The War on Terror

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11 August 2006

My “things to blog about” list has had an item named “war on terror” on it for a long time. Inspired by zefrank’s excellent monologue on the subject (the first part isn’t safe for children), I’ve decided that the time has come.

Here’s the gist of it: having a “war on terror(ism)” is like having a “war on reading” or a “war on war.” Terrorism, like reading and war, is an activity, not a physical thing that can be fought and defeated. Anyone, anytime, anywhere can be a terrorist, and there’s no way to stop it all. There’s no way to even stamp out the major things that frighten us, because the possibilities are so endless. But we’re still fighting a war against a style of war that we don’t like. It’s ludicrous.

Terrorism works. In the free-market economy of public emotion, terrorism is a high-risk (death), high-reward (mass fear), low-cost (relatively), easy (there’s a million ways) investment, and as long as it continues to be that way it will continue to exist in the world.

Given the equation above (risk/reward/cost/difficulty), any “war” on terror has to modify at least one part of that equation. Right now, the U.S. government’s focus is exclusively on the “difficulty” part. They’re trying to make it harder and harder for terrorists to pull off their plots, by making it harder to do things like put bombs on airplanes. (This also has a minor effect on the “cost” front because increased difficulty generally leads to increased cost.) But this is just one attack vector – there are millions more. As soon as the cost and difficulty of putting bombs on planes hits some threshold, the terrorists will move on to another target that is cheaper/easier, and we’ll have to start restricting the rights of Americans to try to block it.

There are too many options for the terrorists for us to be able to block them all. There are too many creative ways to cause fear and panic, and too many that are easy to pull off. We’ll never block them all, no matter how much we lock down the country. That’s why terrorism is so effective, and why it is so often the war-style of choice for small groups trying to cause revolutions.

The scary part of all of this is not all the wasted flailing-about on increasing the difficulty of terrorism. The scary part is that we’re also messing with another part of that equation – the reward part. Over and over again, we’ve seen the government, media, public, peers, etc. etc. etc. increase the reward portion of the equation by over-hyping the threat. As the most obvious example, look at the color-coded “national threat level indicators.” The only purpose of such a thing is to tell us “here is how much you should be afraid of some unspecific thing.” Generalized fear is the goal of terrorism, and we’ve encoded a mechanism for facilitating generalized fear into our political landscape. It’s absurd.

As ze points out, terrorism works because it’s easy to do something that generates more fear than it is worthy of. Terrorists hoist us by our own petard, in that our reverence for the free-flow of (unintelligent) information and communication allows panic to spread like wildfire among people who don’t stop to think about what is really going on. (I’m for that free-flow – but my point remains that they’re still using it against us.) Our fear is far higher than is justified by our risk, because the biological roots of our fear-response aren’t designed to wait for our brain to kick in :) The only way to really win the war on terror is to bring our fear in-line with the actual risk, and that will require us to think critically about terrorism and terrorist acts.

It will also require our government to set the example. Leadership, in this case, would best be done by helping us avoid unnecessary fears, not by playing them up.

I don’t have a lot of hope for the improvement of this situation. On the surface, it’s not in the politicians’ best interest to downplay fear, because public fear generally leads to increased governmental power (as is happening in the U.S.). One layer deeper, Bush’s style is to act, not think, and a policy of “think before speaking” isn’t high on his list of capabilities. A layer deeper than that, we see that we elected this man, even though it was obvious that he doesn’t like to think. That leads me to believe that this problem may simply be endemic to Americans, and will never go away. That makes me sad and angry.

And that makes me blog :)

I hope that we can all stop and think about what’s really going on here. I’d like to see a world where we didn’t waste so much energy on this stuff, and the key to that may simply be to get people thinking critically.

Please let me know what you think – add a comment.

