ZOMBIE FORUMS

It's a stinking, shambling corpse grotesquely parodying life.
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 12:32 pm

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]




Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 14 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: Terrorists, Please take out a #2 Pencil...
PostPosted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:21 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 4330
Location: The Murky depths of Northern Virginia
and have a seat. After much study and work, the time has come for your final exam. I hope you have enjoyed Terrorism 101 as much I have enjoyed teaching it. Depending on your performance in this exam, you will either become cannon fodder or you will get the opportunity to pass through our upper ranks. Good luck!

Terrorist Strategy 101: a quiz
by Pericles

Instructions. For Questions 1 and 2, assume you are a violent extremist. In other words, there is some issue (it doesn't really matter what) for which you are willing to take up arms and kill people, even innocent people.

Question 1: What is the first and biggest obstacle between you and victory?

If you answered "People on the other side of my issue," go sit in the corner. That answer is completely wrong. If you assume terrorists think that way, everything they do will seem like total insanity.

The first and biggest obstacle to your victory is that the vast majority of the people who sympathize with your issue are not violent extremists. They may agree with you in principle. They may even sound like violent extremists late at night over their beverage of choice. But when the hammer comes down, they won't be there. There are weeds in the garden and final exams coming up and deadlines at the office. Good luck with that car bombing. Call me next time, maybe things will have settled down by then.

Most people, most of the time, just want to get along. They'll accept a little inconvenience, ignore a few insults, and smile at people they hate if it allows them to get on with their lives. Most people on both sides of your issue just wish the issue would go away. If you're not careful, those apathetic majorities will get together and craft a compromise. And where's your revolution then?

So your first goal as a violent extremist is not to kill your enemies, but to radicalize the apathetic majority on your side of the issue. If everyone becomes a violent extremist, then you (as one of the early violent extremists) are a leader of consequence. Conversely, if a reasonable compromise is worked out, you are a nuisance.

Question 2: In radicalizing your sympathizers, who is your best ally?

No points awarded for "the media" or "sympathetic foreign governments". In radicalizing your apathetic sympathizers, you have no better ally than the violent extremists on the other side . Only they can convince your people that compromise is impossible. Only they can raise your countrymen's level of fear and despair to the point that large numbers are willing to take up arms and follow your lead. A few blown up apartment buildings and dead schoolchildren will get you more recruits than the best revolutionary tracts ever written.

Perversely, this means that you are the best ally of the extremists on the other side. That doesn't mean you love or even talk to each other -- they are, after all, vile and despicable demons. But at this stage in the process your interests align. Both of you want to invert the bell curve, to flatten out that big hump in the middle and drive people to the edges. That's why extremists come in pairs: Caesar and Pompey, the Nazis and the Communists, Sharon and Arafat, Bush and Bin Laden. Each side needs a demonic opposite in order to galvanize its supporters.

Naive observers frequently decry the apparent counter-productivity of extremist attacks. Don't the leaders of Hamas understand that every suicide bombing makes the Israelis that much more determined not to give the Palestinians a state? Don't they realize that the Israeli government will strike back even harder, and inflict even more suffering on the Palestinian people? Of course they do; they're not idiots. The Israeli response is exactly what they're counting on. More airstrikes, more repression, more poverty -- fewer opportunities for normal life to get in the way of the Great Struggle.

The cycle of violence may be vicious, but it is not pointless. Each round of strike-and-counterstrike makes the political center less tenable. The surviving radical leaders on each side energize their respective bases and cement their respective holds on power. The first round of the playoffs is always the two extremes against the center. Only after the center is vanquished will you meet your radical counterparts in the championship round.

Question 3: What is Bin Laden's ultimate goal?

This is an easy one. Bin Laden has been very explicit: He wants a return of the Caliphate. In other words, he wants a re-unified Islamic nation stretching from Indonesia to Morocco, governed by leaders faithful to the Koran.

This goal is quite popular in the Islamic world. The Muslim man-in-the-street knows his history: When the Dar al-Islam was unified, it was the most feared empire in the world. Baghdad, the home of the Caliph, was the center of civilization, leading the world in learning and artistry as well as power. (Europe may well have lost its classical heritage if Muslim libraries hadn't preserved Greek manuscripts through the Dark Ages. Just about any English word beginning with al refers to an Islamic invention: algebra, algorithm, alchemy, and even alcohol -- which was an Arabian process for distilling perfumes long before the West started using it to make hard liquor). Who wouldn't want that back?

