apeiron said:
No one disputes that terrorism has to be dealt with. The only question is what is effective.
And what is actually counterproductive.
No one considers the opportunity costs involved either. What else might we have done with $1 trillion plus that might also have been applied toward reducing worldwide terrorism or saving lives in other ways.
That terrorism is used as a tactic is an effect. It has causes. It it a tactic that has been used by outmatched combatants since the beginning of time.
There are other more effective tactics. In general, for example, against Western governments the tactic of nonviolent protest has been effective. It worked against the U.S. in the case of civil rights, it worked against England for India. It would work for the Palestinians if they ever tried it, I am confident.
Even though terrorism is a poor tactic, there are reasons why individuals and groups resort to terrorism. Until we understand those reasons, our wars against terrorism are counterproductive at best. Invading other countries and killing civilians on a regular basis (which is an inevitable effect of war) does not help reduce the number of those who want revenge.
The people in these countries are not our enemies. I've spent a lot of time in various parts of the world, South America and some in muslim countries in S.E. Asia. Everyone else knows a lot more about U.S. politics than the typical U.S. citizen does. This is appalling. Most of us citizens have no idea what our government has been doing for the last 60 plus years since WWII when we were the clear good guys. The rest of the world knows.
We've deposed democratically elected presidents (in many cases actually had them assassinated) invaded countless small countries, funded and supplied training and arms to right-wing militatary groups that have been incredibly despotic (including in many cases imprisoning as "terrorists" any groups that were against the government or that spoke openly against it) in literally scores of countries. In short, we have not acted without reproach on the world stage.
I don't buy the two rights don't make a wrong argument in its entirety. Yes, killing innocent people is not justified. But we're physicists (and wannabes) here right? Surely we can understand cause and effect. Push here that happens, push another place something else happens. Actions have consequences. If you follow the causal chains you can see pretty clearly that there is much we can do to improve terrorism that does not involve war.
One clear example is Pakistan. We've spent how much supplying arms and money to the military there over the last 10 years? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082305476.html" . Yet when they have an unprecedented natural disaster we offer aid of what? $150 million.
The people of Pakistan really don't care much one way or another if they get $18 billion in aid to the military, I can assure you. If we spent 1/10th that amount on aid for the flooding there we might actually prevent some future terrorists. We've spent more than 100 times supporting the Pakistan military than we've offered in aid for the flooding disaster which the UN has described as the unprecedented. What does that tell the Pakistanis and muslims in general about U.S. priorities?
We never learned our lesson in Viet Nam or Iran. The Shah of Iran was a despot. The U.S. backed government in Viet Nam was despotic and corrupt. Yet we sided with these despots and supplied them with arms and military training and then didn't understand why their people considered the U.S. an enemy.
Currently, we have as an "ally," the government of Saudi Arabia. A small family that keeps most of the oil wealth to themselves. Saudi money funded the Wahabbi schools in Nothern Pakistan and Afghanistan. Perhaps if we stopped having despots as friends in the developing world, we might find that less people think America is Satan.
Cause and effect guys. Surely scientists should understand this?
If we want to prevent the future loss of American lives, what I want to know is why we don't have a war against cars. Do you know how many Americans are killed by cars every year? Last year it was over 33,000 and that was considered a low figure. Seriously, if we spent $1 trillion making our transportation safer, we could potentially save far more lives than were lost in 9/11 every quarter in the U.S. alone, and we won't have to lose any more lives in the war itself as the unsafe cars won't shoot back.