Comments
  1. matt says:

    I think you miss the distinction between massively destructive behaviour and organized terrorism. Don’t worry – I think those waging the war-on-terror, the media, and political pundits are also make that same mistake. Organized terrorism involves military-style training camps, massive funding, and large scale plots. Terrorism is NOT an “insurgent” taking pot-shots at a tank in Iraq or even one crazy guy like Tim McVey with a car bomb. Stopping organized terrorism involves preventing people from forming training camps and cutting off the funding required for large scale attacks. It involves locating and arresting members of sleeper cells. Calling all destructive behavior “terrorism” is trendy right now, but the war on honest-to-God organized terrorism is a good thing.

    But, as usual, you can’t fix crazy or stupid; people are going to continue doing destructive things on a small scale, but that doesn’t make them terrorists. However, you can put a major dent in organized crazy AND stupid where they have the capability to do large-scale destruction. And that, my friend, is a noble cause.

  2. Kevin says:

    First of all, fear is not necessarily a bad thing. The reason we have it at all is as a survival instinct. Fear of terrorism is a reaction to people to want to kill us.

    You seem to think that we (our government and people) are overreacting. I say we’re not reacting enough.

    These are people who say they want to subvert our country, change our culture, and destroy us. Words have meanings, we should LISTEN to what terrorists are saying, and not ignore them.

    Yes, it would be so much easier to downplay terrorism and dismiss fears. But then we would be no better than the citizens of Auschwitz, who ignored the smells coming from the internment camp, because they didn’t want to get involved.

    Human life is worth something. And those who actively seek to destroy innocent human life stand opposite of everything I believe in.

    If you don’t believe that human life has value, then it is easy to say that terrorism is overhyped, or that it is being used for political purposes by a corrupt administration. But I believe that human life DOES have value, and needs to be defended from murderers.

    Do you?

    “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

  3. Nathan Arthur says:

    Matt -

    You’re right that I hadn’t thought about separating out “organized terrorism” from “excessive destruction” although I think the more important distinction is around whether the destruction was designed to cause terror or if it was just mean to hurt somebody, and not around whether it was organized or not. But I think you missed my point – it isn’t absurd to have a “war against organized terrorists.” They are specific people who can be identified and shot. It is absurd to have a war against an activity (like “terrorism”) that has no target. (Note that I don’t like the idea that all terrorists are bad, either – terrorism may be the only way to fight for a just cause, in some circumstances. See V for Vendetta for a recent example.)

    Kevin -

    I thought you were going to say that we should take the terrorists’ views seriously and actually consider that they may have a point. I could get behind that idea. But that’s not what you said – instead you implied that I don’t believe that human life has value.

    I generally won’t respond to ad hominem attacks, but since this if your first time I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and rebut it.

    I do believe in the value of human life, and I believe in it strongly. I believe that life should be defended from murderers, and generally believe that aggressive violence is a bad thing. I do not, however, believe that human life is the only thing that has value, and I therefore have to weigh the value of human life against the value of everything else (like freedom and happiness and security) and make (very tough) tradeoffs about how to handle any given situation. You may believe that nothing in the world has more value than human life, but if so I disagree. Absolute beliefs are (in my experience) dangerous.

    Many American lives have been lost in Afghanistan and Iraq as a consequence of trying to defend other American lives here in the U.S. Which of those lives had more value?

    I notice on a re-read that the post makes it sound like I think that energy spent trying to increase the difficulty of terrorism is wasted – that’s not what I think. I originally wrote a paragraph around how I don’t think it is a bad idea, but I do think we’re going about it in an extraordinarily inefficient and wasteful way. I decided the paragraph detracted from the core argument, so I took it out.

  4. Nathan Arthur says:

    Kevin -

    P.S. – Fear of terrorism is not a fear of people who want to kill us, as you say. It is a fear that those people might be able to succeed. There are always people in the world who want to kill us, and the number of those people does not change drastically from day to day. But our fear does change drastically from day to day – it changes when something makes us think “I’m not safe!” and we think that they might be able to get us. That happens when they pull off a successful attack (9/11) or when our own government increases the alert level to red. Either way, the terrorists get what they want – fear.

