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TERRORISTS FEAR “TERRORIST” TAG
No more Hezbollah? Heaven forfend! Menorah Blog reports:
If the European Union follows Israeli recommendations this week and places Hezbollah on a list of official terror organizations, the economic consequences of sanctions would “destroy” the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah’s leader told Arabic language television.
And that’s a disincentive to list the Hezbollah terror organisation as a terror organisation? Following the illogic of this claim would almost cause one to, well, explode. For more on the economically-endangered Hezbollah boyz, click here.
Or they could sell their sons and daughters into prostitution. That’s slightly above their level of morality, but hey, a buck is a buck.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 03 at 01:01 PM • permalinkthat’s a euro is a euro, you cultural imperialist
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 03 03 at 01:15 PM • permalinkOf course it’s a disincentive. If Hizbollah is gone, who will the Euros cheer for to take out “that shitty little country”?
Posted by Steven Den Beste on 2005 03 03 at 03:46 PM • permalinkCan you not see your ignorance will cause me to explode now?
I’m not sure why, but that’s appropriate.
Stop! Stop! You’re killing me! How am I supposed to run a terrorist organisation if you deny me a licence?
It’s a crazy world, where banning of inappropriate dress (dress being used used as a political wedgie by the islamofascists) can now be more successfully done in Turkey and France than in Britain, where the courts have upheld an appeal by a young girl who insisted on wearing the jilbab (another flowing robe showing only face and hands) instead of the already quite modest uniform of her Islam-friendly school.
New tactic also becoming evident with some illegals now saying they cannot be returned to their country because ... wait for it ... they have converted to Christianity and will be persecuted if they return.
I guess they could always say they were tortured here until they converted, and then re-convert to Islam, since it takes all of a minute to do so.the only difference nightfly is with prostitution the lady has a say in the matter, whereas with the un…
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 03 03 at 06:38 PM • permalinkFollowing the guidelines proposed for the Democratic Party, Hezbollah is seeking to “reframe” its message:
Hezbollah! It’s Arabic for “Bunny”!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 03 at 08:49 PM • permalinkYou’ll know we have won when you start reading about Hezbollah holding a bake sale.
Posted by Carl in N.H. on 2005 03 03 at 11:33 PM • permalinkBah! Next thing you know they’ll be clamouring to add Hamas to the list as well! [/sarcasm]
Posted by Maniacal Intent on 2005 03 03 at 11:49 PM • permalinki’m sure they could apply for, and get, some type of aid from the eu
Hell, give ‘em two years and they’ll be the Euro MP’s for Netherlands…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 04 at 12:21 AM • permalinkCompletely OT, a BBC newsman’s slip of the tongue undermines the BBC’s ‘impartiality’:
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 03 04 at 01:32 AM • permalinkHezbollah are insane murderers.
But why is their message so widely received and accepted??
Posted by David_Heidelberg on 2005 03 04 at 06:48 AM • permalinkIt’s not. Only a small minority of human beings actually admires terrorist organizations.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 03 04 at 07:49 AM • permalinkTerrorist organisations would not exist without followers. What motivates these people?
Posted by David_Heidelberg on 2005 03 04 at 07:53 AM • permalinkAn irrelevant question, just kill the terrorists and be done with it.
David, are you leading up to the worn-out, long-since-refuted “poverty causes terrorism” rubbish?
The 9/11 Hijackers were all affluent, educated, middle class Arabs, bin Laden is hardly impoverished (being a billionaire)
All these terrorists come from dictatorships, and their leftist supporters in the West sympathise with dictators.
Dictatorship produces terrorism.
At the same time, the control the dictatorship over the movement of information and ideas makes it possible for the dictator to blame everything he’s done on someone else, and anyone who attempts to refute the dictator gets fed into the shredder. This is especially effective if the scapegoating reinforces already existing stereotypes and prejudices, anti-semitism for instance has long been an established part of many cultures, building on it is easy.
But why is their message so widely received and accepted??
because it plays into the hands of Ennui Union diplomats and newspaper editors who still believe that the world is a congress-of-vienna-era chessboard that they can control between sips of sherry at the club while keeping those pesky zionists and upstart colonials in their place.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 03 04 at 09:05 AM • permalinkAll these terrorists come from dictatorships, and their leftist supporters in the West sympathise with dictators
.
The 9/11 hijackers were mostly a combination of Saudi and Egyptian citizens, two strong American Allies. Who are their leftist supporters?
Again, what motivates people from middle WELL OFF families, to die for their cause?
Posted by David_Heidelberg on 2005 03 04 at 09:22 AM • permalinkwhat motivates people from middle WELL OFF families, to die for their cause?
