Thoughts on the War on Terror
From Vodka Pundit:Actually, I remember when terrorists used to make sense. Remember the '80s? Some crazy jerks would hijack a plane, and demand X number of dollars or Y number of comrades-in-arms released from Israeli jails, or they'd start killing people. Then we'd all spend a couple days staring at an action-packed satellite feed of an airplane just sitting there on the tarmac in Libya or Cuba or somewhere, until either the terrorists' demands were met, or commandos killed all the bad guys.We couldn't have said it better...read the whole thing.
In the '90s, everything changed.
Hostages were no longer taken. Demands were no longer made. Instead, shadowy groups with no real names (even "al Qaeda" might be a misnomer) and no clear agenda ("we want the 14th Century back" doesn't count) just started blowing stuff up.
Remember that al Qaeda audiotape delivered to CNN, saying "No Jews in Saudi Arabia, or we start blowing up your ships"? Remember when Osama made that chilling video, saying he'd truck bomb American embassies if we didn't pull out of the Middle East? Remember 9/11/2001, when Arab hijackers took over four American airliners, and threatened to ram them into office towers if we didn't institute sharia here in America?
Of course you don't. Those things never happened. Our attackers are not, by our lights, rational. They don't kill to get what they want. They don't kill to further their agenda. They kill for the sake of killing. They turn themselves into bombs to win Allah's approval. They murder because they are holy and we are infidels and that's just the way things gotta be.
Sometimes, it behooves a stronger power to appease a weaker one. Appeasement got a bad name after Munich in 1938, but it's a time-proven method of satiating some reasonable demand – so long as it is done from magnanimous strength, not fearful weakness. In other words, it was right for President Bush to appease Tony Blair's need to seek more time at the UN before attacking Saddam; it was wrong for a nervous Neville to appease Adolph at Munich.
But there is no appeasing people who kill because they think the blood of infidels looks prettier splattered on a wall. There is no negotiating with people who think you're less than human. We cannot show even a hint of weakness, when our self-declared enemies think our liberal natures make us weak.
- Stephen Green
From The Bleat:
I’m somewhat annoyed by the assertion that this act was “sophisticated,” and hence the work of those brilliant stratgerists of Al Qaeda. My definition of sophistication is somewhat different: it’s an unmanned drone flying over Pakistan, piloted by a guy in Florida, dropping a laser-guided bomb into the passenger cab of a truck full of Taliban. That’s sophistication. Synchronizing watches on detenators is not exactly all that tough. I’ll tell you what’s difficult: a dozen nervous sweating Swedes pulling off 13 simultaneous detonations in Saudi Arabia, where they might stick out. Spain of course is most Spanish; hence the name. But I assume there are enough immigrants living in Madrid, or native-born people of Arab origin, so that a guy walking through a train station with a backpack is about as unusual as a tourist in a loud shirt peering at a map.Classic Lileks...go read the rest of this one!
- James Lileks
