AVoiceOfReason

We agree that the solution of Western invasion into all those places is impractical and undesirable. That's why the ideal resolution would be for the goverments of the individual countries to decide to make those changes without such taking place. Libya is a good example of what I have in mind; shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Libya started making noises about coming clean on some things. Naturally, talk is cheap, but if the threat of invasion and instillation of new goverments, i.e. ones that will not harbor or foster terrorists, is the motivation for internal change, then the threat must be real.

And as for the chain reaction taking several years, that's undoubtedly so; I become frustrated at times by what looks to be slow movement in Afghanistan and Iraq, but then I remember how long it took to get Europe stabilized, and it seems the progress that is being made in each place needs to be measured not daily or weekly, but in yearly increments.

And I yearn for the day when we are completely out of that region!

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AVOR

A Voice Of Reason, not necessarily the ONLY one.

stevo

And you roach offer no solutions, only criticisims spinning your same arguement around and around. You offer nothing. Your opinions are no more helpful than a monday morning quarterback.

No one is advocating invading country after country. Even the wackiest of right wingers know we don't have the resources to pull it off if we wanted to. As far as a chain reaction in the middle east...well, whats wrong with taking several years? Wars take several years too. Do you have a quicker solution?

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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

roachboy

well stevo, i think the argument would be that your way of interpreting "terrorism" offers no space of solutions.
it is not about solutions.

it is about justifying any and all implications of the choices made by this administration, as if this administrations response to 9/11 and thereafter was the only possible.

at the small level, the problem in this thread is that you started it without any reference whatsoever to debates that had been happening all around it on the same topic--you seem to have decided to adopt the shampoo bottle approach--lather rinse repeat--to political debate.
but every last objection raised in other threads about the contemporary usage of the notion of terrorism applies to this thread.
that you chose to cut this one off from those debates changes nothing--strangely you were involved in these debates as well, so it is not like you do not know about them.

after all that, you revert to "how do 'we' understand 'irrational people'" as if that is an adequate characterization of anything. i do not know what psychological need you see being filled by such a view, but it must be powerful for you.

and you offer nothing as a reponse to the racist character of the line that you are defending. but it does not and will not go away simply because you do not want to look at it. but then again, i know very few bigots who understand themselves as bigots...it is always about fear of some outside force that threatens.

you are not interested in debating the question of terrorism, how to think about it, how one might imagine policy that could deal with it--you are simply rehearsing the logic of the bush administration, ruling objections out if they stray, approving if they conform. it is like listening to limbaugh without the screeners. is this how conservative discussion goes routinely? the only admissable options are ones that agree with you up front?

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

politicophile

To the contrary, roachboy, it is you who are not interested in debating the question of terrorism. Stevo not only started this thread, but has been interacting with those who responded to him. You seem more interested in insulting those who disagree with you:
Who says stuff like that? Honestly!

stevo

Don't forget the deep conditoning .

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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

Charlatan

I am not saying this at all... I was simply trying to be clear (in perhaps a sarcastic way) that invasion is not diplomacy.


I don't thing we should negotiate with terrorists at all. Just like we don't negotiate with other criminals. We arrest and prosecute them.

You can't fight terrorism with an army in the traditional sense. Terrorists don't have a nation to invade. They don't have a city to siege.

We need to get out of the traditional headspace of war. We like the Polish fight blitzkrieg with a cavalry.

Invading Afghanistan and Iraq is not going to stop it. Levelling the entire middle east is not going to stop it. We need to get our head around the idea that we can't stop it. It is a fact of life. Terrorism is going to happen. We need to take appropriate steps to prevent it from happening much like we would try to prevent crime in our neighbourhoods - security and policing.

We don't level problem neighbourhoods, we present a combined effort of policing and anti-poverty/communtiy education. In other words we isolate those who would commit crimes by giving those in the communtiy who would prevent crimes something to live for, something to aspire to, etc.

The worst thing you can do is islolate those who would gladly be on the side of "good" by killing and bombing them. It makes the vitriol of the criminals sound like the "right thing to do".

