Adolescent fantasies

[sabotabby]

So al-Zarqawi is dead. I think some people are going to be surprised when this changes exactly nothing in Iraq.

The insurgency will continue until the Americans leave or the occupation becomes such a permanent fixture that people grow tired of resisting. I think, given the resources involved and the generally short attention span of most Americans, the former is a more likely outcome. And it's definitely more positive for the rest of the world if the USians can't win this one. But seriously, the Bushies have really been watching too many James Bond movies. What, you kill the Big Bad and all of his henchmen stop what they're doing and surrender?

The main reason why the Chimpresident can't win his War on Turra is that one can't win a war against an idea. Which his advisers know, I'm certain, and anyway, the point is not to win. Obviously. But the other reason is that the Enemies of Freedum are not leaders that can be eliminated in order to quell a population into subservience. (Incidentally, that's also why an assassination attempt on Bush or Blair would be useless, Mr. Galloway, as nice as it sounds.)

You can't just take out a bad guy in his mountain fortress of doom and call it a victory. That's an action movie, not reality.

Speaking of fantasies, I don't know how many of you saw ltmurnau's comment to my post yesterday, but he raised a good point about our local terrorists. (There's also an article in NOW that's worth reading on questions we should be asking.)

The question I'd like to pose is this: 17 people, most of them young, meet in a chat room. They're all involved in the same subculture. Together, they plan an elaborate scheme to storm a building and kill some high-profile, powerful people. (In a chat room! Which every 14-year-old wannabe anarchist knows is a dumb idea.)

Now, imagine that they're all white boys, and the subculture in question is Goth. The media would still be making stupid comments, blaming music and parental neglect, and someone mildly smarter might blame bullying. It might be used as an excuse to crack down on guns or some such. But it wouldn't have widespread international implications, and it certainly wouldn't be used as a pretense to curb the civil liberties of other white Goths.

Just sayin'.

EDIT: More reality-based articles. (Hat tip: frandroid. That last link is in French, BTW.)

Comments

[groovitude.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me that US' objectives in the war on terrorism mirror the objectives of the Canadian plotters. BEHEAD the PM! Isn't that what they wanted to do? And US wishes that by beheading the head of the insurgency, the resistance will dissipate. Everyone can see that this a bit naive rationale for a small band of anarchists, and it's naive for an all-out invasion army fighting a semi-organized insurgency, as well.

It might be reasonable to expect that beheading al-Zarqawi will result in loss of morale and less suicide missions, but it won't destroy the insurgency. The goal of the US military is probably to fight a war of attrition with the leadership. If you kill the leaders of the enemy, eventually the movement will become less effective over a period of time. And that's the strategy of al-Zarqawi's compadres as well. And both sides believe the strategy is proving reasonably effective.

But there are two imponderables to the whole situation. What happens if al-Zarqawi succeeds in flaring a civil war? If Shiites step up their retailiations, a disorganized guerrilla war can quickly slide into an every man for himself civil war.

The second imponderable is the unity and nature of the insurgency. At the beginning of the war, it seemed as if al-Qaeda in Messopotamia had been a religious organization pitting Islam against the West. Over the years they narrowed their outlook and adopted a sectarian, pro-Sunni battle strategy, which pitted them against the Shiites in Iraq. So the view that guerrillas are glorious anti-imperialist freedom fighters is no more. They stopped fighting in the name of freedom when they degenerated the conflict into a vile ethnic struggle. This is not a war against the US anymore, nor is it a war against an idea, if that idea is peace, because the guerrilla fighters have morphed into ethnic cleansers. The terrorists define themselves not by what they are for, but for what they are against: peace and solidarity across races, religions and tribes.

The only question now is when the Sunnis will wake up to their senses and see the new reality of the people who claim to be fighting on their behalf.

correction

[groovitude.livejournal.com]

* nor is it a war against an idea, unless that idea is peace...

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's a very confused picture with the 'insurgency', and I'm afraid we've passed the point where the US pulling out would solve or even largely solve the problem. It would still be a darned good idea for them to pull out, as at the very least it would mean there would be one less group of armed thugs shooting and blowing people up.

