War Is Not A Solution For Terrorism By Howard Zinn

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-09/07zinn.cfm

THERE IS SOMETHING important to be learned from the recent experience of the United States and Israel in the Middle East: that massive military attacks, inevitably indiscriminate, are not only morally reprehensible, but useless in achieving the stated aims of those who carry them out.

The United States, in three years of war, which began with shock-and-awe bombardment and goes on with day-to-day violence and chaos, has been an utter failure in its claimed objective of bringing democracy and stability to Iraq. The Israeli invasion and bombing of Lebanon has not brought security to Israel; indeed it has increased the number of its enemies, whether in Hezbollah or Hamas or among Arabs who belong to neither of those groups.

I remember John Hersey's novel, "The War Lover," in which a macho American pilot, who loves to drop bombs on people and also to boast about his sexual conquests, turns out to be impotent. President Bush, strutting in his flight jacket on an aircraft carrier and announcing victory in Iraq, has turned out to be much like the Hersey character, his words equally boastful, his military machine impotent.

The history of wars fought since the end of World War II reveals the futility of large-scale violence. The United States and the Soviet Union, despite their enormous firepower, were unable to defeat resistance movements in small, weak nations -- the United States in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan -- and were forced to withdraw.

[mike_c]

1. K&R-- and note the relevance to this thread about Afghanistan....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2845435

Even when the "enemy" is relatively discrete, like the taliban, a military solution is only a stopgap at best because the real enemy is a whole culture, the only way to subdue it is genocide, and the military is poorly trained for selectively defeating people who are differentiated from non-foes primarily by their attitudes rather than by uniforms and flags. If we're going to target terrorism we need an entirely new approach-- a nonviolent one, IMO-- that undermines the impetus to attack defenseless non-combatants. Oddly, if murdering innocents is part of the definition of terrorism, then we have responded to terrorism by becoming the most proficient terrorists currently operating.

[Boojatta]

2. South African Apartheid has not been subdued?

Or was genocide used to subdue it?

Even when the "enemy" is relatively discrete, like the taliban, a military solution is only a stopgap at best because the real enemy is a whole culture, the only way to subdue it is genocide (...)

[mike_c]

3. an interesting example-- apartheid was not "subdued" in the sense...

...that I was talking about. It simply failed in South Africa, much the way marxism failed in Afghanistan. The Afrikaans are hardly comparable to the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan-- if anything that metaphor is less strained when the Psshtuns play the role of the oppressed black majority in South Africa, but the metaphor doesn't make much sense that way and I'm sure you wouldn't have used it in that context. Still, it was the Afrikaans who tried to impose their culture on the majority population, and failed. Likewise, the Soviets failed to impose a Marxist regime on Afghanistan through the puppet Babrak Karmal. The Pashtun fought them ferociously, the Taliban arose from their ranks, and now it is our turn to try and subjegate the mujahedeen. I don't think it's likely to succeed without something very close to ethnic cleansing. That's not the business I want my country in, no matter horified we are by ultra-conservative religious muslims.

Bringing this back to the OP, we're fighting the taliban with what amount to terror tactics-- bombing and shooting indiscriminantly inside a mostly civilian population. And then there's the prison at Bogram AFB.

[Boojatta]

4. Unfortunately I need to discuss the discussion before continuing it.

apartheid was not "subdued" in the sense... that I was talking about. It simply failed in South Africa, much the way marxism failed in Afghanistan.

What's the distinction between being subdued and failing? If people in one country contribute to the collapse of some system in another country, then how do we know whether or not they subdued the system?

The Afrikaans are hardly comparable to the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan-- if anything that metaphor is less strained when the Pashtuns play the role of the oppressed black majority in South Africa, but the metaphor doesn't make much sense that way (...)

I did not intend to use a metaphor. I thought that you were applying a general principle and I intended to apply your general principle to a different example. The message that I am now replying to begins with the words "an interesting example."

Even when the "enemy" is relatively discrete, like the taliban, a military solution is only a stopgap at best because the real enemy is a whole culture, the only way to subdue it is genocide (...)

You wrote "like the taliban", which suggests that the taliban is just one possible example. Did you not intend to suggest that?

You did write "the only way" and that seems to be a kind of claim that is often very difficult to support. After all, there might be some way that you have not considered or imagined. A single alternative method that works will disprove a "the only way" claim.

[Boojatta]

5. The thread title includes the words "War is not a solution."

Are you saying something like this? "Yes, war is not a solution. Genocide is the only solution. However, genocide is unacceptable. Therefore there is no acceptable solution."

We can imagine a violent conflict between North Korea and South Korea. I doubt that North Koreans would want to kill South Koreans simply because South Koreans are Korean. I doubt that South Koreans would want to kill North Koreans simply because North Koreans are Korean.

Genocide is a solution if race is the problem, but race is the problem only in the minds of racists.