Well, for starters, the current rulers of the two dozen or so nations of the Dar al-Islam wouldn't want the Caliphate back. They've got a cushy deal and they know it: They run a very profitable gas station for the West. Keep the people in check, keep the price of oil low enough not to wreck the Western economies, don't piss off the United States badly enough to bring the troops in, and they're set.

These leaders are Bin Laden's near enemies. (That list of near enemies included Saddam Hussein when he was in power.) The far enemy is the power that backs them all up: the United States. (You may look askance at the assertion that the US was backing up Saddam's Iraq. But Saddam became our enemy only when he began to unite other nations (i.e., Kuwait) under his rule. In the Reagan years, when Iran was threatening to extend its boundaries at Iraq's expense, Saddam was our friend.)

Question 4: What is Bin Laden's immediate goal?

If you've been paying attention, you should get this one right: His immediate goal is to radicalize the hundreds of millions of Muslims who sympathize with the vision of a restored Caliphate, but have better things to do with their lives than join the jihad. A particular problem for Bin Laden are all the Muslims who think that they can find an acceptable place for themselves in a world order dominated by the United States.

I won't insult your intelligence by asking you who his best allies are in reaching this goal: President Bush, obviously, and all of the neo-conservatives in the Pentagon who push for the most aggressive response to the terrorist threat. Also the Christian leaders like Franklin (son of Billy) Graham, who regularly denounce Islam in terms that look fabulous on Al Qaeda's equivalent of the locker-room bulletin board. John Ashcroft -- and anyone else who mistreats assimilating Arabs and thereby convinces them that they will never really be welcome in America -- is also an ally.

It doesn't matter how much they hate him or denounce his deeds; anyone who radicalizes Muslims is doing Bin Laden's work for him. President Bush may as well have been reading from an Al Qaeda script when he referred to the War on Terror as a "crusade". Muslims know their history and know exactly what a crusade is: Christians invade and steal your land. People who didn't believe this when they heard it from Bin Laden have now heard it from the Crusader-in-Chief.

Question 5: What was the purpose of 9/11?

No points for "To intimidate the United States into retreating from the Middle East." If the US had immediately decided to wash its hands of the Middle East, a variety of secular gangsters like Mubarak and Musharraf and Hussein would have started fighting it out amongst themselves. The odds were small that an Allah-fearing Caliph would arise from such a struggle. Whether the eventual outcome would have been good or bad for the United States is debatable, but it would have been terrible for Bin Laden.

Like all attacks in the bell-curve-inverting stage, the purpose of 9/11 was to provoke a military response. Prior to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, most Muslims had never seen a direct victim of the United States. Many have claimed that the Israelis are really American proxies, and so the Palestinians are victims of America. (Some have gone so far as to claim that the Serbians were American proxies, but that was always far-fetched.) Proxies, however, can never compete with real live American soldiers. And despite the occasional bombing of Lebanon or Syria or even Iraq, it is hard to paint the Israelis as anything more than a regional threat. Pakistanis and Indonesians may sympathize with the Palestinians in a distant sort of way, but they can't raise a credible fear of Jewish tanks rolling down the streets of Islamabad or Jakarta.

Now, thanks to President Bush and the magic of al-Jazeera, every Muslim with working eyesight has seen Muslim women and children killed or horribly disfigured by Americans. And Americans are everywhere; any one of them might be working for the CIA. American troops and ships and aircraft have a global reach. No matter where in the Dar al-Islam you may be, you could be under American attack in a matter of hours. Those screaming people on TV could be you and your family.

Question 6: What was the point of the Madrid bombing?

Trick question. The point of the Madrid bombing was exactly as it appeared: to intimidate the Spanish into taking their troops out of Iraq. And, by extension, to intimidate all the other members of Bush's coalition.

Bin Laden wants to fight Americans, because America scares his sympathizers and energizes his base. But Spaniards and Poles and Salvadorans just confuse the issue. Also, an allied presence
diminishes American expense and American casualties, both of which are key to Bin Laden's strategy.

Question 7: What is Bin Laden's long-term strategy to defeat the United States?