As far as I can see, the Al Qaida types have always been about attacking Shias as well as the US - while the majority of the Sunni insurgency, especially the indigenous insurgency, was directed at the Occupation forces. Indeed, such polls as there have been showed the vast majority of Sunnis rejected attacks on Shias.

But following the bombing of the Samarra mosque, there's been a vast increase in attacks and ethnic cleansing of Sunnis by Shia militias - including some of the ones who have been most anti-US like Al-Sadr's Mahdi army - and that in turn has led to Sunni groups being more inclined to launch attacks on Shias in areas they control.

In short, while there may not have been any real inclination for a sectarian civil war at the beginning, the US and Al Qaida between them have succeeded in creating one. And that civil war (which has quite definitely already started) would likely continue even if the US pulled out. And once started, those sorts of wars are bloody hard to stop, although there might be some chance without the Occupation.

Basically, the situation is extremely depressing, and there is no prospect of any improvement in the forseeable future whatever anyone does.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

If your user icon is a true story, you are my hero for the day.

[pretzelsalt.livejournal.com]

"It might be reasonable to expect that beheading al-Zarqawi will result in loss of morale and less suicide missions"

I don't understand why that would be?

"What happens if al-Zarqawi succeeds in flaring a civil war? "

Again I don't see how this is possible. I think "terrorism" being a strategy and not a targettable stronghold is the problem here.

There is no "leader" - there is no bunker there is no "head" because this is simply a massive group of generationally impoverished and terrorized people suffering PTSD as well as the ongoing threat of complete genocide.

Suicide actions will continue to take place because they have everything to do with desperation and helplessness and nothing to do with strategy.

It remains important for the empire superpower set on destruction of an entire nation of people to nail wanted posters to trees to show the sheeple that there is a way to stop all of this.

That just isn't the case.

my .02

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

No one has yet raised the subject of whether anyone would notice the difference if Mr. Harper's head went missing.

[sabotabby]

Win.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you can read French, Stéphane Laporte did. He's a humorist who has a column and now a blog with La Presse.

[goodlookinout.livejournal.com]

ha!

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

As we used to say (well, somewhat paraphrased):

In any meeting of two or more people, conduct yourself as if you knew that one of the others was a police informant.

I guess the presumption was that if you were meeting with yourself, you already knew if you were a police informant.

Any serious (or not so serious) group that suspects its activities might gain the attention of the authorities keeps this in mind. One suspects those that don't are absolutely not serious, are tools of police informants already, or unbelievably stupid (or some combination thereof).

[sabotabby]

Most 17-year-olds are unbelievably stupid, though.

The NOW article posits that there's a high degree of police involvement, which I think is probable enough.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Maybe you can add this to your post: Thomas Walkom's columns ask a lot of questions as well.

[sabotabby]

Done...thanks!

[violachic.livejournal.com]

*shrug* all I know is that there is an unofficial camp that credits Zarqawi's efforts to the fact that our four guys stayed alive as long as they did.

[sabotabby]

Really? That's interesting, if true, because it does look like he is/was very much a thug with a sectarian religious agenda. Do you have details?

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

The hypothetical needs a little more refinement. The comparator is not white Goths, because the Goths haven't done any major damage to anyone since about the Sacking of Rome, and therefore there's less reason to fear their adolescent fantasies may come to fruition. The comparator would be a chat room for, say, Neo-Nazis, anti-abortionists or, I dunno, FLQists?

That said, I don't know whether the fall-out from far-fetched plots by any of these groups would be comparable to the current scenario.

[sabotabby]

I'm thinking of Columbine. It was an adolescent fantasy that did come to fruition and killed a lot of innocent people.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I think some people are going to be surprised when this changes exactly nothing in Iraq.

If you're talking about the general public, they're not going to be surprised at all because they have no idea what's going on in Iraq either. (Full disclosure: I don't exactly have an in depth knowledge of what's going on over there but at least I give it a shot and don't think Dead Zarqawi=OMG Mission Accomplished!) Most people, if I were to be cynical about the American public at least, just want to know we kicked some brown ass.

