Osama macro + some thoughts on the War on Terror

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

In accordance with the requirements for posting/discussing cartoons (I hope macros are accepted too), here's my visual intro:

I think the point is very clear. But still. Although it may sound cynical to say it at this moment of utter joy for so many people in the world who are ecstatic from the news about Bin Laden's death (and quite deserved joy, I must add), and forgetting the obvious conspiratorial associations that come with the fact that ultimately, he was "created" by the CIA and has later come to bite us in the ass... Here's another point one could make...

There were questions about the possible ways to achieve *real* change and *real* results in the so-called War on Terror. Here are my proposals.

Several steps. It's simple. Stop indirectly funding various terrorist organizations (now labeled with the collective term "Al Qaeda"):

1) Tighten the control on where your money is going once you send it to Pakistan, because most of it ends up in the hands of the Taliban.

2) Crack on the drugs trade which is ultimately traced back to the poppy fields of Afghanistan. Crack on organized crime related to drugs, people and arms smuggling.

3) Stop arming dangerous groups and regimes for short-term gains because you don't know where it all ends in the long run. Adopt a primacy-of-diplomacy approach as opposed to primacy-of-force.

4) Get the troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, maintain only a small number of special task forces there who can take out terrorist leaders, as opposed to a standing contingent of troops who are both hated and loved and wanted in and out and many other things, but most importantly, are a constant and well-visible target and do very little save for re-confirming and demonstrating our/your presence there. That generates hatred and ultimately, more Bin Ladens.

5) Re-think really hard which regimes you'll be supporting in the region, and this time think far in the future about the implications from that, as opposed to considering only the short-term (~2-5 years) objectives, because otherwise you'd get bitten on the ass again and again in one way or another.

Did I say simple? Oops... sorry about that.

Disclaimer: by "you" here I mean the Good Guys on the Light Side of the Force in this "battle" (assuming there's such a thing as good guys).

Of course we know why most of this ain't gonna happen, don't we? Or do we?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it might also do to look at the paradox of the War on Terror in that the USA wages war for dictators and calls it democracy. There is only so far one can go with calling Hosni Mubarak an anti-terrorist leader of the free world before Orwell's rolling in the grave turns into an alternative energy source. People in those countries aren't stupid, they can see that the dictators are evil, but they also see that the USA and the Western powers prefer to prop up the dictators who repress them and leave them in poverty.

They don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us for denying them freedom at gunpoint for our convenience.

[general-denikin.livejournal.com]

@@@@@@) Crack on the drugs trade which is ultimately traced back to the poppy fields of Afghanistan.@@@
Zero-sum game. You crack on poppy fields and farmers enroll in Al-Kaida forces.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Instead of selling them guns for poppy, help them create a *real* economy from which they could make a living. And they won't enroll anywhere but on the market for agricultural products, textiles and other industrial goods. Impossible? Why would it be impossible? It has happened elsewhere - Japan, South Korea, West Europe. Hell, it even happened in that same region in the past.

[general-denikin.livejournal.com]

I belive it's imposible as long as the war is going on.
First Peace should be established.
Probable by the same way as Jimmi Carter's envoy Zbignev Bzhezinski reconciled in 1973 Israel and Egypt

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

So it's a vicious circle. The war won't end until the hearts and minds of the people are won, the hearts and minds won't be won until they have a real economy to make a real living from, and they won't have a real economy until the war ends. Bad circle.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I'm not an economist expert so I cannot give you specifics, all I know is that this has happened before (see above comment).

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Easy... legalize trade in opium.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing a sign that said something like: "To be successful, you should step back, assess the situation, create a plan, add necessary resources and execute the plan flawlessly........However. When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your there to drain the swamp".

The US has tried creating an alternative economy for poppy farms. But when Taliban drug lords are killing wheat farmers and burning their fields because they aren't producing poppy for the lucrative heroin business, they decided that we weren't there to try to eliminate their very lucrative drug business.

Believe it or not, the Taliban drug lords don't like have their very profitable "free market" businesses replaced. They must be libertarians.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It did not, however, happen in the Soviet bloc or North Korea despite efforts in the former to recover from WWII and in the latter to recover from the 1950-3 phase of the war. More tragically the northern part of Korea before 1950 had had the greater industrial potential of the two sections, and would have been predicted to have been the more successful one. Reality, of course, had other plans.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Serriously, it has been suggested that the Uk buy the whole lot and use the opiates produced in the Health Service.

