RSS

August 28, 2008

Richard Wales, MEI Network, Silver Contributor (55)

It failed because the whole thing is a lie. It was a money making operation from the
beginning. If some oil resources could be controlled all the better. But the "terrorist threat" was manufactured. Follow the money. Halliburton, Bush, Cheney, Feinstein along with many more elected officials are to this day making billions from the con. They're turning the world against the U.S.? So what? What do the quarterly profits look like? It's very clear at this point that none of the "War on terror" had anything to do with security. It's much like the "War on Drugs", another money making scam. This is relative to the U.S., although British Petroleum went along with it. I understand that there are indeed local conflicts and people engaging in asymmetrical warfare. The point is the American version of the "War on Terror" is a fraud, a media hoax and a corporate cash cow.

September 1, 2008

Patrick Edwin Moran, Wake Forest University, Silver Contributor (57)

Terrorists or subversive elements, call them whatever you prefer, have succeeded before. In related situations in S.E. Asia, the Malaysian government under British oversight won in a twelve year struggle against communist insurgents. The Vietnamese insurgents defeated the French and, when they retired from the field, defeated the U.S. -- and that despite the deaths of some 50,000 U.S. troops. The British and Malaysian side's winning has been attributed in the main to two factors. (1) The British leadership was objective and pragmatic. (2) The people in Malaysia who were involved broke along ethnic lines. Those who bought into the insurgency were largely of Chinese background, and those who rejected the ideology and aims of the insurgency were largely Malay and frequently Muslim. Those two groups were approximately equal in number, in the 40% range, with a much smaller third group of citizens of Indian background.

The United States had advisers who were extremely competent, and they had some successes, but for some reason the Johnson administration seemed to prefer to listen to the assurances of the leaders they had helped put in place. The recent illumination of U.S. military leaders regarding correct anti-insurgency strategy strikes me as strange since their own people, such as William R. Corson (The Betrayal), had it all figured out half a century ago. The key to anti-insurgency is gaining the allegiance of the ordinary people of a country to the central government. Doing so is not easy when guarantees of civil rights are not successfully enforced and when, from bottom to top, the citizens of a country have not gained sufficient experience in evaluating the actual intentions and capabilities of those who stand for office.

In China, the rather unstable 國民黨 Guo Min Dang (KMT) government fought an intense battle against insurgent Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces. The original central government had everything to lose and lost almost everything. They did not go quietly, but they lost the allegiance of those on the low end of the economic scale and the allegiance of many of the intellectuals.

If one wants to learn how it is done, one can consult the works of General Giap of Vietnam and Mao Zedong of China. One of Mao's similes explains how insurgent forces can escape capture. He taught that it is essential for any insurgent group to maintain the good will of the common people -- starting with common things like not letting your soldiers "appropriate" the chickens of local people. He said that the common people are the sea in which the insurgents must swim.

Here is a partial list of the reasons that Bin Laden and his group have been successful thus far in "winning the hearts and minds" of enough people to keep lights on in Washington:

(1) Real reasons for dissatisfaction and even anger due to economic and other disparities. (And that's without my assigning any blame.)

(2) An ideology that effectively motivates both those who are disadvantaged in today‘s world and (as happened in China) the intellectuals who sympathize with their plight.

(3) Successful tactics for killing or driving off the effective local officials, teachers, and anyone else who would cause satisfaction with traditional governments.

(4) Success in getting the major powers (especially the Bush group) to play their game by bombing civilians, breaking up the lives of blameless people, shooting the wrong people, offending against religious beliefs, and extremist practices of all kinds.

(5) Incompetence and blindness of national leaders, for instance, the failure of U.S. officials to guard effectively against smuggling of nuclear, biological, and other weapons across national boundaries.

Bin Laden can hide out successfully because there are areas in the world that are not under the control of a central government and/or because the people who live in the areas where he seeks refuge will not turn him in because they take him as their hero and/or they fear retaliation from his people or their neighbors.

Groups such as the Vietcong and the citizens of Afghanistan against the Soviets can succeed because of the lack of symmetry between their strategic positions and the strategic positions of the others: (1) They have a fairly constant supply of patriotic people willing to attack the invaders out of the darkness, to take their losses as contributions to their compatriots, to use whatever methods work. (2) Opposition soldiers have no vested interest in the land, they and their countrymen do not have an unlimited willingness to bleed and suffer, may come to sympathize with the people they have been ordered to subdue, and even if given free rein to use their superior weaponry as they see fit they may well be unable to identify the guerrilla troops while they are themselves clearly identified as targets even if they try to disguise themselves as locals.