Some people find it hard to believe that Bin Laden can even imagine that he will defeat the United States, much less that he has a plan to do so. But he believes in miracles, and he began his military career by participating in the defeat of the once-mighty Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has been very clear about his strategy, which depends on the same principles that won the Soviet/Afghan War. In his taped message of October, 2004 he said (according to an al-Jazeera translation):

All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

In other words, he wants to draw the well paid, lavishly supplied American soldiers into wars on his territory, where he can fight cheaply. The more American troops he can attract, the more expensive the war will be, until even the economy of the United States can no longer support it.

This idea is not new. Abu-Ubayd al-Qurashi wrote in Al-Ansar in December 2002 that Al Qaeda would imitate the Vietnamese strategy of attacking the "center of gravity" of the United States. Then, the center of gravity was American popular opinion, so the real Vietnam War was fought on television. But things have changed:

A conviction has formed among the mujahedin that American public opinion is not the center of gravity in America. ... This time it is clearly apparent that the American economy is the American center of gravity. ... Supporting this penetrating strategic view is that the Disunited States of America are a mixture of nationalities, ethnic groups, and races united only by the "American Dream" or, to put it more correctly, the worship of the dollar, which they openly call "the Almighty Dollar."

Currently, the Iraq and Afghan Wars together are costing the US something like $60-80 billion a year. That's a nasty load and is one reason why our national debt is sky-rocketing, but it is still within the long-term carrying capacity of the American economy. However, this level of effort is not getting the job done in either country. More American troops and American money will ultimately be needed, particularly if Bin Laden can continue to strip away our allies. If he really wants to destroy the American economy, though, Bin Laden must widen the war into additional Middle Eastern countries.

Question 8. Why didn't Al Qaeda attack the United States before the election?

On the evening before the election, I was on a street corner waving a Kerry sign. The next guy over was waving a Bush sign. He put forward the following case: Of course Bin Laden wanted to intimidate us into leaving Iraq, of course he wanted Kerry elected, and of course he would have attacked us prior to the election if he could, but President Bush has so improved our homeland defenses and so wounded al Qaeda that Bin Laden no longer has the ability to launch a major attack inside the United States.

Let's put aside for the moment the thought that Timothy McVeigh was no genius, so you and I could probably launch a major terrorist attack in the US if we were so inclined and sufficiently determined. The sign-waver's logic fails to account for Bin Laden's goals and strategy: While Bin Laden wanted Spain to leave Iraq, he wants us to stay in. He's counting on it. Moreover, President Bush is so hated in the Islamic world that he makes a perfect foil. A Kerry victory would have required a major new propaganda effort -- and maybe another terrorist attack that Kerry would have to respond to.

So President Bush is keeping us safe in the following perverse manner: By following Bin Laden's script so perfectly up to this point, Bush has made another attack unnecessary. Since the purpose of 9/11 was to rile us up, Al Qaeda need not hit us again as long as we stay riled.

Question 9. What can we expect Bin Laden to do next?

As the Iraq War drags on, it is becoming less and less popular. The Afghan War is mostly out of the public view, but to the extent that it also drains American lives and money with no end in sight, it also is losing support among those who are paying attention. The memory of 9/11 is starting to fade, as years without an attack convince more and more Americans that we are safe.

All of these factors threaten Bin Laden's plans. If President Bush is tempted into pulling our troops and TV cameras out of Iraq, Bin Laden loses. He needs the United States to continue playing the Great Satan role, because there are many secular Muslims who still hope to fit into the globalized world economy. He needs an enemy to focus their fear and anger, and only the United States is up to the job.

What's more, if he is going to bankrupt the US economy, he needs a wider war. At this point the US military is stretched thin, so a wider war would require a draft or some other unpopular measure for swelling the ranks. The American public would have to be very, very riled to agree to such a thing.

All of this points in one direction: Another attack on the United States, probably within the next year. Ideally, the trail would lead back to some area where the US doesn't currently have troops, and where there is an attackable enemy. Iran is an obvious choice, if Bin Laden can engineer it. But Syria would work as well, and may be easier to manipulate. Egypt, Pakistan, and/or Saudi Arabia could fill the bill if the attack on the US were coupled with a revolution against the corresponding US-supported government. So, for example, an attack on the US coming from Pakistan could be synchronized with the assassination of President Musharraf to draw American troops into that country.

