quote:
Terrorism is now and always has been best addressed through law enforcement and Special Forces deployments, not conventional warfare. Afghanistan had a basic case for a conventional war (in that the established government pre-invasion was allowing the presence of AQ training camps), but invasion of a sovereign nation is something that should only be done under the auspices of the UN, and should be done as an international joint venture against an internationally recognized rogue state that poses a significant threat to global security.
I think you meant to write: Terrorism SHOULD now and always be addressed through law enforcement and Special Forces deployments.
No, I meant exactly what I wrote: terrorism is
best addressed through law enforcement and targeted Special Forces actions. Those are the ways we can minimize collateral damage to an innocent populace (therefore creating fewer terrorists, as nothing justifies a "Fuck America" sentiment quite as much as having your loved ones killed in a US air raid) as well as identify, dismantle and legally prosecute terror suspects before an actual attack is successful. Case in point: the Christian militia that I mentioned in my previous post. They were identified and arrested through law enforcement before they had a chance to execute their plans.
That doesn't mean there aren't other ways to address terror, just that in the vast majority of cases law enforcement and Special Forces are the
best option.
(Your followup Afghan example FOR a conventional war seems confusing to me . . . )
The Afghanistan example should not confuse you. The US had relatively sturdy international backing with regard to an invasion post-9/11. The Afghani government was a well-known state sponsor of an established terrorist group and refused to comply with
any requests, not simply to extradite bin Laden, but
also any requests to even attempt to put a stop to the terrorist training camps within their borders. As such, the Afghani government presented a real and tangible international threat through their status as a free haven for those who seek to destabilize international security through violence.
I don't think that invading Afghanistan was necessarily unjustified. I disagree more with the implementation. I would have liked to see significantly more international involvement (though we at least had a lot more international support for Afghanistan than Iraq, with good reason), and more of a focus on tactics that minimized civilian casualties (more Special Forces, less general infantry, tanks, and bombs) and the destruction of national infrastructure as well as a full commitment to the action instead of rushing on to another war. I would rather have seen regime change take more of a background focus in that conflict, as even with regimes I personally despise I am uncomfortable with forcing the issue from a foreign perspective.
Here are some typical US VIOLATIONS of addressing terrorism with law enforcement and Special Forces deployments: Reagan bombing Libya resulting hundreds innocent deaths. Clinton bombing African pharmaceutical factory that resulted in thousands (tens of thousands?) of innocent deaths.
Indeed, if any foreign nation decided to use a cruise missile attack on
any US soil for
any reason real or imagined, there would be massive outrage and public outcry, followed by a curbstomp of epic proportions. The US has a major problem with respecting national sovereignty.
However, an international commitment, authorized by the UN, to address the issue of a rogue state that is posing an immediate and active threat to international security
is a justification for an invasion, and I do believe that Afghanistan would have qualified as such a state pre-invasion.
When a single nation violates the sovereignty of another, it's wrong. When the international community agrees that a given state poses a threat to international security and diplomatic tactics are having no effect, military force
is an option. Remember, the UN was created expressly to facilitate international defense against rogue nations, primarily through diplomatic means, but also as a means of determining the justification for military action.
And regarding Afghanistan: at the time of pre-invasion, WITHOUT ANY evidence that Al-queda was indeed responsible for 9/11, Bush Jr. Admn DEMANDED Afghan gov to turn over Bin Laden et al. Hardly the use of law enforcement and Special Forces deployments.
Bush's handling of the situation was infantile, stupid, and immoral. That said, Al-Qaeda and bin Laden were
already well-known to be engaged in international terrorism, and had been since at least the Clinton administration. Even without evidence specifically linking bin Laden or AQ to 9/11, a reasonable request for extradition for even past terrorist activity (which should have been well documented) should have been honored. Similarly, the Taliban should have expressed a commitment to investigating and prosecuting any terrorist camps. Neither of those things happened.
Of course, once the Taliban agreed to give up bin Laden for trial in a 3rd-party nation in exchange for a cessation of hostilities, Bush should have accepted the offer instead of focusing on regime change.
Again - I don't necessarily disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan in principle, as I still think the Taliban had demonstrated themselves as a real danger to international security. I
do disagree with nearly every part of the execution of military action from the day the first bomb dropped until today.
Tens of thousands of innocent Afghans have since been murdered. Yet Bin Laden is still alive. (In the future, look for Obama to "fight" terrorism by bombing innocent Yemenians.)
Again, I disagree with the implementation of military action, though I don;t necessarily disagree with military action being used in Afghanistan.
I agree with you that bombs from
us are more likely to harm innocent bystanders and thus instigate others to make bombs of their own. I agree that violating a nation's sovereignty through military action without UN approval as a defense against a dangerous rogue nation serves more to trigger anger towards the US and foment new terrorists than it works to remove existing ones. I agree that bombs and missiles are less effective overall than law enforcement and Special Operations actions not because of their failures to kill targets, but rather because their tendency to kill people
other than the targets causes more justified outrage and prompts more people to turn to violence themselves.
