Third Party & Independents: Archives

Chuck, I like your formula in general—isolation, infiltration and interdiction are good approaches. But your interpretation of those elements strikes me as extremely vague or redundant to what we’re already doing.

Isolation: What “means at our disposal” to discredit and co-opt their message of transcendant moral authority” are there that we’re just not paying attention to? What do you want? An Arab language news station (done that—it doesn’t seem too popular). Providing the conditions for the first democratic election in the Arab world? I guess we did try that—is it working? I don’t know. Some form of dimplomatic pressure we haven’t tried? I have no idea what your plan is here—care to elaborate?

You complain about platitudes and then offer THAT?

I would say that the moral “authority” of the terrorists has been amply demonstrated by the fact that in the name of their twisted form of Islam they are deliberatly killing FAR more muslims in Iraq than Americans. Recently, they murdered the Egyptian envoi to Iraq. Further, elections in Iraq have served as an impetus for real reform in surrounding nations. You say we should use “every means at our disposal to discredit them.” Well, in Iraq we’ve created the conditions where they seem to be doing a pretty good job of discrediting themselves in the eyes of their own potential base of support (killing potential supporters tends to have that effect).

Infiltration: External to our borders, we can always do better on this front. I wholeheartedly agree.

As for internal infiltration, your complaint about the “repressive and xenophobic” elements of the Patriot Act means what exactly? Precisely which elements of the Patriot Act are either xenophobic or repressive?

Are roving wire taps ordered by a judge for probable cause somehow tied to racial bigotry? Honestly, this sounds more like a talking point than any familiarity with the Act, but if you actually have SPECIFIC jutstification for your remark, let’s hear it.

You go on to say, with no explanation whatosever, that we are persecuting and alienating potential intelligence sources. You further seem to suggest that we’re “torturing” captured belligerants who would become spies for us if we just gave them the chance. I must say that this is the FIRST time I’ve ever heard such a remarkable claim.

Interdiction: You say that “the federal government must exercise its military and police powers against this pernicious form of criminality vigorously and decisively.” Pray tell, what does that mean when at the same time you find measures like the Patriot Act just TOO vigorous? What do you want that isn’t being done already? To me it sounds like you want LESS to be done.

Terrorist cells have already been interdicted in the US. Is there a way to catch more of them that won’t offend absolutely anyone’s tender sensibilites? Well, as the Beatles once said, “I’d love to hear the plan.”

Unfortunately, the “coherent anti-terrorist campaign” you’ve offered, while no doubt well-intentioned, is anything but coherent. In fact, I fear that it’s so vague and infected by anti-administration bias that its several degrees worse than what we’re already doing.

For the record, I don’t like Bush’s entire approach either. But I’m still waiting for an alternative which is more than just vague and contrarian arm-chair posturing.

I’ll start with agreeing that Infiltration would work and it is something that during the Cold War era had success.

In my opinion, the key to ending or at least diminishing global terrorism is to take a very long look at what is being used as the basis to not only recruit but to “fuel the fires” of hatred. Why do they join these terrorist groups in the first place?

If we learn from what Israel has done, we would notice that in most cases killing creates more terrorists not less. We would also see that poor economic conditions and lack of education add to this. Take a poor person who is angry, frustrated, not educated who has lost family or friends and convince him that the real enemy the cause of all of his pain and strife is the United States. Then tell him tales of the promises he will get in the next life, if he dies or kills for this cause.

The point is they feel they have nothing to lose, and in reality? Most of them don’t.

How do we solve that? In Iraq we work more on restoring basic services to what they were to at least the same level as under Saddam. Concentrate on employment and education. Stop building large military facilities that make it appear as if we are never leaving Iraq and prioritize the majority of the efforts on making the lack of electrity and water a non-issue. Make the life of the average Iraqi better. To be blunt? Restore hope and the knowledge that the US is going to leave Iraq.

Iraqis deal with death and bombing of their fellow citizens every day. When they see the outpouring of anger and action of what happened in London they confirm to themselves that we do not believe they matter. Over 12,000 Iraqis have been killed by acts of terrorism according to the Iraqi government in the last 18 months.

