[tokenadult]

Hear. Hear. I want to be able to walk into an airport with my shoes on and walk calmly to an arrival gate to greet arriving passengers there. And I want to be able to carry a Swiss Army knife in an airline carry-on bag. And I want the terrorists to be attacked relentlessly where they live, so that they have to hide in caves and ride on goats, while Americans and other people in developed countries get to lead civilized, advanced lives in the Twenty-First Century. Taliban delenda est.

AFTER EDIT: I wonder what aspect of this people disagree with. Do you still want to have to take your shoes off in airports?

Further edit, to reply to the first kind reply:

I still don't think attacking terrorists relentlessly is ever beneficial.

I guess that's an empirical question of history and current events. What does help people lead tolerant, civilized lives and be at peace with other people who may have differing opinions? I read a biography of Joseph Stalin back in the 1990s, after the Soviet archives became available to independent researchers, and the striking thing about how Joseph Stalin developed his influence in the Bolshevik movement was that he was a very active terrorist, frequently directly involved in random bomb attacks. We should consider the facts about Sri Lanka and Rwanda and other places to get a reality check on the power of terrorism.

I think communism mostly collapsed (as it mostly has by now) with the help of information flow into countries living under communist dictatorships that were established in some cases by domestic terrorism and in some cases by armed invasion from another country. The case of eastern and western Germany is especially illustrative: it's just where the tanks stopped after the armistice that ended the European phase of World War II that determined which parts of Germany became the postwar Federal Republic of Germany (BRD) and which became the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Several of the communist governments of eastern Europe were turned out of power largely peacefully when Western mass media made it all too apparent how different life was on the other side of the Iron Curtain. But it took an entire human lifetime for communism to decline in its influence on Europe.

So, yeah, if a peaceful process of information flow could bring Afghanistan into the Twenty-First Century, I'm all for that. I don't see how any rational person who knows well how other people live could want a whole country to be living under Taliban rule. But the Taliban's method is not to let most people in Afghanistan or Pakistan decide the issue freely. Their method is to give girls and women no voice, all non-Muslims little or no voice, and any Muslim who thinks that Islam is consistent with science and progress little or no voice. They use violence and thuggery to get their way in the areas they control. So, yes, if they are willing to send people onto airplanes to fly from Europe to the United States with bombs in their shoes (as they have been), I say let loose the drones, and let's keep the Taliban leaders hiding in caves and unable to travel more rapidly than at goat speed until peaceful news and education campaigns have enough time to win over so many of the common people of the world that the Taliban can no longer gain influence even through threats. Taliban delenda est. Peacefully or violently, the Taliban must be destroyed.

[anu_gupta]

> I say let loose the drones

You do realise that what the drone attacks are doing is to further radicalise people in Pakistan, don't you? A bit like what's happening in Gaza, what these attacks do is remove a few visible figureheads, kill people who aren't necessarily connected, and turn a good number of previously neutral or inactive people into sympathisers or more active combatants.

The idea of a relentless attack strategy is, with respect, utterly absurd and has about as much chance of real success as the War on Drugs. The rest of what you say makes much more sense. Communication is the key. Relentlessly communicate instead of relentlessly attack.

[zanny]

Being an invasive empire doesn't make people like you? What an interesting proposition. It might baffle a few dozen suits who run the military industrial complex, before they go back to laughing while wiping their bums with $100 bills of taxpayer money.

Same way the pharmaceutical industry, for profit prison industry, and lumber industry (last one is debated plenty) will continue to shove money into politics to keep drugs illegal and prisons nicely packed full of pot smokers. It is all about the money, not the morality. That went out the window decades ago.

[Zimahl]

> lumber industry (last one is debated plenty)

The lumber industry? You're seriously comparing Big Pharma and for-profit prison companies with the timber industry?

I'm not sure if you are talking about America in the 2010s, but the timber industry is tanking. Maybe if you were talking about the 1970s I might peripherally agree.

The timber industry is so bad right now that it is cheaper to buy 2x4s to burn in your fireplace than firewood harvested from logging scraps.

[DanBC]

The Lumber Cartel is an ancient Internet meme. (People against spam must be shills of the paper trade, paid for by the lumber industry.) It gets mentioned when you're talking about cartels just because.

[dinedal]

I think he included them because they were the original reason for suppressing marijuana, not Big Pharma

[zanny]

I like how I put in parens that it is debated, and it gets debated :P

But yes, they were the original reason for the widespread propaganda spree against pot, but today it is due to big pharma. And people on the internet always argue about it!