September 19, 2008

A Russian in Germany

You have answered your question, it is XXI century. The means on the defense side are extremely limited. One hundred years earlier the same countries (little has changed there) were successfully controlled by Britain and France. Guess how they managed that? It is merely a time shift. How long it would take if George Bush indeed were on the same page with Bin Laden?

If you considered earlier cases of terrorism you would find out that the success was always dependent on how much the target was ready to give up its own ideals and beliefs. We are not prepared to concede much, so it would take a bit longer…

October 2, 2008

amarjyoti acharya

Religious fanaticism and religious nationalism that is deeply entrenched. If an Ayatollah issues a warning - it can become a source of terrorist threat. A christian priest issuing a similar warning becomes a source of moral concern.

The socialization of the world in christian terms (often apt to be confused with modernity and the so-called 'west' in third world states and aptly encouraged by many states including the United States) does not either legitimizes such an ill-worldview or discourage the threats that are more severe from christian religious nationalism than others.

The medieval warfare that is currently underway by the church and via its many denominations around the world and especially the third world states that become its theatre for much of the covert operations of this nature - can only invite serious reactions and these reactionary forces then often make headlines as 'terrorist' activities in many world capitals.

Now, apart from certain third world states, who supports these forces? Not the state, obviously where it is aware of the difference between matters of faith as a private issue and an individual right that is guaranteed to everyone and is non-discriminatory and is one of the foundational stones of modernity and modern civilization as well as the state - includes the right to non-faith. A close look will simply uncover crime and mafiosi as the bedrocks for the very different existences that go under the pulpit - as it does under other organised faiths wanting to control.

In the twenty-first century, how many are living in the twenty-first century - even in developed states or third world states that would have its elites scanned for secularism and democratic values? You would have your answers there. Ideological forces like radical left, etc. finding its confluence with religious fanaticisms? Yes - bastardization of crime-terror nexus is an old reality and they are as faithful as a prostitute walking Antwerp.

October 3, 2008

Francisco J. Ruiz, Spanish CESEDEN, Gold Contributor (84)

Even considering that there are some terrorist strategies more likely to be successful than others, some additional circumstances have a great influence in the desired outcome for the terrorists. The more relevant are, in my opinion, as follows:

- That the value of the object for the "enemy" is not so high that the culminating point of victory can not be reached whatever strategies are used (as happens, for instance, in the IRA or ETA cases).
- That the activities of the political structure supporting the terrorist organization can be carried out inside the legal framework of the enemy (f.i., the binomials Sinn Fein-IRA or Batasuna-ETA).
- That the fight is conducted against an alien force, where not only ideological reasons, but also ethnic cohesion factors are present (f.i., the French in Algeria during the independence war).
- That they face an authoritarian regime, or a democracy acting occasionally against the most basic human rights, reacting with extreme measures to the terrorist provocation (f.i., the Tzarist Russia at the beginning of 21st Century).
- That it is possible to take advantage of an especial momentum, in which the relation between the people and the government’s enemy is on a degraded state (f.i., islamic terrorists in Spain, March 11, 2004).
- That exist foreign countries or natives of these countries those are willing to provide any kind of support and help to the terrorist movements (f.i., Siria and Irak surrounding Iraq).

I consider that all those circumstances wouldn’t be not per se a guarantee of success for the terrorists, even if they were concurrent in a single campaign, but without any kind of doubt all of them represent a positive environment for the terrorist struggle.

November 29, 2008

Zoltan Papp [konor.org], IEEE.ORG, FAS.ORG, GAHCC.ORG, WCIT2006.ORG, TAB.ORG, CHIC.HU, (2)

I think it is a corporate cash cow matter indeed. Some people on top were or are not able to or touch or embrace the very low levels of the society. Maybe simply not able to give and receive. It could all be down to the fact of "chest sickness". This is another reason i started investigating more seriously in Islam and Eastern religions where submission and acceptance seem to be more actual than at other places. According to a study, Buddhism is also an extremely gaining popularity in the west. Several Buddha statues were raised in places like London, United Kingdom and Austin, Texas, United States for example. Another type of business, music, catering for example is also gaining silent revolution in the west. The Buddha Bar restaurant chain for example gained much reputation for its mystic and spiritual style.

Reference: http://www.buddha-bar.com/

Another good example for a higher demand for submission and acceptance is the architecture and resort that was created in the United Arab Emirates and even more places. I first noticed the quality of downtown city in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the 90's when the Kuala Lumpur Petronas twin tower was built. What stroke me first is the amount of green and quality on the down town street. What was so striking to me is the city's human centricity and the number of people on the streets.
Parks, green, access to services.

I think that is all down to culture and what motivates and drives people. Mentality i guess too on the other hand.