ARMS-D-Request%MIT-MC.ARPA@MIT-XX.ARPA (Moderator) (10/20/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, October 20, 1985 1:00AM Volume 1, Issue 2 Today's Topics: Terrorism: States and Individuals Double Standards for Us and Them One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah (2 msgs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA by MIT-MC.ARPA.ARPA; 10 Jul 85 04:53:48 EDT Received: by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.2) id AA20187; Wed, 10 Jul 85 01:47:31 pdt From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley Message-Id: <8507100847.AA20187@UCB-VAX.ARPA> Date: 10 Jul 85 00:14:23 CDT (Wed) Received: by ihnp4.ATT.UUCP id AA26345; 10 Jul 85 00:14:23 CDT (Wed) To: arms-d@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: Terrorism: States and Individuals > > Should we assume that hostages held by terrorists are already 'dead' > > and say target any airport where a hijacked airliner lands with an > > ICBM? > > This would be terrorism in spades, wouldn't it? One of the main > functions of a government is to protect its citizens. How many > U.S. citizens would you be willing to sacrifice in order to "probably > break the cycle"? Would you be willing to sacrifice your life or those > of your loved ones for this cause? That's a nasty way of putting it, but it's a nasty issue. Which is more important: saving the lives of the hostages in any given terrorist act, or saving the lives of those who will be victimized *next time* if the "cycle" is not halted? If the lives immediately at risk are the major issue, then giving in to terrorist demands is probably the best course of action in most cases. This is, unfortunately, absolutely the worst possible thing to do in the long run. "Once you have paid the Danegeld..." Bribing people to leave you alone doesn't work; somehow it always occurs to them that they can come back for more. It isn't clear, though, that immediate destruction is the best strategy even if long-term concerns dominate your thinking completely. (My own view, by the way, is that both sets of lives are significant, with some emphasis on the long-term problems because they affect more people.) Creating martyrs is often a bad idea, likewise attracting publicity to terrorist attacks. The Soviet Air Force apparently has standing orders to shoot down hijacked airliners, but they work in an environment where such incidents can be kept completely quiet. Not so for us. The ideal end to a hijacking incident is probably dead terrorists and no publicity; demolishing the whole plane achieves the former but not the latter. It's a hard problem. To rephrase your own query, how many U.S. citizens would *you* be willing to sacrifice in future hijackings to protect the victims of the current one? Would you be willing to sacrifice your life or those of your loved ones because your government didn't think it was right to firmly discourage hijackings? This sort of appeal-to-the-emotions cuts both ways; let us try to keep this rational. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Received: from apg-1 by MIT-MC.ARPA.ARPA; 10 Jul 85 08:41:35 EDT Date: Wed, 10 Jul 85 8:36:49 EDT From: Jeff Miller AMSTE-TOI 4675 <jmiller@apg-1> Subject: Double Standards for Us and Them To: arms-d@mit-mc Cc: rbloom@apg-1, jmiller@apg-1 There seems to be an amazing and dangerous view amongst many otherwise intelligent and reasonable people in the West that, somehow, because we are members of Democratic Western civilization, we must judge ourselves differently from the totalitarian East. I recently saw such a manifestation on this digest. Referencing recent events in the Near East, one writer makes the claim that the Israelis are no less "terrorists" than the Amal, Hezbullah, and I suppose the PLO and the Islamic Jihad. Why? Because they pointed guns at suspected guerillas when they arrested them. Thus the logic goes, the prisoners were put under threat of death, just like the American hostages. I won't get hung up on the question of how to arrest a lot of hostile people without pointing guns at them, or the the notion that they should never have been treated as POWs because they didn't have nice uniforms on or possess papers saying; " The bearer of this document is an official Guerrilla fighter, but since that is a secret don't tell anyone." With the total anarchy of Lebanon, the savagery that is displayed between Lebanese and Lebanese, and between Lebanese and Palistinian, the daily killing in great, big bloody batches, I can only assume that the writer I'm refering to must be making a qualitative comparison, using a different standard against which to rail against the Israelis. Here then is a problem- holding ourselves to an impossibly higher set of standards than we hold other, usually hostile countries and groups. If an identifiable group bombs a civilian