I posted this in the depths of the comments behind my last post and it passed without comment, by which I take it no one saw it, so I shall post it again out here. I find the idea vaguely intriguing and certainly would like to hear others' thoughts on the new tool in the box... so to speak.
Deterrence? For terrorist networks? Sure, why not?
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The Factors
Posts
The Fans
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(123)
-
▼
March
(15)
- Of laws and surveillance
- Deterrence the Third
- Deterrence II
- Deterrence?
- Code Violations...
- War is hell
- Death and Taxes...
- Rule Number One Of Pillow Fight Club...
- Sacrifice
- Politics of everything but the point
- Disparity of Powers – Redux
- Disparity of Powers
- Someone I wish I had known
- The Economy, Politics, and Ohio
- Liveblogging “Super Tuesday II”
-
▼
March
(15)
20 comments:
At the risk of starting another riot over Horowitz, here is a compelling list of jihadis arrested in the United States waging war against us on our own soil.
How do we deter a belief system?
I don't think they're trying to deter the belief system, they're trying to deter the attacks and cause confusion to the enemy... etcetera.
Ok Denny.
So I clicked on almost all of those links... the ones whose names I didn't recognize on sight, anyway.
Point One: most of them are accused and not convicted of anything. American juris prudence is predicated upon an assumption of innocence until guilt is proven. Branding them all as Jihadis before they have their say in court is hardly in keeping with our best traditions.
Point Two: So what I'm seeing in that list is that now any crime committed by an Islamic man is an act of Jihad... automatically? There are some sick bastards out there, and a lot of what I read made me want to cry, but it didn't inspire me to label the guy that killed his daughters in Dallas a holy warrior. He's not a Jihadi, he's just a murderer. And I'd argue that about half of them are similarly mis-catagorized.
Things are bad enough without people exaggerating it to... hell, I have no idea what the people behind that blog are trying to prove at this point, but I find it appalling. Fearmongering won't win a war on terror, it'll just make the terror sit deeper.
To the best of my understanding, the guy who killed his daughters was (allegedly) acting as though the jihadi's main goal had already been reached. I.e., he was carrying out applicable portions of Sharia, as if it existed here even though it doesn't. So that makes him a passive and very optimistic jihadi, or at least one who puts his money where his mouth is. But that's my read on things. Not all jihadi wear checkered keffyia (sp?) and wave AKs in the air.
And the kids that made false police reports? How is that Jihad? How does a college student telling lies about mistreatment because of his faith elevate from a crank call to Jihad?
Or the Somali that killed his estranged wife and kids? As sad as it is to say, white Americans do that kind of thing all the time, tell the cops they did something because God... or the dog... told them to. They're not holy warriors of any ethos. They're sick. Perhaps schizophrenic.
The list of twenty that Denny linked to on Fox news is a much more stable number. This list is padded, full stop.
I grant and agree with many of Scott's points. I simply posted the link for discussion rather than total agreement.
As for deterrence, I simply ask how effective it is to deter a system that continues to produce a violent enemy. It's the same question Reagan asked about the Soviets, and I think it's an appropriate question against jihadis too.
The failure of deterrence, by the way, is what really led us to Iraq, with or without the WMD question.
My point is/was that I find the list neither compelling, nor surprising considering the source.
Why we got into Iraq... now is that is an argument that we really don't want to get into if we're seeking common ground.
OK, leave any "list" out of it for now. And Iraq. Just answer the question: How do you deter someone who is not afraid to die to further his religio-political ends, and encourages his kids to do the same?
The Cold War ended (again, arguably) because the Russians love their children, too. That is, they didn't attack us because our MAD policy promised that something intolerably bad would happen to them if they did. That's deterrence.
But if the worst thing we can threaten is one of their bloody goals, well, then...I'm not sure how any "deterrence" (classically defined) can work.
Unless you're suggesting something monstrously stupid, like, "if another 9/11 happens, we nuke Mecca, no questions asked." That idea of "deterrence" has occured to some, but I trust not you.
