Political rant
Jul. 22nd, 2003 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wintergr3yStand back, people. It's Paul's first Official Full-on Rant. Some news today pushed one of my hot buttons, so here I go. Also, please set aside the current "War on Terror" that the United States is waging for a moment.
It's summertime, which means warm weather, beaches, vacations, kite flying, tourist biking, visiting monuments and wilderness areas, and all those other traditional summer activities. Oh, yes, and bombs in northern Spain. Yes folks, the good ol' ETA has started up their summer bombing campaign again. Their first step was to kill a bunch of foreign tourists.
Would someone explain to me -- no, explain to them -- exactly how killing a bunch of innocent tourists, who are spending money in the Basque region thus helping the local economy, is going to convince the Spanish and French governments, much less the rest of the world, that the Basques deserve independence? Gadz, the Basque terror movement has been active for, what, 30 or 50 years; have they ever gotten anywhere?
Terrorists are whiners. They can't (or won't) get anywhere with a properly motivated peaceful political campaign, or a properly organized military guerrilla campaign, so instead they lash out, like children having a tantrum, and kill people who very often have absolutely nothing to do with their cause.
IMO, the basic tactic of any group that wants to become independent, or change a system, should be to plead their case both locally and internationally, make a lot of noise, and perhaps very occasionally do some large-scale strikes or marches or somesuch to make the front pages. That way people can hear about them and become sympathetic to their cause, and add to the pressure. It's a long, slow process. Could take generations.
When you resort to terrorism, however, you do exactly the opposite. The entire world is galvanized against you. Local authorities have a very good reason to wipe you off the map. And if you really piss someone (read: us Americans) off we bring our big honkin' military over there and erase you and leave your country in a shambles. So how, exactly, did that help your cause?
I mean, c'mon, how many of you readers out there really think to yourselves on a regular basis, "You know, I really think that Spain and France should cede the Pyrenees and surrounding provinces to the Basque people." When you think of the Basque region, do you consider the oppression the Spanish and French visit daily upon the minority Basque population? No, of course not! There isn't any oppression of the Basques as a whole. But still ETA thinks it's a good idea to blow up tourists and assassinate judges and police chiefs.
Actually, the judge and police thing I can understand. I mean, if your peaceful political separatist movement just isn't getting anywhere you could start up a military campaign. Since there aren't many of you, you have to resort to guerrilla tactics, using your limited resources to take out key infrastructure elements and figureheads of your enemies. You know, blow up bridges, destroy power plants, kill governors, etc. That way you can make some tactical advances toward thwarting your hated enemy. But instead ETA just bombed some hotels. How is that supposed to make the Spanish government go away?
We see this a lot in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict these days. Palestinian terrorists blow up a bomb in a crowded market, killing a bunch of innocent non-military Israelis, some tourists, and probably a few innocent Palestinians too. Israel responds by making a targeted attack against a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader (perhaps an organizer of the market bombing); admittedly these aren't always "clean" attacks, and a handful of civilians sometimes get hurt or killed during the operation. The terrorists respond by blowing up a bus filled with more civilians causing more widespread damage. You know who I feel more sympathy for? I hate to say it, but the Israelis. At least (in this specific case, I'm ignoring their disgusting habit of rolling tanks into Palestinian occupied territory and other such wider atrocities) the Israelis are attempting to limit their attacks against specific military targets, not just blowing up bombs in the most crowded place they can find.
So this is my message to the true terrorists out there in the world: when you attack civilian targets you are not helping your cause. Instead, you are rallying the very people you hate to wipe you out that much faster. Please stop, you are not helping.
And now, a related mini-rant:
With the Shrub's Crusade Against Terror(tm, patent pending), "terrorist" and "terrorism" have become buzzwords. Up until America invaded Afghanistan, "terrorist" was a word that inspired a certain blood-deep reaction, conjuring visions of a particularly despised low form of the human race capable of extreme violence and fanaticism. More recently the spokespeople of many nations, including America and Britain, have started bandying the word about much more casually. The worst offenders, however, are the third world nations that use it as a cry for attention -- India and Pakistan for example -- and apply the word "terrorist" to anyone they don't like who they have or might have a confrontation with. Listen up, government spokespeople of the world: I am not fooled. If you are having problems with your neighbor and your respective armed forces are on alert, they are not terrorists. If we are invading you, we are not terrorists. If you are having economic difficulties with someone halfway across the globe, they are not terrorists. Stop misusing the word. Call a spade a spade, and a plowshare a plowshare.
It's summertime, which means warm weather, beaches, vacations, kite flying, tourist biking, visiting monuments and wilderness areas, and all those other traditional summer activities. Oh, yes, and bombs in northern Spain. Yes folks, the good ol' ETA has started up their summer bombing campaign again. Their first step was to kill a bunch of foreign tourists.
Would someone explain to me -- no, explain to them -- exactly how killing a bunch of innocent tourists, who are spending money in the Basque region thus helping the local economy, is going to convince the Spanish and French governments, much less the rest of the world, that the Basques deserve independence? Gadz, the Basque terror movement has been active for, what, 30 or 50 years; have they ever gotten anywhere?
Terrorists are whiners. They can't (or won't) get anywhere with a properly motivated peaceful political campaign, or a properly organized military guerrilla campaign, so instead they lash out, like children having a tantrum, and kill people who very often have absolutely nothing to do with their cause.
IMO, the basic tactic of any group that wants to become independent, or change a system, should be to plead their case both locally and internationally, make a lot of noise, and perhaps very occasionally do some large-scale strikes or marches or somesuch to make the front pages. That way people can hear about them and become sympathetic to their cause, and add to the pressure. It's a long, slow process. Could take generations.
