I’ve been watching the news this week with interest and not a little sadness, noting the events in Kansas and Arkansas.
I’ll make a side comment on the difference in coverage between the Tiller and Long murders; one got screaming headlines, and one was buried deep in the news section. There’s a piece to write about how the coverage is driven in part by how central the issues manifested by something are to the media class, and by how interesting the narrative is to them – and Christian militia murderers definitely makes that cut. neo-Islamists murdering soldiers – not so much.
But I’m bored of bashing the media, and they’re dying anyway, so let’s talk about more important things.
And the important thing to me is that in my mind, to a large extent, this is what terrorism is going to look like for the next decade or so.
I don’t envision much in the way of vast conspiracies (maybe, but less likely I believe as the resources they require are choked off – I did a piece I never posted on what it would take to really screw up the US via acts of terror, and it cost about $15 – 20 million. Money at that level is noticed – I hope) There’s no central figure – no Osama or Dr. Evil sitting in a volcano lair directing minions.
What we have instead is an Idea – about Islam, about the rights of the unborn, about the rights of animals, about tending the environment, about whatever – and a cadre of people dedicated to pushing that Idea forward, and who use that idea to pull people who are loosely attached to their lives into the belief that their lives will only matter if they give all for the idea.
Now that notion isn’t new; it’s not even novel in modern America (ask Jim Jones, Cinque, and Andreas Baader or Charlie Manson). There have always been charismatic, murderous thugs who pried people out of their life orbits and sent them crashing into the ground – usually with a few corpses trailing behind them.
And the problem, of course, is that the people who are holding the flame of the Idea in their hands, and blowing on it to keep it burning bright are – rightly – protected. Even as it becomes clear that the incitement of damaged people is something they truly hope to do, our system requires that we protect their right to think and speak freely.
So what do we do about it?
One thing, I believe, is to hold them up to the light – to make sure that every nasty thing they say and do is widely exposed, and so shame them in the public sphere. This is, I believe, the right thing to do – but the reality is that it will also serve to publicize their cause, and to attract the susceptible. So while it’s right, there are questions about how effective it will be.
Do we criminalize speech and thought because it might incite deed? My answer is no.
But like all answers, it comes with a cost – and we’re seeing that cost today.
I think the core answer is the harder one – and it is make it harder to pry people out of their orbits, to do a kind of COIN within our own country in which we re-establish the concept of legitimacy and revalidate in people’s minds the channels through which they are validated and through which they believe they can engage their beliefs; we need, if possible to, declare a war on anomie.
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The Kansas terrorist took out 33 percent of the country’s late-term abortion capability, after years of incitement reaching into mainstream television. The Arkansas terrorist didn’t take out one-third of our armed forces recruiting capability, probably not even in that one county.
They’ll make great cellmates.
The pro-life movement is attached to:
* a set of values calling for a deep and wide respect for the sanctity of human life, not only for healthy adults but for the newborn and the unborn, for the elderly, for the handicapped and so on, as well as a determined willingness to turn the potentially airy and vacuous notion of “sanctity” or “sacredness” into something valuable, that is real protection.
* an implementation model calling for great respect for lawfulness, because even if you change a lot of hearts and change the laws, if enough people think “I don’t care what the law says, I’ll just go ahead and kill when it suits me” then the pro-life project has no endgame.
That’s why terrorists acts like the assassination of Dr. Tiller are catastrophic not only tactically but strategically. Not only is the pro-life movement smeared by these crimes, but its fundamental aims are balked.
And that’s why pro-lifers reject such actions repudiate those who do such repugnant and destructive acts.
And that’s why pro-lifers reject such actions and repudiate those who do such repugnant and destructive acts.
It’s not only the big idea that matters, but the model for the implementation of that idea.
If you have an idea that is widely seen to be achievable but only within a framework of respect for law, and for the existing framework of laws (with necessary modifications), that’s good, because it means that the leaders of the movement, those with their eyes fixed on the prize, will be drawn into condemning the nuts. That’s not a total cure for violent nuts, but it goes a long way.
If you have an idea that might be achievable peacefully (say by dawa and demographics) or by melting the spines of unbelievers with terrors, then mixed consequences follow.
As I point out for the kerjillionth time, the violent actions of lone individuals prove absolutely nothing about terrorism, ideology, or the causes of violence. On the the contrary, they prove the futility of connecting individual action to alleged causes, and the folly of trying to put a prophylactic on society.
I call this the David Wayne Chapman Law, after the man who murdered John Lennon because he was obsessed with Catcher in the Rye.
