Here are a few comments. First, from ziska:
I’m coming in in the middle, but I went back to the beginning and read most of what preceded. My comments:
I think lumping together Muslim terrorism, Indian ethnic violence, and European and American street crime is highly erroneous.
Osama Bin Laden did have a rational purpose. He wanted to drive the US out of Saudi Arabia and with it the Saudi regime, presumably replacing the Saud ruler with himself or someone of his own choosing.
A.L.: My issue isnt with his ultimate goals, but the basis in reality and in the connection between goals and means
In the Middle East, our support for corrupt authoritarian oil regimes has produced wealthy societies without any avenues for the exercise of citizenship, and to a degree (esp. Saudi) without access to Western knowledge. So whatever discontent there is will probably be in a traditional (anti-Western) form, there being no Western alternative.
A.L.But why is it anti-Western, as opposed to anti-House of Saud? Why is that the default condition?
Palestinian terrorism is rational in the sense that there is a goal, Palestine. They have a better chance of reaching that goal than the IRA or the Basque separatists, I think. Terrorism is used because the alternative is to cease to exist as a force. Weapon of the weak, etc.
A.L. There are other means to fight asymmetrical wars; guerilla warfare, wars aimed at infrastructure, etc. The Palestinian model seems based on what would look the most dramatic on TV.
This was not a war of al-Qaeda vs. the US, with al-Q trying to defeat the US. The goal was to change US foreign policy and to stir up trouble.
Both the 9/11 terrorists and Palestinian terrorists are well funded by oil money which comes as “free money” to be dispensed at will (unlike earnings which have to be reinvested and managed). We don’t see Indonesian or Bangla Deshi terrorism because the funding isn’t there.
A.L.: I agree that the presence of oil money is a part of the equation. But I think iot is more in the social impacts than in the expense issue. Actually, Im amazed that 9/11 cost as much as it was claimed to. I could make Los Angeles hard to live in for about $300,000.
I basically don’t think terrorism is a powerful analytic concept, partly because it privileges state violence. Most “sub-states” think of themselves as “pre-states”.
See blogged comment above.
For example, even by your definitions some of the US-sponsored violence in Central America ca. 1980 was terrorist. Civilians were murdered in bulk for purposes of intimidation, in part by un-uniformed private police forces working outside the law (though winked at by the legal forces). Yet I don’t think you would want to count that as terrorism, because being insurgent (and perhaps futility) is really part of the definition.
Yup, Id agree that state-sponsored or militia-sponsored violence in Central and Latin America walks close to and over the line of terrorism. Its something Im trying to talk about a bit in the wrapup.
So anyway, I would deal with the present case as a specific thing rather than a new state of the world order.
My source for some of the above is The Hidden Truth, Dasquie & Brisard, which is a better book than the Corn, Cave, and Silverstein reviews would have you think.
— zizka
Date: 08/29/2002 00:00:00 AM
From the top:*I think that Osama’s methods are rational. He wanted to provoke the United States, destabalize the Middle east and especially Saudi Arabia, and rouse his sympathizers. (I don’t think that his attack on the WTC was symbolic in a futile sense. The symbolism was appealing to the people he was trying to rouse; and in fact the WTC is very substantially meaningful, since it was a communication and control center and what he was fighting against was an international order dominated by the US from places like the WTC, rather than a flesh and blood nation.) ** Anti-western and anti-Saud motives are merged. Bin Laden was anti both. (The reason it is Islamic is , in my opinion, because the Saudi traditionalism precluded the development of more contemporary forms of resistance). *** Significance of money: the direct costs of the attacks was only part of it. The assurance that the families will receive support after the death of a combatant plays an enormous role. One point I make is that the Saudi oil money is free money (IE just rent that shows up in the bank account regularly without work or investment) and that at the same time most Saudis have no jobs and nothing to do. Osama is a rogue billionaire, NOT an impoverished third-world victim. Bangla Deshis and Egyptians struggling to survive don’t have the time for this kind of thing, or the resources either (unless OBL hires them).