rowyn | Terror

The first unequivocal al Qaeua victory.

Let's hope that onlookers understand what is happening here.

===|==============/ Level Head

What's happening here is that the Spanish government got itself into a war that its populace was dead-set against, and embraced all the Bush Administration's lies about WMDs, and when that decision came back to bite them in the form of Al Qaida's atrocity in Madrid, they lied like thieves and tried to pin it on the Basque ETA. *Shockingly*, the Spanish populace decided they didn't like being lied to or having their blood and taxes spent on a war they didn't want, and voted for someone else. That sounds like democracy to me.

I was and am (more or less) in favor of the war on Iraq, and certainly in favor of remaining in Iraq to clean up the mess we've made.

That said, I do sympathize with your position: if the war was bad before al Qaeda killed 200 civilians in a Spanish train station, then it's still bad afterwards. Lord knows there are plenty enough people that are on "my" side of a political issue, but whose tactics and behavior I nonetheless strongly disapprove of. Still, I don't change my politics just so I don't have to be on the same side with them.

Nonetheless ... to have terrorists murdering civilians in an effort to achieve the same goal you want must be terribly galling. (And even more ironic that the magority of those same civilians also probably wanted the same goal. :/ Ugh.)

What really bugs me is the idea that pulling out of Iraq is the proper way to show disapproval of the war. If one wished to disapprove of the war, the time to show it was when the war was going on. The fact that the US has still been suffering casualties has prompted many to parade around the "since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations" as a joke ... but there's a big difference between tearing a country apart, and putting it back together again.

Right now, if I understand at all correctly, the objective is to restore something resembling order, to provide security, and to restore the "infrastructure" - fix schools, replace bombed bridges, make sure the electricity works before the scorching summer hits, keep patching the oil lines, and so forth.

If the US and all its partners were to unilaterally withdraw their forces, the mayhem wouldn't stop. Any fledgling democracy would be at the mercy of those with guns and bombs and a willingness to use them to advance their own agendas, regardless of any harm it might bring to innocent bystanders.

Furthermore, ending involvement in Iraq certainly wouldn't stop Al Qaeda. (I wonder if some people have forgotten that 9-11 happened before we invaded Iraq?)

And, in any case, regarding the "lies" of the former Spanish government, the reports I heard on NPR seemed to give compelling evidence that could point to either Al Qaeda or the ETA ... or both. I half-expect to hear eventually that some splinter group of the ETA fell in with Al Qaeda sympathizers to pull this one off.

Ending involvement with Iraq certainly will not stop Al Qaida, but it would certainly free up resources for that task. A lot of people in the US national security establishment view Iraq as a tragic distraction from the more pressing issue of catching terrorists.
As for withdrawal... I'm for it, on the grounds that we shouldn't have been there in the first place, and our occupation is clearly not bringing order or stability. But then, I'm not sure what will. It may be that Iraq is a Yugoslavia that needed a tyrant to keep it together; obviously I hope that's not the case. Either way: we shouldn't have made all those deals with Saddam in the 80s and puffed up Iraq's military power, we shouldn't have told him that we didn't have any position on his border disputes with Kuwait, and we shouldn't have invaded with no clear plan of what to do to fix the place once he was gone. But we did all those things, and now Iraq is like a mud puddle that a squadron of third-graders have stomped around in: it's unlikely to be clear again anytime soon.

Al Qaeda doesn't have a return address that we can invade (partly as a result of past US military action). It's not at all clear how we might use most of the components of the infantry and armored forces currently in Iraq to fight al Qaeda (there are exceptions for intelligence collection gear and special forces), so I think that the argument that leaving Iraq would free up resources is a red herring.

More fundamentally, our goal in dealing with al Qaeda has to be to make it undesirable to assist them. There will always be terrorists who hate the US and the West generally. We're simply too big and responsible for too many controversial things for it to be otherwise. What matters in the long run is whether those terrorists are perceived at tilting at windmills in a doomed campaign which should be shunned by anyone who doesn't want to face retaliation, or as heroic crusaders against a bloated but weak empire on the verge of collapse. Al Qaeda's ability to get future recruits and state sponsors hangs in the balance.