Where will he attack? The target needs to fulfill two criteria: First, it needs to be justifiable to an Islamic audience. Bin Laden's pre-election message was probably aimed at them rather than us, and was intended to pre-justify the next attack. From an Islamic point of view, Bin Laden has now pleaded with the American electorate to be reasonable, and has been rejected. Any attack that follows will seem all the more justified. Second, the next attack needs to empower Bin Laden's most aggressive enemies in the United States. He wants us to continue striking first and asking questions later.

It is probably hopeless to try to read Bin Laden's mind in enough detail to guess his exact target. (And there is always the worry that we will do his thinking for him or point out something he has overlooked.) Undoubtedly much will depend on the opportunities that most easily present themselves. But one class of targets seems all too obvious: red-state megachurches whose leaders have made virulently anti-Islamic statements. They are relatively undefended. They are the heart of Bush's political power base, and so can be blamed for his policies. They can easily be portrayed as enemies of Islam. And, last but not least, an attack on a church would rile American hawks like nothing else.

Question 10. What can we do?

Obviously, if we have good intelligence and good police work, we can hope to catch attackers before they kill anyone. But this approach is unsatisfying, because Al Qaeda is patient, and will keep sending attackers until one gets through. To the extent that we are able to track down Al Qaeda's leaders, including Bin Laden himself, that also works in our favor. But Al Qaeda is a movement, not the work of one man or even a small inner circle. Its ideas and strategies are widely distributed. If Bin Laden's sword falls, someone will pick it up.

To a certain extent, the logic of reprisal is irresistible. Who can sit quietly while someone repeatedly hits his face, even if he knows the attacker only wants him to strike back? Ignoring one blow just invites the next. America is not a land of Quakers and Mennonites. If attacked, it is inevitable that we will respond.

However, we need not respond with overwhelming force that kills the innocent and guilty alike. It is important that we husband and cultivate the moral capital that an attack will give us, not spend it all (and then some) in an over-reaching reprisal. This was the mistake Bush made in Iraq. The world was on our side -- yes, even France -- when we brought down the Taliban. If we had captured Bin Laden in Tora Bora and declared ourselves satisfied, we could have gained stature, even in much of the Islamic world.

We need to realize that we play to the same audience as Bin Laden: those Muslims trying to choose between the twin dreams of the Caliphate and of finding their own place in the world economy. Anything that persuades them that the world is open to them works in our favor. Anything that closes the door on them works for Bin Laden.

Most of all, we Americans need to keep a leash on our own radicals. They are not working in our interests any more than Bin Laden is working in the interests of ordinary Muslims. The extremists on both sides serve each other, not the people they claim to represent. The cycle of attack-and-reprisal strengthens radicals on both both sides at the expense of those in the middle who just want to live their lives.

In the face of the next attack, be slow to embrace radical, violent, or angry solutions. The center must hold.

_________________
BDM was here


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Terrorists, Please take out a #2 Pencil...
PostPosted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 11:12 am 
Offline
PostWhorePornStar
User avatar

Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2003 2:17 pm
Posts: 5983
Location: Around about there.
BDM05 wrote:
Terrorist Strategy 101: a quiz
by Pericles

Care to tell us where you found this and who "Pericles" is? Cos there's definitely plenty of dodginess in it.

I might pick it apart tomorrow, if I have the time. The idea that muslims wanted a restored caliphate amused me. Sort of right, but also wrong. I'd love to see how an inverted bell curve would work, because from what I recall it'd be impossible (but that's just arguing semantics). Heh, US involvement in the Mid-East, they've been hated by assorted groups in immediately after WWII, just look at the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, or Egypt with regards the nationalisation of the Suez Canal and the building of the Aswan Dam (tho that was more cos the US was sulky about Nasser buying Soviet arms from the Czechs than cos they hated the US), or changes in OPEC's oil prices based on Arab-Israeli conflicts and US support for Israel (I admit that might be tenuous at best. They definitely tried to slap oil embargos on Israel tho). Oh yeah, churches... That reminds me of something else, later tho.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 7:46 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 4330
Location: The Murky depths of Northern Virginia
Origionally from here

(yes, a pretty left-leaning site, but good)

I just wanted to see what those around here would say about it.

