Is the "war on terror" really about good vs evil?

Post Reply New Topic

Do you mean civilians other than the ones trying to kill them?

Do you know when he moved to Texas? I think the Texas drawl is bogus. The whole cowboy Bush clearing brush image is entirely a creation of Karl Rove, I think.
http://www.bushsbrain.com/

Terrorism has very different "win conditions" than conventional warfare, groups that engage in terrorism tend to do so precisely because they cannot hope to achieve a military victory. Many people make the mistake of thinking that the goal of terrorism is purely deterrent, that by doing enough damage to an enemy they can force that enemy to do what they want. That may be part of the idea, but is far from the whole thing. The other, more insidious goal of terrorism is to force the attacked entity, usually a country or government, into using more and more repressive measures in attempting to combat the terrorists, and in doing so alienate their own citizens to the point where they are politically forced to disengage from the terrorists(similar to the "Vietnam Effect"). This effect can clearly be seen in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the bombings aren't so much about killing Israelis as they are about causing Israel to engage in massive retaliation and/or place further restrictions on it's Palestinian population, driving them into supporting the militants. Here in the US, the PATRIOT act and the ever increasing difficulty of air travel can be seen as examples of this tactic in action. The question to me is whether AQ and UBL miscalculated both the resiliency of the US populace and or the ability of the US military to conduct large scale trans global operations; while we are no doubt pushing some recruits into the arms of AQ, is the cost we're extracting for it really worth it to them?

Another thing about warfare involving terrorism, is that they want media attention. Not for issuing threats on the media, but for gaining sympathy with what Lenin called "useful idiots". These type of terrorists want people to envision their supposed "plight" so that the populace will decry the supposed "evil" they are fighting with bombs strapped to chests.

On a tangent, do any of the terrorists in the middle east ever give a darn about marksmanship? Such as attempting to aim before firing a ranged weapon?

On many occasions the American military has announced that civilians will suffer unless they get what they want. If that isn't terrorism, I don't know what is. Rumsfeld in 2001 said more or less than civilians would continue to be bombed indefinitely until demands would be met.

Quotes in verbatim are your friend if they are legitimate, but paraphrased hearsay will only get more and more contrived as it passes hands.

Any civilian that has no clear evidence of involvement in terrorist activities or in attacking US troops. And why would it be necessary to kill an unarmed civilian, even if they support terrorists. You can just point your AK47 at them and arrest them.

I don't have an AK47... I used to have a Crossman 750 though, and a .303 caliber rifle with flechette rounds meant for piercing armor. But as to killing unarmed civilians, no. However, if they display that they actually are armed and start to point a ranged weapon at me or if they start running towards me with a grenade, then yes they are going to at least be disabled prior to when they are in range with an explosive or before they aim straight.

Back when I was in gun school, the ex-military guys in my class used to call that "Baghdad off-hand", referring to the practice of taking the buttstock off of a Kalashnikov variant and firing it with one hand, usually over the top of something like a dumpster. Needless to say this just sprays bullets everywhere, any hits that come are pure chance; though usually the shooter gets cut down before things reach that point. I'm not sure why this "tactic" is so widespread, I've seen pictures from the the current two warzones, Somalia, Liberia, etc and they all seem to like to employ this technique. My personal favorite is a video clip I've seen making the rounds of a Somali firing an H&K G3 sans stock one handed from behind a trash bin, the G3 fires a full power 7.62mm round and the gun is bucking around like a loose fire hose...

If I had to guess I'd wager it's a cultural thing, Arab/African peoples are not traditional rifle using cultures, and the finer points of using a stocked weapon seem to be lost on them in general. The Afghans are a whole different story, those people not only are incredible shots, but have been manufacturing their own rifles for years in small village workshops. They used to copy British armory markings so well that it took an expert to tell a real colonial rifle from a Khyber Pass copy, and they copies were entirely hand made.

Unrelated somehow, but i've been to a restaurant at some point named Khyber Pass... <.< In Montreal. :p

And that is why there is such a tactic as strapping bombs beneath your outermost clothing. Even if you are armed, it is very hard to tell if someone is about to blow themselves up.

Hence, due to people who utilize this tactic, why a soldier would shoot an unarmed civilian if they were to be approaching them without listening to the word "stop" "halt", etc, because there are people who tend to explode once they close the area of effect distance to include their targets in addition to the other "collateral". There is a non lethal tactic that American soldiers use against suicide bombers in the middle east, "cuteness grenades":

Back when US troops were fighting in the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century, they faced similar tactics from fanatical tribesmen who would dress as beggars or women to get close to the troops, then draw large knives at close range and make suicide charges at the soldiers. At first they were fairly effective, the tribesmen would put on tourniquets before making the attacks so that they wouldn't bleed out too quickly if hit, and the .38 revolvers and .30 rifles of the time didn't have the "knock down" power necessary to stop a charging berserker point blank before he could cut several people up. This directly led to the introduction of the .45ACP Colt M1911 handgun after it was found that "obsolete" Colt Single Action Army revolvers were much more effective, and to the troops learned to cut big crosses in the lead tips of their Krag-Jorgensen bullets in order to create massive wound channels for faster bleed out. The US forces also adopted a new rules of engagement colloquially called "when in doubt, Krag 'em and bag 'em", sounds pretty similar to the current ROE for dealing with unknowns when suicide tactics are being utilized. Everything old is new again someday when it comes to war, suicide attacks are hardly new and there are plenty of ways of neutralizing them.

They also win simply by making the targets scared, and by driving them to use resources for defense that otherwise would not have. They laugh every time we devote billions to security to keep one random guy from blowing up a person or two; they don't value individual life on that level.

Yes, the conditions that define "win" are very different from ours.

Terrorists - people who use small-scale violence as a means of achieving a political end who we disagree with.
Freedom fighters/heroes/etc. - people who use small-scale violence as a means of achieving a political end who we agree with.

Well armed countries have no need to resort to terrorism because they can go in, occupy, then change the politics by force.

I remember a commentator saying that an older version of the dictionary (pre 9/11) had one of the definitions for "terrorism" as "a model of government that rules through fear and intimidation."