[Winstonm]

"Cutting the Fuse", University of Chicago Press, 2010

Quote

Pape oversees the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, the world’s largest academic research project on suicide terrorism, and Feldman is the project’s principal advisor. The CPOST team recently completed a study of more than 2,000 suicide attacks. The team also studied tapes left by suicide bombers and collected other key information, such as their religious backgrounds, methods and number of casualties resulting from the attacks.

Quote

The research found that in each of the countries where suicide terrorism flourished, it was used to combat an occupying force. While occupation may sometimes be necessary to achieve immediate foreign policy goals, it does so at the risk of stimulating a suicide terrorist campaign against the occupier’s homeland. This is the dilemma an occupier faces, Feldman noted, since when the threat of occupation was removed, suicide terrorism largely stopped. After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, for instance, Lebanese suicide terrorist attacks against Israel ended, Pape pointed out. Since Israel withdrew militarily from Gaza and portions of the West Bank, suicide attacks have been down 90 percent.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Quote

NATO: terror threat in Europe justifies Afghan war

WROCLAW, Poland (AP) — A top NATO commander says an al-Qaida-linked plot that triggered the terror alert for Europe underlines the need for the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.

[Lobowolf]

Winstonm, on Oct 9 2010, 08:18 AM, said:

"Cutting the Fuse", University of Chicago Press, 2010

Quote

Pape oversees the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, the world’s largest academic research project on suicide terrorism, and Feldman is the project’s principal advisor. The CPOST team recently completed a study of more than 2,000 suicide attacks. The team also studied tapes left by suicide bombers and collected other key information, such as their religious backgrounds, methods and number of casualties resulting from the attacks.

Quote

The research found that in each of the countries where suicide terrorism flourished, it was used to combat an occupying force. While occupation may sometimes be necessary to achieve immediate foreign policy goals, it does so at the risk of stimulating a suicide terrorist campaign against the occupier’s homeland. This is the dilemma an occupier faces, Feldman noted, since when the threat of occupation was removed, suicide terrorism largely stopped. After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, for instance, Lebanese suicide terrorist attacks against Israel ended, Pape pointed out. Since Israel withdrew militarily from Gaza and portions of the West Bank, suicide attacks have been down 90 percent.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Quote

NATO: terror threat in Europe justifies Afghan war

WROCLAW, Poland (AP) — A top NATO commander says an al-Qaida-linked plot that triggered the terror alert for Europe underlines the need for the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.

So you're saying the NATO decision is consistent with the researchers' position that "occupation may sometimes be necessary"?

[nigel_k]

When there is an occupying force, the terrorists naturally target that occupying force. When there isn't, they engage in terrorism overseas: New York, London, Madrid, Bali etc. For the most part, these attacks did not involve people whose country was occupied.

No doubt withdrawing from Afghanistan and letting the Taliban have it again would lead to fewer terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. But I doubt it would make the Afghan people better off overall and I'm certain it wouldn't make us any safer.

Also, suicide attacks in Israel have been down since they built the wall. But correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

[helene_t]

nigel_k, on Oct 10 2010, 08:43 PM, said:

But correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Source: http://xkcd.com/552/

[vuroth]

Winstonm, on Oct 9 2010, 08:18 AM, said:

Quote

Since Israel withdrew militarily from Gaza and portions of the West Bank, suicide attacks have been down 90 percent.

You know what else happened around that timeframe? A foreign leader who was funding suicide bombing in Israel was deposed.

Not saying the overall conclusions are wrong, or aren't interesting.

[kenberg]

I recall that GWB summarized it as "They don't like to be occupied. I wouldn't like to be occupied". Great minds think alike, and he didn't need several hundred pages to get to it.

There was the French Resistance in the 40s, the Sioux uprisings, etc. They also didn't like being occupied.

But as always, there have to be some complications.

The 9/11 attack, as I understand it, was planned in Afghanistan by a Saudi. We were not occupying Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia at that time.