Maybe I'm quibbling over the definition a little too much, but I still don't see how you can "deter" someone who welcomes the worst you can do to him. And "cause confusion to the enemy", et al., is not "deterrence."
I have to disagree a little bit with your statement about Iraq, Scott, because I think it confuses proximate causes with ultimate ones. Iraq did not spontaneously begin in 2002 or 2000 or 1998. It was a problem festering since 1991 that was going to have to be dealt with one way or another--probably militarily--by some administration. Now, I think we can disagree on the Bush administration's choices on how to deal with Iraq, but to ignore the reality of Iraq--Oil for food, Shi'a genocide, three of the five permanent Security Council members guilty of selling weapons to Iraq in contravention of their own international agreements, the rapid modernization of the Iraqi army--is to ignore a problem that we were going to have to deal with sooner or later.
Hence my comments about deterring fundamentalist terrorism. How do we effectively deter a belief system--fundamentalist Muslim jihadism--that teaches that the highest calling of a jihadi is to die killing infidels? How does disinformation and confusion do anything other than fuel their hatred and encourage their recruiting? Again using Iraq as an example, these are the same mistakes that led the commanders there in 2003 to believe that the insurgency in all of its parts could be stopped by military force before winning the hearts and minds of the people. Five years later, we know that is not true as we battle the Mahdi Army for the fourth time in Basra.
How long will it take us to learn the same lessons with global jihadis?
I never said it would work, and posted a second time as I began to clarify exactly what 'they' were calling deterrence.
As I said in the original post, it's classic psyops and disinformation. I believe 'they' (again) are calling it deterrence because by sewing confusion on the internet chatrooms and whatnot they're using to give marching orders, they're 'deterring' their followers from believing what they read. Sew confusion, add dissent from powerful voices within the conservative Islamic community questioning the use of jihad and the goals of the leadership of the militant arm...
I don't believe it's deterrence either, and never said I did. I define it as disinformation and psyops as I just did. Again.
It was germane to our discussion (re: toolboxes, terrorism tactics, et al) so I brought it up for discussion. The allegedly 'compelling' list of jihadis is not a tangent I introduced, I was just responding to its insertion into our debate.
You can deter people from believing something by offering an option. Just as millions of Christians have abandoned their faith for the siren song of science and Darwinism. That's not a comfortable comparison for anyone, but that is what we're talking about: offering an alternative to someone's religious views. Changing their minds about religion. Not necessarily recruiting them to ours, but to a different POV on their own.
And I don't believe I made any statements about Iraq here, Denny, except to say that beginning a discussion about it here would hardly introduce common ground. I think we've established that we have very little in common on our views on Iraq, so in light of your own post encouraging us all to find things we can agree on... why bring up a topic we already know that we won't?
I'm all for "hearts and minds." I think giving people a viable alternative to blowing themselves up in pursuit of a holy set of legal codes (or whatever: call it the ultimate in legislating morality) is a Good Thing. If those voices come from the Islamic community, all the better -- because I agree with Denny that if they have American fingerprints all over them, it will exacerbate the situation rather than make it better. Psyops, et al., is the only thing that will win this (short of genocide, which I am categorically not calling for) for either team. And I, for one, sincerely hope it's the good guys that figure this out first.
Maybe that's one of the reasons for posting compelling lists of jihadi and jihadi-style activities on the web: to remind the complacent that not only can it happen here, but that it is happening here, and that our own hearts and minds are being slowly tranquilized by the rapturous songs of multiculturalism. Maybe.
So, I hear Scott saying that he is generally in favor of the tactics mentioned in the article, without necessarily calling them "deterrence." I agree with that. So there's significant common ground here.
My langauge teacher self just won't let me call "psyops" "deterrence", even though it's a nice thought to imagine us "deterring" terrorists.
I only brought up the broader question of Iraq because I think it brings up an opportunity to look at what went wrong--and right--and to learn from that experience. If we place such experience "off limits", I think we risk repeating it, which is what I think we are actually trying to avoid.