Because much of this campaign is about perceptions rather than territory, we need to be careful not to take actions which allow us to be perceived as weak. That means following through on our decisions, but it also means choosing targets with care. Incidentally, I was in favor of the invasion of Iraq, but even at the time, I expected that it required a 5-10 year commitment.

For those who think that the strategy of hiding our collective heads in the sand will work (even in Europe), the claim of responsibility for the attack in Madrid mentioned the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. Even France has faced islamic terrorist attacks for its policies in spite of clear opposition to the war in Iraq.

I grant you that the forces stationed in Iraq would not, if withdrawn, be immediately set to chasing after Al Qaida. I'm thinking more in terms of money, time and energy expended -- tens of billions of dollars, millions of intel man-hours, months and months where Al Qaida was on the back burner because Iraq was on the front burner.
I also don't agree that the terrorists and their supporters see things as tactically as you would paint them; it is not whether the US is strong or weak, but whether it's right or wrong. There is a tactical battle, certainly, but there is also a battle for, to use an overworked phrase, hearts and minds. Invading Iraq was bound to be a dead loss in that battle. If being perceived as weak isn't any good, being perceived as an arrogant bully isn't that great either, and it was inevitable that the invasion would increase the ranks of those who see America that way.
I'm curious about those terror attacks on the French -- could you cite an example?

Sure, here are a couple of articles describing an attack on a French owned oil tanker in 2002:

http://www.ict.org.il/spotlight/det.cfm?id=837
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/06/world/main524488.shtml

The merits of invading Iraq is a big subject, and one which was rendered moot by the passage of time, so while I disagree with you there, I don't want to bore everyone with a rehash of everything I had to say a year ago.

One thing I will say, though, is that fighting al Qaeda is not a type of job where unlimited resources are all that useful. There is only a certain amount that we can reasonably do (which is determined in part by the level of cooperation we get from the countries where the fight is going on).

I agree that there is a battle for hearts and minds, and there are a number of things that the West could do to improve life in the third world (cough -- agriculture policies -- cough). It isn't al Qaeda's hearts and minds that I'm interested in fighting for, though. They hate us not because of what we do wrong, but in significant part because of many of the things we do right such as giving women equal rights and encouraging religious and political freedom.

Thanks for the link. I missed the news of the Limburg attack the first time. However, I can't find too many theories about *why* that tanker was chosen for attack. It's worth noting that the Iraq invasion was being planned at that time; the only theory I've turned up, on an Islamic site that reeked of craziness, is that the bombers wanted to make the point that tankers, even modern double-hulled ones, are vulnerable, and it would be difficult for the US to profit from Iraq's oil if they decided to invade. Pretty thin stuff, admittedly, but I'm still not sure whether the tanker's nationality was all that significant to the attackers.
I concur that it's useless for us to debate the right or wrong of the Iraq invasion. However, people who know a lot more about terrorism than I do are saying that the Iraq war took resources away from hunting al Qaida (link, link, link, link.)
You bring up the "they hate us for our freedoms" theory, and while I'm sure Al Qaida and many Arabs think that we're decadent and immoral, that is not the root of their resentment for us: I think it's pretty unambiguous that most anti-American sentiment in the Arab world stems from our past misdeeds there -- including our support for Israel, a thorny question I'd rather not get into, but google up some information about the CIA's role in the coup against Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 sometime.

Your phrasing lumps "our support for Israel" with "our past misdeeds." In fact our support for Israel is far better known and more frequently criticized than our other actions (which include things like supporting the Shah of Iran, but also include defending Egypt's territorial integrity against Britain and France in 1956).

The problem is that I would count support for the only democratic non-European country in the region as one of the things we do right -- not a misdeed (I'm not counting NATO member and EU applicant, Turkey). Most Arab states have no interest in peace with Israel except to the extent that it can't be defeated militarily (admittedly, a possibility to which they are increasingly becoming resigned), and their public opinion strongly favors eliminating the state in its entirety.