    The fear doesn’t help us. It’s a biological response designed to deal with instant threats. It fades over time and ceases to motivate us. And while it lasts it clouds our judgment and tricks us into rash decisions. The fear is a good warning signal, but it should not be the only thing we base our decisions on.

  5. matt says:

    Nathan – You are certainly correct that “war on terror”, “war on reading”, “war on war”, or – the one I kept thinking you’d being up – “war on drugs” are absurd terms. But the truth is, of course, that the war on terror is just a label, not a description of reality. You have to admit that calling it an effort to stop terrorists and militants who want to bring death and utter destruction to Israel and all who support her just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

    I do think I understand what you’re saying though – at least in part. In an effort to wage war on organized (or even disorganized) terrorists, the government is perhaps at times doing things that might be seen as encroaching on civil liberties. It’s a hard line to draw because on one hand, everyone supports finding real terrorists with real plots and stopping them by arresting them and locking them away or killing them. The key word there though is finding. How do you find them if you aren’t allowed to monitor phone lines, mine ISP logs for suspicious data, or monitor the purchases of certain combinations of goods? There is a trade-off between my right to privacy (which isn’t technically a formally stated right) and my right to safety (which is formally stated in many places).

    As far as your comments about Bush go… sigh. Okay – the man is not good at public speaking… at all… in fact he’s downright painful to watch. But, that doesn’t mean that his post-9/11 security policy is wrong – in fact, I find it downright clever (though I’m sure he had some help from some good advisors). Bush’s main flaw is that he believes he doesn’t need to justify his actions and he believes all too much that the ends justify the means. But look… ignore the media spin and your (valid) frustration about being in Iraq under false pretenses – ignore the emotional aspect that makes you see red and just take a look at what has actually occurred from a different angle.

    1 – The primary target for terrorists has moved from America to the Middle East. While America is still a target, it is much less work for jihadists to target the American’s down the street rather than across the ocean. We’ve chosen the battle ground.

    2 – When the terrorists strike out at Americans in the Middle East, they’re targeting trained soldiers, not innocent civilians here in the states.

    3 – Remember the Axis of evil State of the Union speech? Take a look at a couple maps . North Korea has Japan, China, South Korea, and even the former USSR to contend with. Iran is hell bent on the destruction of Israel. We now have help in Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan when it comes to keeping Iran in check. What if Iraq is a staging area for the impending Iranian threat?

    I too feel “sad and angry” about the state of things. How do you fight against an enemy that flys no flags, that has no army, that assigns no value to life – neither their own nor that of their enemy? We can’t just sit on our hands and do nothing, can we? That can’t be what you’re proposing, right?

    I keep hearing people musing about World War III. This is World War I. This is the original Great War. Isaac and Ismael. These people will not stop until they conquer completely or die trying.

  6. Nathan Arthur says:

    an effort to stop terrorists and militants who want to bring death and utter destruction to Israel and all who support her

    I don’t recall that this “war” is about fighting people who don’t like Israel – it’s about fighting people who might attack us, and people who might take our oil away (wink). Except recently, I didn’t think Israel had anything to do with it.

    How do you find them if you aren’t allowed to monitor phone lines, mine ISP logs for suspicious data, or monitor the purchases of certain combinations of goods?

    They same way they found terrorists before the modern technological age – manual labor. But that’s irrelevant – the issue is that we have to balance the loss of privacy against whatever increased information we give us (and then against the presumably higher cost of getting that information other ways). It’s not the direct loss of privacy that’s the problem – it’s the direct increase of the government’s control that results from the loss of privacy.