Frankly, I see significant parallels in the situation with Iraq, both past and present, and the ongoing "Global War on Terrorism". I do not seek to convince anyone whether the specific Bush invasion of Iraq was right or wrong, but rather to understand how the conditions that led to that decision and what has resulted from it relate to other aspects of the policy we are trying to develop.
As for deterrence, I believe deterrence only works when it is of some benefit to those deterring and those being deterred.
It’s interesting that you think of the conversion of a Christian to Darwinian scientific naturalism an uncomfortable comparison. In fact, I find it to be a highly illustrative example of exactly the kind of problem we’re talking about when we speak of using “soft deterrence” or other psychological-religious-sociological means to dissuade a would-be jihadi from his “extremist” ends.
To wit: Many Christians, especially in my experience young, idealistic, and under-educated ones, find themselves falling prey to liberal skeptical academics on college campuses. There are entire species of college professors who feed on the young Christian freshmen who enter their science or history or whatever classrooms fresh-faced and glowing with Sunday-school idealism. These profs, and others who act much less blatantly, work to tear down the young Christian’s worldview, belief system, values, etc. They crow in triumph when they get the Christian to fall for the same line that trapped Eve: “Did God really say...” or the modern counterpart, “Do you really believe...” ― with the implied disparagement intact, and the insinuation that no “modern” or “educated” or “sophisticated” or whatever kinds of people believe that medieval hocus-pocus anymore. I’ve seen it happen, as I’m sure we all have. So there’s the sad example: a Christian ― albeit a naïve one, unprepared with a firm enough grounding in either his own worldview or the secular one, unarmed for the metaphysical duel in which he finds himself, untrained in apologetics or exegesis or even simple Bible history ― but a Christian nonetheless, is suddenly lost to the university equivalent of “soft deterrence” and the other psychological-religious-sociological pressures of secular America.
What would that Christian’s parents say about that? What would his pastor, or his Church elders, or his still-Christian friends? They would be appalled, of course. They would ask themselves how such a thing could have happened. They would try all the harder to get that young person back into the fold, work to arm him correctly this time, construct appropriate answers to the new questions this young person has raised, and in general not be too happy about the situation.
So, where is the comparison? I hope it’s obvious. The jihadi believes that he has the correct interpretation of the Qur’an, and Islam. The school, family, and community from which he came agrees. They have literal Qur’anic texts to back up their beliefs. They have the traditions of longstanding schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Sunnah and the Hadith, to support those readings. They have fourteen hundred years of Islamic life, in various places, as examples of their view of Islam and the Qur’an put into perfect practice. They see countries where Sharia law is imposed and practiced, and they see those countries as “more Islamic” ― more moral ― than the “infidel” countries that don’t. That’s why the appellation “fundamentalist” works so well ― like certain groups of Christians who label themselves “fundamentalist,” they have a few, basic, hard-core non-negotiable “fundamentals” to which they stick, no matter what anyone else says. And it’s a mark of pride that so many people disagree with them, because that only proves they’re right.
Even the label put on the kinds of madrassas that would be helpful to the West in their effort to “un-brainwash” is not a very helpful one: conservative. Conservative to what tradition? The “conservative” scholars of the Wahabi tradition might be really really conservative, but they would be as helpful in defusing the worldwide jihadi problem as a “conservative” Arminian theologian would be in convincing others that Infant Baptism is a legitimate Scriptural action.
So, for the sake of argument, say that the current internet “soft deterrence” psychological-religious-sociological project gets implemented in full force. Say it manages, like that program in Saudi Arabia, to get a couple hundred would-be jihadis to lay down their arms and embrace a “modernized” non-violent form of Islam. I personally think that would be great. But how would those people’s imams, parents, and still-fundamentalist friends feel? Probably ― and I’m just guessing here ― pretty ticked. Probably as much more radicalized as their old friend was un-radicalized. Maybe even mad enough to kill him, and feel justified in doing so because of his “apostasy.” (which is where the analogy with the Christian college student breaks down...)