They have to feel they do matter. To me this is more of a psychological battle. They do not want to die, however at this point they do not feel secure enough to report suspected terrorists or insurgents. To do that guarantees more in your family will die. Until there is more security and stability the majority of them will not have the courage to stand up to this.

The extremist Muslim groups are increasing not decreasing. There have not only been increased problems in Iraq but in Afghanistan as well. The longer we wait to address the real issues behind this the harder it will be to diminish it.

sanger:

Always amused at the GOP’s myopia. Al Queda has a 4 year gestation period between attacks. The fact that the US has not been hit yet is irrelevant. They will come. I must admit, however, that if Al Quada had a dirty bomb they would use it first in Iraq. The Green Zone is a very good target. Second option is to hit the Ports along the coast. Considering how little is being done by Republicans to secure the borders, I have no doubt that OBL is very happy.

Securing the borders is not a republican problem. It is a by-partisan problem. The President has very little control, but the congress has a lot of control. Plus the fact, whatever controls the President exerts he would be viciously attacked. I am perplexed that republican, democrat, nor independents are willing to deal with illegal entry into the US. It is a fact, Muslim terrorists are able to enter the US through the same means as illegal Mexicans & yet nothing is done. In fact, it is not even spoken about in the halls of congress. I recently heard someone say illegal aliens are to the democrats votes & to the republicans cheap labor. This is a problem that is very important to middle Americans & the party who deals with it will win hearts.

Perplexed

Securing the borders, ports, etc. is a good idea in general terms.

However surely there are none among you who actually believe that the personnel and means for several terrorist attacks on this country are not already in place. These components of terrorism have been here for at least a decade.

Lest us not forget that there are some (probably the fewest overall number) who are actual terrorists. These spend their lives engaged in terrorist planning and related activities. They are ruthless and relentless.

Then there is the group who have been brainwashed into believing that they will achieve martyrdom, meet Allah, etc.

Probably the most successful terrorist acts are carried out by otherwise “innocent” citizens of some Middle East country to save the lives of their relatives in their native land and, to prevent their dead relatives from being banished from the promised land.

I repeat, people in all the above catagories are already here. We work with them, play golf with them, purchase goods from them, get medical treatment from them, go to school with them and
on and on and on.

I repeat, stop the immigration/illegal arrival of suspected terrorists by all means but, IMHO enough are already here to carry out significant damage.

Since Republicans control all three Branches of Government, they are to blame for the porous borders.

It is true; the republicans control two branches of government. I do not believe they control the Judicial. The problem is political correctness. The moment illegal immigration becomes the subject of the Republican Party, the democrats will say republicans are against minorities. Am I correct? I believe the democrats would help themselves by dealing with this problem. In other words, the ball is in their court. What will they do with it?

Perplexed

Perplexed,

I think President Bush proposed a guest-worker program that would allow for screening, proper ID, and a chance to work toward citizenship.

The Dem. responce was ????

“Since Republicans control all three Branches of Government, they are to blame for the porous borders.”

Perplexed,
Your responses to the above quote were terrific.

The author of the quote must mean that because the Republicans have a certain amount of control at present, every illegal entrant into the country since the Declaration of Independence is the responsibility of the Republicans.

Perhaps we should begin a movement to track down every illegal alien or non citizen even and begin sending them elsewhere. We must be very careful during this process not to violate any of their Constitutional rights doing so.

Sanger,

I’m glad that we’re in agreement, at least conceptually. Please allow me to address your concerns in the order in which you raised them.