AJL:
I am totally mystified by this comment. The country’s late-term abortion capability?
The Kansas terrorist took out 33 percent of the country’s late-term abortion capability, after years of incitement reaching into mainstream television. The Arkansas terrorist didn’t take out one-third of our armed forces recruiting capability, probably not even in that one county.
Which brings up the importance of decentralization.
I actually think the fact the Long murder isn’t getting much press coverage is a good thing. The best way to deter this kind of spontaneous terrorism incident is simply to demonstrate the futility of it. This guy essentially traded his life for the life of one US soldier. That’s kind of hard to spin into a ‘great victory for Allah’ example for future recruiting purposes. Many people are willing to trade their lives for something good and meaningful. A few are susceptible to having their definition of good corrupted. No one wants to throw their life away in service of an ideology for no gain however.
The best way to discourage follow ups is to point out he brought misery to one specific family for absolutely no benefit to his professed cause. When it becomes general knowledge that lone gunmen style attacks invite certain demise (physical or incarceration style) at the hands of law enforcement, for no gain that won’t be forgotten (except for the families) in 3 months, they will end. It’s one thing to be willing to ‘break eggs’ in furtherance of a goal, it’s entirely another to just ‘break eggs’.
The Tiller murder on the other hand was an example of a ‘successful’ attack in that the trade off was meaningful. Which ironically shows that the attack was unnecessary and probably counterproductive. The fact that one guy was that important indicates the pro-life movement was doing an excellent job of shutting down late-term abortion without resorting to terrorist tactics.
So actually I rather agree with the left here in that the Tiller murder is far more likely to spawn copycats, unfortunately I only see two defenses, both of which have problems. Decentralize the network (if doable would already have been done) or harden the targets (expensive and still chancy).
Very hard problem, the barrier to entry is just too low.
Could you give me an idea how that would work in the context of the abolition movement? This also spawned its vicious and evil terrorists – the name of John Brown is still remembered with horror.
So: would it be a government department that gathered up and publicized every harsh word or deed by an abolitionist, or would there be a subsidy for the private sector to do this, or how would the aim of shaming be put into effect practically speaking?
If some abolitionists were to be shamed and others not, who would decide who the department of shaming went after? Would it be moderate abolitionists? Or respectable people who were truly at peace with the peculiar institution?
In the first case, you are empowering people, in effect, to suppress their rivals, as long as they tell you they are moderate. Favoring “moderates” has produced unimpressive results in dealing with Islam – so much so I think it’s done more harm than good. With the pro-life movement I think you’d do better. There’s be a lot of moderate (as to means) pro-lifers who might relish the opportunity to shame and diminish their rivals, and to employ state support in keeping a movement that aspires to be wholly non-violent disciplined and thus effective. But are you comfortable with the state helping such a movement to be effective? And you still have the problem that there’s an incentive to lie to you about how moderate they are.
If you put a state-subsidized engine of shame in the hands of people at ease with Dredd Scott and Roe v. Wade, it’s not hard to guess how it will be employed. Is that OK, and is it part of the internal COIN you have in mind?
I am not raising these problems to knock you down so I can present my own brilliant solution. I don’t have one. These problems are really difficult, yet they call for some kind of response, so we have to grope our way through idea-experiments and errors to, hopefully, some kind of useful clarity.
Treefrog:
It’ll be hard getting credit for the positive effects of non-violent pressure and persuasion now. 🙁
The COIN approach is a non-starter as well. The circle of ‘people willing to use violence for political change’ in the domestic US is pretty close to as small as it’s going to get via general peer pressure. They do not operate with the knowledge of the surrounding public. They do not operate with the support of the general public. So COIN really has no leverage to work with.
re-establish the concept of legitimacy and revalidate in people’s minds the channels through which they are validated and through which they believe they can engage their beliefs
This would be generally useful. I think the right does need to do a better job making sure everyone understands that the right of armed revolt (via the 2nd amendment) is a nuclear button to be pushed only in event of tyranny and is an all in or all our proposition. Total overthrow of the government or you don’t do it. Either the government is legitimate in which case you are bound by ALL the laws it makes and must work within process they are made by, or it isn’t, in which case you break out the Declaration of Independence. None of this wishy-washy half in, half out crap.
In return I expect the left to give up its love affair with violent political terrorists and make it the ultimate social no no to arrive at a party or protest with a Che shirt, a Hamas scarf, a Hezbollah flag, or with Mr. Ayers. In fact if they would lose the entire 60’s radical hippie, stick it to the man, it’s revolution time shtick – that would be ideal.