[smsm42]

You seem to base your opinion of what is happening in Gaza on occasional random watching of biased TV news, which is not a good way to form an informed opinion. If facts are of any interest to you, here you go:

1. Strikes in Gaza are not removing figurehead, they strike known military commanders, whose direct involvement in the acts of terror and war is beyond any reasonable doubt. They also strike infrastructure used for such activities and for other purposes by military organisations. Of course, Israel army is not ideal and sometimes it is impossible to strike military targets without hurting civilians, and sometimes the intelligence is mistaken or the execution is flawed and civilians suffer. However representing it as "removing figureheads" and "killing people who aren't connected" only is to pervert the whole reality of what is happening. 2. As for further radicalizing - I'm not sure how you see further radicalizations of Hamas. Instead of destroying Israel and killing or expelling all Jews living there they'd want what? Instead of shooting rockets into the midst of Israeli cities and sending human bombs into the midst of Israel streets, restaurants malls they would do what? How you imaging further radicalized Hamas and Islamic Jihad that is worse than they are now? 3. The whole premise that people become terrorists because somebody hurt them is a red herring. Of course, some individual people do, but there are numerous example of terrorist organisations - both Islamic and non-Islamic - composed of people who were never hurt by anybody, they just decided that's the right thing to do. The facts show that stopping fighting terrorists does not make them disband for lack of recruits - this makes them bolder. Leaving Afghanistan to Taliban did not make Taliban unpopular. Leaving Gaza to Hamas did not make Hamas unpopular. Quite the contrary - they grew stronger and gathered more resources. 4. There is much difference with War on Drugs, and it can be easily seen. Terrorists are criminals that hurt people in order to advance their political agenda, and count on population being afraid and thus caving in to their demands. Drug users do not hurt anybody but themselves, have no demands from anybody and are pursued by the state for the only reason of spending their time and money in a fashion not approved by the state. If you leave drug users alone, nothing would happen. If you leave terrorists alone, you get 9/11. Notice the difference?

[WettowelReactor]

Drug users and terrorist are wholly separate groups that need wholly separate approaches but to claim that drug users only harm themselves is just not true. That being said the War on Drugs seems to amplify the impact of drug use on society rather than minimize it but just leaving drug users alone is as failed a policy as leaving the terrorists alone.

[gsnedders]

Why do you assume that all terrorists live in places with caves and goats? The CIRA, RIRA, Irrintzi, and many other such organizations are still active.

Assuming the big risk of terrorism is Islamic extremism (and originating from the Middle East) is a naïve, American-centric view: plenty of us live our lives more threatened by local separatist groups than by Islamic extremism. The big risk in the UK today is still Irish separatist groups, likewise in the Basque country.

Ignoring all that: I still don't think attacking terrorists relentlessly is ever beneficial. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, as the saying goes: they are driven not to destroy, but to get their aims. The IRA were never going to be defeated by force: by killing the nationalist freedom fighters you inherently radicalized more, and the same is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq to an even bigger degree. To many, it's not a case of evil infidels attacking, but rather the evil foreign aggressor killing their friends and family — if a foreign country attacked yours, claiming to rid you of evil and imposing their morals on you, would you stand by as they killed people you knew, under the promise of a better land? This is how the coalition forces are seen by many, especially in Iraq.

Defeating terrorism by force is like defeating the Hydra by force: everyone you kill radicalizes two more.

[anigbrowl]

As an Irish person, I disagree. The IRA had a very specific territorial objective: ending British rule in Northern Ireland. The Taliban are not articulating an alternative approach to Afghan nationalism, they're religious radicals that think it's OK to assassinate 12 year old girls, stone unmarried lovers to death, and behead their political opponents. When the freedoms you're fighting for consist exclusively of oppressing other people, then your cause is bankrupt.

Pull out a map of the region. The main reason the taliban got to be so powerful is that Pakistan's ISI (intelligence agency) considered a Taliban-run Afghanistan strategically useful in the ongoing struggle between Pakistan and India over the territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

PS don't assume that because I'm Irish I supported the IRA's objective - quite the opposite, in fact.

[blibble]

no, instead the IRA were religious radicals that thought it was OK to place car bombs in Central London, Manchester, and countless other cities, murdering hundreds of innocent people going about their daily business.

The Taliban have a clear military objective too: remove the infidels and their supporters from the country that was formerly theirs.

quite how this is any different from the IRA, semantically or morally, I'm really not sure.

