Damn it
I was at the Detroit airport today when I caught a glimpse of CNN's coverage of the terrorist attacks in London. In my rush, I thought that 700 people had been killed. For my entire flight, this number weighed on my mind. Only after I landed did I learn that there were 700 wounded, not killed. Thank God it wasn't that bad.
From everything I've read about Al Qaeda, these attacks fit with their style. The embassy bombings. 9/11. Bali. Spain. Now London. How long before they are able to strike the United States again?
My God.
Al Qaeda must be stopped.
Let's not let our differences over Iraq hinder that goal. All civilized nations must come together to destroy al Qaeda. And we must quench their support in the Muslim world, which sustains al Qaeda. Only by doing that can real victory be won.
Sadly, that's a much harder task, and there is little agreement on how to do it. Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer argues that easy-out rhetoric like "they hate our freedom" is counterproductive. Al Qaeda has very specific foreign policy goals, many of which are shared with a good portion of the Islamic world, which in turn sympathizes with Al Qaeda. For many, bending to Islamic popular demands on issues like Palestine are out of the question. My reading of Scheuer's book indicates that he thinks in this case, we'd better get good at killing. Innocents included.
I am not optimistic today.
posted by Luke Francl @ 6:56 PM |
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5 Comments:
One thing we can do is stop creating enemies. That's a long-term solution, but an important one. The US (and England and others as well) is creating enemies by unifying people with a sense of hatred. Exporting our policies to places that want nothing to do with us helps to create more terrorists.
For the short term, you are right. Getting rid of Al Qaeda has to be a top priority. It's like shooting a rabid dog. It's hard to argue the other side of it. However, I think going in with guns blazing is not the right way. So far that has nly strengthened their side.
I must disagree with Carl, the whole point of Iraq is to free the oppressed people so they can prosper. Prosperous people who have a real say in thier future, will be far less inclined to listen to the lunatic ramblings.
While Iraq is not enough to clean up the complete mess in the middle east. It is the start and it has already helped in other areas to show the what is possible.
Sadly this whole process will take a generation or more and so many lives will be wasted in the meantime.
Dave
Carl's right about not creating more enemies, but he also has to recognize those that we already have. They must be dealt with and while guns blazing hardly seems desirable, for results its got it all over the UN route and sanctions. What are the other alternatives?
Exporting our policies? I suppose this is some of that "respect the culture" stuff. That's all well and good as long as it fits within certain boundries. Among these are things like not treating women as cattle. Killing them because they got raped, or forcing them into prostitution to pay off the debts of another. Until you get that far, there isn't enough common ground to have a meaningful dialogue about mutual opportunities.
Liberation and human rights being spread doesn't strengthen the opposition, it enrages the oppressors and causes them to lash out, but that isn't strength, its fury and its not to be respected.
-censored
Not only do we need to stop creating enemies, we also need to start creating friends. We give shitloads of aid to Egypt (they're #2 behind Israel), yet the average Egyptian hates our guts. That's a major PR problem, but it's also a matter of what the money gets spent on. We're giving tons of money to prop up a corrupt, vicious and unpopular regime. Which brings me to "exporting our policies". If we export our human rights policies, instead of only economic policies, then we might get somewhere. We have to be willing to say to Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, etc, "You want our money, you want to be our ally, then stop boiling people in prison." Of course, we then can't outsource our prisoner-boiling to them. Seems like a reasonable trade off.
I think we are all hitting on similar things here. Dave, you are right about a free Iraq likely being more prosperous and a better place.
And the other posters (Anon & John) are right also - we have enemies we need to deal with. No two ways about that one. And very true about human rights. This is the type of thing we shoud be upholding and being a role model for the rest of the world on. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.
Yeah, making friends is very important. Sometimes it's hard to convince others of that, though.
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