Five years later: what's the answer?

[Elok]

I was surprised that there was no fifth-anniversary of 9/11 thread here, at first. Then I realized that the generally preferred memorial is a moment of silence, which is a bit stupid online; dozens of people making posts consisting entirely of "..." or something?

Anyway, in lieu of that, how about some introspection, or retrospection, or whatever? What do you think is the real answer to terrorism? What should we have done, or what should we do now? Is military force the answer, or some variant of it? Or is it possible to reach an understanding through diplomacy? Or do we have to work on the socio-economic issues underlying the problem?

Or is there no solution?

[DinoDoc]

Re: Five years later: what's the answer?

Originally posted by Elok
What should we have done...

Not widened the issue by declaring war on a tactic and settled for destroying al-Qaeda and capturing/killing thier members.

[Japher]

Terrorism is the violent outlash of resistance to change (in our case, against the growing western influence on eastern ideals and philosiphy). In order to end terrorism things need to stop changing. That, or a more Islamic appealing Ronald McDonald character.

[Spec]

Spec.

[Elok]

I wish I hadn't started to post this all of ten seconds before LotM started his tribute thread. Egg on my face...

Anyway, I don't agree with Bush's Islamic Fascism line, but I think it is true that al-Qaeda itself is not the entire problem. They are symptomatic of a wider distontent among the Muslim world. I suppose that's one of the only Marxist tenets I really agree with: that ideals, good or bad, don't arise out of a vaccuum. I don't think terrorists "hate our freedom," or at least not enough to kill themselves to hurt us. We hate their treatment of women, but you didn't see us suicide-bombing the Taliban. People don't hatch plans to kill people on the other side of the world over merely ideological reasons. There are underlying causes here, whether social, political, or economic.

[DinoDoc]

Well if you insist on declaring war on a tactic, Elok. How do you propose we deal with the world's leader in suicide bombing, the Tamil Tigers?

[Whoha]

There are underlying causes here, whether social, political, or economic.

There are plenty of poor oppressed people in the world who don't suicide bomb anyone.

[Lorizael]

To paraphrase Jared Diamond, "Well the deforestation of the Fertile Crescent ten thousand years ago..."

[Elok]

Okay then, why do these particular poor and oppressed people become suicide bombers? Are OBL and company just really, really persuasive speakers, or do the people in question have a high Evilness ratio in their personality, or what? Or do they "hate our freedom?" I thought one of the first rules of war was to know your enemy, and that includes your enemy's motivations.

And the Tamil Tigers, AFAIK, have little to do with the conflict between the western world and fundie Islamists. They are the result of a totally different neverending and pointless conflict, found in the Indian subcontinent (I think; I don't know the details because all I've heard about them are in Aneeshm's Hindu Culturegasm threads). Just because I don't think the conflict is restricted to al-Qaeda itself (there's also Hezbollah, the PLA or whatever acronym is in charge of harrassing Israel from that particular direction, etc.), doesn't mean I want to declare a "War on Terror" and take on the Tigers, the IRA, and every other group of nuts that conducts assassinations and bombings to prove a point.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Five years later: what's the answer?

Build taller buildings.

[Elok]

No matter how big and phallic we make our towers, it won't solve the problem of our insecurity. We here in America have to come to terms with the fact that we have an erectile dysfunction.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Elok
No matter how big and phallic we make our towers, it won't solve the problem of our insecurity. We here in America have to come to terms with the fact that we have an erectile dysfunction.

Ever here of Viagra? And how is building taller buildings being insecure? It shows that we are secure in our confidence that we will always have tall buildings.

[MRT144]

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[BeBMan]

Re: Five years later: what's the answer?

Originally posted by Elok
Is military force the answer, or some variant of it? Or is it possible to reach an understanding through diplomacy? Or do we have to work on the socio-economic issues underlying the problem?

Military force is part of the answer when those who do terrorist acts are organized (para-)militarily and backed by state structures. In that light it was right to attack Afghanistan. However, as it also shows military alone cannot solve much when the roots of the problem are not dealt with.

Diplomacy is only useful when there's something to negotiate, so not as long someone buys into a radical ideology/religious fanatism and insists that all those he doesn't like should be killed.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Ever here of Viagra? And how is building taller buildings being insecure? It shows that we are secure in our confidence that we will always have tall buildings.

It was a compound pun:

Security in the sense of national security and sexual insecurity, and
Erectile in the sense of genitals and buildings.

Maybe you already got it and I wasn't getting your reaction, but I just thought I'd make sure it was clear.