    I fear our government, perhaps as much as I fear the terrorists. Most arguments around “the government needs more access” are based on the assumption that “the government” is only going to use that access for purposes that the arguer agrees with. I don’t believe that – there are no checks and balances for the types of access they currently have. So we’ve given increased, unchecked power to people whose major qualification is that they are good at making people believe in them (and not that they are good at their job). That scares me, more than terrorists do.

    my right to safety (which is formally stated in many places)

    Where is that stated? I’ve never heard of it. Most police departments have taken “protect” out of their taglines (because they can’t) and I’ve just added a quote to this site from the court case that established that the government has no obligation to protect its citizens.

    Back to the core argument, though…

    I can rebut your points 1 and 2 simply by pointing to the recent (foiled) plots to put bombs on planes headed for the U.S. The terrorists we’re supposed to be fighting are still at large (Osama bin Laden, for example) and still trying to attack us, not soldiers in Iraq.

    Point 3 is frightening to me – I can see that it is convenient that we’re already in Iraq as Iran flares up, but using that as a justification for a war?

    I agree that we should be doing something about people who want to attack our country. I disagree that the “something” should involve taking away civil liberties. It’s those liberties that make our country what it is. It’s not worth it to me to change things that much, just for a little less fear (and a lot less freedom).

  7. Kevin says:

    Nathan - I didn’t intend my post as an ad-hominem attack on you. I know what that is, and I didn’t intend to imply that you don’t value life.

    I meant to show you the difference in thinking between terrorists and those who stand against them. Terrorists do not believe in the value of life. They seek only to destroy… innocent men, women and children, and property… just to make a point. Osama bin Ladin made this exact point when he stated We love death. The US loves life. That is the difference between us two.

    You seem to feel that what I said was an attack on you when you (mistakenly) thought that my points were directed against you… but then you turn around in one of your last posts and imply that we should listen to the terrorists. Uhmmm… so which is it? Should we give weight to what terrorists say? Should we negotiate with them? Israel and the US has been appeasing them for decades and nothing has changed.

    The terrorists are quite clear in what they are saying. It is WE who ignore or dismiss their words. They are united in saying they wish to destroy Israel, to drive their people into the sea, to kill every citizen of that country. Then they will destroy the great Satan… the United States. They will continue to kill and destroy until either the entire world accepts the global Islamic caliphate with sharia law… or the terrorists are destroyed.

    All you have to do is listen to them. Words have meanings and terrorists are quite clear in what they mean to achieve.

  8. Kevin says:

    I’ll also add a quote I found…

    War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
    ... John Stuart Mill

    And as a disclaimer… I am not accusing you of BEING in a decayed or degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling. However, I believe that these type of people exist. They would rather treat terrorists as equals, rather than the murderers that they are. There ARE things worth fighting for. Do you believe this also?

  9. matt says:

    So many points to address, so little time. It’s becoming like whack-a-mole. Lets see if I can at least hit some of the highlights:

    Nathan – I don’t recall that this “war” is about fighting people who don’t like Israel

    This is somewhat misconstruing what I said. We’re not fighting people because they don’t like Israel. America is being targeted because we do.

    The terrorists responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 sent a letter to the New York Times which stated, in part: “We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.” – From Why they hate us.

    And, as reported by Al Jazeera:

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

    I think these are the types of things Kevin was pointing to when mentioning that you aren’t hearing what the terrorists have said about why they hate us.

    Then you said this:

    “my right to safety (which is formally stated in many places)” – Where is that stated? I’ve never heard of it.

    I was referring to the law. Laws about murder, attempted murder, abuse, my right to gun ownership, my right to a fair trial – even seat belt laws – all of these are directly related to my personal safety. Safety is often placed ahead of freedom when they are in direct contention (ie: people don’t have the ‘freedom’ to kill). Per your quote, it may not be required that the police be able to protect everyone on demand, but the court system ensures that the laws have value and meaning even when the police sometimes can’t help immediately. Even in the Declaration of Independence, there is a natural order to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

    As far as this point goes:

    I can rebut your points 1 and 2 simply by pointing to the recent (foiled) plots to put bombs on planes headed for the U.S.

