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Samizdata quotes of the day Terrorism is an extreme form of political communication. You want to be sure that, in your response, you don’t end up amplifying the messages that terrorists are trying to convey.
and,
We just have to live with risk. We can’t be completely secure, and we will never be completely secure.
Not some supercilious liberal flâneur and dilletante security-skeptic – such as yours truly – but Sir Richard Dearlove, formerly C, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
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We just have to live with risk. We can’t be completely secure, and we will never be completely secure.
Sure. Now can we just kill the sons of bitches? It’s not all that complicated. Really.
Dearlove is suffering under the usual confusion that “fear” is what motivates American antiterrorism. What’s really the motivating emotion is a sense of honor. Most of those in favor of shit kicking overseas do so because they think the fuckers deserve it, not because it will make us “safer.
I agree with Dylan and Chuck. These bastards deserve hounding to the ends of the Earth and all the fury that the civilised world can muster must be laid upon them. Just like it (possibly) was with that Chechen turd (although perhaps it’s fitting that he was hoist with his own petard). I’ve just read the Bloomberg coverage of the Bombay bombings and that provides another 137 (at least) reasons for a serious global fight against these Islamist scumbags.
Yes, I know it is not yet “officially” the case that this was the act of Islamicists but who do you suspect?
Living with risk is one thing: judging how much one is prepared to live with is another. Of course there will always be obsessives and nutters, but I worry that comments like this can easily tip over into a form of languid defeatism, a sort of shrugging of the shoulders. That’s not good enough and communicated the wrong way, can convince every wannbe nutjob to try his or her luck.
… can convince every wannbe nutjob to try his or her luck.
Or alternatively that you aren’t sentimental pushovers who can be manipulated by threats. The Arab and American approaches to international politics are such an explosive mixture precisely because they both place such a premium on emotional display and passionate intensity.
Box a fighter; fight a boxer. It is not about “what these bastards deserve,” it is about defending ourselves (and our free society) cost-effectively.
it is about defending ourselves (and our free society) cost-effectively.
Sorta like Sweden, eh? Nothing is quite so cost effective as surrender. But I think you miss the point. One must first think self defense is worth something, then one must use dispassionate calculation to determine the most effective means. Nor is the most effective means always the cheapest and narrowest in scope. Dearlove strikes me as one who thinks terrorism will all go away if treated kindly and its risks counted in the same way as, say, driving. The difference is that traffic accidents are largely just that, accidents. Terrorist incidents are calculated, and experience shows that intimidation that is not resisted leads to more intimidation and demoralizes the people subject to intimidation. Read Frederick Douglass’, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave , to see how this worked to keep slaves in line and the psychological virtues of resistence. Dearlove strikes me as a bean counter out of touch with human realities.
As a corollary to Chuck’s previous post, the difference between automobile *accidents* and terrorism, both of which are “calculable” risks is that terrorism is driven by consious intention to escalate. Or…5 years from now, if we go on status quo with driving standards, we should expect roughly the same fatality rates, adjusted for population, density, blah blah blah. However, 5 years on, the terrorists are adapting and planning even more terror, death, and destruction.
Consider exhibit A, the WTC bombing in 1993 and exhibit B the destruction of the WTC in 2001.
However, that said, I’d like to second Dylan’s well stated comment: “Most of those in favor of shit kicking overseas do so because they think the fuckers deserve it, not because it will make us ‘safer.'”
So if we find the organisers of 7/7 manipulated the Leeds 3 and the Luton 1, are not islamofascist fundamentalist jihadists, not crazy mixed up and confused idle kids ….. but the heirs to Gladio?
Whose butt do we kick ?
If we find that the 21/7 bombers (whose trial has been so curiously delayed – seeing we have them bang to rights) is more a problem of turf wars over qat / dope, then whose butt do we kick ?
I ask purely in the spirit of independent enquiry – for no other explanatiosn provided so far fit the facts available.
It is not about “what these bastards deserve,” it is about defending ourselves (and our free society) cost-effectively.
