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Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

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Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#21

Post by throwsincenotpc »

It absolutely did work in the case of 9/11. It forced Muslims to take sides, that's why Muslims follow their religion in a stricter fashion today,especially in the west, in time of war there can be no moderation and Muslims feel they are at war against non Muslims,whether they admit it or not.

And it had an effect of humiliating USA in front of the whole world, but one has to be a non US citizen to understand that fact. Suddenly USA stopped being that all powerful nation, suddenly US looked like it could be beaten. It sent a strong message to all the people and groups that despise USA around the world.

Bin Laden absolutely won this battle, he lost however his battle against the Saudis as he thought 9/11 would provoke a revolution in his own country. That never happened.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#22

Post by BBlarat »

bjourne wrote: post #19
nailer wrote: post #15

> the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims Yes. So tired of this word being used to describe attacks on soldiers. It might be bad (depending on what side you're on), but it's certainly not terrorism.

Modern warfare makes the distinction tricky. Suppose you have a person sitting in a computer center in California controlling drones dropping bombs in Afghanistan. Is he a civilian or soldier? If not, does he become one when he goes home from his shift for the day? What about all the computer programmers writing drone software making his job possible?

Writing drone software = workers in a munitions factory? Valid military targets, at least to me. Same with the drone operator, which afaik is usually in the military, with military training.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#23

Post by pferde »

bjourne wrote: post #19
nailer wrote: post #15

> the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims Yes. So tired of this word being used to describe attacks on soldiers. It might be bad (depending on what side you're on), but it's certainly not terrorism.

Modern warfare makes the distinction tricky. Suppose you have a person sitting in a computer center in California controlling drones dropping bombs in Afghanistan. Is he a civilian or soldier? If not, does he become one when he goes home from his shift for the day? What about all the computer programmers writing drone software making his job possible?

Is a gun manufacturer or designer a soldier? He makes rifleman's job possible.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#24

Post by lr4444lr »

nailer wrote: post #15

> the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims Yes. So tired of this word being used to describe attacks on soldiers. It might be bad (depending on what side you're on), but it's certainly not terrorism.

"...by non-state actors." Otherwise, it's a war crime. I can't understand why so few make that distinction.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#25

Post by namdnay »

ejlo wrote: post #13

He seems to have completely missed the reason for 9/11, which is not strange since it was not until the 2004 speech ( http://worldpress.org/Americas/1964.cfm ) that bin Laden explained the reason for the attacks, namely "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy". In this light it must be regarded as a great success, not a failure, especially since the self bleeding politics continued without much opposition long a…

It seems likely that this was a post hoc justification by Bin Laden.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#26

Post by dilemma »

endisukaj wrote: post #18
crdoconnor wrote: post #14

"The most workable definition of terrorism that has been published is 'the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims'" So, the US bombing of TV stations in Yugoslavia or Al Jazeera in Baghdad would definitely qualify.

You can argue that TV stations are no longer civilian targets if the information they are broadcasting is being used by the military.

Weddings and schools are definitely civilian targets.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#27

Post by namdnay »

crdoconnor wrote: post #14

"The most workable definition of terrorism that has been published is 'the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims'" So, the US bombing of TV stations in Yugoslavia or Al Jazeera in Baghdad would definitely qualify.

As far as Yugoslavia is concerned, it was NATO, not the US directly. The ECHR judged that the bombing was justified, going so far as to imprison the head of the TV station for deliberately exposing civilian employees.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#28

Post by skrebbel »

Modern-day terrorism is a recruitment scheme. Any attack has the effect of increasing hostilities between groups. Imagine being a teenager with an identity crisis who happens to be part of a minority that the less intelligent half of your home country hates and despises. What group are you most likely to join? And what caused said hate and despise to grow? Right, terrorism.

More generally put: Virtually any organization has as its own survival as a high priority goal. Organizations on the extreme ends of ideology, any ideology anywhere, will benefit from increased hostilities in a population. It pushes more people to the fringes.

Terrorism is a time-honoured way to increase hostilities. The moderates lose, the the extreme ends on all sides win (whether you're Trump or ISIS).

Look at recent history and see how well it worked. American bombs on funerals, ISIS bombs on French crowds, it's all terrorism and it works wonders to keep the perpetrators powerful.

When Anders Breivik killed an island full of people, then-prime minister of Norway responded to like this:

"The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation"

This is the correct response to terrorism and we need a lot more of it. Once you see terrorism for what it is, a recruiting scheme, then it is obvious that "powerful language", "bias to action" and all that shit that politicians usually do, is very counter-effective.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#29

Post by throwsincenotpc »

cup wrote: post #2

This assumes that these groups believe their actions will lead to a direct outcome. What if these groups are acting in order to force their adversary to change via dealing with less violent but equally reactionary forces. For instance would the Irish people have their independence from the UK if there was no IRA? If there was no violence why would the UK give them something they;re not willing to take, especially whe…

> This assumes that these groups believe their actions will lead to a direct outcome.

Daesh believes the ends of times are coming and the final battle against "evil" is near so they are just doing Allah's bidding, they believe nothing has changed since the 8th century and they are fighting "the armies of Rome". Do you really think it is rational thinking ? do you really think their can be some kind of political solution in that case ? Daesh is forcing no change upon the enemy, they want to exterminate them like Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jews.

Re: Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf]

#30

Post by madshiva »

DominikR wrote: post #17

Well I disagree, it did work amazingly well for almost a thousand years when Muslim pirates and raiders constantly attacked ships and cities in the Mediterranean sea which effectively suppressed most sea based trade and economic development in Europe for a very long time. There were even cases where English and Irish cities were plundered and all inhabitants forcefully taken as slaves. People from this culture always…

There was not only Muslim pirates, there was a lot of people from different too. Should we continue to blame Vikings? fore these action? Or can we just live the present? I agree that figthing terrorism only increase more violance. We need to find a way to teach only present and not past, for stopping the wheel of deadlock.
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