The same thing that motivates killers and tyrants throughout history: craving for power.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 03 04 at 09:59 AM • permalinkTo expand upon my point: the craving for power combined with some belief (such as Marxism or radical Islam) that submerges the identity of the individual in some greater whole (“the masses,” “the Ummah”) produces people willing to kill and be killed for their beliefs. Notice that the leaders of these groups are not the ones strapping the semtex on.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 03 04 at 10:03 AM • permalinkWho are their leftist supporters?
Well, let’s see…..
Naom Chomski
ANSWER, leaders and members thereof
Ward Churchill
Robert Fiskand all of their sycophantic adherents.
Need more info? Try Google.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 04 at 10:12 AM • permalinkAsk David Hicks…wait a minute…ask his daddy as he knows better. http://fairgofordavid.blogspot.com/
Posted by midwesternminuteman on 2005 03 04 at 10:14 AM • permalinkAgain, what motivates people from middle WELL OFF families, to die for their cause?
what andrea said, with the addition that the bored upper middle class youths have nothing to do all day but sit around playing intellectual and reading/composing crappy polemical texts and feeling all oppressed (as opposed to 99% of the world that has to actually fucking work for a living); thus that segment has always been the breeding ground for terrorists (bader-meinhofs, carlos the jackel, patty hearst, osama. the list goes on and on).
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 03 04 at 10:26 AM • permalinkHeidelberg the Uncertain — Bile and stupidity explain a lot about a lot of people around the world. Throw in chronic sexual inadequacy (the 9/11 killers spent their last days in titty bars) and you’ve got a dangerous combination.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 04 at 10:44 AM • permalinkHurricane Jim Wolcott is back!
Hezbollah! Cuddly Puppy of the Middle East!
http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/03/second_verse_sa.php
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 04 at 11:55 AM • permalinkOh, BTW, they’re not terrorists, they’re just “differently civilized”...
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 04 at 12:00 PM • permalinkIf they be in Iraq, they be “Minutemen”, according to Michael Moore—another leftie supporting the terrorists, David.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 04 at 12:13 PM • permalinkI would hesitate to call “allies” Egypt, with its virulently hostile state-run press, and Saudi Arabia, the source of Wahabbist ideology and much of its funding.
It’s not unhealthy to question our policy decisions, but not while we’re swapping gunfire with the bad guys. Make them surrender first, and then they can come to the negotiating table and air their greivances.
David_H.: a very valid question, imho! I say these terrorists are sadomasochists, except for certain “leaders” who are not really terminally masochistic in a physical sense, but more controllist for the benefit of their own future, vacant though it is of anything meaningful.
Whether by Nature or Nurture, that’s just the way the terrorist sadomasochists are. Basically, they are a different form of hominid, one which lacks free thought and hates it in a racist way. Having no basis for any value, sadomasochism is the replacement.
This also explains supporters of terrorists to a large extent: the thought chaos they manifest as thought and the hate attached define them. Though some are dupes, apparently, and have some hope for emerging on the other side as harmless or even “changed”. [I’m not holding my breath.]
Terrorist organisations would not exist without followers. What motivates these people?
Beyond the answers others have already given re: their motivation, I think you vastly overestimate the number of sympathizers it takes to run a terrorist organisation. The Red Army Faction was active on and off for 3 decades in Germany, and I dare say they didn’t have 100 members and close sympathizers in total during those 30+ years. Numbers at that level are easily explained by the bell curve…you’ll always have some people sociopathic/violent/power-hungry enough to turn to terrorism.
What it mostly takes beyond that is a disinterested and/or apathetic public. Either because they’ve been sufficiently cowed into silence, e.g. the Middle East until recently, or because a significant percentage (not necessarily a majority of course, just enough to drive opinion “on the street”) tacitly approves of the terrorists, e.g. Northern Ireland at one point.
You seem to be under the impression that all instances of terrorism are akin to the situation in Palestine, with lots and lots of people openly cheering and supporting the death of other people (although even that seems to be changing now, thankfully). That’s not the case. Trying to generalize from that case is pointless.
Victor Davis Hanson argues that whilst European states may be old the European Union is a very young creature and behaves just like a precocious teenager - wanting all the benefits without being able to accept the full responsibilities that go with adulthood.
Again, what motivates people from middle WELL OFF families, to die for their cause?