There are legitimate differences of opinion on the appropriate borders for Israel (although the only reason that Israel conquered additional territory in 1967 was because it was it was invaded by every major neighboring state, and the reason that much of that territory was not quickly returned was that at the time, Israel's neighbors were committed to its destruction and invaded again in 1973). That said, the Israeli Supreme Court remains the only (domestically controlled) court in the region where Muslims can expect justice. I happen to think that the US has a moral responsibility to assist small free states threatened by larger undemocratic neighbors, and that doing so brings practical benefits by making attacks on those states less likely in the future. Based on that, I support defending Israel just as I support defending Taiwan.

Incidentally, I have rarely seen more hypocrisy than in the way UN and European organizations criticize Israel. That country is held to an almost impossibly high standard (e.g. being criticized when it's forces inflict civilian casualties by using small arms firing at combatants who are shooting at them from buildings containing civilians even when the Israeli forces specifically avoided using artillery because of those civilians), while there is at most token comment for events which occur in Arab states like Saddam Hussein’s attempt to eliminate the Marsh Arab culture by diverting rivers after the first Gulf War or Hafez Assad's decision to sack the town of Hama in 1982 and exterminate its 20,000 inhabitants as a response to perceived disloyalty.

I know that you said that you didn't want to get into the question of whether our support for Israel was wise, but it goes to the core of whether we can reasonably expect to win a short run battle for the hearts and minds of those in the Arab world who oppose us.

The problem as I see it is that Arab opposition to Israel isn't geopolitics. It represents hard core hatred. The snippets that I've seen from secondary school curriculums in the Palestinian Authority and in Arab countries are extremely anti-Semitic and include libels that the authors almost certainly knew were false (a recent Egyptian television program, for example, claimed that Passover Matzoth required human blood as an ingredient). News is routinely spun in a massive way by the state controlled press in the region (and Al-Jazera is far from friendly to Israel as well). Attempts to kill Israeli civilians are seen as heroic. A June 2002 poll of West Bank and Gaza residents by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communication Center found that 51% of respondents think that the goal of the intifada should be "liberating all of historic Palestine" (i.e. including Israel proper).

The only nation that I can think of which took close to as much criticism was South Africa under apartheid (and even there, the intensity of the critics didn't rise to the post 1967 criticism of Israel until the 1980s). Yet Israel has a better human rights record than any equally threatened country I can name in history. It's true that Switzerland doesn't make some of the mistakes and moral compromises that Israel does in fighting the intifada, but it also doesn't have to confront those decisions. Look at how much the American attitude towards the trade off between civil rights and security changed after 9/11 for a sense of what we might have done if we faced the far greater threat that Israel lives with.

If this were a question of geopolitics, then we could consider shifting our position marginally to one which was more balanced and perceptions of us would change accordingly. Unfortunately, I think that the US's well know commitment to Israel having a right to exist is seen by many on "the Arab street" as a problem in itself.

Isn't it the truth. It is PC to suggest that Israel is equally guilty in their dealings with the Palestinians, who are themselves oppressed not by Israel but by their own militant gang of Islamic "leaders". If it weren't for the brutal, senseless tactics of the PLO these people would all have exactly what they want, peace and a sense of identity. The Palestinian leadership, not by any stretch the people themselves, have polarized the Israelis and forced them to act, yet they still don't stoop to the level of their enemy and deliberately target civilians.

This is the approach of the Islamic states - their own people are cattle, suitable for suicidal runs into the enemy's territory while they sit on the sidelines and stir the pot, spreading lie after lie about the Israeli agenda. And this is why they have no moral authority of any sort to lead even their own people, let alone have a say in the governance of others. They are the worst element in any society, and the true Islamic leaders need to do everything in their power to stop this representation of their religion, this obscene distortion of their beliefs.

