Living with terrorism |
2006-09-23 |
Or maybe they won't. Whatever happens, I do not believe we can make the threat go away with outside force. Not with police work, not by invading terrorist states, not by solving any social problems, nor by making the world more peaceful and wealthy, and not - certainly not! - by giving them what they want. We can reduce the threat, we can make it difficult for terrorists to succeed, but the threat is not going away. The risk of terrorism will always be there, until they choose to remove it.
And if the Islamists do give up terrorism, others will pick it up. Islamists are not the first to use this tactic - anarchists used it in the 19th century, radical leftists in the 1970's - and they won't be the last. It is a very odd idea to be infected with, that the world is evil and must be put right with explosives, but the world is full odd ideas, and people who will believe them. The internet and the new global culture will help the crazy fringes more than it helps the rest of us, it will help them to discover each other and maintain their closed little worldviews - and then it will help them to plan and carry out their attacks.
Do you think surveillance will put an end to terrorism? Read up on cryptography. Today's terrorists may not have understood the potential of information technology, but the next generation will. It will never be easy to carry out a spectacular terrorist attack, and there are many things we can do to make it more difficult, but there will always be a risk of success. Do what you like, our fight against terrorism will always have a component of luck. Flip a coin: Heads, a neighbour sees something suspicious and reports it, tails, they don't, and a bus gets blown up.
When we talk about terrorism, it is usually to say how horrible it is, and to ask what we can do to fight it. A lot of people died! Or they could have died! What are we going to do about it? Who's to blame? Is there a law we could pass? Should we give more money to somebody, or maybe invade some place?
This is useful. There are many things we can do, and there's no reason to make it easy for terrorists to kill us. New laws can be useful, and so can money, and even sometimes invasions. But there is another thing I believe we should also talk about, and think about, which we usually forget, and that is how to live with terrorism. How to deal with terrorism as a part of our lives.
What?! Live with terrorism? What are you, a defeatist? We must fight it! We must end the terror threat once and for all! Fight everyone who supports it and makes it possible, teach everyone the futility and immorality of terrorism, until noone is left alive and free who would even want to be a terrorist.
Right, so let us do all this. Whatever it is you have in mind, imagine it done. And then what? Have we now eradicated terrorism? Unless your solution is a police state, walled in and trigger-happy and suspicious of everyone and everything, afraid of strangers and obedient to the state, (and maybe not even then), I believe the answer is no. Let us do all that we can do without becoming something we despise, and there is still a terrorist threat to worry about.
So we need to learn how to live with terrorism. It is a part of our lives that no power we have (or want) can fully take away. No matter how you want to fight terrorism, you also need to find a way to live with it. Live with the possibility of hijackings and plane bombings, of suicide bombers on trains and buses, of snipers killing random people in the street. Terrorism is here to stay, deal with it.
And we are dealing with it, in our own different ways. In the years since September 11, several strategies have come up. One is to pretend that there is no threat. "Of course it could happen there, but never here!" Or "terrorism is really scary, I'm so glad we have police and airport security to protect us!" Or "it's all a conspiracy anyway, it just crazy to think that Muslims would be evil enough to blow themselves up!" Denial is an effective strategy, but it is not for me. I like to keep my brain free from lies, I have this funny obsession.
Denial is often combined with another popular strategy: Retreat. Pretend that the threat is concentrated in certain places, and then stay away from those places. If bombs go off in London, cancel your London vacation. If they go off on Bali, stay away from Indonesia. If a plot to blow up airplanes is uncovered, avoid flying for a couple of months - or at least get off the plane if you see any Arabs on it.
Legislation is a popular strategy, well in keeping with our political culture: If Something Bad happens, pass a law. Don't think, don't ask if it will work, don't ask what it will cost, just write it, pass it, and sign it. In fact, the more expensive it is and the more it hurts, the more it feels like we're doing something.
Others deal with terrorism by distracting themselves with the fight against terrorism, thus avoiding the question of how to live with it. Be very angry about terrorism, write about it on your blog, blame your political enemies for helping the terrorists - do anything but face the inevitability of terrorism. These are usually the people who go furthest in losing their sense of proportion, to a point where they embrace autocratic ideas. "No trial for terror suspects? Torture, unaccountable surveillance, and harebrained identity schemes? Fine, I don't care! Just do whatever it takes to protect me!"
I have a different strategy. It is not for everyone, but I believe it is honest and politically safe. Let us take away the most powerful weapon the terrorists have: Fear. Be less afraid of terrorism. Make it your personal project not to fear terrorism, and not to let the fear that remains influence your life. Don't panic over newspaper headlines. Don't cancel your vacation because of terror alerts. Don't hold back your plane because there are some Arabs on it. Don't support hasty laws and careless political decisions, simple because we "have to do something".
Accept that there is a threat, but don't exaggerate it. Don't trust your instinct to guide you, our instincts are notoriously bad at risk assessment, use reason and facts instead. When people are afraid of flying, they remind themselves that they're much more likely to die in their car on the way to the airport than on the plane itself. Do the same with terrorism. Fight your fears with facts. I don't believe in denial, and it is not denial to say that terrorism is one of the smallest threats that any of us face. It is simple irrational to fear terrorism more than traffic.
When you have reduced your fear to a rational level as much as you can, face what remains of it with open eyes. Don't let the fear influence your behavior, except after careful thought. Life is full of risks, and terrorism is no different from all the others. So there's a tiny risk you might die today. That's no excuse to act like a fool or a coward. Death is a part of life.
Terrorism is naturally more frightening than, say, car accidents or natural disasters. Accidents are impersonal and random, terrorism is personal, it is evil. But that is precisely why we have to think rationally about it, so that terrorists cannot exploit the irrational fear that their actions create in us.
After all, what other weapons do terrorists have to harm us with than fear? They have some guns and explosives. They can kill a few people, once in a while, at high cost and high chance of failure. That is all they have. Measured in terms of pure damage to people and property, the terrorist threat is small. Only with nuclear weapons might terrorists come close to the threat posed to us by cars.
It is the fear of it that makes terrorism uniquely dangerous. The killing is only a means, a way to trigger the destruction of their enemies. Make us angry, make us fearful, make us do something stupid.
I'm not saying that "if we do X the terrorists will have won", as if Islamist terrorists want nothing more than to trick us into passing a couple of bad laws. Can you imagine it? "Osama, did you hear? The infidels have removed their legal protection for terrorist suspects! Allah be praised!"
There is an overlap between what terrorists want and what terrorism actually makes us do - excessive retribution and suspicion is a useful recruitment tool - but on the whole we should not spend much time thinking about what terrorists want, and how to avoid it. They live in their own crazy little world, a world where their enemies are weak and ready to break, and all that is needed is a push in in the right place. It is the world Alan Moore imagines in V for Vendetta, where an authoritarian government is brought down through surgical use of terrorism. A small cut here, another there, and down it all falls, and come now everyone and embrace our truth, let us build a new world together in the name of our God/ideology.
This is not the real world. Terrorists have a different reality, and it is silly to obsess about what they really "want" with their attacks. Whatever it is it has little relation to our reality. "Victory" for an Islamist terrorist is the submission of the globe to their form of Islam, not that we introduce some bad laws.
