The Weak In Rock

Good lord.  So much for my plan to write more this year.

So, what, you may ask, has awakened me from my blogging slumber?  Oh, nothing much.  Just a RAND Corporation report that repeats crap I’ve been saying since late 2001.  The report is the result of a research analysis into how terrorist groups have ceased to be historically between 1968 and the present.   Seems that terrorist organizations are slightly more likely to cease operations because they achieve victory than due to military force exerted against them.

I’ll let you mull that one over for a moment.

Done?

Yup, we’re more likely, statistically speaking, to lose the so-called war on terror than we are to win it.   Of course that’s not really the main point of the study.  The realy money-shot is that terrorist organizations are actually most often put on the shelf of history because of either a negotiated political settlement or policing and intelligence work.  Military efforts to combat terrorism only succeed about 7% of the time.

The British, by the way, figured this out right out the gate (granted, they’ve been dealing with guerilla wars and terrorists since, oh, about 1776, so they ought to have learned a little about it by now).  The US government still hasn’t got even a shadow of a clue on this subject.  That’s why I’m making a small effort to bring this report to your attention, gentle readers.  Anyone who supports a continuation of the so-called war on terror needs to be denied your vote this fall.  And I’m not just talking about McCain and Obama.  There are House and Senate seats up for grabs in November, and we need to put the boot in to anyone who thinks we’re spending our money and time wisely with this alleged war.

My favorite quote from the summary of the RAND report:

Key to this strategy is replacing the war-on-terrorism orientation with the kind of counterterrorism approach that is employed by most governments facing significant terrorist threats today. Calling the efforts a war on terrorism raises public expectations — both in the United States and elsewhere — that there is a battlefield solution. It also tends to legitimize the terrorists’ view that they are conducting a jihad (holy war) against the United States and elevates them to the status of holy warriors. Terrorists should be perceived as criminals, not holy warriors.

Emphasis mine.

Read the report and summary here.

Technorati Tags: RAND Corporation, terrorism

I’ve been saying for a long time that the British have had a much more enlightened conception of Al Qaeda than the US. Well, now it’s official.

“The words ‘war on terror’ will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country’s chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.

“Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless ‘death cult.’”

The story goes on to say, in reference to the most recent terrorist activity in the UK:

“’The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers,’ Macdonald said. ‘They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way.’”

Yup. That’s it. The folks who flew planes into the World Trade Center in NY on 9/11/01 were criminals, not soldiers. You cannot fight criminals with an army. You fight them with law enforcement - investigation, evidence gathering, arrests, prosecution and incarceration. And by calling these people what they are - fanatics, narcissists, murderers and criminals - you give them their proper status. By referring to them in any sort of context of warfare you elevate their importance in the world and dignify what they’re doing.

Maybe someone in the Democrats’ camp will pick this one up and run with it. We can only hope.

Technorati Tags: the British, Al Qaeda