearts and minds program from the bottom up to give the lowest ranks not only a reason to not kill you and be happier with their lives but more importantly the skills to backfill those social, political and infrastructural middle ranks you just obliterated.
Definitely very important.
3) Ignore the babbling classes.
I suspect I may be counted among "the babbling classes" and as such I think I'd disagree with this point.
[QUOTE=Luke90]I'm well aware of that.
As I said the talks didn't quite get there, but they were very close.
Oslo was very close too - only catch was one side was failing to meet its obligations and refused to give up aspirations to destroy the other side.
at the end of the day talks are just talks and nothing else - idle chatter at best.
there are some similarities with the IRA failing to disarm and meet its obligations and the PLO - however the IRA is obviously nowhere near as brutual or bloody, despite the fact that they suffered under British occupation for hunreds of years - an occupation which was far more brutual and bloody.
Yes, there are still huge problems to be resolved between the two sides and there is a lot of residual anger on all sides, but it is no longer accurate to describe it as a war zone. I may turn out to be wrong, but I believe it is more than a temporary lull this time. Both sides seem committed to peace and they are very close to agreement. Even the IRA agreed to disarm.
why is there still a heavy British military presence? why is Ulster deeply divided and segregated with catholic only and protestant only areas symbolising east and west Berlin or North and South Korea? why were little catholic girls escorted to school by the military?
And how do you explain the latest reports which claim that the IRA is not meeting up to its disarnament obligations? You claim everything is largely resolved? Is this representative of the British attitude toward the conflict? seems like you are sticking your head into the sand - as long as thats comfortable then things should be fine
Luke90
12-11-2004, 08:16 AM
why is there still a heavy British military presence?
Partly because they do policing etc.
Partly just a residual presence ie. they have bases there and soldiers need to live somewhere.
why is Ulster deeply divided and segregated with catholic only and protestant only areas symbolising east and west Berlin or North and South Korea?
The situation isn't even close to that between those examples, don't be ridiculous.
why were little catholic girls escorted to school by the military?
That was an isolated incident which hasn't recurred since.
It was a product of the long years of conflict which had created bitterness and resentment.
And how do you explain the latest reports which claim that the IRA is not meeting up to its disarnament obligations?
The IRA and particularly the "Real IRA" represent an extreme, of course some elements within it are reluctant to disarm.
[QUOTE=Luke90]Partly because they do policing etc.
Partly just a residual presence ie. they have bases there and soldiers need to live somewhere.
Yes 'policing' - a field where the British have acquried a lot of expertise both in Ireland and around the world. and they have bases with soldiers needing to live somewhere? So why does it have to be in the heart of Belfast?
The situation isn't even close to that between those examples, don't be ridiculous.
No, I'm been realistic. perhaps the stand off is not as bad or as tense as north/south Korea because there are no nukes - but its similiar. Its certainly closer to West/East Berlin. How is it different? A city and a province divided and segregated into barbed wire and fence? nevertheless the hatred is 100 times worse - at least East/west Berlin wanted to be untied whereas here they want to remain divided or at least kill each other first.
That was an isolated incident which hasn't recurred since.
It was a product of the long years of conflict which had created bitterness and resentment.
sure, just an isolated incident...
The IRA and particularly the "Real IRA" represent an extreme, of course some elements within it are reluctant to disarm.
The Ulster unionists beg to differ and accuse the IRA from top to bottom along with its political wing Sin Feinn of decieving them and the rest of the world.
Luke90
12-11-2004, 10:05 AM
and they have bases with soldiers needing to live somewhere? So why does it have to be in the heart of Belfast?
They have bases in the heart of belfast because at the height of the troubles they were neccesary. The bases are still there because the soldiers still need somewhere to be based and army units can't be rehoused elsewhere at the drop of a hat.
There are still units in Germany.
No, I'm been realistic. perhaps the stand off is not as bad or as tense as north/south Korea because there are no nukes - but its similiar. Its certainly closer to West/East Berlin. How is it different? A city and a province divided and segregated into barbed wire and fence?
N/S Berlin/Korea were/are separate states with separate governments and no travel permitted between the two. There are predominantly catholic and protestant areas in NI but the situation is nothing like that.
nevertheless the hatred is 100 times worse - at least East/west Berlin wanted to be untied whereas here they want to remain divided or at least kill each other first.
No, most people now want peace which is precisely why they are so close to a return to power-sharing government (which has worked, briefly, before).
The Ulster unionists beg to differ and accuse the IRA from top to bottom along with its political wing Sin Feinn of decieving them and the rest of the world.
Of course they do they're opposing parties. That doesn't mean the IRA aren't disarming. There is probably a certain amount of truth and exaggeration on both sides.
Mediocrates
12-11-2004, 02:08 PM
The IRA peace agreement is at risk of collapsing as we speak. You can thank Ian Paisely and company for that for demanding photographic evidence of the IRA destroying their weapons even though it's already being carried out with thrid party observers.
They have bases in the heart of belfast because at the height of the troubles they were neccesary. The bases are still there because the soldiers still need somewhere to be based and army units can't be rehoused elsewhere at the drop of a hat.
There are still units in Germany.
they have bases, soldiers and tanks in the heart of Belfast along with barbed wire and the works, because the place is a war zone. Last time I checked armed soldiers and tanks were not in the heart of German cities.
N/S Berlin/Korea were/are separate states with separate governments and no travel permitted between the two. There are predominantly catholic and protestant areas in NI but the situation is nothing like that.
its similiar. officialy travel is permitted in northern ireland but then again no catholic would walk into a protestant only area.
Hisardut
12-11-2004, 04:36 PM
How do you defeat someone willing to blow themselves up?
they have a less value for life than us. they also live a life, due to their religeon and leaders that is harder than ours, which is why they can be swayed into blowing themselves up.
thing is, we still treat them like we treat our own... for them its a sign of weakness.
what you got to do, and regretably it means going to their level, is to use a "stalin strategy".
if their life is so tough. then we should make their life even tougher, to the point where they wont want to blow themselves up. sometimes you have to act like you are from the 13th century to punish people who still live in the 13th century
Luke90
12-12-2004, 04:05 AM
if their life is so tough. then we should make their life even tougher, to the point where they wont want to blow themselves up.
How is making their life worse going to make them less willing to commit suicide. That's a nonsensical argument.
they have bases, soldiers and tanks in the heart of Belfast along with barbed wire and the works, because the place is a war zone.
You keep repeating this claim of it being a warzone and it is simply not true.
Last time I checked armed soldiers and tanks were not in the heart of German cities.
It's somewhat longer since the second world war. My point about germany was how long bases remain after the soldiers presence is no longer required. Removing the soldiers would mean creating new bases for them elsewhere which takes time and money.
its similiar. officialy travel is permitted in northern ireland but then again no catholic would walk into a protestant only area.
There are hardline areas of each faction where others still wouldn't dare go but that isn't true all over NI or even Belfast. There are no-go areas in many cities.
Negative consequences, when appropriately targetted, have been quite effective in detering crime and terrorism.
In particular, the housing demolition policy has been a very good recruitment deterrent, because it reduces the support for them in their local communities and among the peolpe that matter to them - it effects motivation.
Ie. before, no demolition, the person is a hero and family gets money.
Now, after they murder, still a hero but family is suffering, and so not quite as proud (and not as encouraging beforehand).
Luke90
12-12-2004, 12:54 PM
Negative consequences, when appropriately targetted, have been quite effective in detering crime and terrorism.
That argument makes a lot more sense.
It sounded to me like Hisardut was arguing for a general decrease in their quality of life which IS nonsensical.
