Terrorism: What's Coming

[walrus]

(Sigh) This paper reminds me of very old medical texts, for example those on Cholera, what the symptoms are, what the process of the disease is, how to treat patients, remedies and so on, what the prognosis is for the patients, but leaves out the most screamingly obvious chapter - what causes the disease and how it can be prevented from occurring in the first place!

Terrorism is a tactic - it's a symptom of something. Nothing more nothing less. This paper conveniently glosses this over and attempts like many similar papers to look at means of making the symptoms go away, not treat the disease itself.

That disease, by the way, is simply the existence of a confrontational struggle over something where one side has overwhelmingly powerful forces available to it and the other does not. - Power asymmetry. This means that the weaker side is denied any opportunity of advancing its case save terrorism - stealthy unpredictable random attacks against targets of opportunity in an effort to overcome the power asymmetry.

Look at the causes of some of the terrorism.

While the anarchists and similar revolutionaries of the 1850's were mentioned, no mention was made of the refusal of European nobility and monarchies to accommodate the aspirations of the emerging industrial middle classes, and the ruthless suppression of the same. Is it any wonder that rebellion and revolution was talked about all over Europe at the time?

All terrorism, even if it is later perverted into pure criminality (as was the IRA) is grounded in either a perceived or real injustice, or to put it another way, a threat by a group to the established power structures in a particular nation.

If one takes the trouble to actually read what Bin Laden has said, his motivation purports to be the threat to Islamic fundamentalism of Western values - meaning the power structures of the Islamic religion - hence his call for a removal of Western influence (American) in Saudi Arabia.

The Irish troubles as we have seen, have their roots in religious discrimination.

Latin American troubles have their roots in the appalling disparity of wealth and power between various classes.

The Malaysian troubles had their roots in the ongoing conflict between the Malays and Chinese (We are overdue for another round of Chinese killings in Indonesia, they seem to happen about every thirty years or so).

In the terrorism cases that have been "closed" the terrorism stops when people supporting terrorism find alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that give them some power over their own futures - more power than can be gained by resorting to violence. It follows of course, that half our troubles in Iraq have been caused by our deliberate and willful neglect of this fact

While the paper is well meaning, as is the Institute, it appears to ignore the elephant in the room, the causes of terrorism, and like cholera, unless the causes of the disease are treated, it will continue to fester.