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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17748
Location: Berkeley, California
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 Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:06 am Post subject: Terrorism |
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John Arquila is chair of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School:
| Quote: | As the 15th anniversary of al Qaeda’s attacks on America nears, one simple but very inconvenient truth must be acknowledged: The “global war on terror” launched by President George W. Bush has failed.
The vast increase in the number of terrorist attacks worldwide provides irrefutable evidence of this failure. From one of the most rigorously compiled databases, maintained by scholars at the University of Maryland, shocking numbers emerge. In 2001, there were just under 2,000 terrorist attacks that resulted in about 14,000 deaths and injuries. By 2015, that number had risen to nearly 15,000 attacks with more than 80,000 casualties — a sevenfold increase in incidents and a more than fivefold rise in combined deaths and injuries. Clearly, the global war on terror has turned into terror’s war on the world.
Sadly, more than 30 percent of the overall deaths in 2015 and 40 percent of the injuries occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan — the two places where the United States has mounted its most sustained military efforts. And it is important to note that the terrorism database statistics do not count deaths and injuries from battle and aerial bombing, which would take the numbers in these troubled lands far higher — in Iraq to well more than 100,000. This goes for Syria also, where estimates now put the death toll in the civil war there above 300,000.
How did this catastrophe come to pass? After all, the heinous acts of al Qaeda on 9/11 sparked global outrage and an international coming-together to fight against terrorism. In part, the upsurge in terrorism is due to the flowering of networked organizations — with al Qaeda’s flat, dispersed nature representing not an exception but rather a great model. Twenty-five years ago, al Qaeda was one of just three nascent jihadist networks. Today there are nearly 50. Many are loosely affiliated with al Qaeda or Islamic State. They range from North Africa to Nigeria, and on to Somalia, Yemen, Bangladesh and beyond, forming a kind of “network of networks.” This organizational form is highly resilient, and so it is no surprise that terrorist networks are on the rise and doing more and more damage.
The persistence and growth of terrorist networks — and their ability to do harm — is aided by two great blunders. The first is that the nations of the world have been far too reluctant to craft nimble networks of their own to track down, disrupt and destroy the terrorist networks. Fifteen years after 9/11, there is still far too little of the broad information-sharing and rapid action-taking that characterize true networks. Instead of focusing on and acting like networks, nations have committed their second blunder: trying to deal with terrorist networks by forcing regime change in other nations. This has led to highly problematic military interventions — most notably in Afghanistan and Iraq — that have been undertaken at ruinous, fruitless cost in the name of “nation building.” Needless to say, the United States is the principal driver behind these events, and thus bears much responsibility for the failures of the past decade and a half.
If there is an upside to this analysis, it is that the United States can still play a major role in cleaning up this American-created mess. When it comes to network building, the blueprints have been in place for years, drawn up by then-Adm. William McRaven when he headed the U.S. Special Operations Command. His “global counter-terror network” awaits leadership bold enough to pursue it. As to the matter of nation building, the solution here is even simpler: “Just say no.” Foreign military intervention has always been a fraught, costly, risky business. It should be undertaken rarely, carefully and only with clear and convincing justification. Further, it should also be possible to take military action against terrorist networks without having to pursue the grander aim of changing the very character of particular nations.
So the twofold solution is simple: Say yes to networking and no to nation building. And now, in this autumn of American political discontent, the challenge — for media and the electorate — is to wrench free from fixating on Donald Trump’s temperament and Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness. The public discourse needs to be informed by the candidates’ fully articulated views on how to deal with the persistence and growth of terrorism — which must be reversed before these dark networks acquire weapons of mass destruction. The candidates’ attitudes toward military intervention must also be carefully parsed.
To date, none of the presidential candidates — including the Libertarian and Green parties’ candidates — has developed the notion of networking as a way to make the world less permissive of terrorism. At least not beyond the point of paying homage to “working with allies.” But when it comes to military intervention, only Clinton stands out as a leader still willing to talk about increasing the level of engagement in Syria. Thus there is plenty of room to require the candidates to think about networking against terrorism, and to debate their differences about when and how force should be used.
Which would be far, far better than continuing to flog Clinton’s “damn emails” or Trump’s “university” — and other, less pressing matters. |
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vientomas
Joined: 25 Apr 2000
Posts: 2343
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| Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:37 am Post subject: |
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| But, but, but...it's Obama's fault. |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:56 am Post subject: |
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| vientomas wrote: | | But, but, but...it's Obama's fault. |
Seeing as Libya, Syria, Egypt, and much of the world are in chaos, you're correct. After 8 years, it is Obama's fault. |
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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| Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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"The public discourse needs to be informed by the candidates’ fully articulated views on how to deal with the persistence and growth of terrorism — which must be reversed before these dark networks acquire weapons of mass destruction. The candidates’ attitudes toward military intervention must also be carefully parsed."
But not the way that BHO has been doing it with details and dates of departure, he likes to give them his playbook, which is why it doesn't improve. Trump has it right on that.
The things that shouldn't be totally transparent, are with BHO, and the things that should be totally transparent, aren't. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14890
Location: on earth
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| Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| nw30 wrote: | "The public discourse needs to be informed by the candidates’ fully articulated views on how to deal with the persistence and growth of terrorism — which must be reversed before these dark networks acquire weapons of mass destruction. The candidates’ attitudes toward military intervention must also be carefully parsed."
But not the way that BHO has been doing it with details and dates of departure, he likes to give them his playbook, which is why it doesn't improve. Trump has it right on that.
The things that shouldn't be totally transparent, are with BHO, and the things that should be totally transparent, aren't. |
Oh ya and can you cite what makes you or trump correct on that...
Oh I bet you went to Trump University to and stayed in a holiday inn express.
Trump U as stated he knows more about terrorists and how to deal with them then the Generals.... why because he watches the morning TV shows and Jack Bower.
your an absolute idiot to to state that with no foundation... Just as trump who knows more about terrorists then the generals. you idiots live in fantasy land of the TV show 24, it was TV not real....
_________________
when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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vientomas
Joined: 25 Apr 2000
Posts: 2343
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 12:26 am Post subject: |
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Today the Filipino president called President Obama the son of a whore. Putin and the Chinese treat him with contempt.
They will treat Hillary equally with contempt. |
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mat-ty
Joined: 07 Jul 2007
Posts: 7850
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| Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:18 am Post subject: |
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| MalibuGuru wrote: | Today the Filipino president called President Obama the son of a whore. Putin and the Chinese treat him with contempt.
They will treat Hillary equally with contempt. |
Son of a whore, that's harsh. I would have said hippie socialist... |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
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| Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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| mat-ty wrote: | | Son of a whore, that's harsh. I would have said hippie socialist... |
Which will doom the U.S. quicker ... a bastard child or a socialist?
Um ... that's a rhetorical question, for the Lefties who don't understand that. |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| The interesting thing is that the entire world is disgusted with Obama.....except Angela Merkel, the destroyer of Europe, who's on her way down the toilet. Does Obama have any friends? I mean anyone who genuinely likes him? |
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