[sabotabby]

Most Americans know who Zarqawi is, though, right? Or am I being optimistic again?

typo

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

either=anyway.

[moll-na-gig-67.livejournal.com]

Agree it won't change the situation. Wasn’t al-Zarqawi on the outs with bin Laden? He had little to do with Iraq's evolving civil war. I think of a short story by Orwell On the killing of Elephant when comes to this mess.
Terrorism seems just some type of mean to end or an excuse for this administration to further its own agenda. The "War on Terrorism" seems to be just another lame slogan, not an approach to address the situation in the Middle East.(This just a thumb nail sketch of my thoughts on this).

[sabotabby]

I heard that al-Zarqawi wasn't even leading the insurgents anymore.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I found "pigdog" elsewhere.

[sabotabby]

I didn't coin the term. My pigdog graphic is better, though.

[reverendgraham.livejournal.com]

The fact that Zarqawi's death won't change the situation materially—& of course it won't—seems beside the point to me. I mean, apparently a lot of people seem to be under the impression that Zarqawi was personally organizing every "terror" attack in Iraq, but I certainly wasn't. Regardless of the bullshit washing over the whole situation from both sides, the man was clearly a prick, and in his death I see cause for nothing but celebration. Yeah, American propaganda blew him out of proportion. Yeah, he's not even connected with most of the secular Sunni resistance. Who cares? From what I've seen of his antics, he belongs to the same special class of subcreatures as Josef, Adolf, & Kim. I mean you have your regular run-of-the-mill assholes, like Bush and Sharon and your average serial killer, and then you have these truly psychopathic, evil people whose antisociality seems beyond effective description. I don't know, I don't really care, but it sort of bothers me that so many people seem to be using this as a rhetorical wedge to be all like "If you care that Zarqawi's dead, you have a flawed worldview, because it won't change anything." Speaking for myself, that just doesn't matter to me. It is good enough that he's dead. Maybe I'm being myopic or something but I don't see the friggin problem with that. Zarqawi's dead! He was an asshole! Don't even worry about it!

[sabotabby]

Oh, I'm certainly not shedding any tears for the man. But I have to question anything that's hailed as a turning point or a victory in the War on Turra.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

You can't just take out a bad guy in his mountain fortress of doom and call it a victory. That's an action movie, not reality.


>>>>> What? You mean that even if we manage to take out Skeletor or Cobra Commander the terrorists network won't fall apart? Damn, that's depressing. ;)

[sabotabby]

It'd be awesome if Skeletor was heading up the Iraqi insurgency. I'd totally root for them.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Bush league say the insurgency would end once Saddam's sons were killed? I recall the line was that Saddam was probably killed in the initial air strikes and that his sons were directing the insurgency. Then when the first Saddam tape surfaced, they said it was made well beforehand. Does anyone else remember this or is my memory off?

[sabotabby]

I dimly recall that. Was that before or after the mission got accomplished?

Iraqi-on-Iraqi action

[jordansc.livejournal.com]

"The insurgency will continue until the Americans leave or the occupation becomes such a permanent fixture that people grow tired of resisting."

It seems like the majority of the violence since the Al Askari bombing has been Iraqi-on-Iraqi rather than Iraqi-on-American. There are two insurgencies now; if the Americans left, one of the insurgencies would die down but the other(s) would continue.

"And it's definitely more positive for the rest of the world if the USians can't win this one."

Could you expand on that?

Re: Iraqi-on-Iraqi action

[sabotabby]

I think there's a civil war either way, but it's much easier to drum up support for bloodiness if there's a clear bad guy, like an occupying military power. Without that, there's slightly more incentive to not blow your country to shit.

Could you expand on that?

Iraq is only the beginning in terms of the neo-conservative agenda. They definitely want to throw their weight around the Middle East, starting with Iran. They probably want to get back to beating up Latin America, too. A bloody nose in Iraq will at least make the populace think twice before supporting another war somewhere.