War on Terror-why arn't we winning ?

The world order, both economically and militarily.

 

how would spending all the money U.S does into the military Industrial complex render good for the economy?maybe for the economic elite,but certainly not the average citizen.Also,how does peace take a trillion dollars a year out of our economy?

 

Its about oppression,alienation & loss of hope distilling over generations. The hated Shar of Iran , kept in power by USA & allies, was brought down by a mostly Marxist popular uprising. The return out of exile of Ayatola Khomani turned it into a religious revolution, pushing aside marxism,the liberation of Iranian women and Western values in favour of a purer Muslim society . Jihad against the evil crusaders of the West unified disparate groups and validated extremism.
The psychology of the Terrorist was examined in an excellent book by Pat Coogan (I think) 'The IRA'. In the book he describes the lifestyle of a typical member of an active terrorist unit of the Provisional IRA in the 70s/80s when the violence was at its worst. Traditional Catholic communities had become closed to outsiders,highly supportive of the armed struggle against the Brits,often willing to hide wanted activists from the authorities and devert attention from their activities within their communities.
Even within such an apparently supportive environment. the individual terrorist lived & functioned in a bubble of obsessive secrecy. The belief in the IRA at that time was that they had been infiltrated by British Intelligence and that within their communities there were many informants. The IRA summerarily executed members of its ranks whom they believed had been 'turned'.
Within this alienated & isolating world of resentment (of the British) mistrust and fear, the individual active service unit member lived a narrow focused life , often removing himself from loved ones (for their safety as he saw it) and living alone, ever watchful & suspicious of capture.

Such knowledge of the world around him and the appropriate outlook to assume , that an active IRA member had at that time , was mostly gleaned from his commanders and other members of his unit-those upon whom he had become dependent.

The point that I wish to make,via my ,very,amateur psychology,is that after generations of oppresion of a group or a society the resentment and alienation becomes increasingly focused until it finds itself a self-sustaining belief system that is impervious to our reasoning & values.
They know to that its a war we cannot win-because they cannot lose,they have gone beyond that. Why else would bright educated young professionals with it all to live for, get on a Subway train with explosives strapped to their backs , aiming to kill themselves and a bunch of people they know have done them no harm ?

 

Does anyone know 'WHO' we are fighting?

 

Those who are against freedom and democracy.

 

Now that we know, why aren't they all being arrested?

 

Terror is a horribly ill-defined concept. The objectives, either short term or long term of a "war on terror" are totally unclear and impossible to define. We continue to commit and support terrible and atrocious violence in pursuit of our interests (which is called "defense") and denounce terrible and atrocious violence directed against our interests (which is called "terror"). It is the ultimate PR triumph for the military-industrial complex: a perpetual undeclared war which requires constant waging and funding, and in the name of which you can erode civil liberties.

 

Summerhill

I’d agree but add* that the Shah followed the US foreign policy of the time in suppressing ‘communists’ (which in practice was any one with left wing views) in fact the British and Americans orchestrated the overthrow the previous elected government (Operation Ajax) because they thought it too left wing and set up the Shah because he was seen as an ‘anti-communist’. This meant that by the time of the revolution the left was weakened from years of suppression.

But American policy makers didn’t see the religious in the same way (in the US religion was mainly a right leaning ‘conservative’ force) so the focus was not on them so much in Iran, so when it happened the religious were in a better position to subvert the revolution.

The US made the same mistake in Afghanistan backing the religious against the ‘commies’ and allowing (even encouraging) the introduction of Wahhabist schools (backed with money from Saudi Arabia) from which arose the Taliban and arguably Al Qaeda. This process (the spread of Wahhabist doctines) is now causing problems in Sahel Africa (the French involvement in Mali).

Basically the Islamic backed terrorism and opposition (both Sunni and Shia) the west is facing today is the result in large part to the anti-left wing foreign policies pursued by the US since WWII.

*this is of course the condensed and simplistic version a good book on Operation Ajax and its aftermath is ‘All the shahs men: An American Coup and the roots of Middle East terror’ by Stephen Kinzer.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/047018549X"]All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror: Amazon.co.uk: Stephen Kinzer: Books

"It is not far–fetched," Kinzer asserts in this book, "to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah’s repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York."

 

The industrial military complex employs millions of Americans. And without the war machine that they build millions of military would be out of a job too.

Duh, because it's not illegal to belong to the Nazi party, or the communist party, or Ku Klux Klan.

 

Nobody. Or, we're told we're fighting 'those guys'.

And this is why we can be given flimsy lies about "war" and "terrorism" so we can go fight and line the pockets of politicians/

This. War stimulates the economy and makes the powers that be rich.Q

 

Actually, it's not "those guys" we're fighting, its "these guys". We've always been fighting "these guys".