Sure, but some of the costs and benefits are emotional. Which of these outcomes do you consider superior:
Option A: Terrorists kill 100 people in Target Country per year. Target Country takes only passive defensive measures.
Option B: Target Country, pissed off about those 100 people, strikes back at the sympathetic population, killing 10,000 (terrorists, civilians, supporters in between). As a results, they get more stirred up and terrorists kill 200 people in Target Country.
I propose that most people would prefer Option B. The extra 100 is worth the emotional satisfaction of striking back and hurting them wose. After all, we didn’t start it. From our perspective, anyway.
You know what I think the best way for us to deal with ‘the threat’ is? The man on the street should ignore it. By all means let the state hunt down the perpetrators and prosecute them to the full extent of the law (No new legislation necessary, Murder, Conspiracy, and Accessory to both about covers it.) That is their job after all, their sole purpose if I understand the minimalist opinion of what the state should be for. The moment we allow ‘the threat’ to affect our daily lives then this so-called ‘war’ is lost.
….Oh dear.
It is well to recognize that suicidal murderers cannot be deterred. They have no goal other than dying with maximum damage to those who they see as their enemies, namely us. And you can’t prove to them that you are not their enemy. They get to decide that, by utterly irrational means. This even applies to Saddam and Ahmedinejad and bin Laden. The only way to stop them from doing what they want to do is to kill them with minimum damage to us. Luckily the supply of suicidal murderers is not infinite, though sometimes it may seem so.
Why bother killing them when they’re so keen to do it for us? As you say the supply of suicidal murderers is not infinite. If this is a war then let us all be soldiers, what matter that a few soldiers die in the prosecution of a war? The army marches on. Retaliation via conventional means is fruitless and only serves to increase the supply of suicidal murderers. Let them bomb us, I’m ready to die if need be. I will not actively seek death, but if I happen to be in the blast zone of one of these nutcases then so be it. I’m not going to let them intimidate me into changing my way of life. I do that and they’ve won.
finally getting smart….
Olmert Says Prisoner Exchange With Hamas Would Be ‘Major Mistake’
I’m not going to let them intimidate me into changing my way of life. I do that and they’ve won.
Absolutely. I agree 100%. So let’s kill the sons of bitches because I ain’t going to change my life and turn the other cheek on their account. I do that and they’ve won.
A major issue for me is whether we treat terrorism (or its current mainstream manifestation) as crime or as war.
President Bush seems to think war is the right choice. In this, I think he is guided by the severity of the 9/11 attack, rather than the irrationality of the 9/11 attack.
I am much more for treating terrorism as crime. This is mainly because of it is driven either by irrationality (through its lack of purpose that the enemy, that’s us, can realistically respond to, eg by surrender), or by hate (for which we can find no rational solution through changing out actions). The use of suicide bombers (especially the young) goes quite a long way in convincing me of the lack of rationality.
There is one action of the USA that I can judge as war, and with understandable reason: that is the decision over Afghanistan. There was evidence that they harboured the terrorists responsible for 9/11 and refused to act against them. The very severity of 9/11 was sufficient, in my view, for the invasion.
However, much of the other war-ish action by the West since then strikes me as putting the wrong emphasis on the problem. It’s crime: as serious as it gets, but irrational. Let’s treat it like a bad case of mad axeman, with a good PR agent.
Thus, I do see, and accept, the key point point in Dearlove’s comment.
Best regards
What is the BBC’s definition of terrorism? We know it doesn’t include the actions of the Yorkshiremen responsible for 7/7 or the people who bombed the trains in India today.
This is where we differ chuck. An eye for an eye has never been part of my way of life. The acceptance of violence of any sort requires me to change my way of life. Which as I said I will not do.
Granted that the bombers themselves may be irrational but what of those that send them to their deaths? They are prosecuting their war in the most efficient and cost effective way available to them. They arm their weapons by indoctrinating them with a warped and frankly disgusting world view and then give them a target. If they could afford it I’m sure they would use all the technological marvels that we have for causing death and destruction. I propose that the puppet masters of the terrorists would no sooner walk onto a crowded train and detonate themselves than cut off their own leg. I would be very surprised to learn that they actually believed the tosh they peddle to the young and disillusioned in their influence. It all comes down to power and greed, and the thing about power is that you have to be alive to enjoy it.