target in a Western country, producing civilian casualties, any discussion of like retaliation is smothered by excessive handwringing that we should never do such a thing- we are better than they. It doesn't take terrorists long to realize how to play such attitudes expertly against us. It never fails to amaze me what kinds of acts are largely ignored when carried out by the Soviet Union, or a satellite thereof, or a hostile third world country or group. But should a western country transgress, then the public outcry is tremendous. The US has 55 advisers in El Salvador! There goes the US again, threatening world peace! I'll bet everybody in the US above the fifth grade level can tell you how many advisors we have in Salvador, but how many know that there are more Soviet advisors in Peru than there are US advisors in ALL of Latin America? The Syrian Army, under government orders,in 1982 massacred an entire town, men women and children. I recall it did not make the front page around here. Yet when the Lebanese Christians massacred Palistinians at Sabra and Shatila, world opinion welled up against the Israelis- for not taking better precautions in controlling the Phalange. Even when the Israelis held the matter up to public judicial scrutiny, something unthinkable in Syria, it wasn't good enough. Those Israelis were just plain bad guys and that was it. No matter that no Israelis participated in, or planned or condoned the massacre in advance. Must Western democracies hold themselves to high standards? Of course. Does that mean that any act by a Western nation be judged more harshly than others? No. This is stupidity. If we insist on self flagellation for just thinking about striking back in our own defense, how long can our Western democracies last? ( It isn't just a natural intellectual fad to indulge in excessive national self-deprecation, the hand of the Soviet Union is clearly seen manipulating Western opinion, but I don't feel like stirring up the same kinds of arguments that accompanied recent discussions about the nuclear freeze movement.) ------------------------------ Received: from MIT-OZ by MIT-MC.ARPA via Chaosnet; 10 JUL 85 09:00:11 EDT Date: 10 Jul 1985 08:59 EDT (Wed) Message-ID: <MDC.WAYNE.12125874765.BABYL@MIT-OZ> From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA> To: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA> Cc: ARMS-DISCUSSION@MIT-MC.ARPA, wayne%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah In-reply-to: Msg of Tue 9 Jul 85 10:19:52 EDT from Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA> Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 10:19:52 EDT From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA> The Poliboro is a very conservative institution. Unless you are talking about a coup of some sort at this time (which I regard as exceedingly unlikely), the entire group would have to be convinced that their caution should be abandoned. If the Soviet empire began to seriously crack--due to natural internal strains, and to prodding and poking by a militantly and aggressively anti-Soviet American Administration--and if the Soviet ruling class began to feel vitally threatened, then the less cautious and more hardline views in the Politburo and other government institutions could come to the forefront. We can't count on the Soviets being cautious and moderate for all eternity. They're only human, and subject to fits of irrationality like any other nation, particularly under severe stress. And what exactly would we have done if Israel had continued its dismemberment of the Egyptian Army (this Soviet-American crisis was precipitated in the first place by Israel ignoring our requests to back off), and the Soviet Union had then called our bluff and intervened? But it didn't. I think it is likely that US/Israeli relations would have been enormously damaged. Indeed, it is that threat that has by and large kept Israel in line. That's the whole point: you can certainly take any scenario, and say "what if X had happened instead of Y". If you do that, anything is possible. But you have to judge the plausibility of X. But the chief point of that incident is that Israel defied American wishes for a significant period of time, a deliberate action which caused the escalation of the conflict to DEFCON 3. What if in a similar future situation Sharon, or someone even more extreme, is in power? Might they not ignore American wishes entirely, and listen instead to a still small voice for their inspiration and guidance? This is exactly the kind of situation--a client state getting out of control of its superpower patron--that we need to worry about. Aid (in the form of logistics) does not necessarily mean troops for intervention. No, but it /could/ mean that. I challenge you to find anyone in the State Department knowledgeable about Mideast