www.boingboing.net/2008/07/29/to-destroy-al-qaeda.html
permalink A new Rand Corporation report comprehensively surveys the ways that terrorist groups have been disbanded in the past: "Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended." Instead, historic wars on terror have been won with policing and settlements.
A recent RAND research effort sheds light on this issue by investigating how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory.
July 29, 2008 10:59 PM If we do that the terrorists win! We get peace, they get a compromise with their local government to not be arrested if they don't do some stuff.
July 29, 2008 11:23 PM Wouldn't the 40% of policing qualify as using force to solve the problem? I think it suggests much of their data is based on terrorism within a country. If it is international terrorism, there is no way "policing" could solve it. By combining "policing" and "military force" you find that 47% of terrorists were shut down by some form of forceful authoritarian measures, compared to only 43% by politics.
July 30, 2008 12:37 AM @JoeMichael: Police and military are both in the broad category of "force"; but they are organizationally, tactically, culturally, and otherwise quite distinct. This fact gets driven home rather unpleasantly when military forces get stuck playing police, or vice versa. I doubt anybody is going to argue that sitting around the campfire circle and singing is going to work; but there is a real, and nontrivial, difference between war and law enforcement(well, unless the neighborhood really sucks).
July 30, 2008 1:18 AM The only effect of the war on Drugs was that hard drugs have never been so available and cheap in the USA as they are today. So I really hope your war on terror goes better or you'll havce to get your prayer mat out and start working out which way Mecca is.
July 30, 2008 1:19 AM Ah if only we'd known that, we could have avoided bombing Ireland back into the stone age. We did solve it with policing and political settlements! If only Dubbya had taken a moment to talk to Bill and Tony, they might have been able to tell him a thing or two.
July 30, 2008 2:05 AM To destroy al queda we have to destroy it in our imaginations because this is the only place where it exists. It is not too unlike the red scare and all the crap we were told about the Soviets for over 50 years. He's got brown skin, and he's got the cajones to stand up to the American imperialism once in awhile. Maybe he and his cohorts will do as the next propagandized despot.
July 30, 2008 2:17 AM @1: The only thing that can defeat Al Qaeda is education and enlightenment. Al Qaeda only exists in the minds of western politicians and under the beds of the populace. Al Qaeda is a universal enemy, an enemy that exists everywhere but nowhere, and is used as a weapon to justify the actions of corrupt governments all over the world.
July 30, 2008 2:48 AM @13, "Al Qaeda" is arabic slang for "The toilet" and literally translated means "The base". Ironically and purely coincidentally im sure you'll agree, "The base" is also something of a slang term for the core of the US republican party.
Cycle23@#4 said 80 degrees, not even really close to 155 degrees. At 80 degrees, the circle is bisected rather horizontally, with a couple of arrow wings or something on the left. Reminds me very vaguely of Amtrak, or, I thought, maybe it's supposed to be the logo of one of the airlines hijacked in the 2001 attacks.
July 30, 2008 4:28 AM From the Economist July 19th: "six excellent ideas In an internet video in September 2007 Abu Yahya al-Libi, a prominent al-Qaeda leader, mockingly gave the West six tips to wage ideological warfare: highlight the views of jihadists who renounce violence; publicise stories about jihadist atrocities against Muslims; enlist Muslim religious leaders to denounce jihadists as heretics; back Islamic movements that emphasise politics over jihad; and play up personal or doctrinal disputes among jihadists.
July 30, 2008 6:07 AM The authors of this report hold no real hope for a negotiated settlement, nor do they recommend negotiating. This bargaining space does not exist with many terrorist groups. As the concluding chapter notes, for instance, al Qa'ida's broad goals of establishing a caliphate across the Middle East offer no bargaining room with western governments. Since al Qa'ida's goal remains the establishment of a pan-Islamic caliphate, there is little reason to expect that a negotiated settlement with governments in the Middle East is possible.
July 30, 2008 6:15 AM When using historical president when evaluating current situations, it may be useful to also remember that you can never use the past with much accuracy to define the present with regard to human behavior. We have nothing in our history to compare the current Muslim terrorist situation with; And it is unlikely that we will ever be able to stamp out terrorism totally. How can you defeat terrorism when terrorism is borne on the shoulders of dysfunctional human psychology? As long as people feel shit upon they will retaliate, rationalizing the most repugnant behavior as being necessary to their cause: justice.
July 30, 2008 6:48 AM Anyone else notice that the wonderful pie chart provided looks like a nearly inverted peace sign? Anyone else notice the hard work from the Rand Co folks to rotate the chart so it is less obvious? Just remember hiding something in plain sight don't make it disappear.....
July 30, 2008 7:16 AM I hate the war as much as the next guy, but I think Joelmichael #6 makes a good point about the data set they're working with. If you're dealing with international terrorism, who is the police force? If you leave it up to individual countries to pursue police actions within their own borders, you run the risk of any one country dropping the ball, either deliberately or by just not having enough resources to do it properly, and now you have a terrorist haven and base of operations. No, what this tells me is that the answer will be political, not through force at all.
July 30, 2008 7:20 AM This is what I argued when I was 17, organizing my first peace rally in Kennebunkport. Sadly, everybody was so reeling from 9/11 that the fervor wasn't tempered by this kind of analysis. I am glad that this report is out, and think it's hilarious that the chart resembles the peace sign.
July 30, 2008 7:26 AM I think the most important thing going on in Afghanistan right now is the establishment of a trained police force, the reestablishment of education, repairing and building infrastructure, and creating jobs. keeping terrorists or insurgents or whatever they're called today out of the way is secondary. The problem with Iraq was that GWB decided to invade on sketchy evidence while a lot of resources were still tied up in Afghanistan. If they'd waited until they started seeing actual success in Afghanistan, they might have had more success in Iraq. People want jobs and food and running water more than they want "liberators."
Capitulation will eliminate any motivation for terrorist groups to continue to exist. Oh, were people under the impression that the disbanding of a terrorist group meant the terrorist group failed?
July 30, 2008 7:56 AM #34: If you don't count going into Iraq in the first place, clearly what this report states is that the mistake in Iraq was the disbanding of local forces.
July 30, 2008 8:01 AM What would the political answer be? From a cursory count, the authors data set includes information on about 650 groups that have used the tactic of terrorism since 1968. These groups range in size from a few members to 10's of thousands. From this report, religious groups have never succeeded, probably because they have always refused political solutions. This report recommends local police and...
|
http://csua.com/feed/