When you resort to terrorism, however, you do exactly the opposite. The entire world is galvanized against you. Local authorities have a very good reason to wipe you off the map. And if you really piss someone (read: us Americans) off we bring our big honkin' military over there and erase you and leave your country in a shambles. So how, exactly, did that help your cause?
I mean, c'mon, how many of you readers out there really think to yourselves on a regular basis, "You know, I really think that Spain and France should cede the Pyrenees and surrounding provinces to the Basque people." When you think of the Basque region, do you consider the oppression the Spanish and French visit daily upon the minority Basque population? No, of course not! There isn't any oppression of the Basques as a whole. But still ETA thinks it's a good idea to blow up tourists and assassinate judges and police chiefs.
Actually, the judge and police thing I can understand. I mean, if your peaceful political separatist movement just isn't getting anywhere you could start up a military campaign. Since there aren't many of you, you have to resort to guerrilla tactics, using your limited resources to take out key infrastructure elements and figureheads of your enemies. You know, blow up bridges, destroy power plants, kill governors, etc. That way you can make some tactical advances toward thwarting your hated enemy. But instead ETA just bombed some hotels. How is that supposed to make the Spanish government go away?
We see this a lot in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict these days. Palestinian terrorists blow up a bomb in a crowded market, killing a bunch of innocent non-military Israelis, some tourists, and probably a few innocent Palestinians too. Israel responds by making a targeted attack against a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader (perhaps an organizer of the market bombing); admittedly these aren't always "clean" attacks, and a handful of civilians sometimes get hurt or killed during the operation. The terrorists respond by blowing up a bus filled with more civilians causing more widespread damage. You know who I feel more sympathy for? I hate to say it, but the Israelis. At least (in this specific case, I'm ignoring their disgusting habit of rolling tanks into Palestinian occupied territory and other such wider atrocities) the Israelis are attempting to limit their attacks against specific military targets, not just blowing up bombs in the most crowded place they can find.
So this is my message to the true terrorists out there in the world: when you attack civilian targets you are not helping your cause. Instead, you are rallying the very people you hate to wipe you out that much faster. Please stop, you are not helping.
And now, a related mini-rant:
With the Shrub's Crusade Against Terror(tm, patent pending), "terrorist" and "terrorism" have become buzzwords. Up until America invaded Afghanistan, "terrorist" was a word that inspired a certain blood-deep reaction, conjuring visions of a particularly despised low form of the human race capable of extreme violence and fanaticism. More recently the spokespeople of many nations, including America and Britain, have started bandying the word about much more casually. The worst offenders, however, are the third world nations that use it as a cry for attention -- India and Pakistan for example -- and apply the word "terrorist" to anyone they don't like who they have or might have a confrontation with. Listen up, government spokespeople of the world: I am not fooled. If you are having problems with your neighbor and your respective armed forces are on alert, they are not terrorists. If we are invading you, we are not terrorists. If you are having economic difficulties with someone halfway across the globe, they are not terrorists. Stop misusing the word. Call a spade a spade, and a plowshare a plowshare.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-22 02:27 pm (UTC)Umm... I guess that was my way-too-long-winded way of saying I agree with you completely.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-22 03:08 pm (UTC)I personally don't believe terrorist groups care a whit about their political goals. If the government of Spain said tomorrow "OK, you win--we have just acceded to every single one of your demands and given you all amnesty," would the ETA hang up its guns forever? Of course not. They're sociopathic fucks who have found a way to show how tough they are, dressing it up with the blood of people who were genuinely oppressed and who, no doubt, would be puzzled at the idea that the way to redress the injustice against them is to waste some tourists.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 03:56 pm (UTC)Of course. 99.9999999999999999% of all Basques are normal people. Just as almost every Islamic person in the world is not an Islamic terrorist, and almost every Northern Irish person wasn't a member of the IRA. Terrorists are, almost by definition, extremists and fringe members of society.
While I was doing research for my rant I did a quick Google on ETA, and was surprised to learn that they had connections to a group of Breton Separatists. Because, you know, Brittany needs to separate from France. I was trying to imagine a bunch of Celtic-speaking terrorists with cheezy French accents setting off bombs under police cars and it just wasn't working.... Except I probably shouldn't joke; there probably are Breton terrorists who've killed innocents. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 05:53 pm (UTC)"We demand reparations for the terrible slaughter of Crécy!"
What I meant, though, is that there are Basque political pro-autonomy/separation/rights groups that aren't nutso. I think it goes without saying that most Basques are normal, even if they do talk funny.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-22 04:25 pm (UTC)Among the nearly infinite problems with this theory is that governments tend not to give in.
Note that successful terrorist have history re-written around them. It wasn't all that safe in British Palestine, as the Jews were fighting to get a country. And where would Sinn Fein be without the attention-getting tactics of the IRA?
Which is the problem with terrorism. It's good at getting a group noticed. And once noticed, the power play can begin. But it rarely knows when to stop.
It ain't a problem that's going to go away soon, because it can be just effective enough.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-22 05:35 pm (UTC)Does that mean I have to stop calling Bush a terrorist? He's great at taking apart foreign countries to make a point, while completely missing his real target in the process.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 03:49 pm (UTC)It is said that History is written by the victor. Could it be that definitions are decided the same way?
And you're absolutely right that Bush the Lesser wouldn't urge the Montana civilian militia to set off bombs in Tikrit. He'd target Tehran instead.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 05:55 pm (UTC)