[anigbrowl]

The IRA were not religious radicals. You had a Protestant population whose loyalties lay with the government of the UK and a catholic one whose loyalties lay with the Irish Republic, but this was nothing more than a side effect of Britain adopting a different state religion several centureis ago. Nobody ever solicited or repeated IRA opinions on religious dogma, because they didn't have any. For that matter the IRA wasn't in the habit of bombing Protestant churches in Northern Ireland, but generally attacked military bases and police stations. One Catholic priest was directly involved with the IRA bombing campaign, but this was exceptional, out of hundreds of churches in the region.

The Taliban have a clear military objective too: remove the infidels and their supporters from the country that was formerly theirs.

They were stoning and beheading people and generally running Afghanistan as a medieval hellhole when they were in charge of the place without any miitary opposition, back in the 1990s.

[Spooky23]

The IRA weren't religious radicals, they were nationalists.

My grand-uncle was an IRA man starting in the 1920's, and probably supported them in some way into the 1980's. It is difficult to convey the depth of feeling that folks like my uncle felt. His father was imprisoned for writing things unfavorable to the British. His uncle was deported for sedition. His entire community was impoverished by onerous taxation and discrimination.

The Taliban want to embrace a fundamentalist vision of Islamic law and institute a theocratic government. Removing foreign influences is a rallying cry, but not the core objective -- they dominated the country well after the Soviet withdrawal, and were themselves a product of foreign intervention. (Ie. Pakistan)

[anu_gupta]

I think the IRA and the ANC are great examples to suggest that violence and "relentless attack" aren't necessarily the best options when trying to combat "terrorism".

[gsnedders]

The IRA are a brilliant example of this in how they became popular: they had very little support when they took (British) Dublin, by force, in Easter 1916. Yet, after the execution (for high treason) of the leaders, when some were still badly wounded from the British counter-attack, turned far more against the British than had ever been before: the British turned those freedom fighters who few supported into martyrs for their cause.

[tammer]

It is precisely your neo-imperialist, 'preemptive strike' mentality that is the cause of contemporary terrorism.

It is, in fact, terrorism itself.

If you think your life as a Western consumer is somehow non-violent and unrelated to the global situation, I pity your naïveté.

I haven't the time to expound further.

[anigbrowl]

No it isn't. The US accepted the Taliban as de facto rules of Afghanistan, notwithstanding their backwards approach to running the country, and negotiated with them on things like rights-of-way for trade and so on up to the summer of 2001, when the Taliban broke off negotiations. That was before the attack on the US took place and the Taliban turned out to have been giving Al Qaeda a a home for its terrorist activities.

There are lots and lots of things wrong with Western policy towards Central Asia, but the causal argument boils down to 'you made me do it', which is almost never true.

[smsm42]

Terrorism is a tactic of murdering civilians in order to scare other civilians to behave like the terrorists want. Striking terrorists is nothing like that - nobody cares how they behave once they fulfill one simple condition - they don't murder anybody, don't blow up stuff and don't kidnap and behead people they consider infidels. If they stopped doing that, nobody would care what they do.

It's the same as saying putting a murderer into prison is the same as kidnapping an innocent child. Both limit freedom, but if you think for a minute, you'll find the difference. Try it.

[tammer]

Are you honestly deluded enough to believe there have been no civilian casualties in the United States' war?

Are you honestly too callous and/or imbecilic to think that calling this "collateral damage" changes the situation for someone who's life has been destroyed by a foreign entity?

Again, I'm speechless at how deeply some have imbibed the propaganda of the war machine. Please, please recognize the terrible mistake in your logic.

[detst]

  [...] I pity your naïveté
  Are you honestly deluded [...]
  Are you honestly too callous and/or imbecilic [...]

Where's the substance? You said "I haven't the time to expound further" and then came back to spew more insults. Reasonable people read "I haven't the time" as "I haven't a valid argument but I disagree so I'll make you out to be a fool so obviously wrong that you're not worthy of a proper rebuttal". That doesn't work here.

[tammer]

I found some time.

First and foremost, there is simply no recourse for smsm42's argument, no recourse that that holds reason to a higher degree than nationalism.

Particularly,

  nobody cares how they behave once they fulfill that one simple
  condition - they don't murder anybody, don't blow up stuff and don't
  kidnap and behead people they consider infidels.

This remark doesn't allow for American acts of war to have any degree of inaccuracy. If you take such an idea as fact, you and I shall never find agreement. While perhaps my insults betray their hasty inception, the idea is so inaccurate as to warrant it's correction being, in my mind, an act of human decency.

Now, let's move to the matter at hand.

The crux of tokenadult's argument is that, above all:

  Americans and other people in developed countries get to lead
  civilized, advanced lives in the Twenty-First Century.