Isolation

It seems to me that the first order of business for the Bush Administration would be to understand al-Qaeda’s objectives, i.e. know you enemy. Their primary objective is to create an Islamic empire throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. They see the West not merely as infidels, but as Crusaders. Further, they seek to exploit the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

In order to discredit their claims, and thereby isolate them from their potential supporters, we must eliminate our diplomatic hypocrisy. Specifically, we must induce Israel to adopt a secular Constitution (please see my posting of June 29). We must also induce our Islamic allies such as Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to become secular democracies, by any means necessary. In this way, our actions will speak louder than our words and our battle with al-Qaeda will be transformed from the repression of Moslems to the liberation of the Islamic world. If we truly believe that the human rights enumerated in our Declaration of Independence are universal, we cannot, as our President has done, simply talk the talk; we must walk the walk, as well. We cannot ally ourselves with some theocracies, monarchies and dictatorships while we condemn others arbitrarily. Our fight with al-Qaeda is not between good and evil; it’s between right and wrong, and I’m afraid that that subtle distinction has eluded our current President

Second, we must treat these terrorists as the criminals they are, not elevate their status to soldiers. When the Murrah Office Building was attacked in Oklahoma City by domestic terrorists, did we call out the National Guard? Did we declare martial law? No, we arrested and prosecuted those responsible. Remember the IRA hunger strikers in Northern Ireland? They struck because they insisted on being treated as prisoners of war. Britain wisely refused. They were criminals, not soldiers. Treating al-Qaeda members as if they are soldiers strengthens, rather than weakens, both their cause and their ties to their communities.

Finally, the insurgency in Iraq is related to al-Qaeda only tangentially, not directly. Is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq? Yes. Is it controlling it, or even responsible for the vast majority of it? No. Confusing or combining Iraq with al-Qaeda, as our President has done to justify the invasion, simply muddies the waters and diffuses our legitimate counterterrorism efforts.

Infiltration

The following are some of the specific elements of the Patriot Act (Titles II and IV) that I believe to be repressive and xenophobic:

The indefinite detention of foreign nationals,
The investigation of American citizens and residents without probable cause,
The denial of legal representation,
The permission of surreptitious searches and seizures,
The inability of defendants to confront their accusers, and
The inhibition of attorney/client privilege.

Second, I didn’t mean to imply that we should recruit captured terrorists as spies instead of torturing them. Although I do believe that the former approached is a more productive method of gathering information than the latter, I meant instead that torture hinders our efforts to recruit agents from either impartial individuals who might otherwise be sympathetic to our cause or from disaffected al-Qaeda members. Would we have been able to recruit any Soviet spies if we had tortured captured KGB agents? Simply stated, inhumane treatment, either directly or by proxy, inhibits our ability to gather information about al-Qaeda drastically.

Moreover, its not as though we don’t need additional resources. Our human intelligence capabilities are woefully inadequate. For example, an article in USA Today reported:

“According to unofficial estimates, less than 1% of the nation’s annual intelligence budget of more than $40 billion goes to human intelligence.

‘How many times do you want to get briefed on al-Qaeda and be reminded we don’t have any human sources?’ lamented Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz last month in a House Armed Services Committee hearing on combating terrorism. ‘We get mesmerized by the fact that we can read license plate numbers from space, and it’s pretty impressive. But the amount that we don’t know is enormous.’”

Our ignorance scares me a lot more than Saddam Hussein ever did. In addition to our diplomatic hypocrisy, I believe that our draconian detention policies exacerbate rather than ameliorate this problem. Again, it returns to the warmongering nature of our government and its demonization of al-Qaeda.

Interdictment

Currently we have more than 140,000 troops deployed in Iraq and less than 10,000 in Afghanistan. Although I believe that our unilateral disengagement from Iraq would be counterproductive at this stage, we’ve simply got to get more boots on the ground in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. If not exclusively our soldiers, perhaps our allies would be willing to contribute some of their Special Forces for the eradication of al-Qaeda.

If we’re serious about eliminating al-Qaeda, we can’t be content with merely neutralizing it. For God’s sake, we neutralized Saddam, but we still invaded Iraq. Moreover, we did so even though he had absolutely nothing to do with September 11th while the Bush Administration continues to allow the perpetrators of that heinous act remain at large. Finally, the capture of Osama bin Laden would be an immense psychological victory for the West and would make the world an appreciably safer place in which to live.

