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talkpoliticsOn this day in 1972 the Palestinian movement Black September attacked the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics.
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/September-October-08/On-this-Day--The-Munich-Massacre-Begins.html
The Black September movement represented the "classical" wave of Palestinian terrorism, back when it was a secular Soviet proxy and when the Islamists were a disliked minority among Palestinians. The Black Septembrists were and are tied to the Fatah movement, the movement of Arafat and Abbas, which is and has generally vehemently been a Palestinian movement dedicated to reclaiming Palestine. As such it had no religious qualification in terms of who Palestinians were. Significantly, Black September relied heavily on hijacking planes, and even blew them up when landing them in say, Jordanian airstrips.
This is a point worth reflecting on because it illustrates how terrorism is not in fact a monolithic construct, though these days it tends to be a euphemism for "Muslim militants." At one point the Palestinians in a state-that's-not-really-supposed-to-be-there that were firing large quantities of rockets into Israel were Soviet proxies, and even were developing the means for full-scale modern war, including armor and of course also as a quasi-state "taxation."
Likewise at one point most people would have defined the terrorist as the Communist or the Anarchist who throws a bomb or shoots someone in the stomach at point blank range. As President McKinley, Alexander II of Russia, King Umberto of Italy, and Empress-Queen Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary could explain, terrorism's methods are no different now than what they used to be, the explosives are just much improved and the means for these movements to become known worldwide are far greater.
The obvious point to this is well, straightforward: terrorism is a method used by a select group of people who represent powerless movements, intent on bombing, shelling, butchering, and maiming their way into success, through use of impersonal means of warfare. It is simultaneously the unrestrained guerrilla, and it is an amorphous concept, a set of methods who need no associated ideology, and no associated part of the world to go with them.
As such, any war against terrorism must be preordained to fail, for the same reason that fundamentalism and atheism cannot triumph over each other in a modern society: terrorism is a part and parcel of the modern age. Its methods gain greatly with every single step forward in terms of technology and its own associated growth.
To defeat terrorism, society would have to revert to a pre-modern existence, in which case over the sheer expanses of large societies there would be those violent types who exist in a vacuum of law and order, preying on trade routes and requiring regular punitive expeditions against them to keep them in check.
Thus, to me, the entire concept of ending and defeating terrorism is an impossibility, and amounts to a concept of castles in the air without any genuine validity in itself.
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/September-October-08/On-this-Day--The-Munich-Massacre-Begins.html
The Black September movement represented the "classical" wave of Palestinian terrorism, back when it was a secular Soviet proxy and when the Islamists were a disliked minority among Palestinians. The Black Septembrists were and are tied to the Fatah movement, the movement of Arafat and Abbas, which is and has generally vehemently been a Palestinian movement dedicated to reclaiming Palestine. As such it had no religious qualification in terms of who Palestinians were. Significantly, Black September relied heavily on hijacking planes, and even blew them up when landing them in say, Jordanian airstrips.
This is a point worth reflecting on because it illustrates how terrorism is not in fact a monolithic construct, though these days it tends to be a euphemism for "Muslim militants." At one point the Palestinians in a state-that's-not-really-supposed-to-be-there that were firing large quantities of rockets into Israel were Soviet proxies, and even were developing the means for full-scale modern war, including armor and of course also as a quasi-state "taxation."
Likewise at one point most people would have defined the terrorist as the Communist or the Anarchist who throws a bomb or shoots someone in the stomach at point blank range. As President McKinley, Alexander II of Russia, King Umberto of Italy, and Empress-Queen Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary could explain, terrorism's methods are no different now than what they used to be, the explosives are just much improved and the means for these movements to become known worldwide are far greater.
The obvious point to this is well, straightforward: terrorism is a method used by a select group of people who represent powerless movements, intent on bombing, shelling, butchering, and maiming their way into success, through use of impersonal means of warfare. It is simultaneously the unrestrained guerrilla, and it is an amorphous concept, a set of methods who need no associated ideology, and no associated part of the world to go with them.
As such, any war against terrorism must be preordained to fail, for the same reason that fundamentalism and atheism cannot triumph over each other in a modern society: terrorism is a part and parcel of the modern age. Its methods gain greatly with every single step forward in terms of technology and its own associated growth.
To defeat terrorism, society would have to revert to a pre-modern existence, in which case over the sheer expanses of large societies there would be those violent types who exist in a vacuum of law and order, preying on trade routes and requiring regular punitive expeditions against them to keep them in check.
Thus, to me, the entire concept of ending and defeating terrorism is an impossibility, and amounts to a concept of castles in the air without any genuine validity in itself.
(no subject)
Date: 5/9/12 16:12 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/9/12 16:42 (UTC)