Mediocrates
12-12-2004, 01:22 PM
Poverty and grievances, that's the commonsense wisdom for the root of all terrorism. Except that it's wrong. Lots of peoples are poor and/or have grievances yet few resort to terrorism . What makes terrorism possible is the systematic and widespread brainwashing that convinces people that a goal is so overarching that it excuses any barbarity in the pursuit of that goal.
General quality of life issues do effect the support for a war generally.
For example, the South only stopped supporting the war after Sherman burned down Atlanta. Ditto Japan and Germany with WWII. Terrorism is the same tactic, only instead of just "making things more difficult (checkpoints, curfews, etc.)" they aim to kill innocent people, not to mention the fact that it is the terrorism is trying to disuade not support for a war, but support for legal claims to lands that are claimed by boths sides.
However, there needs to be a balance of general negative consequences to a population to dissuade them from supporting and "softening up" when appropriate.
Poverty and grievances, that's the commonsense wisdom for the root of all terrorism. Except that it's wrong. Lots of peoples are poor and/or have grievances yet few resort to terrorism . What makes terrorism possible is the systematic and widespread brainwashing that convinces people that a goal is so overarching that it excuses any barbarity in the pursuit of that goal.
true.
Poverty and grievances, that's the commonsense wisdom for the root of all terrorism. Except that it's wrong. Lots of peoples are poor and/or have grievances yet few resort to terrorism . What makes terrorism possible is the systematic and widespread brainwashing that convinces people that a goal is so overarching that it excuses any barbarity in the pursuit of that goal.
the whole thoery that poverty creates and breeds terror and hate is a myth. On numerous and well recorded occcassions, Homicide bombers or potential homicide bombers have been recruited from wealthy and established Arab families - including one girl who was a famous children's Television presenter.
Those who plunged airlines into the twin towers were from Middle Class Arab families and spent most of their time studying in Europe.
Almost a year ago, British intelligence caught a group of young men (in their early twenties) of Pakistani origin planning a massic chemical attack on Britian. All were second generation British and came from established families. One of them was studying medicine, whilst another was a cricket player who was tipped to make it into the the English cricket team.
KettleWhistle
12-12-2004, 02:35 PM
There are many reasons for terrorism, but to take the discussion back to where it got diverted, the condemnation of Israel's supposedly "heavy-handed" tactics on the grounds that they don't work is just baseless. We can debate the particulars of the situation in N. Ireland for years, but the fact remains that the softer tactics employed there recently haven't brought about peace. And the situation there seems to be much easier to resolve, since the two parties are not different peoples. They speak the same language, and have the same religion, but continue to kill each other over how to worship their god. And that's not half as complicated as what Israel has to deal with.
Illuminatus
12-12-2004, 02:49 PM
You don't "negotiate with", "sympathize" or even "understand them".
You kill them and kill anyone else who wants to go paradise, and
it's always better to kill them first (preemptively).
But this is just one immediate tactical method of dealing with
asymmetric warfare - the IDF isn't doing too badly, it's winning
this war.
Most importantly, the IDF's profound morality inherent in its
defensive war doctrine, (http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=32) offers insight on how to win what might be
the most important battle of all, the battle for the moral high
ground in Middle East as well as the global war on Islamo-Terror.
Are we perfect? No. Do we make mistakes? Yes. Every human endeavor
is always harder and takes longer than foreseen/planned -- it's the
losers who whine and complain when we make mistakes. They are
also the first to surrender when things get tough.
Israel (or the US for that matter) will not win this war on terrorism
if we/you lose touch, even for a moment, with the great and noble
values that make Israel what it is.
I need not remind you that when Israel goes to war, they also bring
their honor, their compassion, thier love of freedom, and their belief
in the equality of all people. The US has much to learn from their
example.
It's our values and morality that are the ultimate weapons.
and by the way - where is Stalin and his "stalin strategy" anyways?
Looks like the Jews are still hanging around eh? I'd say it's in
the USA's best national interest to hitch our wagon to the
Jewish/Israeli star and...... "let's roll".
Luke90
12-13-2004, 01:41 AM
We can debate the particulars of the situation in N. Ireland for years, but the fact remains that the softer tactics employed there recently haven't brought about peace.
We could debate details for years but ultimately the truth is that the situation is very close to peace and that is a relevant point which is why it was brought up in the first place.
They speak the same language, and have the same religion, but continue to kill each other over how to worship their god.
The disagreement isn't really over how to worship their God.
Mediocrates
12-13-2004, 05:17 AM
I guess I'm the only one who sees the irony in that most basic of Oslo suppositions; that Arafat was a tyrant and a dictator unfettered by humanity or laws or limits or courts or anything and that on its own would be enough to guarantee the suppression of all the other madmen running around Yesha.
People blow themselves up for the same reason that people wire up roadside bombs or stand in the street with an RPG. We in our fat comfortable western life imagine that only someone with something broken in their head would willingly sacrifice their own life with certainty for little or no concrete tactical gain at that moment, absent any attempt to save anyone else's life. But that would be a very short sighted and bigoted way to look at the belief system behind the 'nobility' of sacrifice.
One need look at the Tamil who have successfully executed sucide bombings, maybe an order of magnitude more than the Palestinianians with 10's of thousands of fatalities and more. They do this because they believe that whatever happens the goal is far greater than the loss of one. It's pretty clear that this is a basic human behavior that is being exploited by old men to their own self interested aims.
Luke90
12-14-2004, 12:37 AM
the whole thoery that poverty creates and breeds terror and hate is a myth. On numerous and well recorded occcassions, Homicide bombers or potential homicide bombers have been recruited from wealthy and established Arab families - including one girl who was a famous children's Television presenter.
Poverty, injustice and brutality and/or what is perceived as poverty, injustice and brutality do breed terror and hate, that is undeniable.
Privileged terrorists are recruited because they feel they have to do something to help the people they think are being oppressed. That is true all over the world and throughout history.
They aren't the only causes but they are important ones.
However, there needs to be a balance of general negative consequences to a population to dissuade them from supporting and "softening up" when appropriate.
General negative consequences will not reduce support for terror. The Palestinians won't see it as a consequence of the actions of the terrorists it will just make them hate Israel all the more.
Negative consequences, when appropriately targetted, have been quite effective in detering crime and terrorism.
As I've said before this argument makes a lot more sense to me, but I think I would disagree with many of you over what constitutes "appropriately targeted".
For example:
Taking out the middle and upper ranks of the terrorist organisations (as suggested by Mediocrates) is appropriately targeted.
Shooting children, unless there is no doubt that they are about to cause deaths is not justified. Even if they are bringing supplies to terrorists they are still too young to be considered responsible for their actions.
(I'm not saying children do get shot very often ot that it is accepted but it has happened and people have tried to justify it by saying that the palestinians use children. Undoubtedly they do and that is terrible but the children cannot be blamed.)
Luke,
That's falacious.
There are terrorists in the US, UK, Germany, Ireland, Spain etc. Not that much poverty in the members or the society.
The Saudi Hijakers were all pretty well off. Suadi citizens are not poor.
Meanwhile, there are many many poor countries without large terrorist groups.
Poverty creates a perception of societal injustice, which makes it easier for people to brainwash others for "the cause" or "the revoluation".
But, looking at the world today, there is MUCH more correlation with ISLAM than Poverty, and in particular particular teaching institutions within Islam.
The problem IS NOT poverty or restrictions (note how when Saddam brutalized his people there was no terrorism against his regime, where now, with much more modest and TARGETTED responses, the terror continues unabatted.)
Luke, your point has ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT IT. Its nice liberal theory.....it just completely baseless.
Mediocrates
12-14-2004, 05:41 AM
The problem with the radical marxist proposition that all terrorism is the victims fault and inequity in the distribution of wealth is the root of all social dislocation is simply a rhetorical tool used to whip up the masses. All tyrannies need external enemies and this is theirs. But if you look at Columbia, Yemen, Algeria, Iran, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Burma, the Philippines you'll see that economics plays almost no role.