 

The Irish Republican Army are not Terrorists.just fighters against the real terrorists.

 

Hi roamy,my belief is that anyone who takes up arms illegally & uses them against another civilian group (be they Republican/Catholic or Loyalist/Protestant , against each other) within a Democracy can only be defined as terrorists . Democracy is available to them as a means to have their problems address in a peaceful. In taking up arms they put themselves outside Democracy & are at war with it.
Don't get me wrong,Catholics were discriminated against in favour of the British backed Protestant population of Northern Ireland,and the events of Bloody Sunday will forever stain British history . The PIRA waged war against the British Army and claimed to protect the Catholic communities of NI but its activities included the deliberate targeting of civilians. Thats terrorism.

 

that kind of sounds like what W would say. that, and something about them being 'evil doers'

the truth is more complicated, I think.

we don't often get a lot of detailed explanations for why people do these sorts of things, but I think for the most part it has very little to do with being against freedom and democracy

 

my people are not terrorists.

 

I agree with the points both you & Balbus made. Id say that for the purposes of trying to find solutions I'm addressing only civilian terrorism,ie terrorism perpetrated by civilians against Democracy. I'm not ,primarily, including State Terrorism but as a trigger for reciprocal Civilian violence it has to be seen as a cause too.
A lot can be learned , I think, from the British-PIRA conflict. Historically,there had been state sponsored terrorism waged against the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. The Protestants ,an artificially created majority within the community , were deliberately favoured by the British Government. The NI Police force and the notorious 'B' Specials were overwhelmingly manned by protestants . Protestants even call themselves 'Loyalists'.
The conflict is now well known enough for it not to need describing in any detail here,I hope. Save it to say that it was terribly violent,attrocities were commited by all 'sides' and both the British (but more so the Ulster) communities were left exhausted & scarred by the the conflict.
It became increasingly clear toward the mid 90s that no one in the conflict was able to gain,or likely to sustain , an advantage. PIRA and their Protestant Para military enemies were dug in deep,each grimly commited in the pitiless & thankless reality of tit for tat violence.
Likewise the British Gov't could see no sign of honourable victory. The 'Ulster situation' was an embarrasment internationally, an unwinnable war.

The 'back channel' diplomacy between the factions & the Major Premiership that led to the negotiation and ,relative,success of the Good Friday Agreement achieved by Blair , with the support of Clinton, is well documented. All sides , but particularly the British Government , had to make eye-watering concessions to achieve peace-and lasting peace.
Even those of us who did not lose loved ones, or friends in the conflict have to grit our teeth & swallow hard at the sight of murderers freely walking the streets,concessions to the greater cause of peace & reconcilliation. The British recently delivered on their promise of a full & independent Inquirey into the events of Bloody Sunday & the actions of the Army that day.

The price of making peace with an enemy may be almost too much to bare but look at the price we are paying instead! Its dawning on us that the war agaist terror is unwinable,our polititians tell us it may continue perhaps forever. Unacceptable !
We know,as we look beyond the western world that we've done great harm to weaker peoples who could not resist,that we allow our Multinationals to continue , a 'new' commercial imperialism. The seeds of terror were sown in our name...

The Good Friday Agreement agreement isnt perfect. Much smaller terror cells persist in Ulster clinging to old demands,commisioning violence still. But Ulster ,the UK & almost all its interest groups have found a way to move on together in relative harmony.
I'd say that we should be urging our western warlords against terror to open those back channels with our enemies and begin a dialogue,exploritory talks, stating positions and looking for areas of possible compromise AND a willingness to accept blame where it is rightly made. I expect to be(wrongly) accused of advocating waving a white flag at terror. If so I challenge my accuser to suggest a feasible alternative solution going forward.

 

The US Military is designed as a form of welfare. This is another genius conceit of the powerful groups and institutions who are at the center of US government policy. In a society where everyone is in debt and where unskilled workers have decreasing access to the means of procuring a living, a form of gainful employment that is readily available and nearly always hiring is the military. This setup kills two birds with one stone: it keeps U.S. elites well-stocked with a standing army at their disposal (whoever controls the means of violence controls the world), while on the other hand providing a way for a huge portion of the US domestic population to "earn its keep" and stay out of trouble. If you are as-yet uncynical, and believe the military is so well-paid because the society as a whole actually values the service they provide, look at the shameful way this nation treats its veterans. It puts the lie to any hogwash about soldiers being heroes fighting for all of us: although many well-intentioned people do join up for that reason, the society as a whole does not view military service that way, and the policymakers do not use it in that way.