_________________
BDM was here


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Terrorists, Please take out a #2 Pencil...
PostPosted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 1:27 pm 
Offline
Expatriate

Joined: Sat May 22, 2004 5:29 am
Posts: 96
Location: London, England
Don't have time to respond to it all now but one small(er) point:

The suggestion that Bin Laden wants us to stay in Iraq . There are two major problems with this theory; firstly I doubt Bin Laden is that calculating, he is a fanatic and even if American occupation of Iraq is to his advantage long-term, his mindset would probably forbid him from accepting occupation of Muslim territory- fanatics are not known for an ability to look at the bigger picture.

Still, even if we take a more cynical view of Bin Laden and attribute him with more political goals, there is another problem, which is the suggestion that the occupation of Iraq is good for him: I would contest that this is the exact opposite of the truth.

It is true that the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan provokes resentment among many Muslims in the Middle East, but this effect is far outweighed by Iraq's symbolic value. Whether or not it was important to the War on Terror, it is the central battlegground now and to pull out would be to admit defeat, the message it would send out would be disastrous. Iraq is a proving ground for the Bush administration's plans for the Middle East; its progress toward democracy will prove that Islam and democracy are not incompatable (of course, we already know that but that's what its being heralded as). If a stable, democratic, humane Iraq emerges it will be a huge blow to Bin Laden's argument, and hopefully act as a beacon for democracy and Western values to the region.

On the other hand, if America pulls out, it is unlikely the new Goverment can survive; if it does not, then it will be a triumphant victory for Al-qaeda and presented as such. America will be seen to have lost, the fundamentalists will have succeded in a stupendously monumental victory, and it will be cited as further proof of an irreconcilable gulf between Western and Middle-Eastern values. Also America will be seen as a destructive force, leaving Iraq in anarchy and ruins.

And that's ignoring the possibility of a fundamentalist regime seizing power, which would be a very literal victory for Al-qaeda- a starting point for the Caliphate?

A victory in Iraq for Al-qaeda would be of *far* more benifit, than the recruiting tool the occupation represents.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 2:52 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:44 pm
Posts: 1821
Location: Home! Wheeeeee!
Your arguement assumes that continued US presence in Iraq will lead to a US victory in Iraq. In the much more likely scenario of Iraq becoming another Kosovo, presenting a long term drain on US forces with no appreciable improvement and the promise of reverting to a worse situation thatn ever if we leave, keeping the US in Iraq is at least as good for Bin-Laden. He probably knows he can't win, but all he really needs to do is not lose.

The moment US troops landed in Iraq, we committed ourselves to the creation of a democratic Iraqi state capable of standing on its own without constant US support. Anything else is a loss, or can be spun to look like a loss. Kerry couldn't have pulled US troops out any more than Bush can, any more than either of them could end NATO occupation of Bosnia and Kosovo. The problem in each case is that anything less than complete victory is a loss.

_________________
Image


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Terrorists, Please take out a #2 Pencil...
PostPosted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 3:01 pm 
Offline
Native
User avatar

Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 918
Location: Elsewhere
leopardmessiah wrote:
The suggestion that Bin Laden wants us to stay in Iraq . There are two major problems with this theory; firstly I doubt Bin Laden is that calculating, he is a fanatic and even if American occupation of Iraq is to his advantage long-term, his mindset would probably forbid him from accepting occupation of Muslim territory- fanatics are not known for an ability to look at the bigger picture.

Bin Laden wrote:
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.


Bin Laden disagrees.

Quote:
Still, even if we take a more cynical view of Bin Laden and attribute him with more political goals, there is another problem, which is the suggestion that the occupation of Iraq is good for him: I would contest that this is the exact opposite of the truth.

Duelfer reports says we didn't hurt him. And this report says we've only upped recruitment.

Quote:
If a stable, democratic, humane Iraq emerges it will be a huge blow to Bin Laden's argument, and hopefully act as a beacon for democracy and Western values to the region.

But that doesn't really make all that much sense. We already did the democratic state in the region thing with Afghanistan and that hasn't really changed much. Iraq wasn't even run by crazy Islamists. How would Iraq have any sort of wide-reaching effect in the region after all the resentment it incited?

Quote:
A victory in Iraq for Al-qaeda would be of *far* more benifit, than the recruiting tool the occupation represents.

But that's the problem. It essentially became a win-win for Al Qaeda, only differing in degrees, while hurting our position in the region.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 3:06 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 6:10 pm
Posts: 2571
Emy wrote:
The moment US troops landed in Iraq, we committed ourselves to the creation of a democratic Iraqi state capable of standing on its own without constant US support. Anything else is a loss, or can be spun to look like a loss. Kerry couldn't have pulled US troops out any more than Bush can, any more than either of them could end NATO occupation of Bosnia and Kosovo. The problem in each case is that anything less than complete victory is a loss.