There probably is "some" relationship. Particularly when, if you are poor, you can see wealthy people, and so notice the disparity. Remember in France and Europe and to a lesser extent in the US there was a lot of class related violence.
People in comfy lives, on average, are less likely to risk those lives for a cause. But the hard core terrorists, on the other hand, often come from comfy lives, but haven't found "satisfaction" in them. You look at who the terorrists are and the factors that ACTUALLY played a part in there lives, and INDOCTRINATION is number 1, which generally happens when you have societal structures which support the indoctrination.
Looking at the Pal Arabs, they were best off when there were the fewest attacks, but they support attacks, and, completely CONTRADICTING lukes theory, after every major Israeli counteroffensive, which causes a lot of "general consequences", the support for violence temporarily drops.
In other words, negative consequences work, and more effectively than positive consequences.
Luke's point is plainly just wrong.
Luke90
12-14-2004, 06:05 AM
The problem with the radical marxist proposition that all terrorism is the victims fault and inequity in the distribution of wealth is the root of all social dislocation
That is a deeply flawed theory and not what I'm proposing.
You look at who the terorrists are and the factors that ACTUALLY played a part in there lives, and INDOCTRINATION is number 1, which generally happens when you have societal structures which support the indoctrination.
You get those structures in society when the members of the society feel they are being oppressed. The people who do the indoctrination twist and misuse the facts but they need some solid truths as a starting point. If the victims of indoctrination couldn't see some truth as a basis for the arguments they wouldn't work.
after every major Israeli counteroffensive, which causes a lot of "general consequences", the support for violence temporarily drops.
Have you got any actual evidence to back that up?
Is the drop a lasting effect?
Does the short-term drop lead to actual decreases in violence?
Luke,
There is a site the routinely polls the Pal Arabs. I don't remember where it is.
As for your point about indoctrination and 'some truth', we also have Raelians and other silly cults that have no basis in truth. Religious fundamentalism, biblical literalism, and other notions that don't seem to have much evidence in the real world are observed widely....
Meanwhile, JIHADISM has almost nothing to do with poverty and everything to do with Pride and Imperialism. And the Palestinians are just Jihadis, really. The Pal Arab national movement, which is really just a movement to destroy Israel, is just an expression of Arab Jihadism...otherwise things would not have played out the way they have.
Jihadism IS NOT a new phenomenon, its been around almost as long as Islam itself.
Luke90
12-14-2004, 06:21 AM
I've found some polls but no information on your assertion that negative consequences can be seen to decrease popular support for terror.
Mediocrates
12-14-2004, 07:04 AM
The average car bombing takes 5-7 people to execute. You also need to steal a car, acquire several hundred pounds of expensive explosives, acquire the expertise in wiring it up, install detonators, plotti the target location, draw or make maps/directions, you need to work out a timetable and you need to formulate an escape plan to several safe houses for all the non-drivers. You need to build and store the device in a safe house as well. In Iraq this is more easily facilitated not only because of the size of the country but because the 'terrorists' are all ex military mid level officers and noncoms who already had expertise in this, access to materiel and personal contacts to recruit a 'trigger'. For every 'poor miserable misfortunate' who blows himself up there is 4-6 other people who do not. Moreover they themselves are not poor.
The people who chose to see terrorism as a social disease are badly mistaken. It's a military problem that's been well documented for thousands of years.
Luke90
12-14-2004, 07:27 AM
I'm not saying that all terrorists are poor, I'm saying that all terrorists need something on which to base their recruitment and support, and in many, if not most, cases the basic recruitment tool is a perception of injustice, oppression and mistreatment. In many cases these factors are also associated with economic troubles as well but I don't see the economic factors as anywhere near as important.
I've found some polls but no information on your assertion that negative consequences can be seen to decrease popular support for terror.
check the timing
Mediocrates
12-14-2004, 08:00 AM
Finding a trigger isn't all that hard. You can use money, drugs, sex, glory. You can easily find someone in a population of a few million who is willing to kill themselves for no obvious reason at all. Maybe it's the voices in their head, maybe their girfriend dumped them. Maybe they're in debt, maybe their wife is pregnant by another man, maybe their family will out them. Who knows?
The mid level commanders are doing it because that's what soldiers, real or self appointed do. They kill people and blow things up. That's their skill set and the reason they don't change is because that's how they retain power, money, status, influence. It's the success criteria for them and their families, clans, tribes. Just like the Gaza tunnel terrorist attack yesterday - there is a small group of large extended Gazan families who have had oligopolies over the tunnel smuggling business for generations. That's their family business. They profit directly from crime and terrorism. They facilitate it. They are in the terrorist enterprise business, it's what they're good at. They work with the mid level military commanders who operate at the local and regional level to organize logistics, money, people, supplies. They set the exchange rate; x drachmas per person smuggled, z dinar per bullet and so on. The money flows in from the UN/EU and is given to regional commanders who then distribute it to local commanders as baksheesh. Money isn't only a tool, it's status bestowed upon the recipient as the gift of money. It becomes an obligation. And on it goes creating fluid networks held together by family, money and power in these terrorist enterprises which must in fact commit terrorism else they will be cut from the network, their money confiscated. The people on the bottom wander past on an hourly basis waiting to get snagged by a recruiter who listens to their complaint and tells them something about glory and revenge, Allah, country, flag, etc. They are then trained or indoctrinated, the payment flows back to the triggers' families and they are then put on a shelf for a very short time until they are needed for a mission already in planning. If they are successful: money, coffee, cigarettes for everyone and they paint your picture on the side of a building and if you are caught you have instant street cred as an incarcerated terrorist.
Meanwhile, this awe of suicide bombers and terrorists just has to stop.
How are terrorists so much different than soldiers in WWI or Vietnam or the Civil War? Everyone went with a pretty good chance of dying, and yet they went and fought. Plenty of the soldiers committed atrocities, too.
Its only modern westerners who have lived fat comfortable lives, with pretty much zero chance of being involved in a war, that have to come up with these ridiculous explainations of "how a person could do such a thing."
Guess what, Luke, governments and groups have been convincing people to essnetially committ suicide for some cause for thousands of years!! And not just poor people! Granted, the better off, the more likely they are, as a percentage of the population, to try to avoid it...but that's different than saying the poorer they are the more likely they are to seek it out. People are stupid and easily manipulated, looking for something larger than themselves. The world can be hard and unfair, and things don't make sense. Jihadists take advantage of all of this, plus governments and religious institutions that indoctrinate millions.
KettleWhistle
12-14-2004, 09:55 AM
We could debate details for years but ultimately the truth is that the situation is very close to peace and that is a relevant point which is why it was brought up in the first place.
Exactly my point. The situation, which is much much simpler than that in the Israeli-Arab conflict hasn't gotten to the point of firm peace.
minusthejihad
12-14-2004, 09:58 AM
I myself am very close to being a millionaire!
Luke90
12-14-2004, 10:50 AM
Exactly my point. The situation, which is much much simpler than that in the Israeli-Arab conflict hasn't gotten to the point of firm peace.There isn't a final concrete agreement on how to restore the government but there is, basically, peace.
There is still violence within paramilitary groups but only of the kind that you get between, for example, rival gangs in London.
You can easily find someone in a population of a few million who is willing to kill themselves for no obvious reason at all. Maybe it's the voices in their head, maybe their girfriend dumped them. Maybe they're in debt, maybe their wife is pregnant by another man, maybe their family will out them.And in countries where there isn't a widescale perception of injustice and brutality they just slit their wrists or OD on drugs.
I agreed with most of the rest of what you said.
