12-22-2005, 04:59 PM
Wonder of wonders. A red letter day. Eppie, Occhi and I agree on something.
I was just going to mention something similiar to your post. In the carrot and stick metaphor, you need to remember to apply the right type of stick, and not to forget to use the right kind of carrots. I'm sure we've discussed approaches to terrorism here before.
On the carrot side, you need to avoid capitulating toward allowing them to realize a Taliban model state as was done in Afghanistan. I think like all counter-cultures, the fundamentalist Islamic movement will either become diluted and absorbed, or rejected outright. With ideological terror groups who are willing to commit "suicide" for the cause, you need to also ask, "What things would hurt the cause?" rather than just "What things would disuade the individual from supporting the cause?"
I put suicide in quotes, because I think it may be a western cultural notion, whilst in the minds of the Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist there is a difference between martyrdom operations, suicide, and murder. There is some danger in attacking these causes directly, resulting in a reactionary popularism, veneration of martyrs, and a justification for resistance.
My view has been that we need to win the war of ideas rather than the highest body count, and I agree in part with Occhi in that being proactive in preventing a terrorist event wins in a few ways. It demoralizes the terrorist organization with a failure, it disuades others from joining a cause that is a failure, it boosts the morale of the defenders, and gives credibility to the anti-terrorist cause.
However, preventing the few vipers from killing does not root out the vipers nests, and that is what ultimately needs to be done. I would lean heavily on the psychological "winning the hearts and minds" by debunking their distorted ideology and "poison the nest" to make the association unteneble and minimize the problem non-violently.
One issue in the past has been that there are these old salty clerics spewing hatred and inciting violent action who never implicate themselves in the actions they inspire. In our society we allow such vipers ("grand dragons") to exist and spew their venom, such as the marginalized white supremicist movements. The natural leap has been to pass laws, but I fear "hate speech" laws in how they might be applied to squelch dissident speech, and erode our freedom of speech protections. Can we live with the idea of allowing hate mongers amoung us to occasionally recruit a new batch of killers?
I was just going to mention something similiar to your post. In the carrot and stick metaphor, you need to remember to apply the right type of stick, and not to forget to use the right kind of carrots. I'm sure we've discussed approaches to terrorism here before.
On the carrot side, you need to avoid capitulating toward allowing them to realize a Taliban model state as was done in Afghanistan. I think like all counter-cultures, the fundamentalist Islamic movement will either become diluted and absorbed, or rejected outright. With ideological terror groups who are willing to commit "suicide" for the cause, you need to also ask, "What things would hurt the cause?" rather than just "What things would disuade the individual from supporting the cause?"
I put suicide in quotes, because I think it may be a western cultural notion, whilst in the minds of the Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist there is a difference between martyrdom operations, suicide, and murder. There is some danger in attacking these causes directly, resulting in a reactionary popularism, veneration of martyrs, and a justification for resistance.
My view has been that we need to win the war of ideas rather than the highest body count, and I agree in part with Occhi in that being proactive in preventing a terrorist event wins in a few ways. It demoralizes the terrorist organization with a failure, it disuades others from joining a cause that is a failure, it boosts the morale of the defenders, and gives credibility to the anti-terrorist cause.
However, preventing the few vipers from killing does not root out the vipers nests, and that is what ultimately needs to be done. I would lean heavily on the psychological "winning the hearts and minds" by debunking their distorted ideology and "poison the nest" to make the association unteneble and minimize the problem non-violently.
One issue in the past has been that there are these old salty clerics spewing hatred and inciting violent action who never implicate themselves in the actions they inspire. In our society we allow such vipers ("grand dragons") to exist and spew their venom, such as the marginalized white supremicist movements. The natural leap has been to pass laws, but I fear "hate speech" laws in how they might be applied to squelch dissident speech, and erode our freedom of speech protections. Can we live with the idea of allowing hate mongers amoung us to occasionally recruit a new batch of killers?
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.
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