But it is bad for us when terrorism makes us do this. Islamist terrorists will never succeed at whatever it is they're aiming for, but they often make us do foolish things. The fear makes us stupid. It makes us want to throw out centuries of experience with democracy and rule of law, it makes us consider identity cards and massive surveillance, it makes us treat all Muslim immigrants as suspects, it makes us take hasty and clumsy decisions in foreign policy, and give massive powers to the state, and bog our airports down with pointless security measures.
And that's just the mainstream - consider the fringes, as they prepare for The Great War With The Muslims, dismissing liberal democracy as weak and inefficient, branding moderation as treason, and creating a new nationalism.
Dangerous ideas like these will always be with us, but hystericism makes them more appealing. So. Remove the fear, or reduce it to a rational level, and we will have changed terrorism from a major disruptive force to a minor physical threat, far below the level of accidents and disease. Take away the panic, and then we can think rationally of how to balance our efforts against terrorism against other things that are important to us. Things such as political freedom, human rights, decent behavior, and not acting like panicked chickens.
The irony is that the ones who want to go furthest in placating their own fears, have succeeded in presenting themselves as "brave", and their opponents, who worry about civil rights and discrimination, as "cowardly". I don't see much bravery anywhere, but least off all among the loudest of the anti-terror warriors. It's not brave to scream on your blog for even more anti-terror laws. It's not brave to be willing to torture innocent people because there's a chance they might be guilty.
Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there's a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip. Brave is insisting that Arabs not be searched more carefully in airport security than anyone else, because you believe that it is more important not to discriminate against people based on their race than to keep the occasional terrorist from getting on a plane. Brave is not watching the news anxiously for hours whenever there's been an attack, or a new plot has been uncovered.
"You call that brave?! Why, that's nothing!" Yes, it's barely anything. I'm presenting a minimum standard here. Something almost anyone should be able to do, small acts of bravery to begin with. Once you've managed this, go and seek larger challenges. Go on vacation to a city that has recently been bombed, for instance.
Some anti-terror warriors will say that I hate my own culture and secretly want the terrorists to win, (maybe even subconsciously - yay Freud!) Others will say that if everyone thinks like me the Islamists can just walk in and take over. Suicidal tolerance! But if the only major weapon the terrorists have is fear, then the best way to fight them is surely to confront that fear? Hack it away, piece by piece. Liberate yourself.
And then what can terrorists do to us? Tell me that. If we learn to be rational about our fear of terrorism, while also doing as much as an open and free society can do to fight it - which is plenty - what more can they do to us?
(Update: This essay has made quite a few people angry, and I recommend that you read these comments that I wrote at Dhimmi Watch and Ace of Spades HQ before calling me any further names.)
Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there's a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip.
Michael Tuohey, a ticket agent for U.S. Airways, gave the following comments about Muhammad Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari after the September 11 attacks:
“I said to myself, ’If this guy doesn’t look like an Arab terrorist, then nothing does.’ Then I gave myself a mental slap, because in this day and age, it’s not nice to say things like this”.
Personally, I don't fear Islamic terrorism much. It is the most spectacular phenomenon of Jihad - no doubt about it - but I agree, it is not a very dangerous threat in itself. However, massive Muslim immigration, combined with a significant unwillingness on their part to integrate (due to Islam) in an era when a suicidal European population cannot be bothered to make the next generation, is a mortal threat to Western civilization.
I don't want to ignore my fears, I don't want a war which attempts (and eventually fails) to democratize the Middle-East, and nor do I want to nuke Mecca - what I want is for Muslims to be contained and isolated in their historic lands, so that they cannot pose such a grave threat to us as they do pro tempore. This means laws which discriminate against Muslims in particular, and steps taken to reverse the tide of immigration, and finally, a crucial ideological battle against the thoughts and ideas which placed the heart of the West, Europe, in this predicament to begin with.
This is my approach.
4 Egyptian clericks were denied entry into the US for Ramadan. It's a start.
Bjorn,
For the most part I like this essay, since for the greater part it reflects what I think. If I had been in charge, if I had had a voice in the strategy after 9/11, my message would have been that every expansion in power of the federal government, every increase in the difficulty or cost of an airplane ticket, and every new regulatory restriction flowing from all this was a loss to all of us.
I would have advocated only those actions whose payoff in increased security was much greater than the loss from those same actions. I would have tried to put a value on human life, a number, and a value on freedom. I would have put the value on freedom very high. If for instance the question was whether to let people bring bottles of liquid on airplanes, and it looked like after a best-guess analysis the relative cost of that freedom would be that ten additional people on average would die a year, then I would say let people bring bottles of liquid on the airplanes, or even better, I would say let the individual airlines decide whether to let bottles of liquid on their planes and immunize these airlines against lawsuits based on issues at the same time.
I'm in a minority. Most people would have put a higher value on the ten people.
And I agree with your sentiments on how to personally defy terrorism.
A few years ago in the Washington metro area there was a sniper randomly killing people. The first man to be killed was in the parking lot of a grocery store barely a quarter mile from my house and where I had been just hours before. The second, a failed attempt, at a craft store that I had been in just two days before. The second death at a small shopping center I'd been a few days earlier. The third death at a gas station I'd been next to that same day. The fourth...the first week's deaths were all in my general area. For a while every morning it seemed like I was waking up to a helicopter over our house.
Or something like that. I'm not going to look it all up again.
I acted like things were normal. I walked where I would normally walk and drove where I'd normally drive and did what I'd normally do.
Sometimes I felt there were quite a few people staring at me. One day as I was setting out for a walk from my house, my neighbor ran out of my house and up to me and said, "You're crazy." And then ran back into her house.
I have a feeling though that people would have come around to my point of view given enough time.
The recent outrage against the pope's seemingly innocuous remark is again indicative of how peaceful adherents of this global cult of terror can be. Islamists and grovelling western publications even declare that such papal lapsus linguae will risk sparking a religious war and increased terrorism from 'understandably' outraged muslims who feel that their pride and honor ie. their prophet had been ever soooo slighted by the pontiff. Truth is their 'holy book' and the hadiths are the source of all the islamic violence, until the west wakes up and recognize islam as a violen and expansionary ideology and cult masquerading as a religion, terrorism and violence will be the staple of the day for many more years to come. All outraged infidels should watch The DVD, "Islam- what the west should know" by Quixotic Films. Saudacoes do Brasil
Mark Amerman: I have a feeling though that people would have come around to my point of view given enough time.
I wonder how people in Israel have dealt with terrorism, especially when the suicide bombings were at a peak a couple of years ago. The international media focused on the politics and the deaths, but what was the approach on the personal level? What did people tell themselves when they went on the bus, for instance? How many broke apart, how many made a successful effort to live "normally", and if so how did they manage it?
Kim Sook-Im: The recent outrage against the pope's seemingly innocuous remark
Off-topic.
That should have been, "...my neighbor ran out of her house and up to me..."
Bjorn,
My understanding is that people in Israel have made a point of not showing fear. Ie. a bomb goes off in a restaurant and twenty people are killed, the next day the restaurant next door would be overflowing with people.
As to people breaking down or letting themselves be overcome with fear, I'm sure it happened, but since Israel has a patriotic press I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't focus on it.
I note from the essay you cited that George Orwell would have called this "positive nationalism," by which he meant not that it was necessarily good, although it could be, but that it was people believing in themselves or expressing faith in something that they have a deep knowledge about; so much so that they have to be aware at some level of the flaws.
If I understand Orwell, his "positive nationalism" is pretty close to what most people mean when they say patriotism. His "negative nationalism" on the other hand is a concept that most people don't have in their heads.
