What is the point of a car bomb in London?

The goal of terrorism is to foster terror.

If you can't be safe in a night club, then you can't be safe anywhere. Hence the terror part of the word.

Same reason why suicide bombers in Israel blow themselves up in coffee shops and clubs. Just to scare the **** out of everyone.

 

When people are angry, they strike out in anger, they don't care about the consequences and they don't really think about the future. They aren't trying to accomplish anything other than satisfying their own need to strike back at those they don't like.

Hell, you can say that about most attacks against other people. I don't think anyone really thinks through their actions to the very end when they choose to hurt others.

 

While a lot of this stuff seems random and purposeless, its good to remember that there is a difference between the sap who blows himself up in the name of the cause and the leaders of that cause. The guys who actually do the deed do so for many reasons, mostly out of anger and such. But the guys who send them are more thoughtful than that. Many of the leaders of these terrorist bands are western educated and read quite a bit. For these guys, there is a method behind the madness. Or at least they think there is one.

From what I understand (see Franz Fanon), the idea is to turn a free society into a repressive one. Firstly, the terrorists don't distinguish between a government and its civilians. They hold that the citizens are all responsible for the actions of their government and as such are legitimate targets. As the government does more to protect its own people from terrorists (and the people demand more protection from violence) the society goes into lock-down mode and will break its own laws against its own citizens to root out the terrorists. In this way, the terrorists can not only make the people in the target society fearful, but they can also recruit the target society's own government to repress them. While this is obviously not a military conquest of any sort, this is seen as a political/ideological victory by the terrorists. The is the V for Vendetta stuff.

As the government over-represses and over-reaches (in terms of stretching its military thin) the citizens turn against an ineffectual government and increasingly oppressive, intrusive, corrupt government. So in a sense, the terrorists win when the government violates its society's own principles in order to stop the violence and then the terrorists when again when the citizens turn against that oppressive government. The hope is that any of a few things will happen: 1) that the citizens will make their government stop whatever it is that offends/motivates the terrorists, 2) that the repressive society will fall under the weight of continuing war, or 3) that the target society is forever changed by how it reacts to the violence -- a free society gives up its freedom for protection, etc.

With respect to Bin Laden and Friends, I just saw a bit on PBS, a bio on Bin Laden, that puts forth that Al Qaeda actually wants a world war in which the US is so involved and so outstretched in foreign lands that the US bankrupts itself in the process. Supposedly The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is central reading amongst the higher ups in the Al Qaeda network, many of whom were western educated. I mean really, these guys read The Economist too. They know the US has growing deficits and a shortage of soldiers. They know this can't go on forever. As George Washington understood, they don't have to win in the traditional military sense. They just have to not lose.

 

Dakota

First off, how the heck are you and thanks again for the RR Express tickets!

The point of these attacks are to bring attention to their cause and ideally effect change. Bin Laden has said many times, the sole reason for Al Qaeda's attacks is to compel the US to leave the Middle East (Holy Land). He feels that if he wreaks enough havoc, the US will comply. The only way he feels this can happen is to strike terror in the hearts and minds of US and British citizens. By doing this he feels citizens will eventually demand their governments comply.

 

Ya, I never understood, and never will understand the mind of a terrorist.

Don't even get me started on my hatred for those people.

 

Well said. Al-Qaeda is also fighting a global cultural war and they see the U.S. and western civilization the biggest enemy.

 

Very true!

I often wonder, if Westerners left the Middle East. supported a Palestinian State, would the attacks stop?

Until we find an alternative fuel source, I guess we'll never know.

 

To make government overreact to the point where its own people has to do something about it.

 

It's not really one or two things, there is a multitude of reasons as to why these extremist groups/individuals (Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda-inspired or otherwise) resort to acts of terrorism. One must be careful not to oversimplify it in the mold of, "they hate us for our freedom" type of nonsense, especially if you're in the counterterrorism community. Having studied this for a number of years, one might be surprised as to how 'divergent' these groups are in terms of ideology, or in terms of what motivates them. Some can be dealt and reasoned with, as distasteful as that might sound; these tend to be more geopolitically-oriented (e.g. Hamas, Brotherhood, formerly the IRA). Others are pure idealists and those are the ones that present the biggest challenge to governments the world over. Most, however, are somewhere in the middle.

 

If they're the violent type, then yes, capturing/killing them is usually the way to go. Of course, it's preferable not to go out of your way to provoke them/make yourself a target for their activities, but sometimes it's just unavoidable and a clash is imminent.

Frankly, the groups that everyone knows about don't worry me much, because for the most part they have pronounced goals and some form of an organizational structure/infrastructure that can be targeted, or leaders that could be dealt with (politically or legally or extralegally). It's those random individuals that come out of nowhere and decide to blow up some club/shoot up some random civilians on a given day that can cause many sleepless nights for the ct/law enforcement guys.

You would think it's the other way around, but it's much tougher dealing with the 'random terrorist' because it's much more difficult to plan for/prevent.

 

It isn't that simple. The more you kill, the more will take their place. If we retreated from the Middle East (and found an alternative fuel source LOL), they will claim victory, feel emboldened and push outward. There is no clear cut two or three step way to eliminate terrorism. I can tell you that invading Iraq has set us back maybe 100 years in solving the problems. That was a true "game changer".

 

Mad idiots, running amok.



D&D. This Replicant had FUN!

 

Military action (such as invading Afghanistan) is unavoidable sometimes. When hit you have to hit back accordingly. On occasion, you must act preemptively (though Iraq shows how disastrous this can be if not well thought out).

Using assassins might be one piece of the puzzle, but it's only a very small part of the total picture. Where do you draw the line on speech when deciding who to assassinate?

Right now we are ramping up an improved intelligence system in that part of the world, but it was broken before and will take quite some time to develop and grow. This is what failed us so miserably in recent years.

I was exaggerating for effect on the 100 years comment.

 

Modern warfare can't 'solve' the problem, no. But in some cases, I can sympathize with having absolutely no other options.

Well, assassinations have been used in the past, but they're not always the answer either. Just ask the Israelis if it has worked well for them over the years. Often times it just inflames the angry followers and strengthens their resolve; so you gotta be careful when/how you go about it, or if it's even a viable option.

The whole point here is that there is no 'clear cut' answer in any situation. Some times all you're left with are a bunch of 'bad options'.

That already exists in many countries and has worked in some cases, but it's just one method and isn't guaranteed to work either.

That's pretty much the problem here. Many times you're caught in a 'lose-lose' situation and you're stuck with dirt on your face no matter what you do; the U.S.' current 'plight' in Iraq is a classic example of that. The problem with looking for a 'good solution' in Iraq is that there is no one, just a bunch of 'bad choices' and none of which are likely to amount to a 'solution'.

As with Vietnam, we may yet get to the point of 'best option' available to us, which will likely be to withdraw our troops from the conflict zone and 'see what happens'.