    Notice I said the “primary” target has moved. It’s guaranteed that we’re in some danger here still, but there’s something to be said for having an American force in the terrorist’s back yard.

    And since you brought it up, how did those terrorist plots like the shoe bomber and the recent plot from the UK get exposed if it weren’t for advanced survelience techniques? You say law enforcement should do things “the same way they found terrorists before the modern technological age – manual labor.” I’m not so sure these plots would have been stopped if we had purposefully crippled our ability to snoop.

    It’s those liberties that make our country what it is. It’s not worth it to me to change things that much, just for a little less fear (and a lot less freedom).

    What civil liberties have you lost? The Constitution is still well in tact from what I can see. Look – to be totally honest, I too am uneasy about the government having the power it does. But, I’m also uneasy about how much power corporations have to sue people into oblivion or to collect monstrous amounts of consumer data. The paparazzi, private investigators, ISPs, credit card companies, and grocery stores have acess to as much “private” information on a person as the government. Heck, when I put my trash on the curb it’s contents are no longer private. So what? What liberties have you really lost? You can always pay by cash – you can still correspond via letters rather than by e-mail or phone – no one forces you to fly – you can wait until just before the trash truck comes to take the garbage out – and you have the right to vote for whomever you choose. I’m not for big government and I typically don’t like expanding government programs, but upon close inspection, I’d have a hard time making the case that what we’re doing post-9/11 isn’t working.

    Are we safer since 9/11? No – of course not. The world isn’t “safe” – never has been. 9/11 is just a date – a point in time when we were reminded of our own mortality. The truth was no different before, nor after – only our understanding of it was clarified.

    Your position seems to be that terrorists made us fearful and we’ve responded in fear. I believe that we’ve become more vigilant. I believe we’d been wishy-washy up to that point. Had Clinton had it to do over again today, he’d probably not even have had to think twice. We’ve been awakened to the truth of the situation, and I don’t see the response as fear – it’s determination.

  10. Nathan Arthur says:

    Kevin -

    My apologies for overreacting – even if you were attacking me (and I believe that you weren’t), I shouldn’t have attacked back. (Seems somehow related, doesn’t it?)

    But I still don’t understand your point – it’s not clear if you’re saying that we should “kill them all” or “hear the truth in what they say” or “hear that they hate us, no matter what” or ???

    I did, however, add your quote to my quote list – I completely agree with it. I’ve always felt that a country that isn’t willing to fight for itself doesn’t deserve to continue to exist. The same holds true for people, groups, etc. who won’t fight for themselves or for the things they believe in.

    But that doesn’t mean that I can’t also hear the message of the terrorists, and understand that they too are fighting for something they believe in. In a way, they’re like us in that they believe they need to kill us in order to defend their ideals. Thus far, I haven’t condemned the terrorists (or terrorism) – I don’t know enough about each side of the issue to be sure. (See below for more on this – the opinion doesn’t end here.)

    Either way, I think we’ve gotten well off topic, and I seem to be defending a position that I didn’t take. I don’t have a strong opinion about terrorism in general, nor about the Israel/Palestine issues. I do have a strong opinion about the way the country is approaching the “war on terror.”

    Matt -

    We need a little whack-a-mole song :)

    I realize that I wasn’t clear about my comment about Israel, either – I understand that the terrorists have strong feelings (heh) about Israel – my point was that we’re not fighting this war because we want to defend Israel. We’re fighting this war because they attacked us, and made it personal. But again – I don’t have a problem that we’re trying to kill the people who attacked us – I have a problem with the way we’re using fear as a political tool.

    Laws about murder, attempted murder, abuse, my right to gun ownership, my right to a fair trial – even seat belt laws – all of these are directly related to my personal safety. Safety is often placed ahead of freedom when they are in direct contention (ie: people don’t have the ‘freedom’ to kill).