Negative nationalism is an idea or ideology that frames a person's thinking and dominates that person's thinking to such an extent that they reject their own culture.
Orwell's "negative" thus is not meant to say that something is necessarily bad but rather that it's anti-patriotic. On the other hand, it seems clear that Orwell sees negative nationalisms as being responsible for the greater part of the horrors of the twentieth century.
I have no doubt for example that Orwell would have labeled National Socialism as a "negative nationalism" because despite its claims to patriotism the movement despised and aimed to radically change and even destroy the culture that preceeded it.
Mark Amerman: If I understand Orwell, his "positive nationalism" is pretty close to what most people mean when they say patriotism. His "negative nationalism" on the other hand is a concept that most people don't have in their heads.
What he meant by "positive" or "negative" was just whether the object of your nationalism is something you support, or something you're against. Also he meant it in a different and broader sense than the usual one: he meant any kind of worldview which sees the world as a game of competitive prestige, where every event is measured in terms of its effect on a country, ideology, race etc. For instance, someone who is very pro-American might see anything that reflects well on the US and its foreign policy as a good thing - a positive nationalist. But an anti-american might see anything that embarasses the US as a good thing - so that's negative nationalism. Neither of them really cares what the truth is, they just care whether the US scores points or not, like sports fans.
Orwell's definition of nationalism is unorthodox, but I like it. It's useful in a lot of contexts you might not think have much in common with national politics. He's really talking about group psychology, and researchers in that field have observed and described pretty much the same processes. See for instance this study into partisan politics.
"Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there's a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip."
No. You're describing 'fearless', not 'brave'. Brave is Tod Beamer, being prepared and ready to deal with the row of Arabs in his plane, should his suspicions prove to be founded. Brave is saying "let's roll". "Brave" involves making yourself strong enough to defend yourself and others.
It's not irrational to be fearful about 'a row of suspicious-looking Arabs'. Suspicious-looking people from their background have used airplanes to kill the innocent; others have recently tried again. It may be unfair to these particular individuals, assuming that they're innocent, but it's not unrealistic or irrational. The brave response is to say to yourself "they look suspicious. If they try to grab a flight attendant, I'm going to…" And then sit back and relax, because there's probably not really a problem.
And an 'open and tolerant society' - open and tolerant towards what? Honor killings, for example, because they happen to fit within someone else's culture? It's insane - or irresponsible - to tolerate absolutely anything, in service of an abstract idea labelled with the t word. Morality demands that you tolerate what is good, and reject what is bad.
For a society, the principle of tolerance only works when society is able to control the intolerant within and without itself. Admirable as it may be, tolerance is weak in the face of fanatacism. "He say's he wants to kill us all? He's entitled to his view, and we wouldn't want to suppress his free speech. He's amassing a group of supporters? Well, free speech again, and freedom of assembly. They're coming at us with knives…"
Let's be tolerant, by all means, but in the wise way that selects the line between what we can and cannot afford to tolerate. Then let's be brave, in the sense of standing strongly against the intolerable.
In between times, I agree, it doesn't make much sense to sit around trembling, or for that matter screaming hatred, to deal with our fears.
Dick:Brave is Tod Beamer, being prepared and ready to deal with the row of Arabs in his plane, should his suspicions prove to be founded. Brave is saying "let's roll". "Brave" involves making yourself strong enough to defend yourself and others.
Well, yeah. If your plane has been hijacked, that's the only brave thing to do. I don't think anyone has questioned that since September 11. But what do you do if you see a couple of Arabs about to enter your plane, and for some reason you get really suspicious? Do you enter the plane like everyone else, or do you demand that they be thrown off? That's what happened to a plane recently. The passengers refused to enter the plane unless two people they thought were terrorists were thrown off. Is that brave? Is that how passengers ought to behave? I don't think so. I think that's cowardly. Sure, if no Arabs are allowed to fly any more, that would make it very difficult for Islamists to hijack planes. But at a cost I'm not willing to pay. I want to live in a society where nobody is discriminated against based on their race or religion. I am willing to accept a small increase of risk to my life to live in that society.
And an 'open and tolerant society' - open and tolerant towards what? Honor killings, for example, because they happen to fit within someone else's culture?
Of course not. I think the lesson here for you is to not trust the word of the blogs that linked to this. There are more than two sides here, at least I'm not on either of them.
While I agree with your statistical point about risk assessment, I disagree with your implicit premise that there isn't a clash of civilizations coming down the pike, at which point the debate will cease to be statistical and become existential. At that point, the choice will be between liberal society and Islamic Sharia law. Also at that point, to preserve liberal society in the long run, some illiberal things will need to be done in the short run. How illiberal will it get? I'm not sure, but my sense is that in the long run, after the elimination of the one group that causes almost 100% of the terrorism in the world, those illiberal measures will be rolled back quickly precisely because they really don't add any value to society except in times of extreme emergency.
Muhammed Ali was once challenged for seemingly regarding all whites as racists. He observed that, in a room full of snakes, there's more important things to consider than the fact that some may not be venomous.
I'm white. But I think that, given past history, Ali was right to approach us this way. Not understandable or forgiveable - right. Sooner or later, one of us would try to harm him. (Plenty did, too, as soon as he "got out of line" regarding the Vietnam War.)
The important thing is this. He'd be right if only a very small proportion of the snakes were venemous. Only takes one! We might even say: if your an non-poisonous snake: prove it.
It doesn't bother me even a little that M.A. - and, I'm sure, many other African Americans - mistrust white people in the USA. Hopefully, some come to know they're wrong in my particular case. But wary of me/us? They'd be crazy if they weren't. And I'd be crazy if I didn't understand why they feel that way.
Now consider arabs and muslims. Case in point: Mullah Krakar. He supports bin laden, considers islam to be at war with the west, has threatened your country with 'punishment' if he's deported, and speaks of muslims as a population bomb, 'breeding like mosquitos' (his metaphor, not mine) in your midst. Sure sounds like discrimination to me. In fact, it sounds like there's probably a couple of venomous snakes out there. Doesn't matter what proportion: it only takes one.
Charming as it is to imagine a society where "nobody is discriminated against based on race or religion"
- you don't live in one. MK and those like him are discriminating against you.
Wishing such people away doesn't get rid of them. It's damn hard even to deport them! Being pure of spirit, wishing for a discrimination-free world, won't work either. Pretending it's so when it isn't - well, that's irresponsible. As if Muhammad Ali were to pretend to himself that white America uniformly comprised people wishing him well, despite his blackness.
As you can tell, my sympathies at this point are more with the passengers on the flight you mention that the Arabs who wished to board. Blame the Mullah Krakars of the world, not me, for my obvious discrimination.
DG, USA: Also at that point, to preserve liberal society in the long run, some illiberal things will need to be done in the short run. How illiberal will it get? I'm not sure, but my sense is that in the long run, after the elimination of the one group that causes almost 100% of the terrorism in the world, those illiberal measures will be rolled back quickly precisely because they really don't add any value to society except in times of extreme emergency.
You have quite a lot of faith in your ability to predict the future, in society's ability to "eliminate" .. what? Islam? Islamism? .. and in its ability to switch liberalism on and off at will. Me, I think you can't predict the future, that "elimination of the one group that causes almost 100% of the terrorism in the world" sounds like a euphemism for something very evil, and that once people like you manage to switch liberal and tolerant ideas off in a society, it'll need to take the same long, hard road as it did the first time to restore them again.