Finally, we’ve got to start prosecuting those individuals we captured in Afghanistan and Iraq. If they are guilty, they must be punished; if they are innocent or guilty merely by association, they must be released. Their indefinite detention has three counterproductive ramifications: it elevates their status from criminal to combatant, it belies our claims of beneficent intentions thereby providing al-Qaeda with a powerful propaganda tool, and it denies our citizenry the catharsis of closure. Our government must exercise justice, not revenge, if it hopes to achieve a victory in its war on terrorism.

Remember the IRA hunger strikers in Northern Ireland? They struck because they insisted on being treated as prisoners of war. Britain wisely refused. They were criminals, not soldiers. Treating al-Qaeda members as if they are soldiers strengthens, rather than weakens, both their cause and their ties to their communities.

Posted by: Chuck Hanrahan at July 9, 2005 05:03 PM

Well actually Chuck, it wasn’t like that at all. In Northern Ireland, the hunger strikers got huge support from the civilian population, not just in the North of Ireland, but in the South as well. In fact, because of the hunger strikes, they got elected to both the Westminster and Dublin parliaments. This marked the political rise of Sinn Fein, the political front of the IRA. As Danny Morrison, the IRA head of publicity said, we’ll go forward with the ballot box in one hand, and the armalite in the other. And they did. And they are still soaking up votes among those in the North of Ireland who want to end the links there to Britain, but even more disturbingly, among disaffected mainstream voters in the Republic of Ireland, despite their continuing links to IRA terrorists and criminals.

Chuck, conceptually I still find much to agree with you on. But I still find what you’re saying either extremely vague in some places, and either obvious or self-contradictory in others.

It would be like me going to George Steinbrenner and saying I know exactly how the Yankees can guarantee that they win the pennant this year. “Okay, shoot,” he says, and I answer “Look. Here’s my plan. We should exploit the weaknesses of the opposing teams, maintain our own team’s unity and demoralize the others while maintaining good sportsmanship so we look good in the public eye. Pitching should be excellent—I suggest that Randy Johnson should throw some no hitters. Also, the batters should hit the ball more often and circle the bases, thereby scoring runs in greater number than the opposing teams.”

What I mean is that’s easy to say all those things—much harder to do them. And Steinbrenner (like Bush) was already trying to do all these things anyway.

One of your ideas I find downright dangerous, however, and that’s the notion that it would be either appropriate or effective to put pressure on Israel to adopt a different constitution. Even if the consitution is a good idea, the effect would be cosmetic at best. It’s like thinking you can eliminate violent crime by raising educational testing standards—even if there is some truth in it. There might be positive effects in the long run, but it’s no substitute for dealing right now with that bank robber with his gun to the head of a hostage.

You said it yourself—the radicals want a unifed Islamic empire throught the middle east. The idea that our policies are intended to “supressing” Muslims is Al Qaida propaganda, and you can’t cancel the effects of propaganda by giving in to the supposed grieveances it contains.

This would be thinking you could head off Hilter’s invasion of Poland by alleviating the supposed abuses surfered by Aryans in the Rhineland (Hitler’s excuse for launching war).

ASlong as Israel exists in any form the radicals are not going to be satisfied. Israel is a democratic society, the only one in the area, and their consitituion is none of our business. Further, I think its madness to think that the likes of Bin Laden Al Zarqawi and their followers would have a change of heart if Israel changed their consitution.

After Israel offered the Palestinians their own state (under Clinton’s guidance), Arafat started the intifada and called for jihad. The real problem these people have with Israel is its very existence.

Another thing: no matter what affliliations Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaida and the insurgency in Iraq have, they share an ideology and there is no choice but to confront and defeat them both. To ignore one front in favor of the other would not be tactical wisdom but defeat on both fronts.

You say that we are treating Al Qaida members as soldiers, thereby strengthening their legitimacy in the eyes of their communities. But isn’t that exactly what we’re NOT doing? Guantanomo Bay is not a POW camp. I thought that the standard leftist complaint about our detention of captured Al Qaida members was that that they aren’t being afforded the priviliges of prisoners of war (as governed by the Geneva Conventions). But you’re also saying that our detention policies are too draconian, that more so I’m not sure how you’re holding all of this together logically.