I just wanted to say thanks to Telnar and Postrodent for the very interesting and excellently written dialog above.

Good, thought provoking ideas, it makes for most excellent reading.

Thanks,
Mako

Right now, if I understand at all correctly, the objective is to restore something resembling order, to provide security, and to restore the "infrastructure" - fix schools, replace bombed bridges, make sure the electricity works before the scorching summer hits, keep patching the oil lines, and so forth.

If the US and all its partners were to unilaterally withdraw their forces, the mayhem wouldn't stop.

Needless to say, I agree with you. I am heartened that it is possible for the US to improve the situation by the success last century in transforming Japan and Germany from dictatorships to democracies. The same thing might not work with Iraq, and even if it would, America may not have the will to implement it.

But I think it's better to try, then to give up and allow a new tyrant to assume control -- which is almost certainly what will happen if we withdraw completely.

It is galling, especially since I'm the kind of decadent secular Westerner that Al Qaida would just love to incinerate. But not as galling as living under an administration that has not only failed to do the obvious thing -- pursue the terrorists to the ends of the earth -- but also the difficult but even more necessary thing -- doing everything possible to erode the terrorists' base of support by political means.

The annoying thing is that Al Qaeda conned themselves into thinking they changed the election result.

The Aznar government was at 25% approval over its Iraq involvement ~July 2003, and I've seen no normal-news reports indicating improvement.

Also, pulling out in June 2004 is a non-action: we are planning to be out then.

If al Qaeda can convince other people they've changed the course of the election, then that will be an even bigger victory for them. CNN said that the war was unpopular even before the attack, but that "Before Thursday, the Popular Party had been favored to win by a comfortable margin."

Do you have links to something from before the attack that indicated the Socialists were in a better position prior to the bombings?

The following post-mortem is interesting:

The PSOE made considerable gains before Mar. 11, as no voting intention survey released in March gave the PP an outright majority. Two Sigma Dos/El Mundo studies illustrated the start of a trend. From a maximum number of congressmen of 177 in a Mar. 2 poll, the PP went down to 173 four days later. Conversely, the Socialists "gained" five seats in the same span, from 139 to 144.

So there is no unanimous consensus that Aznar's political party was clearly ahead coming into the election.

Archaic links:
Aznar's visible nadir was in March 2003. However, ~10% of Spain's population did not feel the need to work more compelling than physically protesting Aznar's support of the U.S. on Feb. 15, 2003. That's not going away.

Aznar's government was popular prior to the attack even if it's Iraq policy wasn't (Spain's recent economic growth of 2.6% is far above the European average). If the attack increased the priority that the average citizen of Spain placed on the decision to be in Iraq, then that was a victory for Al Qaeda.

Incidentally, I would be amazed if all US troops were to leave Iraq by June. Declaring the Iraqi government sovereign is a lot different from having finished providing it the necessary resources to protect and run the country and the new government will almost certainly request that the coalition troops remain once it has that decision.

That said, I'm far from sure that the Spanish troops will be gone. Incidentally, they represent a far lesser commitment as a fraction of the Spanish military than the US or British deployments (and is only half as large as Poland's commitment). One sign that the Socialists are waffling is that they said that they intend to withdraw unless there is a UN resolution supporting the occupation (wording on this varies depending on the quote, so it's unclear how much UN involvement is actually required). Since there will almost certainly be a UN resolution of some sort once the new government becomes sovereign, if the Socialists want to stay (or restructure their commitment to Iraq), there will be an excuse (a past Socialist government of Spain had campaigned on a promise to withdraw from NATO -- you've probably noticed that Spain is still in NATO).

(Spain's recent economic growth of 2.6% is far above the European average).

Almost as high as Ireland's ;)

However, the European average is being dragged down by collateral damage from the Euro. Both France and Germany were critically dependent on currency exchange risk to prevent corporations from relocating jobs elsewhere.

No war is won without losing a battle or two. Besides, socialists or not, they are royally pissed at the bombing so their gonna have Al Queda's number now rather than Iraq's. They won a small battle at the expense of the larger war.

