Thinkin' like a terrorist, part 2
I was going to delete yesterday's post and put up a "We now return to our regularly scheduled silence" post, but it felt more motivated by trepidation than laziness.
Instead, I'm going to try and go through what I really wanted to say one point at a time rather than hit them all in a single, rambling, unfocussed post.
Here goes.
These ideas are in no real particular order, but I'm gonna try to keep it to just one idea per post.
The first point is that Western intelligence has failed to properly analyze the terrorist problem. It's hard to know the answers when you don't know the question, and we don't know the question.
Some Western intelligence failures:
1. We failed to construct and examine the alternative hypotheses in which Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). This seems particularly egregious to me because I said well before the war that he did not have them. Click here.
2. We failed to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. Or to simply accept the offer from the Sudanese government to give him over to U.S. custody. Click here.
3. We failed (and still fail) to understand the mindset of the terrorist. The folks we call terrorists are resisting what they call injustice and oppression. Their methods are dictated by their means. What we call freedom, they call sedition. Our need for oil pays for the yokes that will enslave their children.
4. We failed to recognize the need for mental discipline and scholarship. Subtlety was never an American strong point; it is now wholly absent.
5. We failed to find our opponents center of gravity - or even an opponent. Just who are we fighting here? Any analyst worth his pay will tell you the probable consequences of a course of action. To be fair, some folks quickly jumped up and stated that military action was likely to stir up a hotbed of anti-American hatred, but these people were ignored or discredited. This was and is reprehensible.
Okay. Five supporting assertions to a central point that Western intelligence has failed. I'll have more for you over the next few days.
Comments
I am recalling a conversation that we had in your living room in Alexandria. I don't remember exactly what you said, or what I said; I suspect, however, that this is exactly what we both meant.
Posted by: Rachael | February 4, 2005 2:31 AM
On the point of subtlety, I'd like to point out that if subtlety were a quiet living room the American Nation and its peoples have ravaged that room as though a rampaging hoard of ancient savanah water buffalo stampeded through the house. While the head of our government has claimed that he seeks guidance from a Christian God his administration and policies have notably gravitated away from the doctrines in the Bible. It is as though the wealthy in America have, coming to the final temptation, been offered the entire world by satan and have, willingly, accepted. Understand, this is a metaphor. From an oppositional perspective it seems that, perhaps one of two things is happening:
1.) America is receiving guidance from a supernatural power to seek out and ruin, as effectively as possible, as many lives of poor oppressed, hapless, and unfortunate individuals as possible-especially the lives of muslims.
OR
2.) They're obviously lying, the proof is in the glaring hypocrisy:
3:10 For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: 3:11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
(King James Bible, 1 Peter)
Were these individuals truly seeking guidance they would probably actually read the Bible (or at least take a "Bible as Lit" 201 course!). For all of Bush's claims to using this Text as guidance I'm not sure I can once recall him quoting a passage from the Bible.
To addend Nathan's argument from earlier, I would even add that, rather than finding an opponent, America failed to realize that its enemy is itself. It is unlikely that this will begin to occur until the average individual recognizes that that which the American elite (which is the average American-I'm using elite as a term which measures Americans against the global average) take for granted is not a sustainable method of existence. What's the difference between the French aristocracy and the French peasantry and the American nation and the rest of world? Unfair economic policies? Voracious greed? Lust? Needless luxuriance and wastefulness? Hell, Americans are now suffering from the very same dietary diseases of the exorbitant lifestyle of Aristocratic France. We, saw how long that could be abided. The aristocracy had two options. They neglected the option of reform long enough that there was only one. Will America make it out?
I think Viktor Frankl sums it up when he says that, "Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake."
Posted by: Mendon | February 4, 2005 7:34 AM
1.) America is receiving guidance from a supernatural power to seek out and ruin, as effectively as possible, as many lives of poor oppressed, hapless, and unfortunate individuals as possible-especially the lives of muslims. Thereby, propogating a new form of Christian crusade which further justifies a Jihad.
Posted by: Mendon | February 4, 2005 7:36 AM
I liked the "single, rambling, unfocused post." It's more in line with how I think (haha) and more emotive (how I function). Ah, well, I appreciate the more intellectual posts as well, but only if your reason for such a post is NOT because you don't want to offend other people. Are you a Dornbrook or what? ; ) Because, really, if someone doesn't like what you post, they can just stop reading it. It is their choice to be offended.
Posted by: Kristen | February 6, 2005 9:08 PM
Speaking of terrorists, it seems that the secrity fence around our blogs has sprung a leak.
Posted by: Nannie | February 8, 2005 9:41 PM