Dick, Connecticut: As you can tell, my sympathies at this point are more with the passengers on the flight you mention that the Arabs who wished to board. Blame the Mullah Krakars of the world, not me, for my obvious discrimination.
No, I blame you. You are responsible for your own actions. When you discriminate against Arabs because of their presumed religion, that makes you a prejudiced person. You have your priorities wrong, or at least they are different priorities than mine: You believe that it is more important to eliminate entirely the extremely small threat posed to your life by "suspicious-looking Arabs" than that everyone in society should be treated fairly, and as individuals. You will sacrifice the rights of many, for a tiny benefit to yourself. If that isn't cowardice, if that isn't greed, then what is?
Bjorn, I'm pretty comfortable that I understand the 'endgame' that's emerging between the West and Islam. The writing's been on the wall at least since the fall of the Soviet Empire. The first step is the elimination of Islamism, to answer your question. The second, perhaps unnecessary step is the elimination of Islam. I hope it is unnecessary but quite frankly don't care if it is necessary because nothing of any value to future human happiness comes from Islam, regardless of what it's accomplished in the past, and it's as necessary to the future as dinosaurs. The sooner the 'average' Muslim recognizes that his entire presumed 'raison d'etre' is bogus, the better. I remember reading that Al Gore once yelled at a vacillating Bill Clinton to 'get with the g--damn program!'. History is saying the same thing to Muslims and they don't seem to be getting it. "The program" in this case is dropping the pretense that the Koran is the fountain of all knowledge, that Sharia law is perfect and that there is something special about Muhammed. Nietzsche talks throughout his works about how Christianity 'neutered' and 'tamed' the old Germanic peoples, the "blond beasts". The same needs to be done now with the Muslims because they are just as out of control. As for switching liberal ideas on and off, I do have every confidence that it can happen and will happen. The Romans of the Republican era used to have a system of dictatorship that kicked in when the republic was in trouble, then would back off once the trouble was eliminated. The same system is appropriate to the West's situation today. To the extent that the West has historical amnesia, and the Islamist threat is still weak, this option doesn't appear as part of the debate, but it will eventually make it on to the agenda if the Islamists keep pushing.
We're being threatened w/an American Hiroshima during ramadamading-dong. And they're not gonna be named Mo Atta Abdul and the rest: "We have a different plan for the next attack," [AQ Afghan commander Abu Dawood] told Mir. "You will see. Americans will hardly find out any Muslim names, after the next attack. Most of our brothers are living in Western countries, with Jewish and Christian names, with passports of Western countries. This time, someone with the name of Mohamed Atta will not attack inside America, it would be some David, Richard or Peter." ---- What we're planning isn't evil, Bjorn, it's entirely up to them how far it goes. -- Dick, what is the number of this "extremely small threat?" 1 million, 2 million, 200 million++++???
And Dick?? Wait until they wire up 2-300 cell phones (sans battery) and w/the push of a key and MSN and/or SKYPE(?) they all detonate together. Rumor has it that is what was being practiced in Bangladesh.
"Brave is insisting that Arabs not be searched more carefully in airport security than anyone else, because you believe that it is more important not to discriminate against people based on their race than to keep the occasional terrorist from getting on a plane." Brave? That's not brave, that's stupid. Profiling is a proven strategy. A couple weeks after the Madrid train bombings, I was at a train station. A young, slight man who looked Middle Eastern walked into the station and sat near me. It was warm in the station and we all had our coats off or at least unbuttoned, yet his coat was zipped to the neck. He was very slight in hands and feet and facial features, yet his torso was very bulky. Being the mad profiler that I am, I stared at him for a long time. He had no luggage; just a small knapsack, and he was nervously fingering a train ticket, never looking up at anyone. Eventually I tired of staring at him from the side, so I stood up in front of him, maybe 10 feet away, and continued to stare down at him. He never looked up. After about 10 more minutes, I sat next to him and stared some more. Eventually, he got up, left the station and did not return. I went to the station door and watched him walk away. He either was on a practice run or was packed to blow up. I didn't think to report him to the train security people; next time, I'll do that. We have to use whatever will work in the war with jihadists. Dick from Connecticut is right; it is insane to tolerate evil. I just read a novel, "The Age of Tolerance," by Glen Reinsford, who runs thereligionofpeace.com. It's a wonderful glimpse into the suicidal path that liberal tolerance and multiculturalism could take. The premise is that Bill Clinton resigns from the US presidency after Monica, Al Gore becomes president, he is reelected in 2000 and is the president during 9-11. Now that's scary. But I'm not afraid. I've been mad as hell since 9-11. Max Boot has a well-written commentary in the LA Times on 9/27/06 regarding Muslims' complicity with violence. If Muslims don’t cure their barbaric ideology, the result will be the radicalization of the non-Muslim world. It has already started. We see it in polls showing a worldwide and growing distrust of Islam. Despite the exhortations that Islam is a religion of peace, what we see with our own eyes is a religion of pieces. Time is short. In America, we will fight and die for our freedom and our way of life; even a 50+ mother like me won't submit. I hope Europe wakes up from her coma.
DG, USA: The second, perhaps unnecessary step is the elimination of Islam. I hope it is unnecessary but quite frankly don't care if it is necessary because nothing of any value to future human happiness comes from Islam, regardless of what it's accomplished in the past, and it's as necessary to the future as dinosaurs.
No comment necessary ..
Anna, Massachusets USA: Brave? That's not brave, that's stupid. Profiling is a proven strategy.
So is pushing other people out of the life boat to make room for yourself. A proven strategy for survival, that is. Don't you have any other goals? Is there nothing that is more important to you than your own life? How many people's civil rights would you agree to take away, in return for a slight increase of your own expected lifespan?
Do you have a problem with survival? Survival is the first priority of all living creatures, except the jihadists, who live in a culture of death. My goal is that my children live in a world where there are no jihadists; in a world where they can choose to read any book they want while having a glass of wine, without penalty of death; a world where men do not beat their women even though their holy book says they can, and so on. My children are still young, so for their well-being, my staying alive is substantially more important than some theoretical discussion about civil rights. Besides, civil rights are meaningless if you are dead. Furthermore, jihadists have no civil rights. They aren't people. They are killing machines.
Couple of things, Bjorn. First, have you notices how little Communist terrorism - and Communist terror-gangs, for that matter - are still around, post-Soviet Union? Make the obvious leap to the situation involving Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other state sponsors of Islamist terror, and you'll begin to see the glimmers of an effective strategy for winning the war against Islamist terrorism.
Second, FDR took far more stringent anti-liberty measures during WWII, and he -and America - backed away from them post-emergency, as did Abraham Lincoln from his own anti-freedom actions during the Civil War.
American notions of liberty are somewhat more resilient that our European friends can sometimes understand. I'd be more worried about the loss of your own freedoms at the face of demands from your growing anti-liberty segments of your Muslim minorities.
Anna, Massachusetts USA: Do you have a problem with survival? Survival is the first priority of all living creatures, except the jihadists, who live in a culture of death.
Right. So all those people who volunteer for military service, and go off to risk their lives in far-off countries like Iraq, are fools? There are more important things than staying alive. Life at any cost is not worth it - or would you convert to Islam at gunpoint? I think we agree on the general principle here, and that what we disagree about is which ideals are this important.