Treefrog, #6: The best way to discourage follow ups is to point out he brought misery to one specific family for absolutely no benefit to his professed cause. When it becomes general knowledge that lone gunmen style attacks invite certain demise (physical or incarceration style) at the hands of law enforcement, for no gain that won’t be forgotten (except for the families) in 3 months, they will end. It’s one thing to be willing to ‘break eggs’ in furtherance of a goal, it’s entirely another to just ‘break eggs’.
I’m not so sure even this would be much of a deterrent. Don’t forget that religiously motivated terrorists such as these aren’t killing just to advance their cause in this world; they’re also doing it to please God/Allah (such is their belief) and get into heaven. How on earth can a secular society like ours dissuade someone with that sort of motivation? What sort of punishment could we possibly have to offer that can compete with the promise of eternity in paradise? Execution is no deterrent in this case, as the killer believes it will merely speed him on his way to his eternal reward. And just letting him rot in prison for life would just be a minor inconvenience. What’s a few decades next to eternity?
Man is but flesh and blood, and in each heart, many impulses contend.
Ajmal Kasab, one of the Mumbai jihadists, meant to “kill to the last breath,” as he was trained to do and as all his colleagues did, but by the time he was arrested, he was worn down, and he pleaded “I do not want to die. Put me on saline”.
Nur-Pashi Kulayev, on of the Beslan jihadists, also gave up, and (though I can’t find the quotes of it online anymore), swore by Allah that he was innocent, swore by Allah that he did not kill any children, and swore by Allah repeatedly that he wanted to live. (That last part, I believe.)
Even tough jihadis can have their icy hearts melted by tiredness, wounds, humiliation or the prospect of death, if those things might apply to them rather than to kuffers.
Zacarias Moussaoui crumbled without any of that, simply because his time for ranting in court with a world audience was done, and his time in prison without an audience had come.
I think that shows that futility as well as fury has a role to play in demoralizing the enemy.
Jihadis can never be anything but our enemies. But they can be discouraged and lethargic rather than hopeful and full of vim.
Inflicting on them every blow that sincere hostility can imagine and will is necessary and good. Showing them the destruction of the cause for which they fight and the complete hopelessness of attempting to reverse that fatal course of events is even more desirable.
I’ve never heard the phrase “Dr. Killer”. If it is used all the time in the mainstream media, what difference would it make? Surely the mainstream media is how erudite folk like Andrew J Lazarus become informed about the world. Isn’t one of the big problems with the rest of us rubes that we aren’t attentive enough to the pronouncements of the media? Surely if it appears in the mainstream media, it is the truth. Reality-based community, and all that.
Do you suppose the other clinics were shut down because of previous assaults and assassinations?
No. Assassination by white supremacists, various Communists and lunatics, and Ted Kaczynski wasn’t enough to shut down the black civil rights movement, the executive branch, or university research, respectively. Why should the abortionists be more susceptible to violence?
_Why should the abortionists be more susceptible to violence?_
Because one is your job, and one is your life.
If you look at the civil rights movement, or Gandhi’s movement (that it was based on) what you see is not just people marching for their rights…. you see people marching for their future, the future of their children. I would argue that this is a very powerful motivating force. Add to this, that if they didn’t act, the carnage wouldn’t end. Their rights, their liberties, their security would still be at daily risk.
Now, many abortion providers see their job as critically important, and that keeps them in their job far longer than I would (if people were threatening me). Still, it takes it’s toll. The daily grind of threats create burnout.
In contrast to your above example, they can make it all go away just by leaving their job. Not only violence against themselves, but violence against their family as well. That is a very powerful force to push them away from their job. And that’s why threats work.
Alchemist, you may notice that I gave three examples. You addressed one. Surely the abortionists would say they have a cause, though I doubt they could claim they’re doing it for the children. Why should abortionists be more susceptible to violence than university researchers?
Why didn’t the threat of violence shut down the executive branch, or university research?
Do you really need me to explain the executive branch? The president is probably the safest person on the planet. He has an entire crew of people that worry about his safety FOR HIM. That’s pretty much true of anyone working for a major government office. If they perceive the possibility of a threat, they get immediate police protection. (That is certainly less true with abortion clinics).
University research? Are you talking about protesting animal experiments or something? As someone who has spent 10 years of my life doing university research, I have no clue what you’re asking.
In general though, few groups of people deal with round the clock protesting as consistently as abortion clinics (see my link above). All it takes is a few ‘rogue’ acts of violence to create a real feeling of tension. Every time (a doctor) has to navigate through a crowd of protesters, they think about the possibility of violence. This is all totally legal, but much stronger when there is the feeling of imminent danger.
