"Michael M. Butler" wrote:
>
> Miriam English wrote:
> > >MMB, who doesn't like vigilantes but likes terrorists just a skosh less...
> >
> > Quite right. My calls for careful thought and less than horrific end-games
> > don't apply in the case of a hijacked airliner. The terrorists themselves
> > have changed the rules there. If I was on a hijacked airliner now I would
> > have absolutely no hesitation at doing my best at destroying/permanently
> > disabling the hijackers, regardless of risk to my own life. The rules are
> > now that they be stopped no matter what. Because your life is likely
> > already forfeit, you no longer have anything to lose in such a situation.
> >
> > In considering against other countries however, the rules of good sense and
> > being careful you don't cause yourself more grief further down the track
> > still apply.
>
> Agreed. I never meant to imply otherwise.
>
> And, for what it's worth, my point about vigilantes is that they're _not_
> generally painted as suicidal.
>
> Making stupid Weltpolitik moves is.
Depends on which moves you are talking about. Sure the countries which
have assisted, sheltered, and funded these groups (an any other
terrorist group) as a part of what they considered to be a normal part
of their foreign policy.
The problem here is defining terrorism. A terrorist does not wear a
uniform, does not belong to an organized army, and does not declare
his/her intentions ahead of time, i.e. the terrorist does not behave
according to the accepted Laws of War. Furthermore, a society which
aids, abets, shelters, supports, funds, or makes excuses for a terrorist
or terrorist organization, which allows terrorists to hide within their
ranks as a civilian, is acting as a shield in a very militay manner. By
these acts, the society that shelters the terrorist is declaring that
the military uniform of their nation is civilian garb, and thus
civilians are legitimate targets.
Until now, no nation has properly impressed terrorist societies as to
the consequences of such actions. The KGB made a good jab at this in the
early 1980's, when the Islamic Jihad/Hezbollah attempted to take Soviets
as hostages in Lebanon. The KGB kidnapped relatives of the hostage
takers, and mailed their testicles to the terrorists. The soviet
hostages were released almost overnight.
People around the world need to be impressed as to why we have laws in
warfare, specifically to prevent the deaths of innocent civilians. This
is ostensibly a western ethic, generally derived from the european
tradition of chivalry that only warriors fought warriors. The civilian
society's productive output may fund their military, but they as
individuals didn't send anyone off to war. So long as all sides behaved
in this manner, it was fine. Germany of course, in WWII, as well as the
Japanese, seriously damaged this tradition, fully expecting to be
victorious enough to rewrite the rules.
This is also why in the US it has been our tradition to keep no active
commando special forces organizations active during peacetime, and why
intelligence capabilities have generally been relegated to data
collection and analysis. The Cold War changed all this, with US society
maintaining the appearance of a peacetime economy while engaged in a
protracted conflict with the Soviet bloc. Since 1990, primarily due to
the threat of terrorism, we have failed to return our covert military
capabilities to peacetime deactivated levels.
By all accounts, it seems that if we are not to fade from history back
into isolationism, leaving the rest of the world to dissolve in its own
hates to the point of nuclear inferno, then we are going to be embracing
the inevitable mantle of empire, and all of the responsibilities that
come with it. We will be repressing violent groups to a far greater
extent, as well as those societies which refuse to behave in a civilized
manner.
This period will be like that when Rome sought to clear the
Mediterranean of pirates, which eventually led to the Punic Wars. In our
case, we have Russia (Ancient Greece) to ally with, and an upstart China
which is supplying ballistic missiles and other armaments to countries
which sponsor terrorism. China claims that they support our right to
retaliate here, but Chinese chat rooms are full of people celebrating
the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Chinese government insists
on being consulted before any attacks, though, which leads one to wonder
what intelligence they are supplying to the terrorist states (as they
did to Serbia in the Balkan War, which is the real reason their embassy
was hit). China may choose, it seems, to take on the position of
Carthage, a nation of people which feeds their first born children into
the furnace of Moloch (strangely similar to the state mandated abortion
of second children), in which you are either a Master (Party Member) or
a Slave (common person).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:45 MDT