But:
The people on the bottom wander past on an hourly basis waiting to get snagged by a recruiter who listens to their complaint and tells them something about glory and revenge
If their complaint was something like your examples at the top they would quietly kill themselves and their family would be devastated but nobody else would be killed.
However, the palestinians feel so oppressed and brutalised that this person can be persuaded that if he blows himself up and takes some Israelis with him then he can be part of the effort to fix the injustice, so he does it.
The rest of the chain that you've talked about is important but if the ordinary man on the street stops believing that he* is being oppressed then the whole system will ultimately collapse.
*Or people he feels a connection to in the case of the more privileged
Luke90
12-14-2004, 10:51 AM
Congratulations Minus! :p
Mediocrates
12-14-2004, 11:05 AM
Stop being dramatic. Why is it that people like you assume that anyone who isn't medicated is going to start hurling pipebombs? Whatever happened to going to church for example? It's a nonrational approach to assume that the first and only reaction anyone has is to do a Romeo + Juliet with guns.
Luke90
12-14-2004, 11:10 AM
Why is it that people like you assume that anyone who isn't medicated is going to start hurling pipebombs?
Not what I'm saying at all.
Whatever happened to going to church for example? It's a nonrational approach to assume that the first and only reaction anyone has is to do a Romeo + Juliet with guns.
It's not a common reaction, it's an extreme reaction in an extreme situation.
Are you going to answer my point?
if the ordinary man on the street stops believing that he is being oppressed then the whole system will ultimately collapse.
If their complaint was something like your examples at the top they would quietly kill themselves and their family would be devastated but nobody else would be killed.
However, the palestinians feel so oppressed and brutalised that this person can be persuaded that if he blows himself up and takes some Israelis with him then he can be part of the effort to fix the injustice, so he does it.
The rest of the chain that you've talked about is important but if the ordinary man on the street stops believing that he* is being oppressed then the whole system will ultimately collapse.
*Or people he feels a connection to in the case of the more privileged
Complete and utter ethnocentrism and leftwing rubbish.
Why don't the Arabs under ARAB Tyranies, who often treat the Pal Arabs MUCH WORSE than Israel does (particularly before this 2nd intifadah), do the same thing, Luke?
Luke90
12-14-2004, 11:57 AM
Why don't the Arabs under ARAB Tyranies, who often treat the Pal Arabs MUCH WORSE than Israel does (particularly before this 2nd intifadah), do the same thing, Luke?
Because:
1. The whole network, as described by Mediocrates, doesn't exist there.
2. The majority of the general public don't feel oppressed.
Mediocrates
12-14-2004, 12:49 PM
Because:
1. The whole network, as described by Mediocrates, doesn't exist there.
2. The majority of the general public don't feel oppressed.
And you know this how? I could pull a hundred different books on organizing terrorist cells down from the bookshelf, published in the last 50 years. Iraqi 'insurgents' are Ba'ath mid level ex military from the army which dissolved the day the Americans came. The lubricant is money, it's always money.
The Palestinians are organized a little differently, actually a little more like the military, more top down. A good parallel would be the French Foreign Legion which is what Hezbollah borrows its organizational and operational structure from. Most of the senior ranks of Hezbollah is Iranian Army and parts of the old SAVAK as well as a small contingent of Syrian military/intelligence. It's pretty much understood that Hezbollah is running the Palestinian operations now. Hamas helped train the IRA in the past and the two organizations are organized along the same lines. A little looser and more fluid than Hezbollah, less disciplined as well.
minusthejihad
12-14-2004, 01:36 PM
I could pull a hundred different books on organizing terrorist cells down from the bookshelf, published in the last 50 years.
Soon, you won't have to (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141433,00.html).
KettleWhistle
12-14-2004, 01:45 PM
It's not a common reaction, it's an extreme reaction in an extreme situation.
An Egyptian man who shot a clerck at El-Al counter in LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) a couple years back had an extreme reaction to an extereme situation too: he just couldn't come to terms with his neighbors flying an American flag.
The networks exist, ie. the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt...but have been CRUSHED if they act against the government.
Meanwhile, why don't they FEEL oppressed when their Muslim governments on them, but when Israel spits on them, they go suicide bomber, Luke?
Because:
1. The whole network, as described by Mediocrates, doesn't exist there.
2. The majority of the general public don't feel oppressed.
Mediocrates
12-14-2004, 02:16 PM
I submit that nearly 100% of all Arabs living today in the middle east have never come in contact with a Jew or an Israeli nor know anyone who has. I submit that nearly 100% of all Arabs living today in the middle east have not in any way been touched first or second hand by anything Israel has ever done. Yet all of their repressive governments need an external enemy to distract their subjects from all the terrible things they do to them and all the lack of progress and liberty they derive. The Jews are such an enemy. And if you bang that into someone's head long enough they will tend to believe it, or tell you they do. But most of them, nearly all, are never in any position to pick up a rock, wire a bomb, shoot a child. Instead they get to walk 4 floors down to the unpaved street, push all the other unemployed people out of the way, wait in line for the broken down bus to go to the local square in Cairo, Damascus, Sa'na, Teheran, Mosul...and burn some effigies while they shake their tiny fists at the CNN crews. Then they walk back to the same bus which takes them to same unpaved street, up 4 floors to an old apartment with an exhausted pregnant wife and 6 dirty kids in time to go to the mosque and listen to the Imam rage on about the damn Jews and how it's all their fault.
And the greatest irony of all is that the irony is completely lost on them.
The worst terrorist attack in history was committed by wealthy middle class Egyptian and Saudi Arabian students who got radicalised not in their own country but in the heart of wealthy Western Europe. It was also organised and funded by one of the most wealthiest men in the world.
If it was a case of poverty then hungry Ethiopians and Somalis would be on sucidie missions and not wealthy Saudis.
enuf said.
Usually when we hear "poverty breeds terror" the victims of terror are blamed for creating the poverty.
What do u think Luke? Do you think the Israelis created poverty for the Arabs?
Luke90
12-15-2004, 12:41 AM
I didn't say "poverty breeds terror".
I've made this point already.
The point is the perception of injustice and oppression
Do you think the Israelis created poverty for the Arabs?
I think the Palestinians think they did, which is the crucial point.
The worst terrorist attack in history was committed by wealthy middle class Egyptian and Saudi Arabian students who got radicalised not in their own country but in the heart of wealthy Western Europe.
Because they felt a connection with people who they thought were being oppressed, and were convinced that their attacks could help.
I submit that nearly 100% of all Arabs living today in the middle east have never come in contact with a Jew or an Israeli nor know anyone who has. I submit that nearly 100% of all Arabs living today in the middle east have not in any way been touched first or second hand by anything Israel has ever done.
But that isn't the point.
The point is that they believe that it's Israel's fault.
The networks exist, ie. the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt...but have been CRUSHED if they act against the government.
I put my point poorly on this one.
I didn't mean there weren't any terrorist (or wannabe terrorist) organisations, I meant that the full vicious cycle and widescale support isn't in place.
Meanwhile, why don't they FEEL oppressed when their Muslim governments on them, but when Israel spits on them, they go suicide bomber
Because as Mediocrates says they have been convinced that it's all Israel's (and also the West in general, and the USA's) fault.
Mediocrates
12-15-2004, 04:14 AM
I live surrounded by a bunch of Rednecks who are convinced that northerners and black people are the root of all their problems from crime to drugs to the leaking roof on their doublewide. I suppose we could entertain their anger, for laughs, but it wouldn't do any good.
[QUOTE=Luke90]I didn't say "poverty breeds terror".
I've made this point already.
The point is the perception of injustice and oppression
I think the Palestinians think they did, which is the crucial point.