I’ll agree with you though that we shouldn’t engage in torture, except in the most extreme circumstances and then it should be done unofficially.

For example, if we caught a member of an Al Qaida cell who had planted a dirty bomb that was set to go off in Manhattan (or god-forbid, an actual nuke ), I have no problem with somebody taking a club to the fellow’s knees. I know that many will disagree, and I’d say that using torture against enemy soldiers is always wrong, but there are times when terrorists whose goal is to kill masses of innocent people have forfeited the expectation to be handled with kid gloves.

What Paul is saying is extremely disturbing. I recently heard a commentator (I forget who) responding to the idea that Great Britian would never succumb to terrorist blackmail. His observation was that Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams is currently traveling around between speaking enagements in a limousine paid for by the British taxpayer.

Don’t know if this true, but it’s a frightening thought.

I don’t know enough about the IRA, but it seems to me that their use of terrorism is far less nihilistic than Al Qaida’s and they’re much savier about joining it with effective PR. You’d never see members of th IRA, for example, bellowing Gaelic chants while beheading somebody on video.

Paul,

You’re right, of course, about the IRA. They were more similar to soldiers than criminals, but there operations weren’t strictly military & did often involve quasi-legal or illegal elements. Nevertheless, that wasn’t my point. The Brits knew that treating them as soldiers would further legitimize them, which is why they refused. Treating captured al-Qaeda operatives (if, in fact, that’s who we’re detaining in Guantanamo and elsewhere) as POWs is a mistake for the same reason.

sanger,

I liked your Steinbrenner analogy. Not to belabor it, but I think you’re right on the money. My problem is that Bush/Steinbrenner has responded to your/my suggestions by scheduling a home and home series with the New England Patriots instead of the Boston Red Sox. We’re playing the wrong team with the wrong rules, and I’m afraid we’re likely to lose.

Regarding Israel, suggest you see my posting of June 29 (Peace in the Middle East) for a more comprehensive explanation of my thoughts on an Israeli Constitution. The bottom line is that, Israel has a semi-offical religion, and that the answer to a lasting peace in the Middle East (and throughout the world, for that matter) is secular democracy. Israel too theocratic for it to be considered as a secular democracy. On a secular democracy scale of from 0 (France or Germany) to 10 (Iran or Saudi Arabia), I’d put Israel at a 5 or a 6.

Finally, supporting a nation with theocratic elements like Israel hurts our cause in the Middle East. It makes it far easier for al-Qaeda to paint the conflict as one between theocracies, i.e the Crusades, rather than against theocracy itself.

We agree that we have to fight the insurgents in Iraq and the terrorists in Afghanistan/Pakistan simultaneously. My question is why does the Bush Administration have more than ten times the troops in the former than we do in the latter? Regardless of Bush’s statements to the contrary, tarring the Iraqi insurgents with the al-Qaeda brush is flat out wrong most, if not virtually all, of the time.

I don’t think we’ve done enough to destroy al-Qeada, and I don’t mean simply militarily. Bush & Blair have assured us that they’ve been neutralized. If that is so, how did London happen? Did those bombs denotate themselves? Why is another attack on the USA described as “inevitable”? Al-Qaeda is about as “neutralized” as Castro was in Cuba in 1958. If they are at large, they’re dangerous. The only way to neutralize them is to put them behind bars for the rest of their lives.

Bush and Blair have been too focused on Iraq and not focused enough on al-Qaeda. The terrorists are a much greater threat to this nation than the insurgents, and we’re misallocating our military and economic assets.

As far as our detainees are concerned, the Bush administration has refused to define their status so that the US government can hold them in perpetual limbo without any legal protections whatsoever, either American or international. Notwithstanding Bush’s recalcitrance, I’d have to define their status as soldiers being held in violation of the Geneva Convention. They were captured by our military and are being held without charges or trail at military facilities. In any event, it is certain that they are not being treated as criminal suspects.