The only problem with Bush is that his foreign policy is pretty crap. I was hoping that Kerry would be able to win over more support in the UN, so that there would be more troops and new ideas that may prove more effective than what Bush has been doing to deal with the situation. Because, maybe with that extra help, we would acheive victory sooner, so we could pull out earlier.

This is all that I've gathered from the old election days. Am I completely off? (I could very well be very wrong in this)

_________________
-DNI ~ by Ezelek
I have earned the title of Pedant.

Image


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 3:41 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:44 pm
Posts: 1821
Location: Home! Wheeeeee!
Kali_Ava wrote:
Emy wrote:
The moment US troops landed in Iraq, we committed ourselves to the creation of a democratic Iraqi state capable of standing on its own without constant US support. Anything else is a loss, or can be spun to look like a loss. Kerry couldn't have pulled US troops out any more than Bush can, any more than either of them could end NATO occupation of Bosnia and Kosovo. The problem in each case is that anything less than complete victory is a loss.


The only problem with Bush is that his foreign policy is pretty crap. I was hoping that Kerry would be able to win over more support in the UN, so that there would be more troops and new ideas that may prove more effective than what Bush has been doing to deal with the situation. Because, maybe with that extra help, we would acheive victory sooner, so we could pull out earlier.

This is all that I've gathered from the old election days. Am I completely off? (I could very well be very wrong in this)
Background:Clinton convinced NATO and the UN to send troops to Kosovo in '99 to interfere in a civil war on behalf of a group of separatists terrorists whose desired goal is the creation of an ethnic state formed from (previously) ethnically mixed portions of 4 sovereign nations. In the 5 years since this invasion, The province of Kosovo has gone from ~60% Albanian, 30% Serb, 10% other, to ~92% Albanian, 5% Serb, 3% other. In addition, terrorist groups associated with the "protagonists" of the '98-'99 serbian civil war have made attacks against Serbian and Macedonian government buildings and civilians in these countries.

Now: "The Kosovo Issue" is no closer to resolution than it was in 1999, despite the involvement of the UN and NATO. In addition, Bosnia, where UN troops have been involved in Peacekeeping operations since 1991, is requesting that the US not remove its troops as initially planned. The EU, on the other hand, is urging the US to leave it to them...

_________________
Image


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Terrorists, Please take out a #2 Pencil...
PostPosted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 8:40 pm 
Offline
PostWhorePornStar
User avatar

Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2003 2:17 pm
Posts: 5983
Location: Around about there.
leopardmessiah wrote:
Iraq is a proving ground for the Bush administration's plans for the Middle East; its progress toward democracy will prove that Islam and democracy are not incompatable (of course, we already know that but that's what its being heralded as).

Heh, except that forgets to mention that Turkey had military coups in 1960, 1971,1980 and that things were nervous around 1990 and 2000. Plus Turkey is a far more secular state than any of the other Islamic nations of the region. Furthermore, read up on the early Islamic society under Muhammad and the four successor Caliphs. From what I recall things were run quite democratically in that period and those four Caliphs (the Rashidun, if you're interested) were all elected to head the Islamic community.

Quote:
And that's ignoring the possibility of a fundamentalist regime seizing power, which would be a very literal victory for Al-qaeda- a starting point for the Caliphate?

They don't want the return of the Caliphate itself, they want a return of society as it was embodied under the Caliphate, specifically under the Rashidun. The Caliphate itself could not literally be restored, the Turks wouldn't care, the Shi'ites wouldn't accept a Sunni caliph, the Sunni wouldn't accept a Shi'ite caliph and the chances of restoring the entire region to one single nation died in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein pissed on the corpse of pan-Arab unity.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 1:42 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon May 06, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 1967
Location: All curled up in a Calabi-Yau space
This caught my eye as I was trying to thread my way around all the political topics...

Emy wrote:
Background:Clinton convinced NATO and the UN to send troops to Kosovo in '99 to interfere in a civil war on behalf of a group of separatists terrorists whose desired goal is the creation of an ethnic state formed from (previously) ethnically mixed portions of 4 sovereign nations.