This leads to:-
1) all that crack, charlie , horse and whatever else junkies call it will dissappear off the streets of UK towns and cities
2) the taliban mony spinner gets put out of action.

Now, what is not to like ? Apart from the cost and the fact that the buyers will need armed guards to get the stuff out of the country , even if they can get in and meet the growers...?

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Just to say that this is exactly what i meant when i described what a cartoon-including post should look like. Thanks.

May comment on the point a bit later.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that. It's inevitable that this will be chewed many times over, as was mentioned in the first post about it. Also I admit I used parts of previous comments of mine on previous posts. I believe this particular aspect of the topic deserves further investigation.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

1) Doesn't seem like it's going to happen in this world. The US has been trying like mad to get a better grip on Pakistan for the last ten years, and it turns out that OBL's living literally a couple of blocks away from one of their military installations?

On the other hand, how do you cut them loose? They have nukes.

2) Definitely not going to happen in this lifetime. "Cracking down" on the drug trade is, well, part of the drug trade: it raises prices and ensures that the worst, most vicious criminals are the ones to make the huge profits from the industry. Alternative: give the Afghanis a share of the legitimate pharmaceutical feedstock trade--see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Morphine

5) This is really, really, really, really, really hard. Foreign policy makers have to balance an overwhelming amount of information, and they have to be able to predict the future? They do a bad job, but I don't think any human could do a good one.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

The numbers seem iffy. It also asserts that 2.9 million Afghanis are involved in cultivation; that's 10% of the population working on 0.25% of the land.

6,100 (metric) tons is 6.1 billion grams, so one gram for everyone on the planet.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"1) Tighten the control on where your money is going once you send it to Pakistan, because most of it ends up in the hands of the Taliban."

Or we could stop sending money to Pakistan entirely


"2) Crack on the drugs trade which is ultimately traced back to the poppy fields of Afghanistan. Crack on organized crime related to drugs, people and arms smuggling."

Or we can legalize the drugs thereby eliminating the excess profits to be gained and leaving Al Queada to compete with Pfizer for the profits that are left.

"3) Stop arming dangerous groups and regimes for short-term gains because you don't know where it all ends in the long run. Adopt a primacy-of-diplomacy approach as opposed to primacy-of-force."

Or even for long term gains, Just stop arming rebels and other non traditional armies entirely and if there is a government you want overthrown/war you want fought do it yourself. Sure it will be messier in the short term, but in the long run you won't have a string of non state actors running around that need to be dealt with.

"5) Re-think really hard which regimes you'll be supporting in the region, and this time think far in the future about the implications from that, as opposed to considering only the short-term (~2-5 years) objectives, because otherwise you'd get bitten on the ass again and again in one way or another."

Yeah, the best bet is to just stop supporting regiemes altogether and give your support to the people of these countries. Hard to do when the people themselves are often split on whether they support their existing government or would rather replace it with a new one however if you make it clear in both your words and your deeds that your friendship is with the people regardless of what government they have in place you should be successful more often than not.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

This is great but I was talking about realistic options :)

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Oh well you have to go and ruin it and bring realism into the picture. :-)

In that case the answer to all of them could be best summed up by Cpl Dwyane Hicks....

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure"

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Just responding with slight OT to a point you and mahnmut were making yesterday. You know what I heard recently from some of our local talking heads here? While Osama's death may not affect Al Qaeda too much because, notice how their organization has become so amorphous and multi-cell that they were using his name just as a flag (he didn't even have a phone for outer contacts at home, so they were probably just doing their thing and using his name); it's exactly because of his significance as a symbol that his death was so important. The symbol is gone. Martyr or not, it's gone. This could only shake the determination of his followers, because, no matter how much they worship his name while doing their thing, he's not here any more. And this can't help but have a sobering effect on them.

Or I could be totally wrong and they could do what Robert Bruce did with the name of the executed William Wallace as a flag - he fought the English and restored the Scottish sovereignty.

Time will tell.

The event does change things, though. We just don't know yet how exactly.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Thing is that these days Al-Qaeda has no common purpose and in fact some of the local Al-Qaedas have completely irreconcilable ultimate aims. If they try for Bannockburns they're likely to fall into war with each other as much as anything else. Like the original Kharijites these guys are armchair quarterbacks more than field players.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

The pic is good by the way. Did you do it?

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine.