In Search Of Utopia: The impossibility of stopping all terrorist attacks

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July 17, 2005

The impossibility of stopping all terrorist attacks

Fareed Zakaria, one of the few reasons to read Newsweek, had a piece in last weeks issue which discussed the Muslim world's harsh negative reaction to the Londom bombings, and what they and western leaders need to do to better combat terrorism. But instead of coming away from the article feeling hopeful, Zakaria tosses this paragraph at his readers.

These kinds of events will continue. There should be much, much greater condemnation from mainstream Islam. Moderates must adopt a zero-tolerance policy on terrorism, regardless of what they think of Iraq, Palestine or any other policy issue. But those clamoring for such condemnations should bear in mind that this will not solve the problem. Even if the moderates win and overwhelm the extremists, there will always be some number of unconverted jihadists, who either out of depravity or conviction seek to do evil. If 99.99 percent of the Arab world rejects terrorism, that still leaves 20,000 people to worry about. If 99.9 percent of the Muslim world is against the terrorists, there's 1 million people out there who are dangerous. And the technologies of destruction ensure that they will, on occasion, be successful.

There's absoultely no way that we're ever going to stop all of the attacks. None at all. Never in the history of humankind has there been a way to make an entire population follow one single idealogy. Never. Even Nazi Germany faced dissent. There's never going to be a way to convince all of Islam's followers not to practice terrorism, just like there will never be a way to convince every anti-choice person in America that violence is not the answer. There's no way to stop all the potential attacks. So we mine as well cut the "ending all terrorism" bullshit and face the facts, right?

Of course, that's never going to happen because this very scenario is the Republican party's wet dream. For a party which derives it's strength from fear, what a shot in the arm! A certain segment of the populace, sparsely spread around the globe and virtually undetectable, committing random acts of violence under the banner of al-Qa'ida which is shifting from being a centralized organization to a flag that anyone can claim as their own, and say that they are fighting under. It's literally true that these people can bring the fight to anywhere. What better bargaining chip for the Republicans to hold over voters... Just as long as the voters stay convinced that terrorism itself can be completely stopped.

Problem is that it can't be. But this can't be admitted by either major political party. While the Republicans instill paranoid voters with fear, Democrats have to compete by generating the hawkish perception that they will be just as tough on terrorism; that they will also stop it. But it can't be stopped.

This troubled political climate isn't anything new. The right raised the specter of fear throughout the twenthy century, and it got American into boatloads of trouble. Remember Vietnam? Kennedy probably wouldn't have even bothered if the Republicans didn't continue to stipulate that it was the Democrats who "lost" China after WWII. Looking upon the Democrats acquiescence to the Republicans on Iraq since they felt the pressure to look just as hawkish as the right on the issue of terrorism, I'd say that history has repeated itself.

Fact is that, as long as the Republicans have a sliver of a reason to project fear and use it as a political bargaining chip, we're never going to have a serious debate concerning how to develop a sound policy to defend this nation, and other parts of the world, from a serious terrorist attack. And what I mean by that is stopping an attack using nuclear, chemical weapons, or other means of inflicting mass destruction. We're not going to stop conventional attacks. Fuck, any idiot can make a bomb; I downloaded the anarchist's cookbook when I was 15 and there was no such thing called the World Wide Web. Look, it's an archive of anarchy files that teenagers from 15 years ago were memorizing! The art of cheap destruction is common knowledge to anyone who wishes to find it. This just feeds more into the fact that we're never, ever going to stop conventional attacks. So we need to place our focus on making sure that nations like Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Syria, etc., aren't selling WMDs to potential terrorists. And securing our ports would help, too. It sure would be a cheaper solution than waging a useless war in Iraq. But until we can talk openly about the hopelessness of trying to stop all terrorism, we'll continue to see more Iraqs.

[HT: Zakaria link via Red State, of all places...]

Posted by Tas at July 17, 2005 04:24 AM
Filed Under Guest Bloggers | 792 Words

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Comments

I don't know what to do about this corner the Republicans--whom Democrats aided and abetted--have painted us into with their mindless "end terrorism" talk. The French, Russians, Filipinos, American anarchists and survivalists, all used terrorism as tactics in past eras, and all pre-dated the broad category we lump into al-Qaida. How can people be made to understand that, at least on a very low level, this phenomenon has been with us for centuries? Yet it's only recently that our government has seen fit to simultaneously freak out in spasms of exaggerated horror and completely give up on handling it sanely.

Robert Pape has some crucial insight into the matter. Feeling frustrated, I put a piece up on my own site about it, but the important point is that defensive maneuvers simply won't cut it. It's an issue of getting to the root of what motivates the terrorists, and that is Western incursion into Muslim homelands. This has been explored before, but no one wants to hear it, so it gets deep-sixed time and again.

Posted by: Riggsveda at July 17, 2005 12:32 PM

Bush actually said, once upon a time during the campaign, that the terrorists can never be completely defeated, and of course it was retracted and spun the next day....

Posted by: zencomix at July 17, 2005 02:07 PM

Oh, I believe Islamic terrorism could be stopped. However, it would involve massive deportation of all muslims from the western world. A few nukes and and turning mecca into a sheet of glass. Unimaginable death, destruction and suffering would occur on a scale we have never before seen.

I'm not advocating such a thing by any stretch of the imagination and frankly I don't think anyone has the stomach for it. However, I was just making the point that ;yes, Islamic terrorism could be stopped.

Posted by: Independent at July 17, 2005 08:30 PM

yeah, independent, what a great solution...

hell why not go all the way?

An end to poverty, famine, disease, unemployment and anything else that ails ya by blowing up the whole planet.

Posted by: Ron Brynaert at July 17, 2005 09:14 PM

Would that be your final solution, Independent?

Posted by: tas at July 18, 2005 01:51 AM

Would that be your final solution, Independent?

I stated clearly that I did not advocate such an action. But let me pose a scenereo? A nuclear bomb goes off in the heart of NY or LA? An Islamic terrorist cell takes credit. They promise to detonate another bomb unless the US does X,Y or Z. Would you give into the terrorists or fight. How far would you go?

Posted by: Independent at July 18, 2005 10:56 AM

The point is to develop a sound strategy the insure that terrorist do not obtain nuclear weapons; or if they do, that they never make it into America. There's never going to be a shortage of people in the world who won't want to do this to America, and it would be unwise to attempt to divise a strategy wherein you try to eradicate all terrorism because doing such is impossible. And because of this impossibility, planning such a strategy would waste too much in the way of resources, causing the strategy to fail.

Posted by: tas at July 18, 2005 08:34 PM

Just the threat of nuclear war kept the Soviet Union at bay and the actual use of nuclear weopons ended WWII and brought Japan into democracy and prosperity. Just something to think about...

Posted by: Independent at July 18, 2005 08:40 PM

If you folks spent half the time actually fighting against stupid liberal policy that hurts minorities; as you do screaming about others pointing out bad policy, then you might actually find yourselves relevant again in American politics. This was just an example of particularly biting satire. If it seems over-the-top to you it is probably because people are trying to shock the public out of the PC lexicon of American discourse. You better take some nerve pills because things might start to seem a little rude to your oversensitized ears. Check out comedy central's "Mind of Mancia" sometime for a particularly good example of what's instore for you.

Posted by: Independent at July 19, 2005 06:11 PM