A potential silver lining on the dark cloud that is the war between Israel and Lebanon: if they don't already, intelligent Muslims will realize that their coreligionist enthusiasts of terror are more trouble for them than they are for the people they claim to be fighting. In Lebanon, Hezbollah provoked an invasion that is proving disastrous for the Lebanese people. Currently, they are in effect using civilians as human shields by forgoing uniforms, storing munitions within homes, and launching strikes from population centers. In Iraq, Muslim terrorists have killed many times more Iraqi Muslims than they have Americans. Terrorism is a problem for Western civilization. It is a greater problem for Islamic civilization.
I was going to add that terrorism has never accomplished its goal, but then I remembered the Madrid train bombing. Stupid Spaniards.
Regardless, terrorism usually doesn't work, and it usually harms the people its supposed to be helping. Perhaps there are "intelligent Muslims" that will realize this. Though I doubt it.
In Shia Islam, for instance, "martyrdom" is a doctrine. Dan's fond of writing that ideology can't be bothered by the facts. I think much the same thing applies to religious doctrine.
Don'tcha just love this guy.....
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060723/UPDATE/607230360
Ralph:
Algeria?
Durka, Durka Mohammed Jihad!!!
Ralph, what about Israel?
I know very little about Algeria.
What about Israel?
Seems to me, terrorism's effect is inverse to the backbone of the people. The less backbone, the greater the success of the act. I wonder if the U.S. population would have the courage in the face of what the Israeli's have been going through? Thoughts?
Terror has met with some successes in the past. You could go way back and look at the warfare tactics in the ancient and medieval world for examples of the success of siege warfare, for example. Or massacres between American settlers and Indians at different points. Arguably, the use of terror by the Irish eventually met with some success in changing English policies. It worked against the French in Algeria, it worked for the Israelis against the British in Palestine. I would count Hiroshima and Nagasaki as terrorist attacks as well, and clearly they were effective. I think that terror as a tactic is usually a symptom of weakness but also determination, so it becomes a matter of wills regarding who can stand a war of attrition longer. Generally, if it is a battle between an occupying force and some native population the natives will win out in the long term.
Dan, you mention that Hezbollah provoked this war but that is an interesting issue when one looks closer. You keep hearing about how Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, and usually it is mentioned that they immediately called for a "prisoner exchange" with Israel. Has anyone wondered about that? I mean what does Hezbollah mean, prisoner exchange? And why would that be their purpose in kidnapping Israeli soldiers? Turns out that they wanted to exchange the soldiers for some of the Hezbollah soldiers that Israeli captured in 1982 when they originally invaded Lebanon. That's right, Hezbollah was seeking the release of militants captured 24 years ago and still held by Israel.
Is it any wonder why there can be no peace in the region?
Don't play dumb Brian, you know thats now why Hezbollah kidnapped the soldiers.
They kidnapped the soldiers because Teheran told them to. And Teheran told them to out of a desire to assert its growing regional dominance.
It misfired, too bad for them.
Great response from obi juan.
The Irgun, a radical Zionist component of the Israeli military, murdered a couple hundred Arabs at Deir Yassin. The leader of that massacre? Menachem Begin, Israel's prime minister from 1977 to 1983.
I like Harvard's Michael Ignatieff's take on this:
"Though terror alone did not create the state of Israel, terror was instrumental and terror worked."
Interesting comment, James. Chickens coming home to roost and all that....
I often get confused by the definition of terrorism. If the US or Israelis kills hundreds of civillians in an air attack, that's not terrorism, but if an Iraqi or Palestenian kills soldiers in occupied soldiers, they're terrorists.
I have not seen the exact figures, but I don't think there is any doubt that the US has killed more civillians as "collatteral damage" in retalliation for 9-11 than died that day. The same can definitely be said for virtually every single Israeli response to arab terrorism.
Terrorism, wrought from the desperation of those unable or unwilling to amalgamate into a formal nation state, is the result of inarticulated rage. If terrorists were devoted to their causes to the point of making their points explicit and rational, then the court of public opinion could weigh the merit of their ideas.
