and then another
Well, we are back on a high alert for terrorist strikes against the U.S., specifically airliners. Great Britain is at what they term a critical alert, meaning that actual attacks have been detected, and, (we hope), stopped. We will see about that...
This should be no surprise to any of us, it is something that we will have to live with, probably for the rest of our lives.
For all the talk that we hear on radio and TV, in the tabloids and newspapers, (and in blogs of the well known and not so well-known), how do we define the threat that is before us, and do we have an idea of what it will take to eliminate that threat? I suspect that some do, but the answer or answers are not to be spoken aloud.
If either of you reading this have an opinion, please share it, in a comment or email. This may be the defining issue of our age.
Ask yourself these questions:
1) what is the nature of an enemy who wages war in this way?
2) can they be neutralized, or defeated?
3) how have other cultures deal with similar situations?
Here I go:
1) We are faced with an enemy whose philosophy and rationale extends beyond this mortal realm. They see themselves as the very real hand of God in this world. (The underlying ideology may be much more familiar----greed and thirst for power----and is simply riding the coattails of the fanatic movement). We in the U.S. have some experience with this in the religious far-right, at least with that particular vein of thinking, but not too many of these "zealots" have been willing to kill themselves and many innocents just to prove a point. The closest we have been in this country to that level of dedication is the Jonestown colony, whose actions were directed inward, and Tim McVeigh, whose beliefs compelled him to act against the government in Oklahoma City. I am no expert, but the mindset in the mideast seems to completely discount the value of the individual, in the pursuit of some form of ideological purity, (and it is not clear that there is a single widely accepted version of this ideology), thus eliminating the horror/remorse/shame that westerners sometimes feel over what is called collateral damage.
2) If that proposition is true, then one has to ask how one neutralizes or defeats such an enemy? Is it possible to kill enough of them to call a battle or war actually won? That is an ugly thought, and the numerous permutations of consequences are not lost on me right now. Is a negotiated settlement possible, or more likely a gradually wilting of a nations (or peoples) desire to wage war? I do not know. Some Islamic regimes have liberalized, politically, (liberalized being a relative term here), but there is still much fundamentalist inflamed unrest in those countries. It may or may not be axiomatic that those regimes are among the more prosperous non-oil producing nations. A well fed and better educated population may be a key to some movement towards a resolution, but in the back of my ind, I doubt it. (That s not to say that those are not laudable goals, or that efforts towards achieving them should be curtailed). As I postulated earlier, for these people, the war is not in this life, what we are seeing is an effort to move the battle to grounds where they believe they will be victorious-----in other words, in the presence of God.
3) How do we deal with this kind of thinking? The only case we have to go by in recent history is the case of Israel. When attacked with a fist, Israel strikes back with a gun, when attacked with mortars, Israel strikes back with air strikes. They deal with this by always being prepared to hammer the opposition and proportionality be damned. I do not believe that the western cultures could do that, (not right now anyway), it is not in their blood. (Remember that the nation of Israel is a closed culture in itself, they may look, talk, and dress western, but they are, on a very basic level, a closed community). That may also be a key in this struggle, antithetical though it is to Americans and much of the rest of the world.
We seem to be fighting different wars, from our view, we go in, kick ass, (well, we hope), and then leave. The other side wants to destabilize the opposition, and keep doing so, until it simply crumbles under its own weight and inability to deal with all the other things a society must deal with.
Is it out of line to suggest that, to 'win' this war, we have to outdo the other side in that arena?
As for other solutions, they have not become apparent to me as yet, (not that I expect them to).
I fear a new Holocaust, possibly in my lifetime, most certainly in my childrens. It seems that the likely targets will be the semitic peoples of the world, (yes, Jew and Muslim), but it may be different, it may be the western cultures that become isolated and closed in upon. Were it not so tragic and frightening, it would be an interesting excercise to see. What political entities would be split off first, and which ones last? The peoples of the far east and subcontinent are not often figured into the stiuations of the mideast, but the very gravity of their presence plays a big, big role.
