Responses to (and roots of) Terrorism

Like the rest of the world, I'm reeling from the attacks in Paris last night. Innocent people were slaughtered as they went about their evening. And like many I notice the seemingly disproportionate response to these attacks when weighed up with other comparable attacks in other parts of the world. There's an interesting article on that here :

The simple fact is, Muslims are far more likely to die at the hands of other Muslims – or more to the point, Islamic extremists who bear no resemblance to average Muslims. They’re also more likely to be killed by Westerners, who are seeking to kill Islamic extremists. The difference is, they’re unlikely to see an outpouring of grief [from] the rest of the world.

Terrorism isn't something which only happens in the West, and it's not something unique to Muslim-minority countries. Yesterday in Lebanon 43 people were killed and 200 injured in a coordinated series of bombings by extremist terrorists . Interestingly I'm seeing more focus on this than we might ordinarily expect - people have had the idea of what it's like to live under threat "brought home" by the Paris attacks, it seems to me, and are therefore more interested in the murder and maiming of innocent people abroad.

But attacks like these are common, regular in our world, and few of us seem to have the capacity to hold them in our attention until they strike us in the West. After 9/11, the US launched its "War on Terror". Despite the immense cost in human life (not to mention the variously-estimated price for taxpayers ) the decade-long "war" entailed, the world does not seem a substantially safer place. Airports, transit systems and even schools are locked down in response to terror threats which seem to keep coming.

It seems to me that the war of attrition, the "eye for an eye" response kills innocent people on both sides. There is no greater recruiting tool for ISIS (or ISIL or whatever you want to call them) than a person's loved ones becoming "collateral damage", and it seems a real no-brainer that escalation is a factor too - putting people into a world where bombs go off and guns are fired makes it easier for them to set off bombs and fire guns.

Violence is a cycle. You kill my family? I kill yours. It's circular. Jedi understand cycles. We know that imbalance creates a return. We also know that extreme responses to either polar extremity of the cyclical is not helpful, and indeed likely only creates further imbalance. To put this in simple terms - fighting fire with fire does not put out the fire.

A little reading on non-violent responses to terrorism yielded this interesting three-step plan ( source ):

First, immediately stop sending funds and weapons to all involved parties. This is the easiest of the three. Ten years of terrorism-making and we still think our guns aren’t going to fall into the “wrong” hands? The hands they fall into are already “wrong.” If you need a good example, take a look at our darlings, the Free Syrian Army, and their blatant human rights violations, such as using child soldiers, documented by Human Rights Watch in 2012 and2014.

Second, fully invest in social and economic development initiatives in any region in which terrorist groups are engaged. In his 2004 book, “Nonviolent Response to Terrorism,” Tom Hastings, Ed.D., professor of conflict resolution at Portland State University, questions: “What if the terrorists – or the population base from which they draw – had enough of life’s necessities? What if they had secure jobs, decent living standards, drinkable water and healthy food for their children? Do we seriously think they would provide a recruiting base for terrorism?” Harvard lecturer Louise Richardson, author of the 2007 book “What Terrorists Want” makes the same argument, and Kim Cragin and Peter Chalk of the Rand Corporation drew the same conclusion from their 2003 study on social and economic development to inhibit terrorism. ISIS gained some of its current strength from economically providing for the families of fallen fighters, promising education to young boys (and then handing each a weapon), and capitalizing on grief and anger in Syrian communities. If we want to weaken ISIS and any other group engaging in terrorist activities, we have to start focusing on the needs they fill in those communities. Local communities in the region should be self-sustainable and civilians should feel empowered to provide for themselves and their families without taking up arms or using violence.

Third, fully support any and all nonviolent civil society resistance movements. Whoever is left – give them whatever support is needed the most. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephen, in their 2011 groundbreaking study on civil resistance, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” found that “between 1900 and 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.” In addition, successful nonviolent resistance campaigns are less likely to descend into civil war and more likely to achieve democratic goals. We should have fully supported the nonviolent Syrian revolution when we had the chance. Instead, we gave legitimacy to the violent rebel factions – those same groups now fighting alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS. If we send our unconditional support to whatever nonviolent civil society actors are left on the ground in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, we might just find that the best remedy for terroritis has been right in front of us the entire time – civil society.

These are three easy paths any rational politician could advocate that will decrease hostilities, prevent the emergence of new terrorism recruiting environments and empower local communities to engage in nonviolent conflict resolution strategies. We’ve had centuries to discover that violence doesn’t work, hasn’t worked and won’t work. It’s time to try something different. Global leaders need to get on board the logic train and put some serious and sustained effort into nonviolent counterterrorism strategies. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before ISIS starts criticizing the next group for wanton violence and human rights abuses.

I wanted to post this here for some deeper discussion of the horrors we face as a civilisation from extremist terrorists who target civilian populations. What can our response be? Can we "bomb" terrorism away? Can we "support" groups on the ground in the hope they won't some day turn their weapons on us? Or is there another approach to the situation which stops the cycle of violence? Is it practical to imagine a world in which diplomacy and international aid have a substantial effect on the radicalisation of people, the world over? Could greater engagement, greater familiarity and fellowship between races and religions be the answer to this cycle of hate?