Bill Quick: Second, FDR took far more stringent anti-liberty measures during WWII, and he -and America - backed away from them post-emergency, as did Abraham Lincoln from his own anti-freedom actions during the Civil War.
I don't think any of us will find it very difficult to back out of the anti-liberal measures we've taken since September 11. As you say, they've been relatively mild. But I do think we would have a problem backing out of the measures some anti-Islamic extremists want us to take. The kind of measures that would help us to "eliminate the one group that causes almost 100% of the terrorism in the world", as one commenter put it above. Imagine whipping up enough public fury to "eliminate" Islam - now imagine undoing that damage, and returning people to tolerance. This wouldn't be a WW2 level discrimination, it would be hatred on the scale of the religious wars.
American notions of liberty are somewhat more resilient that our European friends can sometimes understand. I'd be more worried about the loss of your own freedoms at the face of demands from your growing anti-liberty segments of your Muslim minorities.
I intended no US vs Europe angle here. The trend towards sacrificing civil rights is global. So is the (admittedly still marginal) Islamophobic movement. As for Europe's Muslim minorities, just as the US is difficult to understand for Europeans, so is Europe often for Americans. Humility is generally the safer approach: Not "here's why your country will become a fascist dictatorship / dhimmified colony", but "here's something I've read about your country, is it true?" Think of it as the Michael Moore test of cultural understanding. Imagine the embarassment if the books you turn to for understanding Europe (Bruce Bawer's perhaps?) turns out to be the European equivalent of Stupid White Men.
America's military men and women are our ultimate heroes. Their enlistment is an effort at survival, but their effort is directed at the survival of the whole society, not their personal survival. It's the American left that believes they are fools, a pattern put into place in the 1960's. My parents escaped from two Eastern European Communist countries at great personal risk; I was born in an Austrian refugee camp. No one could ever convert either of them at the point of a gun. I can only hope that I inherited their bravery. It's my European heritage that causes me to be so concerned about Europe. I think you do have a problem with your Muslim minorities and events like the savage murder of Theo Van Gogh and the riots in Belgium and France point out that European society is on the brink. Are you willing to convert to Islam to live? That will be one of your three choices: conversion, death or dhimmitude. The books I read now are about Islam, and the Quranic imperatives are clear and simple. As many dissident Muslims have suggested, the best strategy is to reform Islam from within. But those reformers need to live long enough to accomplish that task, so the other half of the strategy must be to hunt down and kill or capture those who would impose their narrow world view on everyone else. As to the "trend toward sacrificing civil rights," every time I hear that red herring, I ask the person to name me one civil right they have lost or are close to losing. They can't. It's a diversion.
Anna, Massachusetts USA: America's military men and women are our ultimate heroes. Their enlistment is an effort at survival, but their effort is directed at the survival of the whole society, not their personal survival.
Well, exactly. Some ideals are worth risking your life for. I happen to believe that one of those ideals is equal rights for everyone, so that all people can be treated as individuals, and not as members of a collective. You apparently don't. Fine, but then it is not a question of which of us "wants to survive", but which ideals we believe are important.
Are you willing to convert to Islam to live? That will be one of your three choices: conversion, death or dhimmitude.
Didn't you read my post? And still you ask that question? Read again. Do I sound like someone who would convert to Islam to live? You're the one who tells me that survival is your first priority. It follows that if somebody holds a gun to your head, you should do whatever they ask of you. To me, survival is important, but not at any cost. I will not get Arabs thrown off airplanes just to satisfy my own panic, and I will not give up my right to think for myself. Two sides of the same coin.
--Right. So all those people who volunteer for military service, and go off to risk their lives in far-off countries like Iraq, are fools? --- We're all the militia, Bjorn. We always have been, just because we don't get all the high tech stuff doesn't mean we aren't. -- Imagine whipping up enough public fury to "eliminate" Islam - now imagine undoing that damage, and returning people to tolerance. -- Give it 3 or so generations. We're known for our attention span, after all. Look at US and Japan, I remember the 70s and 80s. Geez, look at US and Viet Nam. The "defeated" US and now I can buy their trinkets. Do you have faith/belief in your fellow Westerner? Bill's right, even more, for those who remain, we give a helping hand. Because that's who we are. -- It follows that if somebody holds a gun to your head, you should do whatever they ask of you.-- Steve Centani - Fox News. --To me, survival is important, but not at any cost.-- You are part of the West, the West needs to survive. They're going to be holding nuke guns to our heads soon enough, you're going to have to make a choice. But I think this is another American/European split. We went thru something like this w/Oyvind, IIRC.
Sandy P: You are part of the West, the West needs to survive. They're going to be holding nuke guns to our heads soon enough, you're going to have to make a choice.
Okay. So if an Islamist holds a sword to your neck, you will convert? After all, the West needs to survive.
I don't think this has anything to do with any American/European split. I just think many of those who criticize me here haven't fully thought through their own beliefs. One moment they tell me I'm a dhimmified European eunuch, the next moment they tell me they themselves would do anything to stay alive, and that I'm a fool to risk my life for my ideals. Which is it?
Hi Bjørn, It's been a while. This is one of the best pieces I've ever seen you write. I lecture on terrorism regularly, and you highlight some of the main points a good introductory lecture should contain. Fear. It's the most important aspect of terrorism. I fully agree. Secondly, We must live with terrorism. My catch phrase is: "Terrorism is part of our lives, that does not mean that it needs to dominate our lives." The fear most people have for terrorism is totally irrational. To demonstrate this, look only to the 7/7 London bombers. 52 people were killed. Approximately 3 million journeys are made in London's subway system every day. If I were in London on that day and needed to make a short trip...I'd do it....and I'm serious. Even if I knew that an attack would occur that day. 52 out of 3 million is a totally acceptable risk. Traffic is as you state a lot more dangerous. Remember also Brazilian Jean Charles de Menendez. Shot in the head by the police for no good reason at a London subway station.....not my dream society. AGR
Bjorn, you say 'no comment is necessary' as if there were some valid philosophical construct you were utilizing to critique my assertion of the fact that Islam is of no value to the future of humanity. I say your assumption of such a valid philosophical construct is false. Would you also assume that racism is vital to the future happiness of humanity? Both the Left and the Right of the West, if they are to be intellectually rigorous in applying their admittedly varying interpretations of the meaning of the Enlightenment, should agree that Islam is worthless. It creates human beings only to force them to live wasted lives worshipping an illusion. What is of value in it? Its cosmology? Its epistemology? Its theory of consciousness? Its theory of governance? What? Tell me one reason why I should care if the entire religion disappears tomorrow. I would be willing to bet that if its current adherents could wake up tomorrow fully 'Westernized', even they would agree they were happier after giving up Islam. It's only the fact that they are so illiterate and uneducated that allows them to 'settle' for Islam as an organizing principle in their world.
DG, USA: Bjorn, you say 'no comment is necessary' as if there were some valid philosophical construct you were utilizing to critique my assertion of the fact that Islam is of no value to the future of humanity.
Don't change the subject. You were saying that we (who?) should consider actively eliminating Islam. I don't care that you don't want to be a Muslim yourself, neither do I. But eliminate Islam? I don't think we have enough ground in common to discuss this. That's why I merely quoted what you said, so others could notice it too, and that's all I will do. You and I have nothing to discuss.
