'the war on terror is a bunch of crap' keith olbermann

[spanone]

yep


Many people have said it, but now a respected think tank has put its imprimatur on it: the "global war on terror" is a misguided concept. A major new RAND study look at how terrorist groups have historically ended, concludes that in most cases, political accommodation and infiltration -- not brute force -- broke up the groups. Of course, RAND also notes that political accommodation works when the terrorists' goals are narrow (i.e. RAND is not recommending political accommodation with Al Qaeda, which has far-reaching goals).

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/war-on-terroris.html

[Lasher]

1. Yep

[islandmkl]

2. yessir

[Redstone]

3. Kinda like the "war on drugs," yes? Have we won THAT one yet?

Redstone

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Keith is the only person that reports this stuff on TV

We all know it but TV viewers don't.

[Ilsa]

5. Yep, policing the "terrorists" works best. nt

[ngant17]

11. Well, I'm still waiting for it to work in Miami

because the S. Florida police, and various law enforcement on the federal level like the FBI and the CIA, these 'police' have in fact been associated with the terrorists themselves. So how does this actually work then?

What does work tremendously is when ordinary Cuban civilians are able to come here and infiltrate the Miami terror cells and expose them to the public eye, but no one in the US gov. wants to discuss the fact that the Cuban Five have been thrown in jail for trying to do exactly this, to police the terrorists in Miami so that they will be hindered from attacking Cuba from training camps in South Florida.

[polichick]

6. I think a "war on" anything is bullshit. Thanks Keith!

[Peace Patriot]

7. Well, since we (U.S./Bush) created Al Qaeda, and their goals seem quite similar to

the goals of those who made them--i.e., U.S./Bush and U.S. war profiteers--perhaps U.S./Bush could reach "political accommodation" with them. Let's see: Force women to wear veils, give birth to more cannon fodder and stay in the kitchen. Check. Everybody worships the Big Prick in the Sky. Check. Everybody's armed to the teeth--guns and bombs rule. Check. Only rich sheiks get to be perverts. Check. Trash Mother Earth--with oil and other pollutants, cut down every tree, create a big planetary desert. Check.

RAND is not thinking creatively. Illegitimate 'presidents' and self-appointed 'mullahs' need each other, but are a great menace to the rest of us. Give them Mars, maybe. Let them fight it out to the death in low gravity with not too much oxygen. Terrorism is their sport, their entertainment, all they know or could ever be taught. Destroying others' lives and happiness is their fun. Al Qaeda and Bushites are one and the same. They already have "political accommodation." It is the rest of humanity that can't "accommodate" itself to their Forever War. How to expel them is the question--and maybe stop them from procreating? Caveat: If they don't have women to lord it over, and lesser races, and all that cannon fodder, they might get surly and rocket back here and trash earth again. We could send them further out. How about we put 'em on a faith-based rocket out of the solar system?

You can't have "political accommodation" with people who can only "accommodate" to endless war, and collude with each other to create the endless war that they so fervently desire.

[bullwinkle428]

8. What an abolutely brilliant point he made, although

it's sure to be lost on every pathetic little dickless, Neocon keyboard commando member of the Fighting 82nd Chairborne!

[Disturbed]

9. The Illegal Invasion of Iraq was & still is about the Iraqi Oil.

The Invasion of Afghanistan is about Natural Gas Line Pipe & the Opium Fields control. There has never been a War ON Terror. It is a smoke screen for Imperialism. If the Busholini Regime actually wanted to decimate al Q they could have done so without overthrowing the Taliban.

[dflprincess]

12. And now we're being told that any troops that get pulled out of Iraq

can be used to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

[ngant17]

10. The Rand study is lacking in some respects

I have not read the entire manuscript, a long download on my dial-up modem, but from the table of contents, I see one problem here, it is its grouping of the FMLN guerrilla organization as a terrorist organization. As I understand it, the FMLN were historically an organized group of armed partisans who were involved in a civil war in El Salvador, and Rand seems to turned the table on terrorism here, it was in fact used as a political instrument of the state as conducted by the rightwing Salvadoran oligarchy, which was in turn fully supported with ample funds from US military aid. And during this same time, the Contras were every bit a terrorist organization in Nicaragua as Al Qaida ever has been, yet where is the Rand critique on this notorious bunch of cutthroats and bloodthirsty mercenaries? They seem to have selected specific sets of armed groups to try to prove their pre-conceived point, with no historical context from an independent point of view. Really, you could extend the argument to just about the whole theatre of military campaigns throughout Central America during this time. And South America, for that matter.

What about the Cuban exile groups in Miami in the 1960s? If these weren't bona fide terrorist cells, I don't know what the definition of terrorism is.

The Rand Corp. needs to make a definitive study on the difference between terrorism and guerrilla warfare and national liberation movements. I suspect they are too biased themselves to be up to the task.

They may have a noble aim, by criticizing the current approach, but the whole manuscript lacks any understanding of culture and history to impress me.