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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (137869)	6/24/2004 7:04:06 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Neocon; Interesting post. Re: "The Germans supported Hitler because he seemed a man of destiny, someone who brought prosperity, honor, and military victory to their country. His mystique was the lynchpin of the system. Once it became clear that he was not a man of destiny, but was driving Germany into ruin, the bomb plots started. The big turning points were Stalingrad and the success in establishing a beach head in Normandy. Similarly, it is when it is apparent that all of these suicidal tactics are only buying terrorists more pain, and that Allah is not favoring them against the Great Satan, that the tide will turn." I fail to see the justification for your hope that the tide will turn. On the one hand, Hitler's promise was that Europe would be united (or reunited) under a third empire, or Reich. When the Allies landed at Normandy, it began to look like he was a bit, uh, wrong. All it took to destroy Hitler's promise was to conquer Germany and put his regime out of power. Okay, we conquered Afghanistan and put the Taliban out of power, but terrorism is ON THE INCREASE. So what regime are we going to conquer now? The promise of the Islamic Fundamentalists is that they will free the Middle East of (our) corrupting influence. I don't recall that they put a date on when they will finish. In any case, religious organizations are famous for postponing events that they have previously announced for a particular day. To the extent that your weak analogy holds water, it shows that stamping out terrorism is quite hopeless. Hey, maybe you should begin put off giving Bush credit for whipping terrorism until terrorism shows signed of at least declining. -- Carl

To: Neocon who wrote (137869)	6/25/2004 5:56:47 AM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I intended to let it go by uncommented - if there's diverging viewpoints, or a different focus etc, so what, we do not have to atomize (and eventually nuke sg) every thought that flies around here... Anyhow... reading through the lines, something between them reminded me of a joke from the former East Germany, where the big cheese came to the conclusion that the system is just fine. It's a different people, that DDR needs next.

To: Neocon who wrote (137869)	6/25/2004 11:10:03 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Similarly, it is when it is apparent that all of these suicidal tactics are only buying terrorists more pain, and that Allah is not favoring them against the Great Satan, that the tide will turn. People will give up their lives for a cause, but rarely for one that seems futile. As I pointed out in a much earlier post a few weeks ago, the failure of the Ghost Dance movement, and particularly of the Ghost Shirt, which was supposed to protect native warriors from Army bullets, spelled the end of native American resistance to the forces of government. Illusions rise, but they also fall........ When you write that people "will give up their lives for a cause, but rarely for one that seems futile," I wonder if you have a realistic grasp of the power of martyrdom and the appeal of insurgency. It is precisely because of their pain and sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds that terrorists have such devoted followings. You talk of the terrorists as though they're Wall Street thinkers who weigh the likely consequences of their actions in a logical manner and who refuse to act when the odds are horribly stacked against them. When you do so you project "our" mind set, "our" thinking and "our" values on them. That's a mistake of overwhelming magnitude. I don't question the logic of their actions; I simply accept that, while they may be illogical in many ways, that they illustrate the depth of the terrorist's passion and the likelihood of their continuance regardless of the apparent "futility" of their activities. It's also true, of course, that your "futility" may be their "success" since "they" measure things differently in their culture/religion. The "failure of the Ghost Dance movement," by the way, represented a last desperate attempt by the Plain's Indians to succeed in a course that was so doomed to failure that even they recognized that only magic could save them. In the years prior to that the Indians hadn't simply been oppressed in the sense that the Iraqis feel oppressed; they'd been literally hunted down and killed, pushed off their hunting grounds and decimated by disease. As our history reveals, the way to effectively stop armed resistance fueled by tribal loyalties or big ideas is to kill not only the resistors, but also to brutally and systematically kill their friends, their family, and their tribe. When you've done those things successfully you can then point to the symbols of your victory as turning points but the truth is that such victories come as a result of the deliberate and sustained death and destruction of the the population that supported the resistance. Such "conquests" might have been the building blocks of our civilization, but they're not civilized. I may be naive but it seems far more intelligent to actually recognize and deal with the valid complaints of those populations that support the killing of Americans, than it would be to decimate them the way we did the Indians. I haven't seen much recent evidence of diplomatic efforts to deal with our current problems beyond the Orwellian attempts of this Administration to, once again, spin things in a way designed to convince people that reality is not reality. It's reminiscent of the little men in "Mar's Attacks," running around shooting everyone while asserting "do not run, we are your friends, do not run, we are your friends." Those small failures may end up having a big price tag that we'll pay for a long time.