This is where we differ chuck. An eye for an eye has never been part of my way of life. The acceptance of violence of any sort requires me to change my way of life. Which as I said I will not do.
Yes, I knew that, which is why I pulled your chain. Your profession of faith leads to the next question: does your stance on police action follow from reasoning about terror, or does it follow from a moral position? If the latter, then it seems to me that your previous arguments are mostly rationalizations parading as investigation.
If terror group A kills 100 people in target country B, and B then kills 10,000 of As sympathizers, sure, the survivors will be annoyed, but the pool of new terrorists is 10,000 smaller.
When dealing with a death cult, there is only one possible methodology: Since they love death, provide it, in wholesale quantity.
I don’t mind having risk in my life, heck, I ride a motorcycle to work. What I mind is the government telling me that acting to mitigate the risk is forbidden.
When I ride, I wear protective gear. If I thought there was a significant risk of meeting a psycopath who wanted me dead, or even injured or impoverished, I’d carry a gun.
Seems we already tried treating terrorism as simple crime during the Clinton years with the Gorelick Wall that forbade our intelligence from alerting the FBI if a known terrorist entered the country, from say Saudi.
… the result was 9/11.
The terrorists are driven in large part by the Salafist philosophy which preaches perpetual Jihad until the world is conquered and brought under the Jack Boot of Islam. They kill other muslims more often than us and so are hated by the muslim “street”. That’s why we are able to send so many to hell and not arouse the majority of muslims. The fact we are training the Iraqi and Afghan to kill the bastards, is just icing on the cake.
As long as the next US president is a clear headed type who understands the long toil required for the GWOT and the fulfillment of the Bush strategery, then trends in the muslim lands could result in the decline of the overt Islamic depredations over the next decade or so.
What gives me hope is that the biggest thing the majority of people in Iraq and Afghanistan cherish are the new schools built by coalition forces, real schools that educate, not indoctrinate.
There have been no major terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11, so your argument about the supposed “emotional” nature of the US approach does not quite work, Guy. Take the bombings in Spain: Spain is a country that hardly pursued a raucous foreign policy and yet still was targeted, and has still been threatened even after Spanish forces left Iraq.
I am sorry, but I think you are defending a sort of “shrug-the-shoulder” approach here. It is one thing to demonstrate a sort of stoicism in the face of such evil, quite another to roll the eyes and pretend that there is nothing much to worry about, please move along, etc.
If terror group A kills 100 people in target country B, and B then kills 10,000 of As sympathizers, sure, the survivors will be annoyed, but the pool of new terrorists is 10,000 smaller.
Wrong. It is tens of thousands larger, because B has just justified and amplified whatever A did, and turned all of the colleagues, friends and relations of the supposed sympathisers into actual sympathisers.
“Wrong. It is tens of thousands larger, because B has just justified and amplified whatever A did, and turned all of the colleagues, friends and relations of the supposed sympathisers into actual sympathisers.”
Well German Army was bigger in 1943 than in 1940…SO?
Even then…
So there arent those that were contributing for the cause and by fear and stopped?
So there arent those that were contributing for the cause because of money and stopped?
So there arent those that were contributing for the cause and due to increased risk the cost is escalating?
“B has just justified whatever A did”
Depicable…
Seems German attack that led to Battle of Britain was justifiable…or Pearl Harbour…
Guy Herbert, your Option A:
You forgot to mention: Terrorists realise Target Country doesn’t have the will to defend itself. Terrorists are emboldened to kill more and more, while forcing concession after concession.
I’ll take Chuck’s way.
The crime angle on terrorism is wrong because it is a war de facto, It is a war because OBL et al have declared it as such. It’s also a war because we’ve had to deploy the military. It would have been a farce to have sent a couple of Federal Marshalls over to the stan post 9/11 to haul OBL’s ass back to NYC.