At any rate, putting myself in the shoes of a parent or an imam of a kid who just “converted” to “soft” Islam, I can totally see where such propaganda efforts on the part of the US might completely backfire. Because now (as that parent or imam), I have an example of someone who “fell for” the “heresy” of the “decadent West” and “forsook the true teachings of the Prophet” and is an example to all the rest of us how careful we have to be not to fall for the same stuff.
So, again, perhaps your uncomfortable comparison really highlights the problem. We’re not “deterring” them in any significant way. I don’t think we’re really going to “convert” them in any significant way, either. Let’s face it ― the jihadis seem to have the text, the religious schools, and the historical interpretations on their side. Any attempt to “soften” of the fundamentals of their faith will probably playing out among those circles in the same way as the results of the Jesus Seminar played out among conservative, “fundamentalist” Christians with a high, “literalist,” grammatical-historical view of the Bible. So, if we're not going to convert them, and we're not gong to deter them, what's left? Law enforcement cum intelligence gathering cum military action: i.e., a War on Terror.
I write this because I know what it means to take a religious text seriously. To a great extent, I’m concerned about religious fundamentalists of that particular religion. I know, to a great extent, how they think and what they’re capable of ― because, in some ways, it takes one to know one.
Chris, you are right on many points... except that you seem to think that I'm advocating that this be the *only* way we deal with our opponents in this. I am not. I'm not even proposing that this is AN answer, much less THE answer. Though I do lean toward believing the former more than the latter. A tool, not the box.
As you have noted, there are many who were raised into this life, and who will not be dissuaded by prominent Imam's publishing their new thoughts on the subject or any internet-sewn confusion in the ranks. Some of them will blow themselves - and others - to kingdom come no matter what we do. But that's not a broad enough brush to paint the entirety of the fundamentalist Muslim world any more than you can point at all fundamentalist Christians and say "They are all the same, they are all in this for the same reasons..."
I admit that I am extrapolating a bit here since I'm not in the CIA or any of the other alphabet agencies, but truly any dis-information campaign is only one move on one chessboard. And we are playing many simultaneous games against multiple opponents of varying skill levels at this point and one tactic will not win them all.
While there are certainly many who hold the militant version of fundamentalist Islam in their hearts and minds, encased in age-hardened and familial bulwarks secure against all of our psychological assaults, there is also the other sort of fighter who is going along with this for a multitude of other reasons.
I seem to recall estimations of thousands of foreign fighters drawn to Iraq to raise the banner of war against the infidel. Some of them are religious fanatics. Many of them are not. Many of them are just pissed off at the West for the invasion, or for supporting Israel, or a host of other reasons social, political and economic that have only the thinnest sheen of Islam painted over them. They are the hearts and minds that might be swayed by this. Remember the fellow interviewed in that NPR story I sent you? Think he's the only one? And what about thier support network? Those who are not so "radicalized" that they will take up the bomb vest, but will support the cause from the sidelines? The poppy farmers paying their due to the Taliban? The Pashtun tribesmen hiding Bin Laden out of a misplaced sense of honor?
Every pawn we remove from the board is a minor victory. One less bomber, one less foreign fighter muddying the picture in Iraq, one less poppy farmer paying his dues to the Taliban. And some of these tactics may well work for them. The prominent clerics re-thinking or arguing for another interpretation of Islam doesn't have to move the mountain... just dig around the edges enough to avalanche the north face.
The problem I have here is the same that I had with Denny's list... the brush you're painting with is too broad. We cannot say that everyone on the other side of the board is there for the same reasons and that only one strategy, only one bag of tricks and tactics will win the day. That anyone committing a crime in the US was a Jihadi is a bizarre claim, as bizarre as the claim that they're all doing this for the same reasons, coming at this from the same direction.
I'm not really painting with too broad a brush. My comments were fairly pointed. I also know that you're not thinking this is the only way. I'm not sure why you're making a deal out of it if you don't think it's a way, but still. You post, I respond. Mostly, I was aiming at your comparison with the Christian apostate-- which I thought was valid, btw, and was just expanding on it.
