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Hezzbollah and Hamas? For Hezzbolah the most obvious was the murder of 240 Marines in Lebanon in the barracks bombing. Yes that was 35 years ago but they haven't changed there philosophy any. Since then they have kept busy with (and be aware that Iran had funded these operations):
-The 1983 Kuwait bombings in collaboration with the Iraqi Dawa Party
-The 1984 United States embassy annex bombing, killing 24 people
-The hijacking of TWA flight 847 holding the 39 Americans on board hostage for weeks in 1985 and murder of one U.S. Navy sailor
-August 1989 bombing in London was a failed Hezbollah assassination attempt on Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie, ( Iranian officials have repeatedly called for Rushdie's death)
-The bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina killing twenty-nine people in 1992. Hezbollah operatives boasted of involvement
-The bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina killing 85 people in 1994. Hezbollah claimed responsibility. (Argentine justice accused Iran of being behind the attacks because of Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear material delivery and technology transfer)
-The 1994 AC Flight 901 attack, killing 21 people, in Panama. Hezbollah claimed responsibility.
-The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, killing 19 US servicemen. On December 22, 2006, federal judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Iran was responsible for the attack, stating "The totality of the evidence at trial...firmly establishes that the Khobar Towers bombing was planned, funded, and sponsored by senior leadership in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
-The 2012 Burgas bus bombing, killing 6, in Bulgaria.
Should I go on?
Hamas? Yeah they have been too busy attacking Israel: bombing Israeli school buses, suicide bombings at Israeli hotels, firing Iranian Quassam rockets indiscrimitly into Israel, etc. They have also proved to be very adapt at assassinating political rivals in Palestine.
First, you didn't read what I wrote. So discount everything that didn't happen in a western nation. Also discount everything they didn't claim credit for.
And I'd point out that the US has been screwing with Iran since the 50s, including shooting down one of their civilian airliners as well.
And, btw, I had a subordinate injured in the Khobar Towers bombing (a few weeks earlier, and I'd have been there myself). Our sources do not point to Iran for that, but to Al Qaeda...but the political impetus then as now is to whip up a war frenzy in the public to attack Iran instead of the actual enemy, which is Saudi Arabia (kind of the way a war frenzy was whipped up to invade Iraq...instead of Saudi Arabia).
So take the remaining incidents and stack them up against the incidents since 1985 instigated by Sunni Salafi terrorists...and explain to me why the US is working up a war frenzy against Iran instead of Saudi Arabia.
So take the remaining incidents and stack them up against the incidents since 1985 instigated by Sunni Salafi terrorists...and explain to me why the US is working up a war frenzy against Iran instead of Saudi Arabia.
Iran's support for terrorism is open, obvious, and blatant. Saudi's support for terrorism is mostly by non-state actors - radical residents and clerics which see the Royal Family and the Saudi government as enemies as well. The Saudi kingdom is in a careful and complex balancing act with internal and external influences, but they have gone a long way since 911. Much has changed. Now they are cooperating with western intelligence regarding terrorism. Now they themselves are the target. They are also more likely to grow more moderate in the future as it grows less dependent on oil and more dependent on western relations.
Victory will be when we decide to stop fighting and just focus on security. It's whack-a-mole, an un-winnable "war." Not even properly a war, even by post-WWII fungible standards of the term. If the terrorist ideology truly is as corrupt, evil, and contemptible as people say, it will die out on its own from weaknesses of its own making, faster than if we continue to provoke them.
Just like Nazism died off on it's own in Europe...
I don't know what the answer is, but the above isn't it.
Islamofascism doesn't go away. Ask the Spanish...it took them 700 years to kick islamist out, now the EU is letting them all back in.
I know it is more complicated than that, but complexity shouldn't overshadow obvious take aways either.
Iran's support for terrorism is open, obvious, and blatant. Saudi's support for terrorism is mostly by non-state actors - radical residents and clerics which see the Royal Family and the Saudi government as enemies as well. The Saudi kingdom is in a careful and complex balancing act with internal and external influences, but they have gone a long way since 911. Much has changed. Now they are cooperating with western intelligence regarding terrorism. Now they themselves are the target. They are also more likely to grow more moderate in the future as it grows less dependent on oil and more dependent on western relations.
