
Why terrorism doesn’t work (2002) [pdf] - pif
http://www.agner.org/cultsel/terror.pdf
======
skrebbel
Modern-day terrorism is a recruitment scheme. Any attack has the effect of
increasing hostilities between groups. Imagine being a teenager with an
identity crisis who happens to be part of a minority that the less intelligent
half of your home country hates and despises. What group are you most likely
to join? And what caused said hate and despise to grow? Right, terrorism.

More generally put: Virtually any organization has as its own survival as a
high priority goal. Organizations on the extreme ends of ideology, any
ideology anywhere, will benefit from increased hostilities in a population. It
pushes more people to the fringes.

Terrorism is a time-honoured way to increase hostilities. The moderates lose,
the the extreme ends on all sides win (whether you're Trump or ISIS).

Look at recent history and see how well it worked. American bombs on funerals,
ISIS bombs on French crowds, it's all terrorism and it works wonders to keep
the perpetrators powerful.

When Anders Breivik killed an island full of people, then-prime minister of
Norway responded to like this:

 _" The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and
greater political participation"_

This is the correct response to terrorism and we need a lot more of it. Once
you see terrorism for what it is, a recruiting scheme, then it is obvious that
"powerful language", "bias to action" and all that shit that politicians
usually do, is very counter-effective.

~~~
throwsincenotpc
> This is the correct response to terrorism

Breivik was an isolated incident, deadly but isolated non less. There is no
correct response to terrorism. All terrorists are different. The IRA isn't the
FARC or this or that palestinian groups or Al Qaida or Daesh. Sometimes there
is a political solution, sometimes there isn't. There is no political solution
with Daesh, these people want to exterminate their enemies, the only solution
is to exterminate them before they do.

~~~
reacweb
Probably, but we should exterminate them in the most human and democratic
manner.

------
Joeboy
If we're talking about the success or failure of terrorism in the Middle East,
it's maybe worth considering that while it's not worked out for the
Palestinians, it worked out OK for Israel:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks)

Edit: Or if you prefer you can throw away any data that doesn't back up the
hypothesis and you can believe whatever you want.

~~~
finid
Yep, it worked out really well for Israel, because all of the Irgun gangs
became statesmen or respected military leaders.

~~~
Joeboy
The same happened, so some extent, to Nelson Mandela, Gerry Adams, Yasser
Arafat and probably many others.

~~~
finid
You put Nelson Mandela in that group!

While you're at it, why not add Mahatma Gandhi

~~~
notahacker
Nelson Mandela cofounded and chaired the ANC's paramilitary wing. He might
have proved to be a superb statesman and the ANC might have had no practical
alternative to violent action, but he definitely belongs more in that company
than Gandhi's. If anything it's Adams, who has always denied direct
involvement with the IRA even if those claims aren't widely believed, that
might have cause for complaint at not being considered merely a politician.

------
imagist
You can't fail unless you have a goal, and this article doesn't describe the
goals terrorism fails at, or whether those are actually the goals of
terrorists.

------
cup
Supplementary comment: Also ironic that this article is posted today, on the
historic day when the balfour declaration was executed and probably put in
motion one of the greatest catastrophes in modern time. No single colonial
imposition can be seen to have such a direct link to so many modern terrorist
activities.

------
ejlo
He seems to have completely missed the reason for 9/11, which is not strange
since it was not until the 2004 speech
([http://worldpress.org/Americas/1964.cfm](http://worldpress.org/Americas/1964.cfm))
that bin Laden explained the reason for the attacks, namely "bleeding America
to the point of bankruptcy".

In this light it must be regarded as a great success, not a failure,
especially since the self bleeding politics continued without much opposition
long after 2004.

~~~
tristanj
No, he only started saying that after the US occupied Iraq. Before the
invasion his justification against America had strong religious basis. It's
especially clear from his earlier writings.

[http://www.mideastweb.org/osamabinladen1.htm](http://www.mideastweb.org/osamabinladen1.htm)

~~~
ejlo
It would have been quite stupid, though, to reveal the plan too early.

~~~
tristanj
The thesis "Bin Laden destroyed the 9/11 towers to bankrupt America" makes
very little sense when you dig into it. It would mean Bin Laden planned to:

\- destroy the twin towers so

\- the U.S. would justify an invasion of Iraq and

\- actually invade Iraq

\- and occupy Iraq for a prolonged period of time (and not quickly pull out)

\- so America would devote resources here

\- thus bankrupting itself

Steps 2 and 3 (and possible 4) are huge leaps of faith. It's absurd to believe
he planned all that out. It clearly fails Occam's Razor. Plus, it doesn't fit
with the historical context of what he said and wrote at the time.