Bjorn, 'we' is anyone who thinks the Enlightenment was a significant advance in human thinking. Any rigorous understanding of the implications of that statement require a complete rejection of everything Islam stands for, as well as the willingness to eliminate it, via, as a first step, destroying every copy of the Koran and eradicating all memory of Muhammed. Depending on the outcome of that step, no further steps may be necessary. You're right that we have nothing to discuss, because you don't understand what the Enlightenment was in the broader context of human intellectual development. The information is out there, should you choose to avail yourself of it. I wish you luck in this endeavor.
bjorn, you are a coward.
Brave is most definately not sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will all go away, naturally life goes on but it is everybodies duty to fight against terrorism and currently that terrorism is Islamic based, when it moves on to become christian/bhuddist/hindu based we'll rethink the model would the world have been brave and enriched in 1939-45 if we'd all just hidden, acted as though we were beyond the situation, that the situation was somehow beneath us? Moral highground is a wonderful thing, however its easily removed by explosives placed directly underneath you by giggling insane jihaddists whilst you struggle to remain indignant to whats happening below you appear to be missing the obvious, you talk about just sitting on a plane accepting the potential.............WRONG if every westerner about to board demanded those of arab, islamic origin were either subjected to the full long and due process of searching, checking and re-searching, OR not let on the plane period, we'd be fighting back and securing our plane travel for a start, far easier to sit on a plane knowing the worst the islamic jihaddist has in his possession is the emergency procedure leaflet and a cup of coffee rather than the possibility he/she has something that goes "bang" oh dear we might upset some sensibilities by such action, big deal whats the worst they will do, radicalise and bomb us, wake up call we're already at that stage, appeasement now just gives the signal they are winning currently your suggestion is just giving carte blanche to these jihaddists to do whatever they like, because we own the moral highground so somehow that's us winning....its sooo wrong i'm actually choking at the suggestion, its the logical pattern that when faced by a pack of wolves, you stand upright with a stiff upper lip knowing your superior, even when they attack and savage you to death from hunger, a whole lot of good your stiff upper lip and superior stance did you when your somethings dinner
and most importantly do you think the pack would have understood or taken on board how wonderous you were whilst dying, or do you think they will just move onto the next meal/victim?
Fear is generated and yes thats what they want, but fear can be productive in the forming of a defence, and the very best form of defence is attack, so it must be, yes jihaddists everywhere please come and threaten our nations, our cultures, our way of life, BUT guess what we'll still keep living with our self established set of moralistic rules, our way of life and we'll simply deny you and yours them, when you feel grown up enough to have moved beyond your deranged jihaddist ideal, come talk to us, till then feel berated by having to swim to anywhere you wish to go, feel the wrath of the free west as you cannot freely move amoungst us, understand with our way of life comes responsibility and its collective and if you cannot fit it then we'll exclude you THAT MY FRIEND is being BRAVE in 2006 and in the politically correct, lets not offend the minority even if they are killing us free west, that is fighting back, that is defining what we in the non islamic west will tolerate and what we wont burying our heads in the sand with fingers crossed hoping we wont get rogered is equivilent to raising a white flag and adding "islamabad" to the end of your western countries name remembering of course you can only ever deal in a rational decent example setting way with people who are both rational and have an decent example to conduct themselves by jihaddist by default fall short of those qualities and the truth is historically the only language they have ever understood and been defeated by is that of utter defeat, and its long over due in the west and particularly europe that we must stop appeasement and start the defensive against this nightmare from the desert death cult btw i dont say this lightly, 7/7 london was a close call for me, a little too close and my response to my own governments appeasements tactics, plus its odd tackling extremism with throwing millions at the community thats actively propogating it not only baffles me, but is an insult to those many who died thus my conclusion is enough is enough, the battle lines are drawn up, now who is going to be really brave and start restricting rather than allowing and accepting fight the good fight Taranus
Quisling
To think the Norwegians once made Europe cower in fear. It is so sad to see, as a follower of the indigenous religion of the Norwegians, that Norway has no strength left. Unless Norwegians begin to thirst for the evergreen fields of Asgard and the gilded halls of Valhalla, Norway will continue to slide under the weight of still more foreign Gods.
To think the Norwegians once made Europe cower in fear. It is so sad to see, as a follower of the indigenous religion of the Norwegians, that Norway has no strength left. Unless Norwegians begin to thirst for the evergreen fields of Asgard and the gilded halls of Valhalla, Norway will continue to slide under the weight of still more foreign Gods.
You are seriously psychologically ill. Back away from cultural relativism in all its forms.
>>>Fear. Be less afraid of terrorism.
Fair enough. You forgot to add, "and simultaneously, dont forget to use our known strengths, namely our technology and our military, to vaporize the terrorists"
While I agree that living life in a panic is not the answer, I am not sure your solution is the answer either. It is certainly not realistic. 'The only major weapon the terrorists have is fear'? What about the carnage on Sept. 11? The other bombings in Bali, London and in Spain? Islamic terrorists have clearly told us what they want and they continue, every day, to back up those words with actions. As for this: '... it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip.' It's easy to say and believe things on the computer, while in safety. But would you *really* do this if confronted with the situation? You would actually wish to let people murder you? If this truly is your choice and it would affect only you, then I'd say, so be it. Unfortunately if a terrorist situation came up, it's highly likely that there would be other people involved - people who would not care for this 'solution' you have proposed, which is basically suicide. You spoke of reason, facts and being rational. I agree with these things. And the facts say that Islamic jihadists will never stop (as you also said.) The difference between the two of us is that I have no desire to commit suicide, nor do I desire to see people continue to die at the hands of these madmen. Therefore, I will do whatever is in my power to stop that from happening, whether it's supporting laws, educating myself about Islam, writing to newspapers and magazines when they put out false statements about Islam or terrorism, etc. And I ever end up being stuck on a plane with one of these 'holy warriors' who is ready to blow himself and everyone else to kingdom come, you can bet I wouldn't just sit there. I hope if you ever find yourself in that situation, that you will have someone like me there too.
Let's make this simple enough that even You will understand: Do what you want us to do, and Your culture will CEASE TO EXIST. It may take decades, it may take only years, but your culture WILL be toast- because you surrendered to the islamists, just like they want you to. Your RIGHTS will cease to exist. Your FUTURE will cease to exist. Your vaunted 'tolerance' will be swept away before the most intolerant force on the face of the Earth. Your grand-kids will worship a Rock in Mecca. IF they are not slaves. You are not being brave. You are handing over Western civilization in one of the most Cowardly ways possible. Have a Nice day.
"I have a different strategy. It is not for everyone, but I believe it is honest and politically safe. Let us take away the most powerful weapon the terrorists have: Fear. Be less afraid of terrorism. Make it your personal project not to fear terrorism, and not to let the fear that remains influence your life. Don't panic over newspaper headlines. Don't cancel your vacation because of terror alerts. Don't hold back your plane because there are some Arabs on it. Don't support hasty laws and careless political decisions, simple because we "have to do something"."
Fear? I watched the bombing in NYC up close and personal and went to work the next day. Within days the Stock Market was up and running as was the rest of New York City. You are projecting your fear and how YOU would handle it onto others as it's really yourself, the truth be told, who are afraid. I for one will NEVER submit. I have a couple of glocks, lots of ammo, and will not hesitate to use them. I can never imaging losing my freedoms and my country, just because I didn't want to be called a racist or islamophobe. I'm sure Europe will be admired in the history books for so doing.