True. The Arabs in the territories are brainwashed by their corrupt criminal leaders - just like all other Arabs in the region into thinking that Israel and the west are responsible for all their problems, in order to deflect attention from their own tyrannical and corrupt rule. Nevertheless, their own terrorist leaders have under estimated their own peopeles intelligence. Despite successfully brainwashing their people into all out hatred, they havent quite managed to convince them that Israel is responsble for their poverty, since their own leader's corruption is so blatantly obvious.
Because they felt a connection with people who they thought were being oppressed, and were convinced that their attacks could help.
good point, however if one tries to use that to further the argument that "poverty breeds terror," they wouldnt do a very good job.
Feeling a connection with oppressed people is not the main driving force behind these acts. The main driving force is the desire to murder non-muslim infidels and spread Islam and its teachings by force. Much like Hitler tried to force his ideology upon the world.
This is something which is usually left out by those who argue that "poverty breeds terror."
Luke90
12-15-2004, 04:40 AM
I live surrounded by a bunch of Rednecks who are convinced that northerners and black people are the root of all their problems
Do they really, seriously, genuinely believe it or is it just talk and jokes in bars?
Luke90
12-15-2004, 04:46 AM
Feeling a connection with oppressed people is not the main driving force behind these acts. the main driving force is the desire to murder non-muslim infidels and spread Islam and its teachings by force.
That desire to murder isn't the starting point.
The starting point is the feeling that people are being unjustly oppressed. The recruiters that do the brainwashing channel it into the desire to murder.
"poverty breeds terror."
Could you stop summarising my argument in this way because it's misleading.
Opression (or the perception of) is a very different thing to poverty.
Mediocrates
12-15-2004, 04:50 AM
I guess it's a sacred cow independent of reality or the facts. Ok poor people are terrorists. Roma Locuta Causa Finita.
Luke90
12-15-2004, 04:52 AM
Ok poor people are terrorists
Not what I'm arguing.
Mediocrates
12-15-2004, 04:54 AM
Whatever, hand out blankets and cake. Make the world perfect.
Luke,
You've said that you agree that the Pal Arabs have been convinced of the suffering and injustice, and who to blame.
You've also noted that others who are suffering similarly, if not worse, to the Pal Arabs, do not committ the same kind of attacks.
So, based on these to over-simplified statements, what is the greater problem and cause of terrorism, the actual suffering, or the convincing/ indoctrination/ radicalization?
What is this indoctrination based on? What are its central components?
How much of the actual suffering, in Israel, is due to response to mass-murders, succesful or attempted?
What would the relative suffering of the Pal Arabs be, without these responses, compared to their neighbor Arabs, Pal Arabs in other countries, and other suffering groups.
This is not meant to excuse certain actions, but to put into context what the real causes of mass-murderers are.
Luke90
12-15-2004, 05:38 AM
Make the world perfect.
Well, yeah, ideally :p
So, based on these to over-simplified statements, what is the greater problem and cause of terrorism, the actual suffering, or the convincing/ indoctrination/ radicalization?
I don't think you can separate those two factors.
Without either one, the terrorism would collapse.
Well, that's part of the question, but you avoided answering it, and given a person's ability to percieve injustice in pretty much any situation, and the fact that injustices in the world WILL exist, and percieved ones much moreso...
I can't let you walk away from the questions so easily, Luke.
Luke90
12-15-2004, 07:26 AM
So, based on these to over-simplified statements, what is the greater problem and cause of terrorism, the actual suffering, or the convincing/ indoctrination/ radicalization?
I think I answered this question, you can't consider one more important than the other because both are required.
What is this indoctrination based on? What are its central components?
I'd imagine that it would begin by earning the victim's "friendship" by agreeing with any complaints they have, then building up their resentment and reinforcing to them the idea that all those problems can be traced back to...(whoever)
Once the victim is bitter enough and trusting what the person says I'd imagine they'd bring up the subject of other attacks and slowly convince them that they were both justified and successful. Build up the idea of the perpetrators of those attacks as heroes and mention their reward in the afterlife and their families rewards in this life. Eventually the victim will be ready to do almost anything.
How much of the actual suffering, in Israel, is due to response to mass-murders, succesful or attempted?
Could you clarify that question.
Are you asking how much of the palestinian's suffering is down to Israeli action in response to attacks?
What would the relative suffering of the Pal Arabs be, without these responses, compared to their neighbor Arabs, Pal Arabs in other countries, and other suffering groups.
It's pretty difficult to quantify suffering.
Undoubtedly an end to the violence would be better for everybody (but in practice I doubt there has ever been a peace which suits everybody).
P.S MGB8 - Were these the questions you were referring to in the other thread?
Yes, Luke.
And I have to strongly disagree with your response, which avoids having to make a call.
EVERYONE suffers. As Buddha said, life is suffering. Moreover, life is not fair. There is always injustice, there is always hardship, it is only a matter of degree, and this degree IS quantifiable.
Look at the Pal Arabs in Arab countries: unable to go into certain professions, no citizenship (except in Jordan), subject to occasional mass deportations, various other restrictions - none of which are based on Pal Arab attacks on the state (well, with the possible exceptions of Jordan and Lebanon, but those attacks were DECADES ago, not presently ongoing.) Oh, no right to vote, since we are talking dictatorships.
The "suffering" and "oppression" under the pre-2nd intifada Israeli rule included local autonomy, elections, universities, access to great hospitals, freedoms of expression pre-Oslo, and in general a higher standard of living than the rest of the Arab world.
Relative to the Pal Arabs outside of Israeli rule, relative to the Pal Arabs when they came under Arafats rule, relative to many many many other groups in the world, THE PAL ARABS WERE NOT SUFFERING NOR OPPRESSED.
That's plain fact.
So the idea that the "suffering" is an important component is BOGUS. False. A BIG LIE taking advantage of Western ethnocentrism and gullibility.
The big difference is in the indoctrination, just as it was with the NAZIs and with the Japanese in WWII. Its with the "dar al Islam/dar al Harb" dichotomy. It is not about hopes to "end oppression", but instead of hopes for "their place in the sun" - for the rightful subjugation and dhimitude of the infidels.
Luke, YOU have been indoctrinated, not with hate, but with Western mythology that pretends that people in general are smart and good. They aren't. If they were, Slavery, genocide, colonialism, wars over money or what G-d you pray to...rarely if ever would happen.
ARAB society is an imperialist and hateful society, and THAT is the cause of the conflict. That is why the Arabs tried to destroy Israel and Genocide the Jews before there was an "occupation", or even before there was a state of Israel. That is why they attacked on Yom Kippur. That is why "the 3 no's" happened. The suffering IS MEANINGLESS, relatively. Even if THERE WERE NO SUFFERING, the Arabs WOULD STILL ATTACK!!! That's how you get middle class suicide hijackers, who WERE NOT CONCERNED with Pal Arabs, but with US troops defiling Muslim holy ground!!!
You really need to open your eyes to the FACTS of this issue...your explainations make no sense, they are strained...they don't fit with the facts of who the suicide terrorists are, or their patterns of behavior.
You've bought into a myth, a myth groups like the BBC help propogate, a myth that is useful propaganda for the PLO and Jihadists, but in the end, its just a Hitlerian BIG LIE.
minusthejihad
12-15-2004, 09:41 AM
Because they felt a connection with people who they thought were being oppressed, and were convinced that their attacks could help.
Luke, its bad enough that you are already pushing the MYTH that poverty and desperation breeds terrorism, but can you please lay off the ULTIMATE MYTH that 9/11 was carried out because of America's support for Israel in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. No self respecting Westerner should allow themselves to be that hoodwinked by Arab Propaganda, its actually pretty pathertic, no offense.