"May you live in interesting times", indeed!
This should be no surprise to any of us, it is something that we will have to live with, probably for the rest of our lives.
For all the talk that we hear on radio and TV, in the tabloids and newspapers, (and in blogs of the well known and not so well-known), how do we define the threat that is before us, and do we have an idea of what it will take to eliminate that threat? I suspect that some do, but the answer or answers are not to be spoken aloud.
If either of you reading this have an opinion, please share it, in a comment or email. This may be the defining issue of our age.
Ask yourself these questions:
1) what is the nature of an enemy who wages war in this way?
2) can they be neutralized, or defeated?
3) how have other cultures deal with similar situations?
Here I go:
1) We are faced with an enemy whose philosophy and rationale extends beyond this mortal realm. They see themselves as the very real hand of God in this world. (The underlying ideology may be much more familiar----greed and thirst for power----and is simply riding the coattails of the fanatic movement). We in the U.S. have some experience with this in the religious far-right, at least with that particular vein of thinking, but not too many of these "zealots" have been willing to kill themselves and many innocents just to prove a point. The closest we have been in this country to that level of dedication is the Jonestown colony, whose actions were directed inward, and Tim McVeigh, whose beliefs compelled him to act against the government in Oklahoma City. I am no expert, but the mindset in the mideast seems to completely discount the value of the individual, in the pursuit of some form of ideological purity, (and it is not clear that there is a single widely accepted version of this ideology), thus eliminating the horror/remorse/shame that westerners sometimes feel over what is called collateral damage.
2) If that proposition is true, then one has to ask how one neutralizes or defeats such an enemy? Is it possible to kill enough of them to call a battle or war actually won? That is an ugly thought, and the numerous permutations of consequences are not lost on me right now. Is a negotiated settlement possible, or more likely a gradually wilting of a nations (or peoples) desire to wage war? I do not know. Some Islamic regimes have liberalized, politically, (liberalized being a relative term here), but there is still much fundamentalist inflamed unrest in those countries. It may or may not be axiomatic that those regimes are among the more prosperous non-oil producing nations. A well fed and better educated population may be a key to some movement towards a resolution, but in the back of my ind, I doubt it. (That s not to say that those are not laudable goals, or that efforts towards achieving them should be curtailed). As I postulated earlier, for these people, the war is not in this life, what we are seeing is an effort to move the battle to grounds where they believe they will be victorious-----in other words, in the presence of God.
3) How do we deal with this kind of thinking? The only case we have to go by in recent history is the case of Israel. When attacked with a fist, Israel strikes back with a gun, when attacked with mortars, Israel strikes back with air strikes. They deal with this by always being prepared to hammer the opposition and proportionality be damned. I do not believe that the western cultures could do that, (not right now anyway), it is not in their blood. (Remember that the nation of Israel is a closed culture in itself, they may look, talk, and dress western, but they are, on a very basic level, a closed community). That may also be a key in this struggle, antithetical though it is to Americans and much of the rest of the world.
We seem to be fighting different wars, from our view, we go in, kick ass, (well, we hope), and then leave. The other side wants to destabilize the opposition, and keep doing so, until it simply crumbles under its own weight and inability to deal with all the other things a society must deal with.
Is it out of line to suggest that, to 'win' this war, we have to outdo the other side in that arena?
As for other solutions, they have not become apparent to me as yet, (not that I expect them to).
I fear a new Holocaust, possibly in my lifetime, most certainly in my childrens. It seems that the likely targets will be the semitic peoples of the world, (yes, Jew and Muslim), but it may be different, it may be the western cultures that become isolated and closed in upon. Were it not so tragic and frightening, it would be an interesting excercise to see. What political entities would be split off first, and which ones last? The peoples of the far east and subcontinent are not often figured into the stiuations of the mideast, but the very gravity of their presence plays a big, big role.
"May you live in interesting times", indeed!
posted by eccentric recluse at 8:40 AM
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