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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Terrorism is a Tactic and It Must Be Defeated |
| 2014-07-25 |
| There are two dimensions to fighting a War on Terror. One is fighting terrorists and the other is fighting terrorism. In conventional warfare there isn't that much of a difference between fighting men and their tactics. There is a wider space between fighting terrorists and their tactics. Conventional armies use tactics to defeat enemy forces and seize territory. Terrorists however use tactics to take over mental territory. A suicide bomber is not out to take over a particular block. He is out to change how the enemy and his side think about that city block and the larger conflict. Terrorism has succeeded in accomplishing that goal in Israel. The scale of terrorism turned every piece of land into a mathematical equation. How many lives was this village in Gaza worth? How many lives is this West Bank town worth? How many lives is East Jerusalem worth? This emotional calculus is misleading because it is an immediate response to a set of deaths. However terrorists are not trading an end to violence for a village or a town. They are calculating how many deaths it will take to force Israel to abandon that village or town. And once they have it, they will use it to inflict more terror on another town or village, this time using rockets. Israelis were convinced that a price in lives had been put on Gaza and that if they withdrew, the killing would end. But Gaza was just the beginning. Not the end. There is never an end. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #2 Kill them all, GOD will sort them out. (A old quote, but still good) |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2014-07-25 13:48 |
| #1 While the author has many interesting points, IMO that he over-thinks the problem of terrorism. Shintoism, Nazism, and Communism all embraced terrorism and used the tactics of terrorists. All of these involved the aspects of fighting terrorists as well as fighting terrorism. These ideas were embedded within nation-states. While it is difficult to stamp out a cancerous idea it can be done. It is best to do it early. Usually, the world waits until this process is very costly. One cannot argue, debate, or negotiate with such people and hope to change their minds. They are zealots. One has to beat down those who hold these cancerous ideas by utterly defeating them. The movement which is cancerous usually grows in extent until the world recognizes the scope of the threat to the well-being of the world. One can not fight a war without a complete commitment to the defeat of the enemy on all fronts; on the battlefield as well as the mental and propaganda aspects. Today, it includes more sophisticated aspects such as the cyberwar. Strategies and tactics must accompany this commitment. It seems the U.S. of late has ceded its leadership role in the world. It has capitulated on the idea that its way of life and exceptionalism is the better way and the higher road. Part of the problem is that there has been an insidious erosion of this notion within the institution of American life; education, government, and the media. The country seems to have a fifth column working insidiously and assiduously against its goodness. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-07-25 10:06 |