    I don’t think of these as laws that protect my safety – I think of them as laws that prevent other people from infringing on my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I don’t think the government should prevent individuals from hurting themselves (and generally it doesn’t.) I generally disagree with laws that actually try to protect my safety directly – seatbelt laws (for adults), suicide laws, etc.

    I’m not so sure these plots would have been stopped if we had purposefully crippled our ability to snoop.

    I agree that there’s that chance, although neither of us knows enough about the underlying realities to ever know for sure. I do know that I place an extremely high value on personal liberty, and personal liberty is being taken away under the guise of not “crippling our ability to snoop.”

    I’m not going to quote out of your third-to-the-last paragraph, but I am going to try to address the points:

    1. Numerous examples exist of encroachments on rights like freedom of the press, unnecessary search and siezure, the right to bear arms, freedom of travel between the states, etc. I personally may not have been immediately affected – yet. There’s a quote with a series of “when they came for the XYZ, I stood silent…” that makes the point.
    2. I’m uneasy about corporate power and the loss of privacy, also, but I think that’s a different issue.
    3. Your list of things with cash/email/garbage/voting – those things shouldn’t be necessary to protect myself from the government. My right to liberty does not mean “my right to avoid doing anything where someone might not respect my liberty” – that’s equivalent to saying “give in to the bully – then you won’t get hurt.” It doesn’t make the bully right.

    But I have to quote this:

    I’d have a hard time making the case that what we’re doing post-9/11 isn’t working.

    ...and then this:

    Are we safer since 9/11? No – of course not.

    How can you say that what we’re doing is working and then say that we’re no safer? You’ve just totally agreed with me – we aren’t any safer, but we’ve traded some civil liberties to get that way! I assume you meant something else?

    I do agree, however, that the better understanding of reality is a good thing. The issue that I’m arguing about is that the pendulum has swung too far. We used to be blissfully oblivious to the real dangers of the world. Now, we are overly fearful and attentive to them.

  11. matt says:

    Whack-a-mole songs might be too maddening. I’d settle for a nice sproing-ng-ng sound for every mole (terrorist) whacked.

    Anyway, down to business.

    I don’t have a problem that we’re trying to kill the people who attacked us – I have a problem with the way we’re using fear as a political tool.

    Way to bring us back to your original point in blogging. Good show.

    I don’t think of these as laws that protect my safety – I think of them as laws that prevent other people from infringing on my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

    That sounds an awful lot like protecting your safety to me.

    I generally disagree with laws that actually try to protect my safety directly – seatbelt laws (for adults), suicide laws, etc.

    Well, then consider those to be laws to protect the people who issue you life insurance. Or, consider those to be laws designed to protect the people who watched you go splat, or whose job it is to clean up afterward. How’s that for an alternate perspective?

    I agree that there’s that chance, although neither of us knows enough about the underlying realities to ever know for sure. [re: crippled ability to snoop]

    Agreed. But in the absense of any other information, my conclusion that we had good intel from snooping makes a whole lot more sense than your alternative.

    I do know that I place an extremely high value on personal liberty, and personal liberty is being taken away under the guise of not “crippling our ability to snoop.”

    I agree and also place a high value on personal liberty. However, my point is that there must be balance. Total “freedom” is anarchy. Total “safety” is communism or facism. There’s a happy medium that we must strive for. We were out of balance and vulnerable.

    1. Numerous examples exist of encroachments on rights like freedom of the press, unnecessary search and siezure, the right to bear arms, freedom of travel between the states, etc.

    Cite for me some examples. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but lets talk specifics. And not stuff happening to just anyone and not stuff already happening pre-9/11. I’m talking about American citizens – those whose rights are enumerated in and protected by the Constitution – having their rights encroached upon post-9/11.