~~~
ejlo
Of course, things turned out way better for him than he could have planned,
but that doesn't rule out that there was some plan behind it.

Step 1. He also attacked pentagon and Washington. Imaging if the latter had
succeeded! It's not hard to predict the reaction to such an event.

Step 2. I think he tried to provoke the attack on Afghanistan. Iraq was later.

Step 4. With the terrain in Afghanistan, a quick war is not possible.

~~~
tristanj
I'm not sure why you're clinging to this? The motivations behind the September
11 attacks have been widely discussed, see here for a summary
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_attacks).
You'll see bankruptcy or causing economic damage is not mentioned anywhere.
Bankruptcy came into the picture _after_ 9/11, when then US was prepping
invasion of Iraq.

If you really believe "Bin Laden destroyed the 9/11 towers to bankrupt
America", do find some pre-9/11 evidence of this and update the Wiki page so
others can know.

------
nailer
> the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or
> against civilian targets, in order to attain political aims

Yes. So tired of this word being used to describe attacks on soldiers. It
might be bad (depending on what side you're on), but it's certainly not
terrorism.

~~~
bjourne
Modern warfare makes the distinction tricky. Suppose you have a person sitting
in a computer center in California controlling drones dropping bombs in
Afghanistan. Is he a civilian or soldier? If not, does he become one when he
goes home from his shift for the day? What about all the computer programmers
writing drone software making his job possible?

~~~
nailer
> Suppose you have a person sitting in a computer center in California
> controlling drones dropping bombs in Afghanistan. Is he a civilian or
> soldier?

They are a soldier, attacking an enemy. I genuinely don't understand how being
further away makes that unclear.

Or any different from a soldier calling in an airstrike being further away
than a soldier with a rifle being further away than a soldier with a sword.

> If not, does he become one when he goes home from his shift for the day?

They are an off duty soldier.

> What about all the computer programmers writing drone software making his
> job possible?

They are weapons manufacturers.

------
cup
This assumes that these groups believe their actions will lead to a direct
outcome. What if these groups are acting in order to force their adversary to
change via dealing with less violent but equally reactionary forces.

For instance would the Irish people have their independence from the UK if
there was no IRA? If there was no violence why would the UK give them
something they;re not willing to take, especially when states typically only
respond to violence.

~~~
notahacker
> For instance would the Irish people have their independence from the UK if
> there was no IRA?

Depends which movement called the IRA we're talking about and (more generally)
what's meant by "terrorism". There's a degree of a difference between the
tactical approach of IRA that won the independence of the Irish Free State in
the early twentieth century through classic guerrilla warfare tactics aimed at
weakening British security forces and making Ireland ungovernable and and some
of the more stereotypical terrorist activities carried out by the Provisional
IRA in the late twentieth century involving the high profile bombing of city
centres with the (wholly unsuccessful) aim of weakening the British public's
resolve to continue to support the Union in Northern Ireland.

~~~
nailer
Didn't the provisional IRA force the government's hand in the Good Friday
Agreement? There's a fairly good chance the Catholic portion of Northern
Ireland, which generally favors independence, will overtake the Protestant
population which generally favors union with Great Britain. The GFA allows a
popular vote on the matter. So by securing a vote, NI will likely go back to
Ireland in a generation or two.

There were also immediate wins, particularly dismantling the RUC which
performed attacks against civilians and colluded with unionist terror groups.

(disclaimer: I believe attacking civilians is awful and god isn't real)

~~~
notahacker
The basic principle of self-determination by popular vote was supported by the
UK Government and opposed by the paramilitaries and hardline politicians (both
the IRA and hardline loyalists) throughout the 1980s.

