The Case for Calling Terrorists Nitwits
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
It's hard to find suicide bombers with a good resume of successful attacks.
So there will be suicide bomber training mullahs who have a track record of training martyrs to be effective suicide bombers, and those whose graduates more often than not fail.
http://www.speakeasy.org/~mamandel/filks/Darwin-notes.html#t...
Also, why does the article call people "perverts" for looking at porn? Really? People still think that?
I don't find it at all unlikely that the same sorts who would resort to the most intimate form of animal husbandry might have truly perverted pornography.
Perverts on their own terms: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,443678,00...
Whether those opinions are utterly universal in the Muslim world I can not attest to, but surely they are popular.
I've always understood this to be a real part of the strategy we've been pursuing; indeed, understanding that our primary goal is to disrupt leadership and prevent "competence" and "leadership" from coming together means suddenly you can decode an awful lot of American strategy pursued over the past near-decade, and especially in the past three or four years (and ongoing). I think perhaps history will not record this effort anywhere near as "incompetent" or "misguided" as those of us stuck in the moment may be tempted to think. You can't destroy the hatred, you can't destroy leadership, you can't destroy competence, but the intersection of all three is in fact rather targetable.
The leaders have to be willing to die with their minions, not just see them off. The hardest thing about being an evil mastermind is that your minions start screwing things up the moment you turn your back (or get outside the blast radius.)
As proven by the existence of one of my favorite logical adages- Hanlon's razor.
Who cares how smart your enemy is? You don't need to be intelligent to be dangerous.
The author clearly doesn't understand the point of asymmetric warfare. Even if people want to laugh at the fact that 50% of Afghani suicide bombers don't kill people, 50% DO kill people. Suicide bombers aren't doing a cost benefit analysis of their efficacy and then deliberating on whether they're going to blow themselves up or not. Their job is to sow terror, and pierce the idea of safety.
In spite of any of the points mentioned in the article, it's still possible to recruit suicide bombers to go blow themselves up for an ideology that's insane.
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I do honestly believe that we should point out the absurdity of suicide bombing. But the absurdity is not a question of their efficacy, which is undeniably a winning strategy if you've got the man power to throw at it. The absurdity of suicide bombing lay in the ideology, and the goals one seeks to achieve by blowing oneself up.
This article is at best naïve, and at worse, dangerously ignorant and besides the point. Fight ideas.
Current U.S. public diplomacy centers on selling America to the Muslim world, but we should also work to undermine some of the myths built up around our enemies by highlighting their incompetence, their moral failings, and their embarrassing antics. Beyond changing how the Muslim world perceives terrorists, we can help ourselves make smarter counterterrorism choices by being more realistic about the profile and aptitude of would-be attackers...Even small investments in training for police and airport-security personnel can make a big difference, as these are the people most likely to encounter—and have a chance to disrupt—an unskilled attacker.
The best way to fight their ideas is to avoid buying into their romantic self-image as heroic martyrs, and reveal them as the sad losers they really are.
I think its much better to have nothing to do with these people. we need to stop trying to create the centralized states our DC politicians are in love with and that are necessarily more fragile, requiring life support from the west.
I think many people feel very threatened by the west, its technology and its overpowering media. the more we keep pushing it in their face, the more they will keep looking for a way to make us regret we ever did
Mockery and humiliation are not equivalent. Humiliation implies some degradation of people under our control. We should of course avoid such behavior, but public mockery need not entail humiliation.
I'm pretty sure that folks willing to commit acts of terrorism are already enemies. But I do agree that this sort of messaging has to be careful to differentiate the nitwit terrorists and the larger community from which they might draw support. Mock the former, not the latter.
I think its much better to have nothing to do with these people.
Alas, this does not seem politically feasible. Governments that fail to communicate anything to the public about terrorists are at risk of falling victim to demagogues in other parties.
I don't disagree with the perspective (as i said), but mock their ideology. What's the point in attacking their devotion to their cause or the efficacy of their pursuit? The are literally, deadly serious about their cause, regardless of how stupid it is.
The author went on at length with various anecdotes about how terrorists are dumb, but I think that I missed the call to action that you are so upset about. Care to point it out to me?
Point out their hypocrisy, point out how stupid it is for them to go blow themselves up. But calling them stupid is both trite and ineffective.