...but watch me switch from radical-leftist analysis to a hippie-peacenik conclusion. In fact the whole rest of the post is kind of a philosophical ramble so if you are concerned only with politics just skip it:...

This can all get sounding quite conspiratorial though, which it is not: it is the law of nature that the strong will desire more and that the weak will have it taken from them. This is the very selfish/survival/security urge that is genetically embedded in every single one of us. It is the very nature of biological life itself. In this case it just so happens those urges are governing the actions and stances of the people with access to the maximum means of violence and control. All of the individual humans everywhere, including the "elites" who are controlling these egregious systems, believe they are doing the "right" thing (we can almost always justify our selfish actions as being somehow ethical). Incredible advances in technology have ensured and will continue to ensure that the means of violence and control are highly concentrated, and so any displacement or disruption of those in power would only result in their being replaced by new tyrants. So long as such power exists, it will continue corrupting whoever wields it (kinda like the One Ring).

This is why recrimination and hatred are useless. Only consciousness, love and acceptance of one another can save the species at this point. Political change is too slow, violent uprising would be futile and disastrous...only a change in consciousness will be of any use. When human beings begin to instinctively recognize each and all of their fellows (including future generations) as brothers and sisters rather than competitors and enemies, the situation will change.

Right now the forces in motion are too immense and have too much inertia behind them for us to subvert a huge portion of the suffering. This is not a hard and fast pronouncement, I may be wrong about that, but it doesn't seem likely with the evidence I am aware of. To my eyes, our society is out of balance. I believe the Earth could MAYBE feed 6 billion people, but if any sector of those people are greedy and keep the Earth's wealth for private gain, then people will be starving. When people are starving there will be violence and unrest because (SEE ABOVE) we are hard-wired to survive. But economic injustice and social unrest are only part of the peril: ANY future society (if indeed there is one) will have won its conscience and consciousness by watching the terrible suffering and agony resulting from the way we have been living for the last 500 years or so, which I believe will come to a head in the next century or two.

I believe the next few hundred years will witness terrible violence, including wars waged by means hitherto thought unthinkable. Powerful governments will be using their militaries on their own populations, and rogue actors will be using terrible means of violence, up to and including WMDs. (WMDs in international warfare seem more unlikely but...the longer they exist the more likely that is to happen as well). Along with the socio-political violence/death there will be deaths from starvation and environmental catastrophe with increasing frequency.

This is all regrettable from our point of view but it is PART OF NATURE. It was our nature as biological life, using the means we have, to conquer as much as we could for our own short-term gain and survival, even though on so many levels this practice is unsustainable. The consequence that result from this are just Natural as the forces that led to it.

As the human population decreases, the forces from Nature and from within that endanger it will start to return to equilibrium as well. The question is, what portion will have to die before the equilibrium is reached? I don't think any predictive model has enough control of all the variables to try and guess that number, but let's hope (if we are rooting for the human species) that it is more than 0.

To quote a song I once heard, though:
"It's not the Earth that's in danger,
It's that people who live on it don't know/
That it will be here long after
They've all gone the way of the Dodo."

TL;DR: The human species is bound for a massive Malthusian adjustment. It will be ugly but it is probably unavoidable, and therefore not something to get too upset over.

 

Democracy w/ a capital D is a fiction. Our society is not a democracy, and that against which civilian terrorism is directing its actions is not "Democracy" as such. Elites let the people have as much power as is convenient for them. If the People's (greek demos = 'people') control over the society/laws/world order starts to become too dangerous to their interests, they will find means of revoking that control. US society and its satellites function as democracies in many purely formal and INCREASINGLY FEW substantive ways (it comes in cycles: the People do win their rights occasionally by popular movements, constitutional amendments, etc, but it can always be revoked, e.g. "extraordinary wartime powers" which wipe out all civil liberties).

I think you should banish the idea of this "Democracy" as it is just a good slogan under which the cause of Empire is advertised (much like Christianity during the crusades, etc etc).

If we reject the actions of civilian terrorists it should be on the moral grounds that violence against innocents is wrong. Saying civilian terrorism attacks "Democracy" is tantamount to saying that the reason such actions are wrong is that the people killed happen to be the good guys. All humans are good guys or none are. All terrorism is wrong if and only if violence itself is wrong.

Rather than interpreting such events as "terrorists" directing "terror" against "Democracy," it is more reasonable to say that all parties are using such means as they have (including violent ones) to protect or further their own interests, whether those interests be material, ideological, whatever. Such a conception will fit the IRA conflict and all others.

 

One persons view of terrorism is another persons Jihad (holy war). "Terrorists is what the big army calls the little army."

 

such a concept dose not! fit the I.R.A.nor dose it fit others.