Yeah. I hear you. =(

You're not the only one. :P

My next concern is Japan.

In the note al Quaeda sent claining responsibility, Japan was specifically mentioned in the target list.

Because Japan has a constitutional ban against using war as an instrument of foreign policy, the decision to send their Self Defense Force as peacekeepers was extremely contraversial.

The Prime Minister practically had to promise to pull out at the first sign of casualties.

That's like painting a target on your back.

I expect al Quaeda will see them as the next most vulnerable target. :(

There are a couple of reasons why Japan is less likely to succumb to this sort of pressure:

In spite of the constitutional ban, in practice the deployment is not seen as a big deal (perhaps in part because the roles assigned to the Japanese troops in Iraq could be fulfilled equally well even if they weren't armed). It is also not nearly as unpopular there as it is in Spain.

Also, Japan's voters understand that deterrance is not an abstract question. They already live within missile range of North Korea and would be at more immediate risk if they were to be received as weak.

I hope you're right, but the concern in my mind has got to occur to al Quaeda.

And, even if Japan wouldn't pull out, they're still a target for terrorist attacks. :(

Keep in mind that Japan is still rather insular itself and homogenous as a society. It will be very hard for an Arab to blend in and melt into the background there since there are so few of them around.

I hope you're right, my friend. I hope that's enough.
But, considering Bali and Indonesia, not all Islamic Radicals are Arabic.

And, even if the Home Islands are safe, their troops in Iraq and Kuwait are still in harms way. :(

I don't see how that weakens his point one bit. There are Muslims in Bali and Indonesia. It may be true that not all Islamic radicals are Arabic, but I think it's fairly safe to say that nearly none are Japanese, considering they have absolutely no indigenous history whatsoever of Islam of which I'm aware! A Muslim of any nationality would have difficulty blending in. Furthermore, even if there were a handful of Japanese Muslims, I don't see how there could be any kind of local support structure for terrorism. Bali had a certain small population that would welcome al-Qaeda; I think it's safe to assume Japan has none.

(Ironically, the first Japanese woman I ever knew, a young lady named Fumiko, was Muslim. But her father had been a diplomat in Cairo and her mother was a native, and I don't imagine this is a common phenomenon.)

Not all the terrorists are Muslim either.

I don't remember the guys name, but a while back, they arrested an American, who'd been doing reconaissance for a radiological bomb attack in Chicago? (Sorry, my memory is foggy on the details). In any case, I don't think it's impossible for a terrorist strike on the Japanese Islands. Someone from Bali or Indonesia would certainly have an easier time blending in than an Arab anyway.

But, that's getting off on a tangent. The easier target for al Quaeda would be the Japanese Self Defence Forces deployed in Iraq and Kuwait. Prime Minister Koizumi sounded reassuring today, but a month ago, he had to make a lot of deals and promises to withdraw at the first sign of trouble.

In any case, in the note that took credit for the attack, al Quaeda warned Italy and Japan would face retribution for participating in Iraq.

I sincerely hope that you're right, and they'll have a lot of trouble.

He IS a Muslim, in fact. His name is Abdullah al Muhajir. He changed it from Jose Padilla when he became a Muslim.

It is fashionable for the media to call him by his prior name, which (ironically) makes him sound more American. It is NOT his name. And in fact, he was arrested at the airport flying in from Pakistan -- it was one of multiple trips where he trained with al-Qaeda on explosives, and was financed by them.

Let's see.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/10/dirty.bomb.suspect/

And of course, the media continued to be infatuated with this fellow, and NEVER called him by his Muslim name. Time Magazine's web site named him the "Person of the Week":
http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,8599,262269,00.html

Note the reference to Morocco.