At the very least, you should be quoting the Quran to prove to them that they shouldn't be suicide bombers. Save that, proving that suicide bombers are not devout religious soldiers will destroy the persona they the bombers feel that they will have with the rest of the Muslim world after they are dead and gone.
You do need to be intelligent to kill many many people. Dumb terrorists can't increase the death rate because they can't kill very many people, so it doesn't make sense to worry about them or spend much money dealing with them. Their effects are like traffic accidents or accidental bathtub drownings: sad, but not worth reshaping our society over.
You have to outlast your enemy, and make it clear that they have not won, and can not win.
They don't have to be effective and kill a lot of people to wage a campaign of terror. Eta in Spain is a good example. And even so, all you need is one or two effective suicide bombers, and then just keep reminding people that you have people willing to die for your cause to carry out a moderately effective campaign of terror.
Remember what Timothy McVeigh though. His POV was that you could kill him, do whatever to him, and he's still up 168 to 1.
Timothy McVeigh was a failure, in every sense of the word. He accomplished none of his political goals. He had hoped to start a revolution. Which didn't happen. Because even people who were sympathetic with his goals were repulsed at the barbarity of murdering small children. McVeigh was far more effective at annihilating public support for his preferred policies than the government could ever be.
You have to outlast your enemy, and make it clear that they have not won, and can not win.
What do you mean when you say "win"? How does a terrorist "win" exactly? It seems like you're describing the politics of spite and I don't see how this analysis allows you to make any useful predictions.
They don't have to be effective and kill a lot of people to wage a campaign of terror.
I'm not sure why we should care about terrorists that only manage to kill a few people every year. Those terrorists are about as dangerous as bathtub drownings or golf course lightning strikes: they kill a tiny number of random people. So what? What if you threw a terror campaign and nobody cared?
What does "effective" mean anyway? Do you really think that Al Queda will achieve its policy goals if it continues small scale terrorist attacks for the next few years? Really?
The Taliban on the other hand is waging a fairly standard insurgency to try and get what they view as their occupiers to leave.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban are actually, by and large, succeeding at their goals. NATO can't ensure peace in Afghanistan, and regardless of what is built, the political establishment in Afghanistan must contend with the Taliban. Al Qaeda at this point is an exemplar to aspire to for the incompetent schlubs trying to set their underwear on fire.
It doesn't matter if the likelihood that you're going to be blown up by a terrorist is extremely unlikely. It's that someone out there means you harm, and will strike when you do not expect it. There was an earlier post to hacker news which had an interesting discussion of the Assassins' tactics which fall into this general modus, although their motivations were totally distinct: http://www.historynet.com/holy-terror-the-rise-of-the-order-...
But that's a lie. No terrorist is ever going to kill me. Or you. Statistically speaking, that statement is as true as saying "you are not going to drown in a bathtub".
Look, I can die by accident in any of a billion ways. An accidental death is much much more likely than being killed by terrorists. So again, why should I care about people who are far far less dangerous to me than traffic accidents?
Al Qaeda's policy goals are the bankruptcy and disruption of western civilization....Al Qaeda and the Taliban are actually, by and large, succeeding at their goals.
I see a contradiction here. Also, I don't think you're correct in describing Al Queda's goals at all; do you have a source?
Also, I'm still unclear on what point you were trying to make about McVeigh....
Even if someone is ideologically driven, they might think twice about joining an organization where they are more likely to kill themselves and fellow believers rather than the infidels.
Point is, its not one or the other. All approaches can be used in unison to decrease recruitments. Not to mention that its hard to sow terror when you're being laughed at.
However, I do agree with your point below. Getting this message out will be difficult because you need to make sure you target terrorists and not Muslims (which, as you say, will create more enemies).
Edit: There is also the point in the article about how to use resources to defend the people. If you know the competence level of your enemies, you can defend their likely targets. This doesn't remove the need to protect high profile targets, but we might be able to change the distribution of defense to take into account likely targets.
It is important to remember that suicide bombers only appear under certain conditions, they only come from people that are, or believe themselves to be, occupied by a superior power, such they think they have absolutely nothing to lose. They're making the rational choice that since their own lives are worthless, if they can kill any of the occupying force by dying, then they've gained something for the people still behind.
If you only think of suicide bombers as "stupid" or "absurd" or "ideologically motivated", then you'll never get rid of them because you don't really understand what makes them tick.