They could have had something similar to the Good Friday Agreement much
earlier had they been willing to pursue that type of settlement by political
means earlier.

~~~
nailer
You're right:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/9/new...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/9/newsid_2516000/2516477.stm)

------
klagermkii
> The international community may not pay much attention to a conflict unless
> there is media focus on the issue, and the news media are unlikely to pay
> attention unless there is violence and havoc. [...] The problem of the
> entertainment-centered media strategies is thus rooted not in ethical flaws
> of individual editors, but in the fundamental economic structure of the
> media industry. It is therefore necessary to establish alternative non-
> profit news organizations to focus on dangerous conflicts and to offset the
> imbalance caused by the unequal access of the two parts to international
> news media and to remedy the problem that biased reporting is more
> profitable than balanced reporting.

I think too much is pinned on the door of the media when reporting on stories
when:

(a) they are very far away and of little interest to people

(b) have very difficult solutions and enough nuances to make peoples eyes
glaze over

(c) there is alternative coverage of other news that is more interesting

I take something like climate change which has had plenty of media attention,
but until the first city sinks underwater there isn't going to be enough
impetus for people to take the truly difficult actions. That moves it into the
national spotlight and makes it a priority, similar to how terrorism on US
soil changes "standard problems in the Middle East" into an important US
issue.

> Another reason why the use of terrorism turns out to be counterproductive is
> that it weakens the ideological standing of the weak part. The ideological
> condemnation of terrorism for harming innocents is hard to argue against.
> The use of terrorism thus ruins the only truly efficient weapon that the
> weak part has: ideological warfare.

The resistance/terrorist/freedom fighter organisation's reputation is pretty
worthless to begin with. Even if they're saints, no one is going to know about
them or care. On the other hand, the powerful country/organization/political
has an incredibly important reputation. It is absolutely worth it for the
terrorist organisation to let their own reputation sink into the mud, if in
doing so they can draw a response from the target that will tarnish its own
reputation. It's like the relationship between politican and heckler; the
heckler can say all kinds of things and people barely care, but if the
politican really lets loose and responds in kind that can damage their image.

------
laluluala
Terrorism doesn't work?

ETA in Spain only disbanded when the government stopped banning political
parties linked to ETA.

IRA in Ireland managed to give the Irish people their independence.

FARC in Colombia pushed the government to allow a vote on a truce, a truce so
bad the people voted against it.

~~~
maze-le
> ETA in Spain only disbanded when the government stopped banning political
> parties linked to ETA.

The Basque country is not independent. This was the goal of ETA in the first
place, and it was not accomplished. After the success of the parlamentary
catalan independence movement, the violent ways of the ETA had just no
justification anymore.

> IRA in Ireland managed to give the Irish people their independence.

The 1920s IRA was a complete different organisation than the 1970ies
provisional IRA. You can hardly call them terrorist by todays standards.

> FARC in Colombia pushed the government to allow a vote on a truce, a truce
> so bad the people voted against it.

The FARC did not accomplish to install a communist regime in Columbia, so
their goal was also not accomplished.

------
crdoconnor
"The most workable definition of terrorism that has been published is 'the
intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against
civilian targets, in order to attain political aims'"

So, the US bombing of TV stations in Yugoslavia or Al Jazeera in Baghdad would
definitely qualify.

~~~
endisukaj
You can argue that TV stations are no longer civilian targets if the
information they are broadcasting is being used by the military.

~~~
dilemma
Weddings and schools are definitely civilian targets.

~~~
namdnay
I think the parent was referring to Yugoslavia

------
DominikR
Well I disagree, it did work amazingly well for almost a thousand years when
Muslim pirates and raiders constantly attacked ships and cities in the
Mediterranean sea which effectively suppressed most sea based trade and
economic development in Europe for a very long time.

There were even cases where English and Irish cities were plundered and all
inhabitants forcefully taken as slaves.

People from this culture always used these kind of guerrilla tactics to slowly
bring their enemies down.

As far as I see it still works today just as well as it did back in the old
days.

~~~
madshiva
There was not only Muslim pirates, there was a lot of people from different
too. Should we continue to blame Vikings? fore these action? Or can we just
live the present? I agree that figthing terrorism only increase more violance.
We need to find a way to teach only present and not past, for stopping the
wheel of deadlock.

~~~
DominikR
What does this even mean? Should we just roll over and let them kill us
whenever they feel like we hurt their feelings in some way?

Anytime someone disrespects their religious teachings in a public way many of
them feel the urge to slaughter dozens of people just to show how upset they
are about us.

And it just never stops, there's just too many radical people in these
countries.

As I see it the only way to stop this is to show them militarily who's boss
until they learn the lesson to back off and mind their own business.

The mere fact that they can't resist killing people when they hear some
Westener say something bad about them shows that they really just want to
submit us to follow their ways.

If that wasn't the case they'd just stop listening like any normal person
would do.