    Just to show you I do partially agree though – if you’d brought up Gitmo, I’d have had to conceed that what’s happening to those people there is awful – foreigners or not.

    when they came for the XYZ, I stood silent…

    You mean this quote. Very subtle way to invoke Godwin’s Law. In the name of good debate, I call foul.

    I’m uneasy about corporate power and the loss of privacy, also, but I think that’s a different issue.

    My point was only that this is nothing new nor is it limited to the government.

    those things shouldn’t be necessary to protect myself from the government. My right to liberty does not mean “my right to avoid doing anything where someone might not respect my liberty” – that’s equivalent to saying “give in to the bully – then you won’t get hurt.” It doesn’t make the bully right.

    Again, we must seek balance. You have to give a little unless you’re advocating anarchy.

    How can you say that what we’re doing is working and then say that we’re no safer?

    Ah yes. You caught me. When I reread what I wrote before submitting it I noticed that what I said wasn’t entirely clear and seemed contradictory (it’s not, but that’s unclear). I submitted anyway figuring I’d have to readdress – so lets just agree that that was a crappy way to say it and I’ll try again…

    We aren’t safer – every day brings new dangers. The world is full of corrupt leaders, declining moral standards, and more and more whackos that have no value for life, let alone liberty. That decline is perhaps steeper than is possible to push against, but that doesn’t mean you stop resisting the downward trend. Our post-9/11 policy, while likely not technically making us safer, is plugging some of the gaps and slowing the breakneck speed of the handbasket we’re in with it’s roasty destination.

    the pendulum has swung too far

    I agree. Balance, young grasshopper.

    But that doesn’t mean that I can’t also hear the message of the terrorists, and understand that they too are fighting for something they believe in. In a way, they’re like us in that they believe they need to kill us in order to defend their ideals. Thus far, I haven’t condemned the terrorists (or terrorism) – I don’t know enough about each side of the issue to be sure.

    I hate to end on this – it just happens to be the order in which I’ve gotten to things. I really have nothing positive to say about this. With apologies to Charles Babbage, “I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a” statement. These people are responsible for some of the most heinous acts in recent history. These people are not like us – if we were like them in any way, we would not even be wasting time thinking about civil liberties and the ideals that America was built on. These are not people worth listening too, negotiating with, or quite frankly even sharing our planet with.

  12. Kevin says:

    Nathan – I probably shouldn’t have come on so strong as this. But after reading a few different articles, it just really gets my blood boiling. We should not negotiate or accomodate terrorists. Here are just a few links to remind us of what we are dealing with…

    NYC releases new 9/11 tapes

    The School

    They are not like us. They intend to spread Sharia law to the ends of the earth and unite all the countries under a global Islamic caliphate. They will kill all those who resist… especially the US and Israel. This is, and always has been, a religious war between good and evil.

    Since Islamic terrorists site the Qu’ran as their inspiration, let me leave you with some quotes…

    “And slay them (the infidels) wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out, for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter” 2:191

    “And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and Faith in Allah; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.” 2:193

    “Seize them and slay them wherever you find them: and in any case take no friends or helpers from their ranks.” 4:89

    “Allah has granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit at home” 4:95

    “Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly” 8:60

    “O Prophet! rouse the Believers to the fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a thousand of the Unbelievers: for these are a people without understanding” 8:65

    “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” 9:29

    “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular Prayers and practise regular Charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful” 9:5

    Like I said before, words have meanings. If the terrorists profess the Qu’ran as their source of inspiration for attacking us, then we should learn more of it to understand their motivations.

  13. Nathan Arthur says:

    We seem to be confusing “terrorists” with “Al Queda.” I don’t (yet?) believe that terrorism, as a means of fighting a war, is always bad. I do believe that Al Queda is bad. Hopefully that clarifies a lot of what I said above.

    Having said that, I’m going to agree with Matt that I invoked Godwin’s Law, and I’m therefore going to follow the rule and quit :)

    Thanks for the lively debate, guys!

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