Turning it over to you guys for your thoughts, either way. Our sympathy for the dead and wounded in Paris is a given, of course - but my question is, can a return of violence ever yield the peaceful world most of us wish to live in?

Thank you for posting this. It is so easy for people, myself included, to believe that the only logical course of action against violence is violence.

Now I'm not suggesting that if violence is brought upon me that I will let it happen. That's not at all what I'm saying. Sitting there and "dying in the name of peace" doesn't really help anything. What I do mean is thinking about how we respond to the root of terrorism rather than our responses to the individual acts themselves.

It seems to me that they want an even playing field. They want the world to be even and since their part of the world isn't getting better they're going to make our part worse. Maybe we should try to find a way to make theirs better. How should we best stabilize those areas of the world? Clearly armed conflict isn't working. It's very hard to scare a group of people who's main tactic is suicide. They won't give up because they realize we'll kill them all if they don't, they all plan to die anyway.

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, we've been trying the same thing for an awfully long time expecting that it will turn out differently.

The article is great, but it lacks knowledge of what is already going on...which is exactly these same things.

We DO try to help build these groups up. But the crisis is more complex than that.

We DO try to fund the groups against the ones we don't want in power. Guess what, it ends up creating some of the new groups that end up hurting people later (such as Al Qaeda).

We DO try to go after people that fund and send weapons to the enemy, you can't find them all. There IS a black market.

The problem is far more complex than what the author of this article knows or understands. Which isn't a testament against him/her but more to the fact it's a testimony as to how ineffective these approaches have been and how complex the problem really is.

As to what Goken mentioned about resisting violence brought upon the person, the Shaolin come to mind. A sect of buddhists that may use violence if and only if another threatens their life, up to and including killing the attacker. It's interesting how this is very applicable to the individual, but entirely void when we start talking in terms of groups.

Robert Pirsig said, and I quote very loosely here because I don't want to track down the actual quote at this minute, that if a factory is destroyed, but the underlying thought that created the factory remains, a new factory will simply be built. This is what is happening in the middle east. Al Queda is brought down, and ISIS rises. We need to find a way to change the way of thinking that brings about extremism, for sure, and our current methods are surely not working.

I'm not one to pretend to have the solutions on these complex matters, but giving something new a try seems the only rational response at this point.

Alethea, I don't think anyone disputes we do those things. What is in dispute is whether we do enough, and what that can mean alongside things like bombing campaign which leave the people these things are trying to help dead or bereaved.

Also your second "We DO" is something the article suggests we shouldn't be doing.

Alethea Thompson wrote: We DO try to fund the groups against the ones we don't want in power. Guess what, it ends up creating some of the new groups that end up hurting people later (such as Al Qaeda).

I feel like funding one side against the other is perhaps one of the big issues at play here.. once it appears to a group that 'the enemy' has the backing of another country, it is no wonder that country then becomes a target, for they too become 'the enemy'.

We are at war, whether we like it or not. We have /are losing/lost our humanity towards each other.

Yet another action that needs to be done by the U.S., and the West: Completely, and immediately, pull ALL military personnel out of the counties in the Middle East. Our troops should not be there. Immediately STOP extrajudicial drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, etc.

The extremists want America to die because America is killing their people, largely innocents, with Imperialism.

It needs to stop.

There is a way to decrease the likelihood of terrorism. It's not in bombing hospitals where weapons are supposedly stored. It's not in removing the freedom enjoyed by the citizens of free countries through extremely strict security regulations and guidelines. It's not found in blind hatred of a religion, and while it is a necessary evil at times to send people to solve these issues with weapons, that is only a piece of the solution and will never solve the issue entirely.
People who join these groups may be steeped in religious extremism, but people don't just grab onto religion like that for no reason. They seek out religion for identity when they feel they have none. They go to religion for hope, when they see the world around them in a state that they can't support and look to something higher. The best way to combat terrorism is to find ways to improve the lives of people in general worldwide, while at the same time providing them with bodily autonomy and religious freedom. By finding ways to provide the general population of the planet with a good standard of living without imposing ourselves on others, by making people satisfied with their daily lives, we solve the issue. Those already aligned with terrorist organizations must be found and put to justice, hopefully through rehabilitation. But a happy man or woman will not go out of his or her way to cause mass destruction and panic, and that is what we should aim for as a global community.

You cannot make everyone happy, and you cannot negotiate, placate, or solve, extremism.

Happiness, contentment, etc, is not a constant, and if it were, it would not be the normal course of being.

People are complex, and yes, if your somehow could remove that complexity, perhaps you would have "peace" but at the cost of out humanity just as much as war seems to.

Perhaps, instead of going to religion or hope, we could address the fact that you could also be the change you want to see in the world, as opposed to running to this, that, or the other, to solve it for you.

Happiness, one way or another, is self motivated, which is why everyone will not achieve it, work for it, or do it.

Some people only feel something at the expense of others, in some cases, many others.

Perhaps, it would be best if people as a whole could acknowledge that there are groups of people in this world, that cannot be rehabilitated, or reasoned with.

This is not the fault of the US, as extremism has existed well before the US was even a country, especially in the places it is still rampant most.

Rose colored glasses are no more the answer than "Just bomb them".