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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Killing Al Qaeda leaders may not end terror.

Yeah, I know, we all knew that, but I found this poorly written article interesting mainly in that it actually questions US foreign policy orthodoxy. Exceedingly rarely are news stories published questioning US foreign policy tactics as to their effectualness, unless there's the "newshook" of a political angle, a dem criticizing repub or vice versa.

It gives a couple of examples of movements that haven't ended with the death of their leaders, and offers Peru's Shining Path as the only example where it has. Interesting, but I wish they would provide a larger sample, because, of the "movements" listed, Shining Path was the only one possibly primarily financed with outside monies. (drug monies)

That would make sense to me, that "terror" movements of which represent genuine political movements have a greater momentum and thus survivability. For a political version, look at the collapse of the Ukrainian "revolution."

Also, there is an implied criticism of Israel's terror programs. Often in the US the Israeli terror defense is held up as model from which the US should work from, but that seems to ignore one glaring fact. Terrorism in Israel has not been controlled over the years. The Israeli model is based on mitigating terror, not on resolving it's causes.

That's somewhat similar to the argument I made on Friday, that the US is solely interested in mitigating the terrorism of Al Qaeda, not in addressing its root causes and resolving it. It's like a company doctor treating the fever but not the disease because he needs the workers to keep going out into the malarial swamp so that the company can make money.

Or maybe more presently, a mine owner who takes the safety precautions that are affordable, and accepts the risks to the workers beyond that because the profits must go on.

I just found this article interesting in that I read it as somewhat heretical in the current media presentations of the "terror problem." It made me think, and I love that.

ALSO RELATED: Today, the NYTimes has an excellent piece on the failure to limit Al Qaeda along the Pakistan border region with Afghanistan. The region of six million sounds like it's turning into another Taleban run region like Afghanistan was. Lots of frightening and amazing detail. Not gonna blog it cause it's front page and everybody probably saw it, but if you didn't it's essential reading to gain a "state of play" sense of how the war against Al Qaeda/Taleban is really going.

ALSO: Justin Raimondo at Antiwar has a really good thought provoking piece. Two main points of interest to me are: 1. That Iraq has tied down the bulk of US ground forces with only the small addition to the local insurgency of a couple hundred "foreign terrorists." 2. That it is an administration goal to portray Bin Laden as crazy so as to separate him from his criticism of US foreign policy. As is often the case, an interesting look from another angle.

6 Comments:

  • Read "Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy." It's from the Rand Corp., was published pre-9/11, and specifically details why US policy towards al Qiada is doomed to fail because, among other things, the US assumes al Qaida is hierarchical, and thus has a head that can be chopped off.

    But it's not, it's a networked organization. Take out one node, anther one will form.

    This and much more in the book, available free as a PDF
    http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:30 AM  

  • These idiots always miscalculate tactics against people and problems that are not of their severlely limited world view. Take the War on drugs. It's really just a money machine for local governments. There is no victory to be had because it was never so much a law enforcement problem as a socialogical/medical problem. We use the war on drugs to fund our ever growing penal system, and local government through drakonian seizure laws. neither the war on drugs or the war on terror wil ever go away, and they will bankrupt this nation.

    By Blogger Yukkione, at 12:00 PM  

  • Thanks a ton for the link, Bob. It's a greay rainy day here in Houston and I'm looking for stuff to read.

    And, LeftofCenter, I think the war on drugs is an interesting comparison, as it is also a tremendous application of force on the symptoms of the problem. The drug problem in the US comes from a number of factors, and alot of them are social inequality and educational factors. But once again, some of the roots of these are in the core economic system which the US is not about to abandon. Certainly lowering social inequality and raising education wouldn't wipe out drugs, but it would make a big dent in the moderate users and low level trafficking.

    You would get more bang for your buck that way, but it's easier to apply force to the "bad guys" whether it is the effective way or not.

    Because changing the economic philosophy is just as unlikely as changing national defense policy to remove US troops from the middle east.

    Good parallel.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:36 PM  

  • As I keep saying every time they announce they killed or caught the "number 3" guy: There is always going to be a number 3 guy!

    By Blogger seenos, at 3:46 PM  

  • Yeah, I was thinking they ought to demote Bin Laden to no. 3 so they could capture him.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:17 PM  

  • In Viva Zapata!, Zapata says, just before he is ambushed, "A strong leader means a weak people. A strong people need no leaders."

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:53 AM  

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