Back in high school I did a report on the Kosovo conflict (we had to pick a current event, and it was in full swing at the time), and came to the conclusion that it wasn't our war, we shouldn't have gone in, and in particular that NATO had no business conducting an offensive operation that wasn't in aid of a member state. It also seemed that neither the Serbs or the Albanians really had the ethical high ground, and we could have just as easily gone in on Milosevic's side except that he didn't want to play ball and the KLA did.
As I recall, the main thing that irked me was that NATO's motivations for intervening were purely strategic, not humanitarian as was usually claimed. (They just wanted the area stabilized as far as I could tell, civilian disruption be damned.)

I that a fair assessment? I'm just curious, as I tried to do a decent job of looking into it, but it was just for a grade and I ended up writing it pretty quick...


It's also how I found out there are a lot of (admittedly, overly alarmist) global-activist-types becoming increasingly worried about US interventionism. And this was during Clinton's presidency. I doubt they're any happier with Bush ^^.

_________________
Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.
- Robert Anton Wilson


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 1:04 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:44 pm
Posts: 1821
Location: Home! Wheeeeee!
WI wrote:
As I recall, the main thing that irked me was that NATO's motivations for intervening were purely strategic, not humanitarian as was usually claimed. (They just wanted the area stabilized as far as I could tell, civilian disruption be damned.)
That's about right. As i remember, the idea was stated as "The political instability in the Balkan Peninsula has been, historically, a cause of destabilization in the goverments and economies of Western Europe."

Specifically, Federal Republic of Macedonia (that is to say, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, rather than the Greek province of Macedonia) where the US was involved in peacekeeping missions (Operation Able Sentry) complained in the UN and petitioned NATO because the number of Albanian refugees was more than they could handle, particularly because they already had problems with the Albanian citizenry<sup>1</sup>.

<sup>1</sup>Google Macedonia Albanian Uprising 2001, or Macedonia Decentrilization Referendum 2001

_________________
Image


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Terrorists, Please take out a #2 Pencil...
PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 8:57 am 
Offline
n00b

Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 8:32 am
Posts: 8
leopardmessiah wrote:
Don't have time to respond to it all now but one small(er) point:

The suggestion that Bin Laden wants us to stay in Iraq . There are two major problems with this theory; firstly I doubt Bin Laden is that calculating, he is a fanatic and even if American occupation of Iraq is to his advantage long-term, his mindset would probably forbid him from accepting occupation of Muslim territory- fanatics are not known for an ability to look at the bigger picture.


I'm not an expert on Muslims, but I have heard a thing or two from interviews on radio and TV with counter-terrorism experts that work on them. One of them said the greatest misunderstanding the American public is to dismiss them as fanatics and therefore unreasoning. The person's job is to analyze translations of terrorist websites, and in fact, these fanatic Muslims include doctors, lawyers, engineers, even people with educations from the US.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2004 3:29 am 
Offline
Native
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 13, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 676
Location: Minneapolis, MN
I think this has more than just modern day applications too. Parts of it are relevant in a historical and general way.

_________________
And thus, Grey wins. He's creating worthless drama in a totally unrelated thread even after he's been banned. - Emy

We're not mad. We're just argumentative. And we live in a state of fluctuating contempt for everything. - onion, when talking about herself and shoonra, actually describes the whole of kyhm forums.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:43 pm 
Offline
Expatriate
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:52 pm
Posts: 79
I know I'm bringing back a dead thread but...

Iraq is swelling Bin Laden's numbers, he can't ignore that fact. Also on a pure military standpoint he is doing a fine job; with the fewest amount of people doing a good amount of damage, and even though, yeah, those operatives can't be used again, there will always be others to stand in later. One of the issues that needs to be resolved is teaching children to hate others just for who they are on the surface. The Spy Museum is running an exhibit right now about effects of teaching children to hate. One of the pieces is a Klu Klux Clan robe for a 4 year old. Bin Laden is a military leader and yeah, the US has the upper hand and always will: superior numbers, better equipment, and research capabilities. He's got the shadows, they can blend in disappear, strike and pull back quickly, hit and run tactics.

Now, after Syria is pulling out of its neighbor, it is reported that the people are loving the United States, open support for the U.S. that has to be a blow for Bin Laden's momentum as well. Also, now that elections have happened in Iraq, which his organisation vowed never to have happen, that's got to be a blow to.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 14 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group