affairs who would rule out, for instance, the possibility of the Soviets providing troops to Syria under certain circumstances. The Soviets are among the most racist and predjudiced people in the world, and they couldn't manage an alliance with Iran if they wanted to. The Soviets already have a large Moslem population within their borders, do they not? This provides them a natural link with Islam around the world. They may be smart enough to exploit the link, and find the key to Iran's heart. An attack launched by the combined forces of Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and others might well put Israel's back againt the wall in a matter of hours, not days, well before the Soviets could disengage themselves in the Israelis' mind from complicity with the Islamic forces. That threat has been projected since 1948, and rests on the alliance you describe. As recent events have illustrated, I believe that such an alliance is becoming less likely, rather than more likely. The current period of warfare between Iran and Iraq, and of internecine conflict between sects of Islam, could prove to be a prelude to the triumph and consolidation of a rejuventated Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Middle East, one that has been tested in fire, and strengthened by the ordeal. Certainly the U.S., Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are deeply worried by this possibility. At the top of the agenda of this Islamic movement would be an all-out effort to destroy Israel; its ferocity and military strength might well make Israel long for the good old days of simple and relatively mild pan-Arabism and Palestinian nationalism. Israel might be crushed, and view the Soviet Union as being in large part responsible. She might retaliate as massively as possible. True. The question is how that leads to super-power war. IF Israel had a nuclear arsenal like that of the British, then I can believe your scenario. But it doesn't. Perhaps not yet. But she's working on it. Remember that my scenario was set in 1990. We might extend it to anytime in the 1990's. ----------------------------------------- Received: from COLUMBIA-20.ARPA by MIT-MC.ARPA.ARPA; 10 Jul 85 11:30:53 EDT Date: Wed 10 Jul 85 11:29:35-EDT From: Arthur Werschulz <WERSCHULZ@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA> Subject: re: One Apocalyptic Scenario (Digest V3 #57) To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA In response to Wayne McGuire ... > The forces of aggressive religious fundamentalism which dominated > Israel under Begin and Sharon have again thoroughly take command of > the Israeli government, and are even more fanatical than before. The most extreme fundamentalists do not play any part in the government of Israel. These people (such as Neturei Karta) feel that the present State of Israel exists against the will of the Almighty. They feel that the only legitimate state would be one headed by a Messianic king. They would most likely consider the tumultuous events surrounding them to be the "birth-pangs of the Messiah," and would hang on tight until they ended, bringing a Messianic kingdom in their wake. > In this volatile situation, a Jewish terrorist group ... manages to > blow up the Dome of the Rock (stage 1). The Israeli government is > not entirely displeased, since the Jewish fundamentalists in charge > of the nation can now proceed with their longstanding plans to ... > rebuild the Biblical Jewish Temple on the conveniently cleared > sacred site. A little problem with this part of the scenario. Jewish law states that the Temple cannot be rebuilt until the coming of the Messiah. This is due to a number of "practical" reasons, such as our lack of knowledge as to the exact location of where the Temple and its accoutrements must be located, not to mention the fact that we don't really know how to perform the ancient rites. In fact, there's no reason for humans to destroy the Dome of the Rock, since the building of the Third Temple will presumably be performed miraculously. In short, the re-establishment of the Temple would not be a motivating factor for blowing up the Dome of the Rock. There's also one more problem with this part of the scenario. According to Jewish law, everybody who is currently alive is considered ritually impure, due to "contact" with dead bodies. (Everybody has been to a funeral, or his/her parents have.) For this reason, they are once again forbidden by Jewish law to approach the site of the Temple (which can only be approached in a state of ritual purity). Hence they cannot blow up the Dome of the Rock (unless they hired non-Jewish surrogates). Even if they did succeed in this attempt, they would be unable to re-build the Temple, due to said "contamination." ------------------------------ End of Arms-Discussion Digest *****************************