I just don’t see how your other two examples even compare…. I guess if you wanted to flesh out your analogy for me….
I’m not sure bgates is referring to animal research; he only mentions the one-off Unabomber. Unfortunately for even the PETA argument, my understanding is that the number of universities willing to put with PETA nuts is decreasing: fewer labs, fewer professors, fewer grad students. And that’s with a record of assassination and violence that isn’t anywhere near the anti-abortion groups’. The Unabomber was as “successful” as anti-abortion nuts, but only if you ignore the way he had more targets by maybe 5 orders of magnitude. Doctors willing to perform abortions are a scarce commodity; engineering professors are not.
I am mystified how a pseudonymous blogger can call out abortion doctors as cowards, but it takes all types.
Another problem: if you put a shaming weapon in the hands of ‘moderates’ (whether Islamic, eco, animal rights or pro-life), they are likely to want to use it in two ways. First, they’ll want to define violence as being against the beliefs and values of the cause, and second they’ll want violence by enemies of the cause against them to be very much on the table.
Pro-lifers insist as good as unanimously that any acts of terrorism and violence are against pro-life values, and I agree: mainstream support for “pro-life” killings could not get any lower. On the other hand, I find claims that violence is against all Islamic values and that jihad terrorism must be called “anti-Islamic activities” laughable, and contrary to any practical, realistic anti-terror policy. And there’s a lot of facts to back me up on that. But I’m sure ardent pro-choice advocates wouldn’t agree with me about that clear-cut distinction, as I see it. And you may have the same problem with ‘deep green’ ecological and animal rights issues. Neutral observers are hard to come by, and once you make ‘what must be asserted’ a matter of policy rather than fact they are officially disadvantaged, which will make them rarer, and that creates a toxic environment for the exercise of state power.
Any movement will be keenly aware of violence or the threat of violence against its own advocates, and will want that to be ‘on the table’ too. This is an extremely reasonable demand, and pro-lifers and other groups are sure to press it, if it is a question of where the cannons of official, state-backed shaming will point. But, if you allow that to go to its unchecked extreme, you get the Muslim game, where anti-Islamic ‘hate crimes’ against the Muslim aggressors are not only highlighted but invented, and in Islamic propaganda, backed alas by Western governments, every act of jihad terror including the 11th of September, 2001 attacks is re-framed as an occasion where violence against Muslims is to be feared due to the ‘backlash’ boogey-man, and Muslims demand more protection for themselves and in effect less sympathy for their victims (the victims of real, actual violence and not hypothetical “backlash” phantoms) the more they attack. That is a reduction to absurdity of the policy of seeking relief from terror by backing “moderates”.
David: 1)I’m confused by your term ‘shaming weapon’ what type of shaming do you mean, and who would use it?
I’m trying to read the second and third paragraph but am a little confused at where you’re starting from.
I’m starting from Armed Liberal’s post.
Armed Liberal:
Barack Obama:
Assuming it is possible and desirable at all, how does a war on anomie in America alone, one based on the values of American exceptionalism, stand in relation to an approach that rejects as impossible or doomed the elevation of any one nation or group of people over another?
Assuming it is possible and desirable at all, how does a war on “violent extremism,” waged not on the basis of any national exceptionalism but based apparently on the force of split-the-difference moderation for the sake of moderation and stability for the sake of stability, stand in relation to a “war on anomie”?
I still find your rapid change between groups a little confusing David, but here’s the best rebuttal I can give:
I don’t think AL is talking about giving power to any specific group. Instead it is making a conscious effort (both as society & as government) to reach out and bridge the waters between moderate groups and extremist groups… hopefully bringing some groups into the fold and separating their connections to extremist groups (Draining the swamp of fringe groups at home). There are a number of ways of doing this without ‘legislating new powers’, which is what your post seems to imply.
I don’t think we’re talking about protecting the viewpoint of any particular group, but keeping a careful watch on those groups that are prone to violence. So yes, that would include ‘eco-terrorists’, that would include elements of ‘pro-life’, that would include radical american mosques, and after last weeks shooting, that would include fringe elements of the anti-war groups.
In the case of backlash muslim attacks, these do not appear to be the work of a single group, instead they mostly seem to be random attacks propagated by angry morons. As such, a COIN strategy would not be very effective.