My suggestion would be to try them as war criminals for their involvement in international terrorism, ideally by a coalition tribunal (ala’ Nuremburg and Tokyo post WWII). If the Europeans can try Serbian war criminals, why can’t our coalition try the al-Qaeda terrorists? These trials would provide us with a tremendous opportunity to put a face to a crime and to expose the moral bankruptcy of al-Qaeda’s cause. If nothing else, it would co-opt al-Qaeda’s ability to exploit this issue for propagandistic purposes among thier supporters and benefactors.

The Brits knew that treating them as soldiers would further legitimize them, which is why they refused. Treating captured al-Qaeda operatives (if, in fact, that’s who we’re detaining in Guantanamo and elsewhere) as POWs is a mistake for the same reason.

sanger

In fact sanger, my point was that treating them as common criminals is what legitimised them, and gave them a huge uplift in political support. They were in many ways criminal, but they arose out of a situation which was created by Britain,and condoned by it for the better part of 50 years. I believe that the Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement was making great headway before the IRA resurrected itself, but that’s another story. The point being, that these guys would not have been engaged in the act they were, were it not for the nature of the society they were born into. That’s what distinguishes them from common criminals. But Al Queda they were not. I’m not sure I know what you mean when you say that their ops weren’t strictly military and did often involve quasi-legal or illegal elements.

As for Al Queda operatives captured, I think that is a mistake. Take no prisoners!!

Paul,

Afraid you lost me, my friend. Think you’ve got your Irish history confused. Could suggest an excellent book, though. It’s Biting at the Grave by O’Mally. On page one, he states:

“On 1 March 1981, Bobby Sands, acting on behalf of 361 republican prisoners at the Maze/Long Kesh prison outside Belfast, went on a hunger strike. It was the opening scene in the final act of the prisoners’ campaign for political status, a campaign that had begun four years earlier with the ‘blanket’ protest when prisoners convicted of what would, in other times, be described as politically motivated offenses refused to wear prison clothing, the badge of an ordinary criminal, and covered themselves with the only clothing at hand - their blankets.”

sanger,

I re-read your most recent comment, and for the purposes of historical accuracy, Hitler’s pretext for starting WWII was the mistreatment of German nationals in Danzig (Gdansk) and the Polish Corridor, not the Rhineland. He invaded Poland when it refused to cede the Polish Corridor back to Germany so that the latter could be reunited geographically with East Prussia. Once Hitler got the green light from Stalin, the show was on.

The only reason I bring this up is that I see potential parallels with this historical situation and the inherent impracticality of the Israeli/Palestinian “road map”. To wit:

Suppose for a moment that the Israelis granted autonomy to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Suppose further that Palestine was able to establish a tenuous but functional democracy. This seems to be the ideal to which the peaceful elements of both Israel and Palestine (as well as the Americans) are striving - a “best case” scenario.

Even if this ideal is realized, however, what mechanism would exist to prevent a reenactment of Weimar Germany? In other words, what would prevent the election of a latter-day Palestinian version of Hitler? This hypothetical tribal demagogue, religious or secular, could simply update the “stabbed in the back” propaganda Hitler used to assume power and then demand the reunification of Gaza and the West Bank. What would Israel do then? Would it depose or assassinate a fairly elected Palestinian President? Would it invade pre-emptively? Would it appease? Would it await invasion? In short, Israel would be very few alternatives, none of them particularly attractive.

My point is that whether its Germany after WWI and WWII or Vietnam or Korea or Ireland or Israel/Palestine, bifucated nations are inherently unstable. Notwithstanding the ethical validity of advocating the adoption of secular democracy among our friends as well as our enemies, realpolitick dictates that a “one state” solution to this problem is the only one that is likely to succeed ultimatley. The world doesn’t need another Islamic republic in the Middle East any more than it needs a Jewish democracy. Both are dangerous oxymorons.

In my opinion, it’s high time that somebody went in there and banged some heads together. Enough is enough. Somebody’s got teach these two knuckleheads to play nice together and share the sandbox (no pun intended). And there’s only one country with the moral, economic and military credibility to get that job done, and we’re living in it.

Not only is secular democracy the only ethical solution to acheive a permanent peace in the region, it’s the only practical solution, as well.