There is simply much to much evidence on the contrary. I assume in the next few years we will hear about how the overtaking of the US Embassy in Iran in 79 was "to help the poor Palestinians" too. Or the first WTC bombing, or the Bali bombings, or Madrid bombings. I guess there are just so many suckers/bleeding heart liberals out there in the world, that they take anything a dark person says about injustice to be fact. Except for the Sudanese Africans of course.
MYTH Debunked: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf21.html#u
minusthejihad
12-15-2004, 09:47 AM
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf21.html#u
MYTH
“America's support of Israel is the reason that terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11.â€
FACT
The heinous attacks against the United States were committed by Muslim fanatics who had a variety of motivations for these and other terrorist attacks. These Muslims have a perverted interpretation of Islam and believe they must attack infidels, particularly Americans and Jews, who do not share their beliefs. They oppose Western culture and democracy and object to any U.S. presence in Muslim nations. They are particularly angered by the existence of American military bases in Saudia Arabia and other areas of the Persian Gulf. This would be true regardless of U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, an added excuse for their fanaticism is the fact that the United States is allied with Israel. Previous attacks on American targets, such as the USS Cole and U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, were perpetrated by suicide bombers whose anger at the United States had little or nothing to do with Israel.
“Osama bin Laden made his explosions and then started talking about the Palestinians. He never talked about them before.â€
— Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak31
Osama bin Laden claimed he was acting on behalf of the Palestinians, and that his anger toward the United States was shaped by American support for Israel. This was a new invention by bin Laden clearly intended to attract support from the Arab public and justify his terrorist acts. The fact is bin Laden's antipathy toward the United States has never been related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Though many Arabs were taken in by bin Laden's transparent effort to drag Israel into his war, Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, dean of Shar'ia and Law at Qatar University was critical, "In their hypocrisy, many of the [Arab] intellectuals linked September 11 with the Palestinian problem — something that completely contradicts seven years of Al-Qaida literature. Al-Qaida never linked anything to Palestine."31a
Even Yasser Arafat told the Sunday Times of London that bin Laden should stop hiding behind the Palestinian cause. Bin Laden "never helped us, he was working in another completely different area and against our interests," Arafat said.32b
Though Al-Qaida's agenda did not include the Palestinian cause, the organization has begun to take a more active role in terror against Israeli targets, starting with the November 28, 2002, suicide bombing at an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya that killed three Israelis and 11 Kenyans, and the attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner with a missile as it was taking off from Kenya that same day.32c
Luke90
12-15-2004, 10:15 AM
Luke, its bad enough that you are already pushing the MYTH that poverty and desperation breeds terrorism, but can you please lay off the ULTIMATE MYTH that 9/11 was carried out because of America's support for Israel in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. No self respecting Westerner should allow themselves to be that hoodwinked by Arab Propaganda, its actually pretty pathertic, no offense.
On the first accusation. That's not what I said. I do think terrorism is helped by the perception of oppression and injustice.
On the 2nd accusation, I simply didn't say or even imply that.
You've just assumed it's my view because you disagree with me so you assume I hold every view you disagree with.
When I said that most terrorism required the perception of injustice and oppression (sorry to keep repeating this phrase, but you repeatedly misunderstand and misrepresent me) I didn't mean it was all based on the palestinians.
The other questions are all based on these misrepresentations of what I said.
Fair enough, Luke,
But, then what oppression or perception of oppression were the Hijakers responding to? If you respond Saudi Arabia's, then why didn't they strike at the Royal Family or another local target, as opposed to striking at "infadels/kafeers?"
If there was not much oppression on the part of the US, vis-a-vi the Hijakers' motives, then wouldn't that make the INDOCTRINATION the main issue?
Luke90
12-15-2004, 10:58 AM
I don't consider myself very knowledgeable on this but I get the impression that they felt Western values and commercialism were being imposed on them and destroying their culture and their religion.
The Indoctrination is always a major part, but the two cannot produce terrorism separately.
The Indoctrination can work with different levels of hate and with hate of different things but it always need that starting point. The seed.
minusthejihad
12-15-2004, 11:39 AM
On the first accusation. That's not what I said. I do think terrorism is helped by the perception of oppression and injustice.
On the 2nd accusation, I simply didn't say or even imply that.
You've just assumed it's my view because you disagree with me so you assume I hold every view you disagree with.
When I said that most terrorism required the perception of injustice and oppression (sorry to keep repeating this phrase, but you repeatedly misunderstand and misrepresent me) I didn't mean it was all based on the palestinians.
The other questions are all based on these misrepresentations of what I said.
Luke, I didn't misunderstand anything. You said, and I quote you:
Because they felt a connection with people who they thought were being oppressed, and were convinced that their attacks could help.
Based on that post, I assume:
they = 911 hijackers
people who they thought were being oppressed = Palestinians
their attacks = 911
I am sorry if I assumed incorrectly, but I am pretty sure this is what you meant. If this is what you meant, then you are guilty of speading that MYTH.
Luke90
12-15-2004, 11:44 AM
causes-of-terrorism.net (http://www.causes-of-terrorism.net/)
I'm not endorsing everything here.
For a start I haven't been able to read it all yet.
I just found it and thought it had some interesting stuff to say.
Their discussion of "totalism" makes a lot of sense.
EDIT: Having read further on this website, I find some of the later pages a little paranoid eg. about "parasitic organisations".
Luke90
12-15-2004, 11:51 AM
Based on that post, I assume:
they = 911 hijackers
people who they thought were being oppressed = Palestinians
their attacks = 911
Fair misunderstanding.
I didn't mean the palestinians, I was really talking more generally about why privileged people would become terrorists.
Silly of me since I was meant to be responding to your question about 9/11.
I am sorry if I assumed incorrectly
My mistake.
minusthejihad
12-15-2004, 12:01 PM
Sure, no bias there:
"If the United States is to continue its war on terrorism, it should perhaps aim its war not at Osama Bin Laden or Iraq (what many predict is next on the U.S.’s list), but rather at itself. It is only by eradicating its status as the world’s leading terrorist state, that the U.S. can eradicate terrorism."
is a quote plucked off their "US Violence" page.
http://www.causes-of-terrorism.net/usviolence.htm
This site is owned and operated by a quack named Shaun Kerry. These are all his bright ideas. When searching google for the company named, I got about 5 links to people who link to his site, one of which has the tile "Republinazis something".
Cute source. No shrieking biased moonbat with PEST there I bet.
Luke90
12-15-2004, 01:29 PM
Read what I actually said.
I don't agree with the guy, I just thought his totalism argument explained what I've been talking about quite well.
I'm not defending this site, but on a general note, you can't always judge a site by what links to it. Anyone can post any link they want.
minusthejihad
12-15-2004, 01:40 PM
I wasn't. I was judging the site and others run by the same outfit by the use of this paragraph:
"If the United States is to continue its war on terrorism, it should perhaps aim its war not at Osama Bin Laden or Iraq (what many predict is next on the U.S.’s list), but rather at itself. It is only by eradicating its status as the world’s leading terrorist state, that the U.S. can eradicate terrorism."
This is textbook moonbattery, not worthy of discourse, IMO. You see, any good arguement this quack may of had went flying out the window when he titled the US as "the world’s leading terrorist state". My logical brain simply can't parse past ANSWER's Talking Points. After that, its all a swift descent into insanity and gradeschool conspiracy theories.
Because some idiot possesses the freedom to chastize his country while living off its fruits and its citizen's good graces, doesn't mean we need to go around repeating his idiotic sentiments. Only a fool or a brainwashed turnip can call the US "the world’s leading terrorist state". The US is by no means perfect and has acted terribly in the past, but to look past Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Syria, Sudan, even China and arrive at that conclusion, you'd have to have a serious axe to grind in the first place.
Chauk him up as yet another "Blame America Firster" and try to find someone with some idea of objectivity to cite.