Still, I can’t help but pick up on the animosity on muslims in your post. You seem to imply that muslims deserve scrutiny as ‘aggressors’ and will try to steal empathy from “the victims of their attacks?”. Are you implying that:
1) The 7-8 million american muslims are complicit in Islamic terrorism?
2) Anti-islamic attacks should not be taken seriously, because Muslims are using them as a way of gathering political power to plan for another attack?
Please explain where I’ve misread you.
I am not saying that 7-8 million American Muslims are complicit in Islamic terrorism.
And I think without further participation by Armed Liberal, this conversation has gone as far as it can usefully go, or a little further. I’m done.
_”Doctors willing to perform abortions are a scarce commodity; engineering professors are not.”_
Doctors willing to perform _partial birth_ abortions are scarce. The fact that 1.3 million abortions are performed per year indicates abortion doctors are hardly scarce.
That being said there have been exactly 5 abortion doctors murdered since Roe V Wade. This is troubling and tragic and needs to be addressed… proportionately. In comparison, the DC snipers alone killed 11.
Working on a post about The Speech and leading a life, so sorry to dip in and out.
Alchemist in #24 pretty much nails what I’m trying to talk about – about exposing the enablers of violent extremism for what they are – cowardly little spiders who seek to entrap others into acts they themselves will not commit.
And yes, I really do believe that violent extremism among the african-americans who convert to Islam can be combated this way as well; it’s really the only way we can do it when we’re talking about the random emergence of violent actions among a small subset of a much larger group.
Marc
David, I am deeply sorry if I have offended you in any way, I was trying to get a better idea for what you mean. You didn’t help, so I supplied my own reasoning.
I seem to misread you alot, our minds do not see closely I guess. Oh, well, try again next time I guess…
_That being said there have been exactly 5 abortion doctors murdered since Roe V Wade. This is troubling and tragic and needs to be addressed… proportionately._
According to the FBI, ecoterrorism is the #1 domestic threat. This is despite the fact that I cannot find reference to a single murder by ecoterrorists in this country.
How do you explain this?
In my mind, it’s because fringe groups rarely start at car bombs and assassinations. There’s a gradual progression as groups become more and more vigilante. Isolating these groups before they are serious threats is just one part of protecting the american people.
For example: “Roeder”:http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/01/kansas.doctor.killed.charges/index.html was chased off from vandalizing another clinic just the day before. Proper police involvement could have prevented this killing.
Now, I am not saying that all (or even most )vandalizes are killers. I am saying that someone who seriously vandalizes a clinic, car lot, (etc) for a political movement is more likely to kill for that same movement. (I would guess by several orders of magnitude).
Again, stopping that progression early can be key.
Mark B gives an example that appears to show the opposite of what I (perhaps incorrectly) think he was suggesting.
So, there are something like 2 or 3 million people in the DC Metro Area, and notwithstanding people changed their lives around in fear of the sniper. Wikipedia isn’t being helpful, but there appear to be (far) fewer than 100,000 OBGYNs in the United States, the vast, vast majority of whom are not “abortion doctors”.
Isn’t it obvious that violence against abortion doctors is a factor in discouraging doctors to perform abortions? Someone is going to argue that a “shaming” system is effective but a “killing” system is not?!?!
Wikipedia has a rather informative, well sourced page (unusual for wiki on hot topics) here: “Anti-Abortion Violence”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence
9 killings, 153 assaults, 41 bombings, 173 arsons, another 91 attempted bombings/arsons, 619 bomb threats and various assorted lesser crimes over a 30 year period (1977-2009).
Per year that averages out to .28 killings, 4.78 assaults, 1.36 bombings, 5.4 arsons, 2.85 attempted bombings/arsons, 19.35 bomb threats etc.
As a conservative, I believe those are far higher than the numbers they should be, namely 0. But as every good lefty knows, since that’s lower than the amount of people who die in auto accidents in a day, its inconsequential really, and only wingnuts get bent out of shape over something that while regrettable is so tiny.
Ok, that was a cheap shot, but I couldn’t resist.
I found the section on ‘Reactions to anti-abortion violence’ interesting. The mainstream pro-life organizations issue condemnations and place bounties on outstanding criminals.
The pro-choice groups pushed for legislation curtailing the civil liberties of those who disagree with them.
So it seems the left IS perfectly willing to accept limitations on civil liberties, at least for certain forms of terrorism. Either that or they are just happy to use it as a convenient club to declare their opposition as thought-criminals, depending on whether or not you think buffer zones on demonstrations around abortion clinics do anything to deter violence against them.
Maybe if we label Islamic terrorists as being anti-abortion (which they almost certainly are)?