I support any law which will help rid the world of these vermon - period. Now I have to do something which is to email my senators again and asking them why they're letting in even more Muslims. The highest yet since 911. At least we're getting the fence!
"Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there's a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip." I think your real point is to show how superior to all of us who are afraid. You have a purer soul, a nobler nature. It's all very selfserving. I don't however think that you are superior. I don't even think that you actually believe your claptrap. It's natural to feel fear when you are in danger. All of us become afraid, including you. Your self-aggrandizing political correctness is just a big act!
Good God! A purer soul, a better nature? Carry on and ignore it, as though it were an unsightly social illness? Are you mad? The people of which we speak - this 'tiny minority' of extremists, and their enablers within their community at large - seek nothing less than to undo all the societal evolution of the past 1400 years. They seek to impose their fascistic religous will not only on the populace of the Middle East, but - as their own press releases tell us in no uncertain terms - all people, everywhere. If this strikes you as a bad idea, then perhaps it would seem reasonable to allow reasonable authority to take reasonable extra precautions to ensure your safety. Then again, if the premise of your children or wife being shredded by home-made bombs, or shot-up churches and temples and too-liberal schools, or cowed submission to the individual megalomania of imported religious teachers who regard Norwegians as animals on the level of dogs doesn't bother you particularly, then by all means: lean back, stare at the rippling Northern sky, and think fondly of philosophy. I'm a busy fellow and haven't got time to enumerate the multitude of ways in which simply sitting back and 'allowing nature to unfold' is a phenomenally bad idea. Instead, I will direct you to a link to a site that collects a range of news stories about this very issue on a daily basis, and allow you to be completely horrified, as I was three years ago, about the nature of the societal threat we - and our descendants - all face. www.jihadwatch.org In hope of imminent awakenings, I remain Geoff P.
Bjørn, I think your most important point (the one being missed here most often) is that stamping out terrorism or Islamism or Islam are tasks beyond human power. Mitigate, yes, eliminate, probably not.
So I think an interesting question for you and your interlocutors to think about would be this: if profiling or some more or less innocuous form of discrimination WOULD, in fact, keep us all safe, would you support it? This goes to the Muhammad Ali point made above: if it really were as simple as quarantining the snakes, would you do it? Surely there is some very minor inconvenience you would be willing to subject Muslims to if you thought that this mere inconvenience would solve the entire problem.
And then, you see, we just raise the ante: what if a little more was required? Where do we all stop buying in to the solution and what principle to we base that moral judgment on?
Personally, I think Islamic terror could be ended in the same way that Nazi terror (they were terrorists as well as being a conventional state at war) ended: by a ruthless, relentless campaign of destruction and privations wreaked upon their soldiers and civilians alike. I think this is how all wars eventually end--the combatants (one side or both) just can't stand the death and stench of it any longer.
In other words, I think a precipitated end of Islamic terror requires death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, and no, I'm not willing to go there. But I'll grant that circumstances may advance to a point where none of us have a choice. (cf Poland 1939)
In any event, I prefer the path you light out--they kill us, and we continue on as democrats, taking what precautions we can, in spite of it--and I believe that they can be worn out this way over the course of many decades.
However, this assumes that the clock does not run out on us in the meantime; and in this I refer both to the demographic trends, by which muslim majorities may extinguish our democratic ideals without any help from us, and to increasing muslim intimidation by which the exercise of our democratic rights may vanish into increasingly muted and unnecessary reminders of our obligation to be sensitive to the feelings of our abusers.
Thus, I think there is a howling absence from your catalog of bravery; namely, the courage to call out Islamic intolerance and violence (and to call it ISLAMIC--now THAT is brave!) and reject it wherever we see it; and the courage to protect the democratic values to which you appeal by preventing immigrantion by those who are dedicated to the proposition that all democracies must ultimately succumb, inshallah, to Islam.
All I have to say to Bjorn, is, enjoy Eurabia, and no, we won't be accepting refugees from Western Europe when the Intifada starts in five years. Have fun. God bless. And may the world forget I ever shared common ancestry with you, you frakking coward!
Bjorn, If you substitute the word "terrorism" with "nationalsocialism" in your speech and, despite the obvious anachronisms, locate it in the 1930s. Next suppose YOU would have written it then and now you would be a very old man reading it. Would you be proud of having written it? Is passivity the best weapon against an active and growing threat?
When you said "brave", did you actually mean "stupid"? It certainly sounded like you did. The fear response to a threat is both natural and healthy, and without it there would be no one alive to have this stupid debate.
@Jim from Philadelphia - well said.
Bjorn, I am shocked to see the countrymen of my ancestral home have become such cowering relativists. I thank the stars and heavens (but mostly my ancestors) above that I was born in America. It is being said by many that Europe has become a land of permanent children, who rely on the parent state to take care of them. All responsibility falls on the State. The only thing citizens of Europe are responsible for is to live comfortable, sheltered, and safe lives. It seems the very idea of taking responsibilty for ones own survival is very upsetting to a European. Better to construct a utopian politically correct world and hope for the best. Emotions like fear or anger are to be avoided and prevented at all costs. If one or many individuals die or are killed, they are not as important as the parent State's continued survival. Survival is not only something that has to do with individuals. It also has to do with one's own offspring or family tree. An individual who goes to war is not necessarily committing an act of selfless heroism. He is also helping to assure that his offspring and culture will survive into the future. By eliminating ones enemy, a soldier can help ensure the survival of his children and grandchildren into the future. This is the law, and reality, of nature. Bjorn is hoping that the terrorists will eventually become tired of waging war against the West. Maybe they will become children of the state as well, quit having children, and not worry about extending and protecting the lives of their offspring and culture. It's time to grow up, Bjorn. Curt
#46 Curt, you are absolutely right. Such is the result of the welfare state: life-long adolescents.
"Terrorism"--the Islamic incursion into the West and its drive to Islamizise it--will not cease until the West (Europe, United States) is under Islamic domination or the Mohammedans are once again defeated--as has occurred several times in history. As we would rather not live under Islam (at least here in the United States), the second alternative is preferable. Ah, but how to achieve it? A careful examination of how Islam was beaten back before--sent to sulk for centuries in its misery until stupidly uplifted by the West's gift of oil wealth--will give the answer. The defeat of Islam, because that is what this war is about, Islam versus the non-Islamic world, can be accomplished. A study of prior defeats of the Moslems by the West will yield strategies and tactics that can be applied again. I will not go into detail here and send Moslems scurrying to maps and history books so as not to be forced to repeat their mistakes of the past. The Reconquista, Poitiers, Vienna show us what went right for us and what we could have improved upon. Economic, military, diplomatic, and political means must be used to achieve the ultimate goal: the sound defeat of the Islamic forces and the return of Islamic populations to Islamic lands.
I'll butt into this discussion.
First off, it was huge amounts of fun to see all the references to Bjørns blog post around the web. It's also been huge amounts of fun to see how many of you did not get the point of the posting.
Because that's what happened - you actually didn't spend time at all to read the post.
Point number one:
"Do you think surveillance will put an end to terrorism? Read up on cryptography."
Point number two:
"There are many things we can do, and there's no reason to make it easy for terrorists to kill us. New laws can be useful, and so can money, and even sometimes invasions. "
Point number three:
"No matter how you want to fight terrorism, you also need to find a way to live with it. Live with the possibility of hijackings and plane bombings, of suicide bombers on trains and buses, of snipers killing random people in the street. Terrorism is here to stay, deal with it."