The article you quoted doesn't seem to have anything to do with terrorism.
They have indeed changed regarding it's consideration of terrorism, nothing in the article counters that, although arguably they they have a long way to go and they will never be the partner we want them to be because they don't share our values or our culture, and their interests are self-serving. Yeah, they still have sharia law, that isn't going away. There human rights values clearly aren't ours. But there is a definitive line between that and bombing school buses full of children.
But what has changed drastically is there anti-terrorism campaign. Pre 911 they wouldn't even talk to us about terrorism, the cooperation was Zero. Now they share intellegence, now they actively engage via police and military with ISIS and Al Queda, now they attack terrorism finances (via some changes to it's tax system that enable it to monitor the transfers), now they have a "terrorist rehabilitation program" (instead of there usual approach of tearing fingernails off) to integrate these lost souls back into society.
What does ISIS say about Saudi Arabia? - "slaves of the crusaders and Allies of the jews", and has called for the assassination of Saudi leaders.
Just like Nazism died off on it's own in Europe...
I don't know what the answer is, but the above isn't it.
Islamofascism doesn't go away. Ask the Spanish...it took them 700 years to kick islamist out, now the EU is letting them all back in.
I know it is more complicated than that, but complexity shouldn't overshadow obvious take aways either.
The Nazis were about expanding their state. I'm talking about an ideological conflict. In the middle ages, the Emirate of Granada would have been the more free, more tolerant society than the Catholic Spaniards.
I'm thinking more the Cold War. We were able to defeat the USSR without going to war with them... the wars we did engage (Korea, Vietnam) actually prolonged and bolstered the USSR's survival.
What Constitutes a 'Win' in the War on Terror and How Do We Get There?
*************
So, some questions:
1) We're killing these people wholesale and yet, the pace of terrorist bombings, atrocities and general mayhem, has not slowed notably. How do we win, absent the Genocide option?
We are hardly killing them wholesale. We are pretending we are not at war, and acting like surgeons. We need a far more aggressive approach, as outlined by TamaraSavannah below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah
A win?
They don't dare attack you for fear of how you will respond.
Their method of warfare does not distinguish between innocent and guilty, by gender or by age.
I'm not saying we have to go wholesale that route. I do not suggest targeting supermarkets, pizza parlors or concerts in those lands. I do suggest that we need to hurt or kill enough people that innocent civilians will put pressure on the militant leadership. I refer you to War, to Humane, Must be Total.
In substance I said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbgusa
Both the Civil War and WW II ended when the victors became serious about fighting. General Sherman's "March to the Sea", which devastated large swaths of Georgia, convinced the remaining Confederates that their cause was hopelss. The Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, in my view, for the first time convinced the German and Japanese people, respectively, that their "leadership" was taking them one place; to the grave.
********
For war to end, the ultimate victors must prosecute it to the maximum extent possible. I am not advocating attacking supermarkets and skyscrapers deliberately. Those kinds of attacks accomplish little. If fanatics seek war, they should be given what they ask for. In spades. Attempts to daintily avoid civilian casualties and negotiate prematurely lead only to prolonged and greater grief.
Here we are dealing with people a good deal more tribal and fanatical than southern U.S Confederates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilEyeFleegle
2) What constitutes a 'win'? What would satisfy you..and America?
See my quote of TamaraSavannah above.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilEyeFleegle
3) Is our conflict still about vengeance, now that Osama is dead? Or, Has it become self-sustaining, its existence becoming its own reason?
Explain that line of reasoning to the attendees at the concert in Paris in November 2015 or in Manchester, UK this past week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilEyeFleegle
My opinion..It takes two to make Peace, but only one to make war. Even if we left the Middle East tomorrow...stopped all military actions against Terrorism, the war would go on..because our enemies would continue to attack..probably imbued with fresh vigor, as they would believe they are winning.
So basically you concede my point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilEyeFleegle
The Jihadi's are in it for the long haul..their stated goal is total victory...nothing less.