Islamic terrorist methods are not irrational taken from a command point of view. Good military commanders use the tools they have. The likes of Hamas have a load of angry young men who believe they’ll become exalted martyrs, they don’t have M1 tanks.
One of the scariest pieces of data I’ve ever come across is that the average cost of a Palestinian suicide bombing is shockingly low – USD50.
Nick M writes: The crime angle on terrorism is wrong because it is a war de facto, It is a war because OBL et al have declared it as such.
Well then: I declare war on UK speed cameras. If captured in battle, I demand the right to be treated as a prisoner of war. I reserve all due rights not to be tried of anything arising that is not a war crime, including torching (in full uniform) any speed camera and other weapons of my enemy. I expect Red Cross visits and parcels during my detention as prisoner of war. I also expect to be released and repatriated following agreed cessation of hostilities.
Best regards
Nigel,
I don’t think it’s an accurate analogy. OBL and his pals declared war on behalf of the entire Islamic world and a large minority of them have taken up the battle. That’s a bit different from one bloke going round offing street furniture. Unabomber was a criminal, thousands of jihadis are an army.
Mandrill: It is one thing to believe that you would rather die than violently defend yourself. I can actually respect that position. If you seek to use political leverage to make everyone around you adopt that stance as well, that is a position I cannot respect.
If you want to die, fine, but don’t try to take me with you.
At any rate, I believe that killing them is the second-best way to deal with suicide bombers. The best way is to kill them and then desecrate their remains in a way that they believe would prevent them from attaining their houri-filled paradise. Something along the lines of interring their shredded remains in a bucket of pig fat.
I have to agree with Bombadil. I have no interest is allowing the enemy to choose the time and place of their suicide-homicide. I do not wish my life to changed by them either but unlike dancing, when it comes to war it does not take two to tango. Whilst I sympathise with the sentiments expressed by Mandrill and I wholeheartedly agree we must resist the state’s attempts to para-militarize civil society, to put it bluntly it is not your choice to make even for yourself. We cannot just wish the bad guys away.
Ice-cool under terror attack, by Anatole Kaletsky
Best regards
Chuck –
I made no profession of faith. If I did and have simply forgotten, please point it out to me.
How are reason and morality mutually exclusive?
Nick M made my point more succinctly:
But I would disagree with him when he asserts that “Thousands of Jihadis are an army.” No they’re not. They’re a gang, Criminal Organisation, Syndicate or whatever. Would you define the thousands of members of the Mafia or Yakuza as armies?
Sign me up Nigel,let battle commence 🙂
One of the scariest pieces of data I’ve ever come across is that the average cost of a Palestinian suicide bombing is shockingly low – USD50.
Well, it’s not like you have to pay a suicide bomber a pension…
[ba-dum-bum!]
BTW, I hear it’s closer to US$300. Still a pittance compared to what most western countries spend to train an infantryman, there’s no denying the jihadis have a considerable logistical advantage.
The average cost, to Palestinians, of a suicide bombing is: a human life, most likely loved by several people.
Those people may feel the need for that sacrifice: truly within themselves or through “peer pressure”. But I bet that, like us (all I hope) they wish the lot had fallen on someone else.
Best regards
*Sniff* oh those heroic martyrs … one last, longing gaze at the peaceful life they might have had if not for the temerity of those damn jews in existing, and then they shoulder their sacred responsibility as Islamic warriors for jihad.
Bleah. Fuck them … they murder civilians deliberately – they choose to murder women and children preferentially. And it is my understanding that you are largely wrong about their reluctance to die … they believe that dying as martyrs will send them to a heaven filled with wanton sex sluts who are perpetual virgins.
Perhaps the female “martyrs” might have some reluctance … although it is easy enough to understand their willingness to die when you consider the life an Islamic woman must lead.
And the bounty that their family receives when they go off to murder provides an added incentive to them.
These animals are not reluctant, and they are only technically human. As far I am concerned, the only losses of life worth caring about when splodeydopes detonate themselves are the lives of their victims.