Security: The War on Terror

I know this is beginning to sound like cliche, but PBS came to Princeton to host a By-The-People production and chose this title. The webcast is up on http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/events/5-8-princeton.html and I highly recommend listening to the views of the experts in the large group discussion section.

[__earth]

bomb in jakarta. i found about it 12 hours ago but thought i share.

[digimushu]

U know, this war on terror thing does not seem to be working. I still see bombings and killings everywhere. How can a war with no clear bounds(beachheads and borders) be fought successfully? How do you kill the enemy if you cant even see them?

These are the main questions that should be targeted and answered. Terrorists are people who pretty much cause anarchy with the purpose of making a statement. How do we even win a war if we dont have a clear line who the enemy is?

Any ideas?

[jiinjoo]

Ha, prince, is that you in the tape? :)

digimushu, I think the war on terror cannot and should not be viewed in the way a war is viewed in the past. You're not trying to destroy an enemy or force them to surrender. The modern world is a world about battles in ideology, since we've transcended from the barbaric acts of these terrorist. You can only win if Osama bin Laden can one day say thank you to the US for either convincing them that what they are doing is wrong, or being convinced that what they fight for is a worth cause.

Human beings don't grow up to cause anarchy - they do it for a reason, albeit an irrational one. If you can give them another reason not to do so, be it a rational one or not, they might reconsider. If you fight them, they will pass on their irrational reason to fight to 10 others before blowing themselves up.

[digimushu]

Ah,

As Sun Tzu says,
The best victory is one where you do ot even have to fight to achieve it. The battle of the hearts and minds, the ultimate victory

:D

[digimushu]

Found this on straitstimes Asia...

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/sub/ourcolumnists/story/0,5574,284913,00.html?


....

Mr Kepel believes that Mr Bush, egged on by the neo-conservatives in his administration, launched his war on terror based on 'misguided reasoning'. They did not adequately understand the nature and functions of the new enemy. Their ignorance ended up creating a monster now known to the world as Al-Qaeda, and turning its leader Osama bin Laden into an iconic figure.


In Mr Kepel's mind, Mr Bush made the mistake of taking Al-Qaeda, an Arabic term for 'the base', too literally. Mr Bush's argument ran thus: Destroy Al-Qaeda's territorial base in Afghanistan, and the group will be out of business.

But as Mr Kepel points out, Al-Qaeda has a deeper meaning. It started out referring to the military bases in Afghanistan used by Egyptian activist Abu Al-Ubaida Banshiri to train young men - the mujahideen - to fight against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Over time, 'the name became a metaphor for the dispersal of those fighters around the globe and for the web of communications links that held them together - a database that served as a microcosm of the ummah whose 'brothers in Islam' could be found from the Philippines to Mauritius'.

Washington's misguided reasoning led it to apply strategies more suitable to the Cold War, Mr Kepel argues. It thought of Al-Qaeda as 'a nation with real estate to be occupied, military hardware to be destroyed, and a regime to be overthrown'. It failed to realise that Al-Qaeda is a 'terrorist NGO without status or headquarters'

....


Any thoughts?

[el_empty]

i think the term "war on terror" in itself is a misnomer. it should have been "action against terror" (action sounds cheesy... think of some other more suitable noun that carries the same meaning yourselves ya?) - war, in its conventional sense cannot fight terror. and secondly, war in itself, is terror.

what does that mean?

it means we need a more comprehensive definition for terrorism. but up till today there hasn't been a solid one. how do you wage a war, when you cannot even identify your enemy? and without a clear definition, stupid people associate terrorism with arabs (or in the case of the US, it's also the indians, the sikhs, the guy with a big beard etc.) and other mosque-going people.

also, what the US is battling, is not a band armed with rifles. it is an ideology. putting them (fighters) down with guns and bombs will not deter a movement - you can't just "go into the caves and smoke out the terrorists." if anything, a war, as we see it today (and for a long time more) will do nothing but fuel even more hatred and disenchantment amongst the local folk.

anyway, good read:
http://www.radcliffe.edu/print/?pid=458&print_parameters=

crenshaw's my professor at wesleyan. hot stuff