Only 1 in thousands is a Jihadist--Do we really want to continue to kill thousands to get one?
Do we have a viable choice?
Probably not. Unless we dissolve the executive order that forbids the CIA from targeted assassinations of leaders. Carter's order. This was typical of fighting in our style and expecting everyone else to conform.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah
A win?
They don't dare attack you for fear of how you will respond.
For this and your examples I'm repping post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
The United States is not the mafia.
It may make some mistakes, many even. But by God if we started doing things like that I would sell my property, forfeit my citizenship and move somewhere else. If I still could, that is. That's straight up brutality... the Soviet Union was brutal, often to its own people, and I thank God I am not a member of a country like that. The U.S. is supposed to be better than that. Start acting like that with foriegners and it will start happening to domestic opponents of whoever's in power. I GUARANTEE IT. Last I checked the USSR fell apart, in no small part because a lot of its own people didn't approve of its brutality.
Does the Manchester attacker, the 911 attackers or the Paris attackers at the Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 or the concert attackers in November 2015 have mutual feelings of goodwill?
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
As to the general question, it's probable that we will have to tolerate a certain low level of insecurity. We are clearly not as at risk as Europe... if ISIS could do the kinds of things here that it just did in Great Britain... it would be doing them more often. As always, our oceans are protecting us somewhat. So at least we've got that.
I am not willing to continue to tolerate the loss of productivity from tying our airports and office buildings into knots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
We could bomb ISIS into the stone age and someone will come back with another name and start doing the same things a few years later. You don't beat an ideology with sticks and stones... you beat it with ideas, a superior system, and you let the competing inferior system collapse on itself. The Cold War should have taught us that.
Ignorant people who don't read and write don't learn that way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
What ISIS wants more than anything is to have American troops on the ground in the middle east that they can fight & use as recruitment tools... they WANT a war... Americans need to understand that.
Only a war that we fight with both hands tied behind our backs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
Victory will be when we decide to stop fighting and just focus on security. It's whack-a-mole, an un-winnable "war." Not even properly a war, even by post-WWII fungible standards of the term. If the terrorist ideology truly is as corrupt, evil, and contemptible as people say, it will die out on its own from weaknesses of its own making, faster than if we continue to provoke them.
Security generally equals security theater and little more.
I am going to edit my previous post and apologize to you for missing out on responding directly to this link. For some reason I only saw the second link.
Yes ISIS and Al Queda get funding from US Arab states, mostly from rich Saudi Arabians or are siphoned off from charity front groups. For that matter that is a problem in even the western countries - funding for these terrorist groups come from many sources and/or the well intentioned funding for charities, or arms to more moderate groups, fall into the wrong hands. This must be addressed of course - the kingdom has to walk a fine line because it remains a Sunni nation, but now this support is turning on them. As I said Al Queda and ISIS have declared the Kingdom an enemy and want the royal family dead - when extreemest sites start showing Mecca with the flag of ISIS over it, it gets Saudi attention.
We are hardly killing them wholesale. We are pretending we are not at war, and acting like surgeons. We need a far more aggressive approach, as outlined by TamaraSavannah below.
Their method of warfare does not distinguish between innocent and guilty, by gender or by age.
I'm not saying we have to go wholesale that route. I do not suggest targeting supermarkets, pizza parlors or concerts in those lands. I do suggest that we need to hurt or kill enough people that innocent civilians will put pressure on the militant leadership. I refer you to War, to Humane, Must be Total.
Really? Striking heavy civilian areas is just going to push more of the survivors to their side there for creating more extremists and possible terrorist who want revenge for the death of their loved ones. I can see why people here in the states are calling to disengage from the region. Many of these governments could actually repel the extremists if we didn't interfere. And what about our allies in the region? Saudi Arabia, Israel? Maybe we need to demand that they do more to deal with the Islamist extremist so we want have to send so many of our soldiers to die.
One poster made a good point earlier in that the intelligence communities of western countries need to be more engaged in getting in front of these attacks and the individuals behind them. But I have an unsettling feeling that the reason they fail to do so isn't from lack of capability or intelligence gathering.
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