Paul,

Afraid you lost me, my friend. Think you’ve got your Irish history confused. Could suggest an excellent book, though. It’s Biting at the Grave by O’Mally. On page one, he states:

Sanger, the extract you quote, precisely matches what I wrote in my previous post. It actually sums the situation up, in a very similar way to how I summed it up. That would be very obvious to anyone who was actually familiar with the actuality of it, rather than just reading a book about it. This was an enormously important period in Irish History, and in Anglo-Irish relations. I lived throught it, and I was even then very politically aware and interested.

Chuck,

Yours (as I understood it) seems like a really reasonable approach, with one major problem. A lot of Americans (government officials included) really don’t understand the “kind of people” we’re dealing with. The culture is so different from ours in so many ways that a lot people over here and over there can’t see any middle ground. Until people (especially those in charge) start listening to those few who understand AND appreciate both cultures, fighting will continue because we won’t be able to determine a compromise.

I’m not talking compromising with the extremists. That’s probably not possible and not wise even if it were. But compromising with the people is necessary. Stabilizing their food, shelter, education ect. would go a long way to help, but it would still fall short. Finding real, tangible common ground is what we need to do to see eye to eye with the non-terrorists you’re intended to target with propaganda.

Having read both the Bible and the Koran I can understand, to some extent, why our two peoples are so divergent from each other. Despite having strayed far from it’s principles, our country was founded and our laws formed by people with Christian principles. The Koran is a very different book with very different principles that makes for a very different nation. However, there are still fundamental similarities that need to be “exploited” in order to reach mutual understanding. Mutual understanding is necessary to make the potential terrorists our friends before OBL makes them his. In other words, we need anthropologists for the people and spies for the terrorists, not just spies.

Paul,

Thanks for the Irish history lesson. Is the IRA still active?

Since the Isreal connection is integral, does anybody here know why Isreal was created? What was it supposed to accomplish? Since it’s creation after WWII Isreal has been propped up and has to be still to keep together. Was Isreal some kind of failed experiment that we should/could just disband as an international community?

Stephanie, the IRA is still active, although they signed up to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Nominally, they are on permanent ceasefire. However, they are still involved in low intensity punishment attacks to maintain control over their local communities in the North of Ireland. Further, they are heavily engaged in wide ranging criminal activites, including bank robberies, protection rackets, effectively taxing drug peddlers for ingnoring them, smuggling and counterfeit recorded media. Because of a bank robbery last christmas, and the street murder of a man in Belfast earlier this year, they are under intense pressure from the Republic’s Government, the UK Govt, the US Govt. and last but not least, their Irish British neighbours in the North of Ireland to openly decommission all weapons, cease all criminal activity, and to disband.

Paul in Euroland,

So, to use them as a comparison, even if we find reasonable compromise to give our current international terrorists reasons to stop fighting, they’re still going to be (at least tempted to be) criminals because it’s what they know.

Doesn’t give us much hope for our international problem does it?

Stephanie, the IRA are vicious fascist thugs. They never recognised the democratic settlement founding the Irish Free State in 1922, causing our civil war - i’m not going to rehearse Irish State history here - but they did have coherent political objectives, and ones which did not seek the destruction or subversion of an entire culture. I don’t think there is any compromise that would assuage the hatred of our current international terrorists. This is not about political objectives, it is about a fascist religious crusade, driven by zealots consumed by hatred for infidels, kaffirs. There is no negotiation with these people. We can only seek their destruction in intelligent ways. For example, exploring how we can alienate them from the mainstream of Islamic society, so that they cannot continue to infect and infest that body. The rest is through effective policing and shared intelligence throughout the civilised world. This is how the Bader Meinhof and the Red Brigades were finally silenced. Indeed, it was only through more effecting intelligence and surveillence that the IRA was brought to the negotiating table in order for them to try and show some progress for all the carnage they caused. This is going to be a long campaign, and it is as much about winning the hearts and minds of muslims across the world, as about putting the militant activists out of business. I don’t know if this can be done, because I don’t know to what extent the Muslim doctrine of creating the Caliphate wherever Muslims live is a driving motivation for the majority of Muslims.