To: Neocon who wrote (137869)	6/25/2004 11:13:26 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Similarly, it is when it is apparent that all of these suicidal tactics are only buying terrorists more pain, and that Allah is not favoring them against the Great Satan, that the tide will turn. People will give up their lives for a cause, but rarely for one that seems futile. As I pointed out in a much earlier post a few weeks ago, the failure of the Ghost Dance movement, and particularly of the Ghost Shirt, which was supposed to protect native warriors from Army bullets, spelled the end of native American resistance to the forces of government. Illusions rise, but they also fall........ You talk of the terrorists as though they're Wall Street thinkers who weigh the likely consequences of their actions in a logical manner and who refuse to act when the odds are horribly stacked against them. When you do so you project "our" mind set, "our" thinking and "our" values on them. That's a mistake of overwhelming magnitude. When you write that people "will give up their lives for a cause, but rarely for one that seems futile," I wonder if you have a realistic grasp of the power of martyrdom and the appeal of insurgency. It is partly because of their pain and sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds that terrorists have such devoted followings. I don't question the logic of their actions; I simply accept that, while they may be illogical in many ways, their actions illustrate the depth of the terrorist's passion and the likelihood of their continuing in their deadly pursuits regardless of the apparent "futility" of their activities. It's also true, of course, that your "futility" may be their "success" since "they" measure things differently in their culture/religion. The "failure of the Ghost Dance movement," by the way, represented a last desperate attempt by the Plain's Indians to succeed in a course that was so doomed to failure that even they recognized that only magic could save them. In the years prior to that the Indians hadn't simply been oppressed in the sense that the Iraqis feel oppressed; they'd been literally hunted down and killed, pushed off their hunting grounds and decimated by disease. As our history reveals, the way to effectively stop armed resistance fueled by tribal loyalties or big ideas is to kill not only the resistors, but also to brutally and systematically kill their friends, their family, and their tribe. When you've done those things successfully you can then point to the symbols of your victory as turning points but the truth is that such victories come as a result of the deliberate and sustained death and destruction of the the population that supported the resistance. Do you recall the famous saying of those that killed Indian children in cold blood; "Nits make lice." Such "conquests" might have been the building blocks of our civilization, but they're not civilized. I may be naive but it seems far more intelligent to actually recognize and deal with the valid complaints of those populations that support the killing of Americans, than it would be to decimate them the way we did the Indians. I haven't seen much recent evidence of sustained diplomatic efforts to deal with our current problems beyond the Orwellian attempts of this Administration to, once again, spin things in a way that's designed to convince people that reality is not reality. It's reminiscent of the little men in "Mar's Attacks," running around shooting everyone while asserting "do not run, we are your friends, do not run, we are your friends." Those small failures may end up having a large cost that we'll pay for a long time.

To: Neocon who wrote (137869)	6/25/2004 3:47:14 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Neocon; I hadn't realized that you'd brought up the canard of the "ghost dances" as an excuse for your lack of a plan at winning the war on terror. I didn't answer this at the time, but noticing cnyndwllr's comment, I should add my own. Re: "Similarly, it is when it is apparent that all of these suicidal tactics are only buying terrorists more pain, and that Allah is not favoring them against the Great Satan, that the tide will turn. People will give up their lives for a cause, but rarely for one that seems futile. As I pointed out in a much earlier post a few weeks ago, the failure of the Ghost Dance movement, and particularly of the Ghost Shirt, which was supposed to protect native warriors from Army bullets, spelled the end of native American resistance to the forces of government. Illusions rise, but they also fall." If we could convince the Islamic Fundamentalists to wear "Ghost Shirts" instead of "Suicide Belts" your point would make a lot more sense, LOL. But let's look at the problem from a numbers point of view. The Ghost Dance movement was a fight for control over sections of the United States. On the one side fought the side I will call the "whites" (though many of our soldiers were black or native or whatever). The population of the US at that time was around 62,000,000. On the other side was the Paiute or Sioux. The population of the Paiute was around 7 or 8 thousand. The Sioux were one of the largest tribes in the US at around 30,000. The total native population of the whole US at the time was only around 250,000. So the example you're bringing us is one where the losers were outnumbered by about 1000 to 1. How much do we outnumber the Islamics? Oh, what's that? They outnumber us? Then the hell are you dragging in these useless analogies for? -- Carl P.S. Hope is not a plan.