There will always be terrorism. There is a somewhat infamous saying that says something along the lines of "Nothing can stop a dedicated assassin who wants to trade his life with yours". That dedicated assassin cannot, however, bring down society. He can hurt a single person or a small group of people. He alone cannot unravel society and civilization as we know it - UNLESS we let him.
The nature of terrorism is that their weapon is NOT - as seem to be what many believe - that they can knock down a building or two. That's easy. Most readers of this blog should be, or is, competent enough to make their own explosives and bring down a big building - instilling terror in people. It's extremely easy to become a "successfull" terrorist. Except, of course, that you die in the process.
The main weapon of terrorism is to instill terror in people. It's to generate fear. If we choose to not let ourselves be terrorized. If we choose not to become afraid - then the terrorists have failed their objective. OK, they did knock down a couple of buildings - or they did blow up a couple of trains - which is horrible. If I don't cancel my airline ticket, and do not stop travelling by train - and even better - I don't even become afraid of neither flying nor travelling by train - the terrorists have failed to accomplish their goal. They have failed to make me afraid.
Loads of you call Bjørn a coward - most, if not all, of you failed to see his point. Cowardize is, like Bruce Willis, to be afraid of flying after Sept.11 . Cowardize is to be afraid of going onto the London subway after the bombings there. Cowardize is to be afraid of spanish railroads after the madrid bombings.
Now, we can debate whether Islam has become a so big nuisance that we should carpet-bomb most of the middle east. If so, it should be because the actual damage they inflict to our society is so big that we really would be better off if we did so. For me, that's still unfathomable.
We can debate and choose to take action against immigration from certain countries. There will be howls about racism. There will be howls about unfairness. There will be major problems with people that are in love, and wants to live with their loved ones. Especially as any measures taken thypically will be against "all" foreign countries - not just countries with a certain religion.
We can debate demographics, which are quite worrying in my eyes as well as in many other peoples eyes.
All the three above-mentioned points are, however, different debates than the one Bjørn focuses on in his posting. They're allmost off topic. Terrorism is here to stay. It'll always be here. We'll have to find out how to handle it, without letting our fear of it control our actions.
Somewhere around 3000-4000 people or so died in Sept.11 Somewhere around 40000 people die in car accidents in the US every year
What are you more afraid of? Terrorist attacks or driving in a car? Personally I'm not afraid of neither. I'm for some reason more interested in fighting terrorism than I'm in securing the roads. The reason - for my sake - is that I'm dead tired of people being so fscking _afraid_ of terrorism. They create stupid laws that makes my freedom more awkward. Heh? Do you know the proposed rules for airplane travel in Europe? You're not allowed to have more than 1dl of liquid with you in the carry-on luggage for airplanes! 1dl of water! aggh! I tend to bring 1.5liters of Pepsi Max! And I should not be allowed to? Damned terrorists who make people so fscking afraid! People that are afraid of terrorism limits my freedom - and that annoys me.
No to all the rest of you - reread Bjørns posting. Read it with open eyes instead of the closed ones you've previously read it with. Realize that his point isn't to roll over and let yourself be taken in the ass. Realize that he's not a cultural relativist. Realize that he wants to stop limiting your and mine freedom - and stop creating knee-jerk solutions that will just annoy the hell out of us, with no tangible benefit.
So let me get this straight.Political correctness is more important than life itself. You Sir, are an idiot.
You Euros are finished. You might as well cut your losses, pass out korans and start the mass conversion. Welcome to Eurabia.
Bjorn, you are nothing more than a suicidal mental patient. Has it occured to you that if the world was run under Islamic sharia law, political correctness and civil liberties would be airbrushed from history?
You will be crowned a martyr to political correctness!!
Her name is Brigitte Gabriel, and she's a Lebanese journalist who grew up a Christian in the Middle East. She has written the book, "Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America." I get the feeling she is unconcerned about whether folks think she sufficiently hedges her critiques of radical Islam and surrounds them with caveats and P.C. phrases for the religion of peace. Why? Because she believes the risk is too great for the West to mince words and unwittingly end up facing an enemy we never understood.
This clip is nine minutes long, but it's worth it-- partly because it's my first adventure in video editing and it took me several hours, failures, and e-mails to Allah to get it done, but mostly because she's a great speaker.
Gabriel was asked the same question Esmay asked Michelle this week, though much more politely, at an event at The Heritage Foundation. Here are her answers (watch your volume; she gets riled):
The whole speech is at this link. About an hour long and awesome. http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/e836794a-e98c-4325-80a7-62b79ae81edc
This is a brilliant video - there's also a shorter youtube version at the site.
Action speaks louder than words!!!
Americans listen carefully to what she says and TAKE ACTION NOW.
Gosh I wish someone like you was around before World War 2. If the world then had taken advice like stated in your essay, then the Nazis would have taken over Norway and we probably wouldn't have to listen to your assinine opinions. You can fluff up your feathers and strut around all you want, act brave but fall short of acting. But it isn't going to scare the Islamofacists one little bit. Let's hope that no one takes you to seriously when it comes time for someone to pull Norway's rear end out of the fire.
Right from the start - more than one year ago -I knew you were a nutter Bjorn Staerk. You are quintessentially symptomatic for Europes disease. Change your moniker from bearstrong to winnieweak. Basically, people like you are a bigger problem than the paedophile worshippers.
Terrorists can only kill a few people at a time? Do you forget 9/11, do you forget Madrid, do you forget Bali, do you forget London? The statement that terrorists only kill a few people is a naïve understatement and a slight upon the victims of terrorist attacks. Also, the fear of terrorism is not irrational. To believe so brings undue risk upon those who believe it. To not view a fear of terrorism as real is a suicidal idea. This view is a form of denial, which you claim to dislike. In the end, you live under the haze of denial. Having suspicion of "Arabs" on a plane does not destroy an "open and tolerant society." It is possible to have suspicion, and not destroy an open and tolerant society. To separate these two as opposites gives a false choice. So, go ahead and ignore any fear and understate any threat. However, wishing it away accomplishes nothing. I prefer to live.
"I don't see much bravery anywhere, but least off all among the loudest of the anti-terror warriors. It's not brave to scream on your blog for even more anti-terror laws. It's not brave to be willing to torture innocent people because there's a chance they might be guilty..."
You're giving in to the Euro-propaganda Bjorn. The American torture debate isn't about innocent people, it is about rare cases such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of 9-11 and a big wig in Al Qaeda.
Don't let your media elites wear down and manipulate you Bjorn.
"I wonder how people in Israel have dealt with terrorism, especially when the suicide bombings were at a peak a couple of years ago. The international media focused on the politics and the deaths, but what was the approach on the personal level? What did people tell themselves when they went on the bus, for instance? How many broke apart, how many made a successful effort to live "normally", and if so how did they manage it?"
Wishful thinking isn't going to get you anywhere. Israel is economically faltering and summer emmigration. One nuclear weapons and the state is going to be moribound.
Wishful thinking and optimism are neither rational thinking nor desireable.
The world sucks, and we have to do with it. Fuzzy bromides do noone good.
*have to deal with it
"[Being] brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there’s a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip"
No sir - being brave in that instance would be to confront the pilot of the plane and demand the removal of the suspicious looking Arabs from the flight.
That is being brave.
I value life itself, over "political correctness".