I don’t pretend to know what ideological toxins drive all terrorists. But Islamic terrorists come from the most xenophobic, bigoted, sexually repressed, misogynistic society on the face of the earth, qualities which are reinforced daily by their own respected religious scholars. That might have something to do with it.David, at a guess I would say that it’s an expression of the same basic urge that makes so many well-off middle-class kids join “underground movements” to aid the workers (not many of them come to much) rebel against their parents, decide to live in communes, and so forth. I went to a fairly liberal college, and the two groups who seemed most likely to join movements or at any rate refuse to join society in the usual way after graduation were (1)people who had been brought up to it - that is, people who were born on communes or something similar and to whom it was the normal life and (2) people who had, or whose parents had, a great deal of money behind them, and a fairly relaxed upbringing. The second group was larger.
I think what was largely up with the second group was a lack of urgency about basic necessities which left them with more free time than most people have. Now I’m not saying having a ton of free time is bad; it’s great to have room to think and work out your ideas and so forth, but the trouble is that if someone is just not very self-sufficient he’ll not want to work things out for himself; he’ll want to attach himself to an ideology or movement which promises to give him all the answers, especially if he’s been brought up in a very do-your-own-thing, secular atmosphere. People like structure, at bottom, and I knew several people who had been brought up with very little discipline of any kind and were, in their own ways, dying to find some sort of structure they could live their lives by. Some of them got into the MoveOn.org type lifestyle; Republicans are evil, and their new purpose in life was defeating them, attending every march, handing out thousands of fliers, and so forth; I mean, it was an ENORMOUS part of their lives, absent a bit of grad school or some desultory part-time job on the side. Others got into the activist-reporter type lifestyle; getting arrested at demos and writing about it later. I’m not sure where most of them are now, they may have changed, but for the first couple of years after college, that’s what they were doing.
The thing is that almost all of them could count on their parents to come up with the cash if they ever found themselves strapped, and that sort of lifestyle doesn’t usually pay. But the fact that they had this hammock, so to speak, meant that they could devote a truly enormous amount of time towards their new ideology, whatever it was, promoting it, giving it a huge place in their lives. They weren’t living like kings, but they didn’t have to worry about the basics. Now imagine these people - looking for a purpose, sick of being told that everything is OK, running into an Al-Qaeda recruiter. I’m not sure it would work as well over here as in Egypt and Saudi Arabia - seeing as the basic religious atmosphere is somewhat different, even if one wasn’t brought up religiously - but it would probably have gotten a few of them. Someone who was running his life under his own steam, so to speak, probably wouldn’t have the time, or the inclination; it’s one thing to live in a crummy apartment on money that you didn’t earn all of - it’s easy enough then to get into ideological fantasylands and decide that “life really isn’t worth it; I’m going to take myself out along with a bunch of others to prove something.” Less easy if you’ve got a family, or a house that you sweated to get the money to buy, or anything that speaks of your motivation to do well in this life. (By “well” I don’t mean necessarily to become rich, just to put down roots, have friends, have family, establish a place in the world).
Sorry, that was long-winded, but I think it does explain a little bit. One thing about the hijackers is that almost all of them were brought up in fairly secular circumstances, and being male, they probably had what even we would regard as a fairly free rein in what they could do for recreation. No alcohol, perhaps - at least, not in Saudi - but probably not bowing to Mecca with any great regularity or fervour either.
Again, what motivates people from middle WELL OFF families, to die for their cause?
A dysfunctional political culture that, until now, has dominated the Middle East.
Most totalitarian states are supported by national or cultural myths. This mythology usually takes the form of a great cultural threat or crisis, which only a strong totalitarian state can fight. In the Middle East it is “American Imperialism� and “Zionism�.
For example, Many Arab countries teach the czarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in their schools as historical fact. It is no surprise that they form a part of the ideology of Islamic extremist organizations, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Qaeda.
Once liberal-democracy becomes a force in the Middle East, the effect will be a free and open exchange of ideas. In the process, such blood libels will be exposed for what they are.
I agree with our trans-pacific overlady that it is about Power.
Whether you study the methodology of Hitler, Stalin, the Taliban, or Terrorists of whatever political colouration, it all comes back to the exercising of power. They all used violence to ride over opposition.
Terrorists are using brutal means to wage asynchronous campaigns, as they know their force is inferior in firepower. They have to use these methods to selectively inflict pain and suffering and at the same time get publicity.
The publicity (more or less depending on the mass media’s view of its own interests) helps with recruitment and is intended to hit the target country’s weak points (sometimes the media is the weak point).
The great thing about democracy is that the scope to overdo the power thing is limited. The people have a share of power.
The weakness of democracy is the tendency over time for us to allow all sorts of freedoms and rights which ultimately limit our ability to respond to outrageous murdering bastards and their cohorts and supporters quickly and effectively.Warning – long post.
Attributed to Alfred Hitchcock in Wikipedia“When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, ‘It’s in the script.’ If he says, But what’s my motivation?, I say, ‘Your salary.’â€?
So what’s this got to do with the discussion around defining what motivates a terrorist? Nothing, really. But I think it does illustrate a more relevant point - that all the slicing and dicing and analysis of “motivation�, though very interesting to very many smart people, is perhaps more of an academic exercise in the mode of movie criticism than a practical exercise in analysis leading to some actionable conclusions.
Motivation is an internal, personal thing. It is not always clear to the individual what their own motives are, and attempts by third parties to divine motives must be based in large part on unproven assumption. “Motive� is a big jumble of contradictory parts, fed by internal and external factors of personality, attitude and preference, experience, culture, education, family…. In regard to terrorists or any one else, any premise on motivation that starts with “they� can be refuted with the individual exceptions.
I’ll confess, the very question of “what is x’s motivationâ€? puts me on high-alert for possible psychobabble. I don’t go so far as to say the exercise is without merit. I certainly think the comments posted here are thoughtful, intelligent, and articulate. I’m just not sure it’s the meaningful question to ask if the point is to search for solutions to or mitigation of whatever “itâ€? is that results in some one choosing to be a terrorist. I don’t think we can get to a definitive answer to “why” - I do think we can address “how” and “why not”.
Say there are two categories of terrorist – those that choose to be terrorists for whatever cause or “motive�, and those that are opportunistic psychopaths or sociopaths that if they weren’t terrorists would be still be evil, sadistic, murderous thugs with a different label. The latter pop up in all societies and their potential for causing harm should be circumscribed by legal/justice systems, so I will set those aside.
I think the way to eliminate terrorism perpetrated by the otherwise non-insane category is to introduce political, economic, personal freedom. The famous line about why Sir Edmund Hilary climbed Mount Everest “because it was there� comes to my mind. (Bear with me on this one!) What makes Mount Everest so indisputably and pre-eminently “there� is that it is so very far (29,000+ feet) from “here�. The metaphorical distance that can be seen between western democracy and freedom and Middle Eastern totalitarianism is also huge and it takes no great imagination to believe this can be felt as threatening. What do people do when they feel threatened? (Note – not asking the WHY/motivation question here, just the WHAT/action.) Instinctive responses to fear are to Flee and to Fight, and these are commingled with conscientious responses, including taking actions to reduce the threat – such as reducing the gap. There are only two ways to close a gap – raise the lower threshold, and lower the upper threshold. Terrorists focus on lowering the upper threshold.
So finally I come to my real point. We can spend our time and effort and resources trying to figure out what makes some people decide that destruction and murder are a solution, or we can spend that time, effort and resources encouraging freedom and democracy in the Middle East and thereby both vastly improve the lives and opportunities of millions of people AND introduce a hitherto unavailable option to the would-be terrorist—diverting their energy to political or other forms of activism.
I wrote this up yesterday, but couldn’t bring myself to post it for fear of being too thin-skinned to take the clever and incisive criticism I admire so much on this site. Worse still would have been inspiring no comments. Worst of all – discovering that I made absolutely no sense to anyone and failed completely in articulating my ideas. Now that this post is probably ‘dead’, those fears are probably moot so I’m posting this more as practice than anything else. Still if any one does happen to read this and wants to tell me I’m an idiot and make no sense at all, please do!
I wasn’t looking for a straw man. I asked a question, and got a series of intelligent answers. Thanks.
Posted by David_Heidelberg on 2005 03 05 at 09:33 AM • permalinkA few possible reasons
Brutal and influential leaders. That’s the start of it all. There’s never been a shortage of those.
Terrorism: the only way to fight a war when you don’t mave a massive military and you don’t have to worry about retaliation on your own land.
A powerful code - in this case Fundy Islam - which subjugates individuality.
Recruits who are bored, jealous, generally maladjusted. Never a shortage of them.
Lack of democratic process. Undue influence by a powerful few.
I wasn’t looking for a straw man.
I find that one a bit tough to swallow…
debo,
I think your point about the futility of guessing the motivations of individuals is a good one. I’m not so sure about your Mount Everest analogy, it seems a bit far-fetched. However your post as a whole is good and I like your point of connecting terrorism with the dysfunctional political culture of the Middle East. It’s a conclusion I have come to also. Keep posting comments.Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 03 05 at 08:40 PM • permalinkThanks Debo - that political reform must also extend to the UN. If people want to bang on about International Law, and the endorsement of the international community, the people at the UN must be true representatives of their people, not just of the President For Life.
In the meantime, to avoid further warping of UN votes, perhaps countries where free and fair elections are not being held should be reduced to non-voting, advisory only status. That would Motivate them.
Yeh! Big Chance!
Straw man exits stage right.
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i’m sure they could apply for, and get, some type of aid from the eu