KettleWhistle
12-15-2004, 02:41 PM
A relevant link: http://www.israelforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=7444
That desire to murder isn't the starting point.
The starting point is the feeling that people are being unjustly oppressed. The recruiters that do the brainwashing channel it into the desire to murder.
the desire to spread their beliefs and the teachings of the Koran through the use of force (i.e murder and terror) is the starting point.
Could you stop summarising my argument in this way because it's misleading.
Opression (or the perception of) is a very different thing to poverty.
The two are always inevitably linked and go hand in hand. When people say oppression they also usually mean poverty. When I was refering to the argument "poverty breeds terror" I was also talking about how that refers to oppression.
Today, people who talk about the "root causes of terrorism" and how oppression and injustices drive terrorism might also embrace Hitler's argument of how ethnic germans in Poland, Chekoslovakia, Russia, not to mention Germans in general were oppressed and humiliated by the world before Hitler set out on his campaign of mass terror on behalf of all those people.
In other words - if you are going to examine "the root causes of terror" - be it Al-Queda or PLO - dont forget to examine "the root causes" of Nazism.
Luke90
12-16-2004, 04:35 AM
The two are always inevitably linked and go hand in hand. When people say oppression they also usually mean poverty.
There is a link, but it's mostly only one-way
ie. Oppression often leads to poverty but poverty doesn't mean oppression.
(Although of course it can cause feelings of injustice).
This is textbook moonbattery, not worthy of discourse, IMO. You see, any good arguement this quack may of had went flying out the window when he titled the US as "the world’s leading terrorist state".
Having read the rest of the site I agree with you, the guy's an idiot.
The reason I posted the site was for it's explanation of what he calls totalism.
I wasn't citing it as evidence to give my ideas credibility, just as a good explanation of part of what I mean.
(Note to self: Read entire site before posting results from google searches) :p
Mediocrates
12-16-2004, 04:41 AM
The Roots of Terrorism
Extract from Hume Horan, "Those Young Arab Muslims and Us," Middle East Quarterly.
[A]s things stand now, even if the Palestinian-Israeli dispute were quickly solved by exterior diktat, we would still be the target of alienated young Arab Muslims. Why? Because the Arabs' dispute with Israel is only a symptom of a deeper problem, one that cannot be solved by shuttle diplomacy, special envoys, or conferences at Wye Plantation.
This deeper problem exists at two levels. Superficially, it has to do with the failure of Arab political and intellectual institutions to address the needs of their young populations. How can being a citizen of Syria, or Lebanon, or Egypt, or Algeria, or Sudan give young Arabs the sense of patriotic identity that Americans get from being citizens of the United States? Arab states have little emotional hold on the loyalty of their populations; most Arab regimes are corrupt and morally discredited. This particularly applies to Saudi Arabia, which has shored itself up externally through its ties to the United States, while at home, it both has placated and suppressed opposition by giving "power of attorney" for social affairs to reactionary, xenophobic Muslim clerics (ulema). What personal attachment can Saudi Arabians—60 percent of whom are under eighteen—feel for their rulers? The king and many of the leading princes are all in their seventies and must seem more remote from most Saudis than, say, George Washington is from us.
Arab intellectuals have also failed the young Arabs. Where are the Arab Reinhold Neibuhrs, Christopher Dawsons, Karl Barths, Martin Bubers? Where are the politically engaged intellectuals who can help a young Arab make coherent, responsible sense of a troubling modern world? They scarcely exist in the Arab world. The few that even try are threatened, jailed, forced into exile—or worse. In January 1985, I contacted the Sudanese presidency to plead for the life of a freethinking Islamic reformer, Mahmud Muhammad Taha. During his trial for heresy under Muslim canon law (Shari‘a), Taha had refused to recant his liberal views and was condemned to death. I was told that the president would not speak to me and that no appeal was possible from the ruling of the religious tribunal. Taha was publicly hanged.
Accordingly, many young and sensitive Arabs—especially members of the educated elite—are deprived of moral and intellectual leadership from their own religious institutions. Bereft of meaningful guidance, they use violence to fill the void, to provide some sort of an answer—even a negative one—to "Who am I?" Jellyfishes, many of them are drawn to the rocks of Osama bin Laden's Luddite worldview.
Luke90
12-16-2004, 04:50 AM
This deeper problem exists at two levels. Superficially, it has to do with...
What does he have to say about the second level? That extract all seems to be concerned with what he calls the superficial level.
Unless the paragraph about intellectuals is his second level?
Illuminatus
12-16-2004, 06:08 AM
Perhaps the "second level" are the "young Arabs"
The personal level?
as they say, read the whole thing ---> http://www.meforum.org/article/512
minusthejihad
12-16-2004, 07:50 AM
This is another reason I love Costa Rica, besides that they always vote with the US and Israel at the UN:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141508,00.html
Jokester in Bin Laden Mask Shot
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Usama bin Laden (search) take note: You wouldn't be safe in Costa Rica. A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of the Al Qaeda (search) leader, police said Tuesday.
Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela (search), about 20 miles north of San Jose.
Arias had startled several drivers that way on Monday afternoon. But when he jumped out in front of taxi driver Juan Pablo Sandoval, the motorist reached for a gun and shot him twice in the stomach. He was hospitalized in stable condition.
"For me and I think for anybody else at a time like that one thinks the worst and so I fired my gun," Sandoval told Channel 7 television.
Police declined to detain Sandoval, saying he had believed he was acting in self-defense.
minusthejihad
12-16-2004, 07:51 AM
My guess is that in France, people would have lynched the Taxi Driver. LOL!
How could I hate the French when I love the Band "Air"? hehe
[QUOTE=Luke90]There is a link, but it's mostly only one-way
ie. Oppression often leads to poverty but poverty doesn't mean oppression.
(Although of course it can cause feelings of injustice).
ask any person who makes the leftwing/marxist argument and/or sympathises with the PLO or even Al-Queda and they will disagree with you.
starving Somalis and ethiopians live in the worst type of poverty because they experience the worst type of oppression from dictators and war lords. why arent they strapping explosives to themselves?
Luke90
12-17-2004, 03:19 AM
ask any person who makes the leftwing/marxist argument and/or sympathises with the PLO or even Al-Queda and they will disagree with you.
So when they disagree with me, their opinion is evidence that I'm wrong?
You can't pick and choose when you give them credibility.
starving Somalis and ethiopians live in the worst type of poverty because they experience the worst type of oppression from dictators and war lords. why arent they strapping explosives to themselves?
They probably don't feel they can do anything.
As has been pointed out before, if you oppress a people harshly enough they will lose the ability and the will to fight back.
minusthejihad
12-17-2004, 09:37 AM
They probably don't feel they can do anything.
As has been pointed out before, if you oppress a people harshly enough they will lose the ability and the will to fight back.
Lets not forget the unlike the Somalis and Ethiopians, the Palestinians are funded continuously by most of the Arab World, the EU, the UN, and even the US and Israel. Lets not forget all the smuggling tunnels into Israel from their enemies next door as well. (Luckily one collapsed today trapping 5 terrorists.) Cut off ALL funding and see what people like to do more, eat or kill.
And you certainly do make a good point about why Israel should increase military pressure on Hamas, Fatah, etc. Right now, the US and Israel have most terrorist organizations on the run and/or in hiding. Now is the time to apply pressure, not easy back. Now is NOT the time for peace, but to finish the job.
Luke90
12-17-2004, 01:11 PM
And you certainly do make a good point about why Israel should increase military pressure on Hamas
I assume you know that wasn't what I meant.
if you oppress a people harshly enough they will lose the ability and the will to fight back.
That doesn't justify the oppression.
Now is NOT the time for peace
Well it'd be good, just not very likely.
the US and Israel have most terrorist organizations on the run and/or in hiding.