===|==============/ Level Head

I never quite felt how effective terrorisim could be until 9/11 and the Spain railway bombings. It had struck me as a rather angry, excessive, and largely unsuccessful means to manipulate individuals or groups. Not to mention a fine way of removing support for your own group in the process. I had never seen a truly effective use of terrorisim prior to these events -- not that I was going out of my way to find one. But now I see that it does, in a way, work. It may even be quite cost effective -- how much funding could it have taken to have destroyed that train? I wonder, too, if the alternatives (whatever they may be) would have been as effective or as cheap. It seems unfortunately lucrative, at least to those who don't mind sacrificing lives for their cause.

I've been thinking about this, particularly the notion of "Was 9/11 a 'success' from a terrorist's perspective?"

If the main purpose of those four airplane hijackings was to prove that America could be hurt, then yes, it was successful. But I don't think that a terrorist's purpose is quite that straightforward. "Proving we can be hurt" is less the goal than what they perceive as the means to the goal. The goal for al Qaeda, I think, is something along these lines:

1. Crusade: Killing the infidels is a way to win more ground/power/influence/converts for Islam (In particular, to create more Muslims of their own extremist and vicious bent). I'm not sure if this is working or not. Certainly America isn't turning to Islam in droves in order to escape the wrath of Allah and al Qaeda. :) But al Qaeda may be growing in membership and influence as a result of their perceived success in hurting America.

2. End American Interference: I think this is a primary goal for al Qaeda -- to get us to stop supporting Israel and to stop meddling, in general, in the Middle East. Here, 9/11 is (so far) having the exact opposite effect. America has become more imperialist and more likely to use force and exert our influence over the affairs of foreign countries.

There are various side effects -- increased survellaince of American people and a lessening of freedoms -- that many Americans aren't happy with. But I don't think that Americans being less free is of much consequence to the terrorists. They don't care if we're a democratic non-Muslim nation or a totalitarian non-Muslim nation. As long as we're not their particular breed of Muslim, and as long as we are not an isolationist state, al Qaeda is going to continue to see us as an enemy and a threat.

Given that America has become more imperialist, I'm not sure that the world of 2004 is a better place, from al Qaeda's perspective, than the world in 2000. They've demonstrated that they have power, yes. But that they have enough pwoer, or that they can use that power to achieve their goals -- I don't think 9/11 proved that.

The situation in Spain is much more scary for just this reason. It is not clear that the terrorist attack actually changed the outcome of the election. However, there is clearly a perception, in the hearts and minds of millions, that it not only changed the outcome of the election, but changed it to what al Qaeda wanted.

That perceived success -- "Look, we did this and we got exactly what we wanted" -- is going to work in al Qaeda's favor.

This "war" is far from over, and it's hard to call winners and losers even for the individual battles. In many ways, so far, both al Qaeda and America are losing the things most important to us. :/

And now it seems, based on recent events, that al Qaida has indeed achieved their objective with Spain. It is hard, in light of the timing of bin Ladin's offer and Zapatero's order, to see it any other way.

Moreover, Americans now live with a little taste of the fear prevalent in Israel. We have been hit, we expect to be hit again, we listen to threat levels and reports of vague plots against us, and we are furiously looking for someone to blame. And we talk about bin Ladin all the time.

More than anything else, we have validated his existence as a world power. I'd call that success from his perspective. It is ... unfortunate.

===|==============/ Level Head

Terror

no subject

no subject

Strange bedfellows

Re: Strange bedfellows

Re: Strange bedfellows

We need to think more than one step ahead

Re: We need to think more than one step ahead

An Example

Re: An Example

What is a misdeed?

Sorry, but couldn't avoid that issue

Re: Sorry, but couldn't avoid that issue

Re: Sorry, but couldn't avoid that issue

Building

Re: Strange bedfellows

no subject

no subject

no subject

It's more complicated than that

Re: It's more complicated than that

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Japan is less vulnerable

Re: Japan is less vulnerable

Re: Japan is less vulnerable

Re: Japan is less vulnerable

Re: Japan is less vulnerable

Re: Japan is less vulnerable

Re: Japan is less vulnerable

no subject

no subject

Update after Spain's orders to pull out...