What I was saying was, great. We get the "jihadi dabblers." And that's good. Real good, for them and for us. This is but one tool, even if it's maybe not a particularly good one. I'm not saying don't use it -- I'm saying don't hold your breath that it's going to stop this whole jihad thing dead. Some of the "optimism" over this "new" strategy might be a bit over-played is all I'm saying. A 1400-year old belief system will not be brought down by some internet chatroom intereference.
But, we do what we can, and we celebrate the victories that we get, and we hold it all in proper perspective.
So, you say that my post was using a broad brush and advocating one way of dealing with the problem? Did you misread me? My main point -- directed mostly at the NYT writers, apparently (since I can't really be sure about your opinion vis-a-vis that article you've now linked to twice) -- was that this one mixed-bag tactic generally labeled "soft deterrence" is lacking in several key areas and probably doesn't deserve the hype that it's getting. Because the article, if anything, is what's using too broad a brush -- the broad brush that all jihadi are weak-minded enough to fall for the fluff that's being pandered here, because so many people in positions of policy-making in this country assume that everyone on the planet holds ther religious and metaphysical convictions as loosely as the policy-makers themselves seem to.
I don't think anyone committing a crime in the US is a jihadi, and (be fair) I don't think Denny does either. We all also know that there are a myriad of reasons that people "fight in the cause of Allah" and that stopping the reasons is long-run much more effective than stopping ech individual jihadi. As for all the other reasons...I'm not nearly as worried about the ones doing it because they're anti-Semites, or poor, or bored, or thrill-seekers, or whatever. I'm most worried about the religiously-motivated ones, because they will be the hardest ones to stop.
Is that a narrow enough brush?
I don't even know which part of this to respond to, so I will say this: If I have misread your post, I apologize. If you go back and reread your responses, I believe you can see why I thought you were casting my opinions in such a light. I don't think this is a single-bullet conflict and became annoyed when I got the impression you though I did. No one response to the problem will suffice.
I posted this twice, the first time because I thought it both germane to our discussions and the second time when I found additional information that clarified what troubled me too about the use of the term 'deterrence'. Not because I was advocating for the practice. I see it as more useful than you, perhaps, but since we see the conflict in a different light, perhaps that is not all that surprising.
I reflected that the comparison might be uncomfortable, because for many it is. I am pleased that you found it compelling and thank you for expanding upon it as you have.
And (to be fair) Denny I don't think you necessarily believe that either. But I do come from a viewpoint that we're only as good as our sources. It's something ingrained in me when I was studying journalism, and I hold to it still. The list contains too many flaws for me to allow it to pass unremarked and displays an all-too-common tendency for some to paint all legal infractions by Muslim as acts of terrorism. It happened in World War II, mostly with the Japanese, and we saw where that led. I don't think I am in the wrong for pointing out the flaws with this list, or steering any reader toward a more reliable list of 20 foiled attacks dating back to the 90's (in this case Fox News) which you yourself posted earlier. When you stand next to a source like that, it's hard not to hit you with the same brush (to stretch my metaphor in yet another direction).
Since my opinion doesn't seem to be getting through despite my repeated assertions to the contrary, here it goes again: My opinion is that this practice has a lot going for it, but it's not enough to be a panacea. It's only one weapon in the arsenal and so it should be.
And maybe the media is focusing on this to such an extent because it's finally a positive story they can tell about the intelligence community's efforts in this conflict that don't sound like they were ripped from the pages of Kafka.
"My opinion is that this practice has a lot going for it, but it's not enough to be a panacea."
I have agreed with this all along, despite my best attempts to obfuscate that fact by bellyaching about the careless use of the word "deterrence" and my repeated emphasis on the latter half of the dictum, especially with regards to the fundamentalist-religiously-motivated jihadi. I might also trade "a lot" for "something," but at this point that's definitely semantics.
You might recall that a few tangents ago I wrote, "So, I hear Scott saying that he is generally in favor of the tactics mentioned in the article, without necessarily calling them 'deterrence.' I agree with that. So there's significant common ground here." Sorry the main point got lost.
Incidentally, anyone know what happened to David? I'm surprised we haven't heard from him recently.
Post a Comment