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

roachboy

often, when talking across political viewpoints, political positions, what becomes a problem is the way questions are framed. the opening post set up the frame: the question is outlined on a highly problematic level of generality. to wit:

there you have it, politicophile. the straight conservative line on "terrorism" which consists, here as elswhere in the following claims, either explicit or implicit:

1. interpretation/trying to interpret the actions/motivations of "terrorists" is weakness.
or
1a. emphasizing the need to situate socially and historically the category of "terrorist" undermines the manly conflict undertaken by the bush administration--this is a charitable reading of the second sentence....another possible reading of this particularly snippy opening, which works entirely within the intellectual framework of the right: interpretation is a variant of appeasement.

conclusion: it is stronger to not try to understand anything.
as a strategy, this is wholly self defeating.
you would surely loose every chess match you played if you approached them in this way. underestimating the adversary is the most fundamental of strategic errors.



2. the post further treats egypt as though it is still an english colony. why is it that the role of the egyptian government in supporting bushwar cannot be posed in the opening? is it because the egyptian government is populated by "irrational people"?

3. the question: "how do you understand an irrational people?"

and so here we are: this is the framing question, the logic within which the debate is to unfold: every single feature of the dominant cartoon ideology on this question of what "terrorism" is and how to combat it is restated in that question: there are no distinctions to be made--no reason to analyse; "we"--presumably the rational people (i love that little slide)---confront our Enemy, the "terrorist" who is also the "irrational"...

given the history in this forum over the past weeks of debates on exactly this question of how to define terrorism, what the implications of the bushdefinition of the term are, etc., it is not unreasonable to see this thread as a step backward.

stevo is interacting with the folk who post in a way that indicates he is trying to maintain certain boundaries around the debate. this is one way to act in a threa that you start--nothing wrong with it--but it is what it is.

and so you know, i probably would not have bothered to pursue the racism argument had ustwo not posted a series of cromwellian remarks that went more or less unchallenged. among the problems with conservative ideology on terrorism is its close intertwining with racism, its use of racism as a mobilizng tool. even if the line is not explicitly racist, the conclusions that people draw from it often are.

but maybe this does not bother you. maybe you do not know anyone whose family was afraid to leave their houses for weeks after 9/11 simply because they were arab. maybe you dont know anyone who was beaten up by some flintstone because they were arab. maybe you dont know people who find each attack, no matter where, that fits into this nitwit construct of the "war on terror" to be a real problem because they worry that it will set off another round of having to be afraid to walk around the city where they live because they are arab. the refusal to make even the most basic distinction within the discourse of "terrorism"--a refusal that is performed in the opening of the thread---is really really problematic. this sort of stuff has happened to people in my immediate circle, to their families, to students, to their families. and it keeps happening.
you see in the guardian article i posted above that the same kind of thing is happening all over again, except this time in the u.k.
this is an important factor that explains something of why the entire rightwing line bothers me as it does.

just so you know.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

stevo

And I agree with you (mostly). As britain has showed us terrorists already live among us. leveling the middle east will not stop those who are already here. By changing the political climate in afganistan and iraq we bring them freedom they deserve and change the environment that breeds terrorism and extremism. The police within our borders protect us and the soldiers overseas work toward that same goal, with slightly different means. There is a bigger picture here, I think some get too focused on the military in the here and now and loose sight of what we're fighting for and against. I believe our military actions are necessary, but not the be all and end all of the fight against terrorism.

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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

Charlatan

Personally I didn't have a big issue with the invasion of Afghanistan... most can agree the the Taliban was abhorrent. The result is the support of many nations and, I would argue, the support of most moderate Muslims.

Iraq is an entirely different question and regarless of how the US admin tries to spin its actions just doesn't come out smelling good. It served only to alienate the moderate Muslims who otherwise, might have been a force for "good" and angered much of the global populace who could not see this as anything but an wrong headed invasion.

There were other methods that could have been used, sadly they don't look as good on TV as the staged toppling of Saddam's statue (or better put, they take time to impliment... something that is in short supply to an Administration with less than 3 years left in its first term...)

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Sun Tzu

Its a shame, Sharm al-Sheikh has some of the best diving on Earth. There was a time an American could go for a cool dive, drive for 2 hours see the spot King Solomon marked the Red Sea parting, drive for a couple more, walk around Sodom and Gomorra ruins, and finish with seeing the sights of Jerusalem -all in the same day. Those times are long gone.

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To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking