[thechat] (no subject)was protesters

[Martin]

Jeff C wrote on 11/10/01 10:07 pm

>What do you propose we do about that?  Modify our policies to meet the 
>desires of the terrorist?  

You're doing that already with ATA.

"We believe in protecting civilians and free speech so much
that we're prepared to ban all free speech and kill
civilians to protect it"

Illogical captain.

You're doing that by bombing - creating martyrs and brewing
hatred all across the Middle East.

It's a basic rule of fighting terrorism - it's not a war you can
win militarily. You just add numbers to the opposing side.

>We must also make it costly to be a terrorist, so we are 
>attacking specific targets that we know are terrorist training camps or in 
>some way associated with known terrorist.

Did you see the article I pointed out the other week, from a
former Soviet soldier who fought in Afghanistan?

There are no terrorist training camps. There are villages.

Civilian and military are entirely enmeshed. It is not possible
to cleanly take out enemy soldiers.

If killing civilians is wrong (and surely that's the point
of all this?) then bombing 'terrorist bases' which are villages
containing civilians is wrong.

For every civilian you kill, you create a hundred terrorists
or more. It's not only wrong, it's not effective.

As you said, when fighting terrorism you need to
work out what the terrorist wants, and then do the
opposite. This bombing allows him to portray himself
and Islam as the oppressed - one frail old man against
the superpowers. It lets him gather supporters, both
in Afghanistan and overseas.

This is above all else a battle for hearts and minds.
Be assured, he's *good* at propaganda. And we're
reading off his script.

Cheers
Martin

_______________________________________________
email: martin at easyweb.co.uk             PGP ID: 0xA835CCCB
       martin at members.evolt.org      snailmail: 30 Shandon Place
  tel: +44 (0)774 063 9985                      Edinburgh,
  url: http://www.easyweb.co.uk                 Scotland