This is the element with which I find fault, and where you may find the division between myself and those who follow the causality constructed by propaganda. For there is an extreme fallacy here, one that is perpetuated endlessly and has set the tone of our generation.

How, I ask, can we lead civilized lives while actively participating in war?

There is a disconnect between the technologically and socially liberated, wonderfully progressive population of Americans imagined in tokenadult's words and the utter chaos and violence unleashed in the reality of ground invasions and air strikes. The problem with tokenadult's argument is that this break in the chain of causality is a complete illusion.

Now, you may argue, how can a "civilian" be participating in a war they did not decide to enter, and was in fact prompted by a major attack?

To which I would reply, I'm not talking about the conflict in Afghanistan.

I'm talking about the drug war, and all its brutal ramifications from the international to the local. I'm talking about the return of slavery manifested in our prison economy. I'm talking about trade agreements both national and private designed to create entire populations of debtors. I'm talking about the very concept of health care that hinges on salary. There are many more.

These are all wars we fight daily, contribute to endlessly, and support in our very existence. Not only our tax dollars, but our attitudes and opinions are weapons in these wars.

tokenadult looks around and sees a peaceful utopia. I look around and see a society rampaged by violence, racism, sexism, and class warfare. This is not a future I wish for Afghanistan, or anyone at all.

And I certainly don't think we can get anyone anywhere by force.

Time's up. Now let's go write some code and get on with our lives.

[afterburner]

I didn't downvote you, but it's very obviously this part: "And I want the terrorists to be attacked relentlessly where they live"

This implies enthusiastic support of constant US intervention in foreign lands. Maybe that's not what you meant, but I'm guessing it's what people are reacting to.

[s_henry_paulson]

I downvoted him. This is ignorance that shouldn't be tolerated.

He's acting like the Taliban is a personal threat to him when traveling by air. They are not, and citing things like Richard Reid (who was British), do not support the argument.

There are repressive regimes all over the world, many that commit atrocities much worse than the Taliban, yet I still feel that I should be able to board a flight without someone putting their hands on my penis.

The whole Taliban argument seems misplaced as well considering nearly all of the terrorists that attacked on 9/11 (the cause of the increased airport security) were nearly all from Saudi Arabia.

So while we do nothing to Saudi Arabia, this person wants to feel safer flying by dropping bombs on Pakistanis.

Stupid on many levels.

[smutticus]

> I say let loose the drones

If you're comfortable killing people indiscriminantly then others will be comfortable killing you indiscriminantly. As long as you offer them that bargain they will continue to take it.

Personally, I really don't care what happens in Afghanistan. It's not my problem, I've never been there, and I don't believe I have the right to decide their future. But I find your belief that drone attacks are actually destroying the Taliban fanciful.

Most of the people drone attacks kill are not the intended targets. How would you react if a foreign power killed someone you loved? Would you go away, never to be heard from again? Or would you take up arms against that foreign power? Given your bombast and chest beating I'm assuming you wouldn't stay silent. So what makes you think that the relatives of the people being killed in drone attacks are somehow going to just go away?

[engtech]

"So, yeah, if a peaceful process of information flow could bring Afghanistan into the Twenty-First Century, I'm all for that."

I'm constantly surprised that when it comes to regime change that there isn't an effort to set up some satellites and air-drop some mobile smartphones with data plans designed with the same principals as one-laptop-per-child.

Look at what Facebook and Twitter did for the Arab Spring.

[smsm42]

The role of Facebook and Twitter in Arab Spring is hugely exaggerated. Yes, people used both to communicate. But nothing was caused by it - it was caused by people being tired by old and rusty dictatorships, which also suppressed their religious thrivings (which btw may be not really all that nice if fulfilled - dictatorship is bad, but formally democratic fundamentalist regime is not really freedom either).

The reason why airdropping mobile phones would not work is very simple - first, they would not work (no electricity, no coverage in most of the territory), second, the ruling powers would execute everybody that uses it. And they are quite good at executing people for ... well, anything they like. Limiting flow of information to majority of people is quite easy, if the regime is ruthless enough to enforce it.

OLPC is possible only with local authorities' cooperation. Without it, it could achieve nothing.

[MartinCron]

Further edit, to reply to the first kind reply

I might be alone in this, but I really prefer replies to replies instead of piling edits on top of edits. Much easier to follow that way.

[gasull]

We would be better off if we didn't arm terrorists in the first place, because they end up attacking us.

http://cryptome.org/tim-osman.htm

The US armed the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviet invasion.