Terrorist organisations have almost always been in hiding.
minusthejihad
12-17-2004, 03:06 PM
Terrorist organisations have almost always been in hiding.
Really? Is that why Hamas cancelled their first Anniversary Rally in 17 years this year?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1103003259178
Hamas cancels annual Gaza rally
Fearing an Israeli reprisal attack, Hamas has decided to cancel a major rally marking the 17th anniversary of its founding.
The rally was supposed to be held in one of Gaza City's stadiums on Friday, but Hamas decided to postpone it indefinitely out of fear that Israel would target the Islamic movement's leaders in retaliation for Sunday's attack on an IDF outpost near Rafah, in which five soldiers were killed and six others wounded.
"For security reasons, and because of Israeli threats to target Palestinians, Hamas has decided to call off the annual rally," said Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri. "We are aware that the decision will come as bad news to Hamas supporters, who have been looking forward to seeing the Hamas leaders for the first time in more than one year."
Luke90
12-18-2004, 02:53 AM
They come out of the woodwork sometimes but they generally seem to be hidden.
So when they disagree with me, their opinion is evidence that I'm wrong?
You can't pick and choose when you give them credibility.
beats me how you came to that conclusion that I'm picking or chosing amd trying to give them credibility.
I've simply noticed that ppl who support the Arab cause against Israel adopt the poverty & oppression argument.
They probably don't feel they can do anything.
As has been pointed out before, if you oppress a people harshly enough they will lose the ability and the will to fight back.
How about people whose own leaders oppress them through corruption (i.e stealing money that is ment for their well being) whislt brainwashing them to hate and blame all their problems on outsiders?
sound faimiliar?
Luke90
12-18-2004, 03:37 AM
You said:
ask any person who makes the leftwing/marxist argument and/or sympathises with the PLO or even Al-Queda and they will disagree with you.Apparently as evidence that I'm wrong.
I've simply noticed that ppl who support the Arab cause against Israel adopt the poverty & oppression argument.You said that they disagreed with me. That's not quite what I'm saying but it's close.
How about people whose own leaders oppress them through corruption (i.e stealing money that is ment for their well being) whislt brainwashing them to hate and blame all their problems on outsiders?
sound faimiliar?Yes. Your point is?
Apparently as evidence that I'm wrong.
wrong about saying that the poverty and oppression argument are two different things.
How you came to the conclusion that I gave them credibility or picked and chose what they said is beyond me.
Yes. Your point is?
point is - when those supporting the Arab cause say they are oppressed and poor, they tend to point the finger of blame at the wrong directions - subsequently using this to justify their act acts of terror and mass murder.
Luke90
12-18-2004, 05:41 AM
wrong about saying that the poverty and oppression argument are two different things.
I'm not saying that they're two completely separate arguments.
People were challenging what I was saying on the basis that not all poor people become terrorists.
I was saying that people can be poor without being or feeling oppressed.
point is - when those supporting the Arab cause say they are oppressed and poor, they tend to point the finger of blame at the wrong directions - subsequently using this to justify their act acts of terror and mass murder.
I would never try to justify terrorism and mass murder.
However, you can examine the causes without justifying the actions.
Luke,
Different types of statements from people are more or less credible. A discredible person may be considered more credible when they admit something that is not rational for them to admit unless its true (they have no good reason to lie about it.) In particular, Arab terrrorists try, as you see Osama Bin Laden doing, to cloak themselves in rightousness and victimhood. The term "oppression" is key in Islam as a justification for war, particularly against the other Abrahamic religions.
So, it only makes sense to do as most Jihdadist propagandists do, to blame everything on "oppression" of the target to attack. This includes poverty.
When a terrorist makes statements that say "its not because of (x kind of) oppression", that IS MORE CREDIBLE, particularly than any western lefty psychobable.
I was saying that people can be poor without being or feeling oppressed.
ok now you've lost me.
I would never try to justify terrorism and mass murder.
I wasnt refering to you specifically, I was talkin about ppl in general.
However, you can examine the causes without justifying the actions.
if you read my last post you will see that I agree with that. Examine the causes of Arab terror and seeing that the blame does not lie with the Israelis but far from it - would be a start.
Suha living off aid money ment for her ppl in Paris would be a start.
24/7 hate shows on TV, radio and newspapers ment to brainwash the Arab masses - which also include special hate segements/shows for young children is another...
the list just goes on and on...
Luke90
12-20-2004, 04:36 AM
ok now you've lost me
It doesn't seem like a complex idea to me.
People can be poor but still satisfied with their life.
It doesn't seem like a complex idea to me.
People can be poor but still satisfied with their life.
I agree with you - my argument is that today people who argue against Israel and even the US talk about poverty and oppression as if they were the same thing and blame it on these two countries - i.e they are victims of terror attacks because pf the poverty and oppression they force the Arabs to live under
Luke90
12-21-2004, 01:57 AM
Some people may, I don't think I do.
If you think that's my argument I've obviously failed to express it correctly.
Some people may, I don't think I do.
If you think that's my argument I've obviously failed to express it correctly.
If I was refering directly to you - I would have mentioned "you". All I'm saying is people who argue in favor of the Arab cause or anything else that concerns blaming the Jews or the West generally combine the two.
I was the one who failed to express what I originally ment. Sorry
Luke90
12-21-2004, 03:55 AM
Mutual misunderstanding.
Happens easily on a forum.
operatordomo
04-05-2005, 04:39 PM
4 major ways out:
1) Allow for many Jewish casualties in attempt to bolster PA leader. Negotiate so as to give Palestinians a state. Negotiate and hope somehow PA unifies armed forces and halts attacks.
2) disengage, create facts on the ground (wall), support PA leader (Abbas) until threshold of terror is reached (2 suicide attacks from intra Palestinian sources or >40 casualties). Peace process with two states is viable, but only if Palestinians refrain from terror.
Arrest/Assassinate PA leader if fails to happen. If new leader goes for total war, fight said war, deport most of the Palestinians to Gaza (using mines and artillery), develop continuous laser anti-mortar technology to screen off missiles, set deep mines in border area around gaza that totally surround the area such that tunnel operation will be detected and go "boom." If new leader is peaceful correspond as above, assassinate if fails, repeat.
Also purchase many nuclear submarines to prevent any state from using nukes on Israel (MAD option, hydrogen bombs with sufficient radiation to destroy world -- so as to thwart Iran and/or Saudi Arabia)
3) Create holding camps for the Palestinian population and move them en masse into special areas near the Gaza strip. (With option for leaving to Jordan voluntarily within certain timeframe, along with substantial funds). Those resisting (including whole families, etc) are killed by gunfire or bombing. Later negotiations about resettlement into Judea Samaria, perhaps in 50-100 years. Rules of engagement in the war are sufficient to kill civilians as necessary. Journalists are subject to being shot on sight if they are present in military zones.
4) Have the United States military administer the West Bank. Eliminate the PA. Do NOT evict the settlers, but have Israeli forces present there. Joint Israeli/US operations to demilitarize the area and mine the surroundings to prevent infiltration with weapons. Hamas and Al-Aqsa brigades leaders and their families (excluding children) are assassinated systematically (with help of SHABAK and CIA), children sent to 3rd countries for resettlement. Set up elections ala Iraq -- enforce democracy and secular non-Islamic laws. After final peace allow unlimited Palestinians to be guests in Israel (not citizens) and vice versa for settlers. This is my favorite option.
varian
04-05-2005, 09:57 PM
Israel needs to develop a new energy system that can power its own economy as well as its military. Then the world (except the oil enslaved US) will beat a path to Israel's door to get this technology. The world may subsequently blow off the oil plague of the ME along with its punk pagan religion of death.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.1 Copyright © 2013 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.