Regarding your McVeigh example and terrorist descriptions: You could have simply used the official US state department definition of terrorism. However note: the US version ONLY describes violent action against innocent US citizens and its allies, AND never the other way around (see above examples).
I use these definitions for terrorism:
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n early 1975, the Law Enforcement Assistant Administration in the United States formed the National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. One of the five volumes that the committee wrote was entitled Disorders and Terrorism, produced by the Task Force on Disorders and Terrorism under the direction of H.H.A. Cooper, Director of the Task Force staff.[70] The Task Force classified terrorism into six categories.
* Civil disorder — A form of collective violence interfering with the peace, security, and normal functioning of the community.
* Political terrorism — Violent criminal behavior designed primarily to generate fear in the community, or substantial segment of it, for political purposes.
* Non-Political terrorism — Terrorism that is not aimed at political purposes but which exhibits conscious design to create and maintain a high degree of fear for coercive purposes, but the end is individual or collective gain rather than the achievement of a political objective.
* Quasi-terrorism — The activities incidental to the commission of crimes of violence that are similar in form and method to genuine terrorism but which nevertheless lack its essential ingredient. It is not the main purpose of the quasi-terrorists to induce terror in the immediate victim as in the case of genuine terrorism, but the quasi-terrorist uses the modalities and techniques of the genuine terrorist and produces similar consequences and reaction.[71] For example, the fleeing felon who takes hostages is a quasi-terrorist, whose methods are similar to those of the genuine terrorist but whose purposes are quite different.
* Limited political terrorism — Genuine political terrorism is characterized by a revolutionary approach; limited political terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which are committed for ideological or political motives but which are not part of a concerted campaign to capture control of the state.
* Official or state terrorism —"referring to nations whose rule is based upon fear and oppression that reach similar to terrorism or such proportions. It may also be referred to as Structural Terrorism defined broadly as terrorist acts carried out by governments in pursuit of political objectives, often as part of their foreign policy.
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Neither is the government "stealing" when it funds programs initiated by the legally elected legislature in a majority vote.
{Me sounding like a broken record . . .} The Iraq war was based on lies. All money used for this immoral and illegal action is theft.
Bullshit. Yes, the Iraq war was based on lies. Yes, the whole thing is a debacle.
But the expenditure of tax dollars by our legally elected representatives in Congress
is not theft, even when they're wrong, and even when they fall for the snake-oil salesman's pitch. Theft requires someone to have illegally taken your property. Nothing about your taxation was done illegally. The funds may be
used for a purpose that you and I would disagree with and may have even been undertaken at the top under dishonest pretense, but the fact remains that our legally elected representatives legally voted to legally spend that money, even if they were fed a line by a childish jackass of a President who epitomized the sentence "I only hear what I want to."
IMO, MOST military spending is graff (stealing).
Your opinion fails to match up with the actual definition of the word "theft." If you don't like the way your representative votes to spend your tax dollars, vote against that representative in favor of one you believe
would spend tax dollars more in line with your thinking.
Just because the average Congress-critter seems to be a moron who can be convinced to spend outrageous sums of money on projects and equipment even the military itself says it has no need or desire to have does not mean that any theft is happening. Remember, a great deal of the problem is that representatives from states that host military suppliers have an incentive to protect their states' economies by voting for continued military spending for those companies. It's part of how they get elected for another term - even aside from any potential corruption, if legislators from Connecticut vote against funding for submarine production and maintenance and thus ruin the economic hub of Groton, for example, they will be unlikely to be re-elected as the state's economy takes a hit.
It's not theft, it's just a flawed system, some of which can be difficult to fix.
The amount the US spends on "defense" SHOULD be a moral outrage to all thinking people. If the tea-party was consistent and went after these criminals, I might join them.
And it certainly
is an outrage to most of those of us who actually see the numbers. You and I do not disagree at the ethical failure of spending so much money on weapons of war while fighting
against providing healthcare at a fraction of the cost.
But that doesn't mean that tax dollars spent on programs you or I disagree with constitutes theft.
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"Stealing" to a Teabagger is defined as "government spending I don't personally agree with."
Yes, often hypocritical, but an ultimately true statement. In this case, they do agree with massive illegal and immoral taxes used for murdering foreign woman and children.
Just watch out - it seems you're engaging in the same argument by labeling expenditures that
you disagree with as theft, as well.
But they do NOT agree with substantially less taxes used for universal health care.
*Blink*, maybe it's the same argument?
Apathy for the plight of foreigners (real or perceived) and the poor in favor of their own personal wealth certainly does seem to be a defining trait.
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