Or were we? That's the rub, I think. We have a strong, and sometimes unwelcome, presence in the area. This could well be perceived as occupation by the excitable.

In 2004 some Democratic nut spoke at the Republican convention about how our forces were an army of liberation not an army of occupation. Perhaps he read Che in his younger days. When we overthrow a government and take over the running of the country, we are an occupying force. Of course we were, at that time and place, an army of occupation. Now, however, we are not. We are not occupying Iraq or Afghanistan. Or Pakistan. Or Indonesia. I'm not so sure that terrorists make these fine distinctions.

Do I have a point, you may ask. I think so. American influence is pervasive. You can visit Starbucks in Paris, and you don't just see tourists. No suicide bombers have struck. Yet. But I think that it is not so simple as terrorists contesting an occupying force, strictly construed.

[NickRW]

wrt to the attacks on Western locations coming apparently from largely Muslim countries - they seem to see Israel as unwelcome blot on the landscape - the US propping up the Israelis and the rest of the West in league with the the US.

Or at least that is the simplistic view.

Nick

[kenberg]

NickRW, on Oct 11 2010, 09:21 AM, said:

wrt to the attacks on Western locations coming apparently from largely Muslim countries - they seem to see Israel as unwelcome blot on the landscape - the US propping up the Israelis and the rest of the West in league with the the US.

Or at least that is the simplistic view.

Nick

I think that this is right. It goes along with my view that "occupation" is not a straightforward issue. Even if we are not seen as an occupier, or change our policy so that we are no longer seen as occupiers, we can still be viewed as supporters of an occupier.

My view of the problem of Israel is that it is basically hopeless. The Camp David agreement showed that accord with Israel is (or at one time was) possible, the thirty plus years since then have shown that there is not a chance in hell of further accord. We can argue until we drop as to who is to blame. It won't change. Israel can be abandoned and the region will go up in flames, or Israel can be supported and there will be unending strife. I seriously doubt that there is a third option. The six day war was when I was a grad student. I am now retired. When my kids retire, they will still be at each other's throats. The countries, not my kids. Not every problem admits a solution.

[nigel_k]

kenberg, on Oct 12 2010, 05:32 AM, said:

Israel can be abandoned and the region will go up in flames, or Israel can be supported and there will be unending strife. I seriously doubt that there is a third option. The six day war was when I was a grad student. I am now retired. When my kids retire, they will still be at each other's throats. The countries, not my kids. Not every problem admits a solution.

That's what they said about Northern Ireland. Sometimes people just get tired of fighting.

But people need to have the prospect of a decent and comfortable life if they don't fight, and outside influences need to stop stoking the fires. If those conditions are met, there's no reason the problem can't just slowly fade into the background. But it will take a while.

[kenberg]

We can all hope that this is the way it plays out. Perhaps it will.

[mike777]

nigel_k, on Oct 11 2010, 01:24 PM, said:

kenberg, on Oct 12 2010, 05:32 AM, said:

Israel can be abandoned and the region will go up in flames, or Israel can be supported and there will be unending strife. I seriously doubt that there is a third option. The six day war was when I was a grad student. I am now retired. When my kids retire, they will still be at each other's throats. The countries, not my kids. Not every problem admits a solution.

That's what they said about Northern Ireland. Sometimes people just get tired of fighting.

But people need to have the prospect of a decent and comfortable life if they don't fight, and outside influences need to stop stoking the fires. If those conditions are met, there's no reason the problem can't just slowly fade into the background. But it will take a while.

Some good news the economy on the Arab West bank is growing like gang busters.

[barmar]

nigel_k, on Oct 11 2010, 02:24 PM, said:

But people need to have the prospect of a decent and comfortable life if they don't fight, and outside influences need to stop stoking the fires. If those conditions are met, there's no reason the problem can't just slowly fade into the background. But it will take a while.

Indeed. There was a century between the Emancipation Proclamation and Martin Luther King, Jr.