Internet Commentator

I was thinking about yesterday’s attacks and the predictable response by some that perhaps Tony Blair might now reconsider the presence of British troops in Iraq. In this particular case, such a concession wouldn’t actually satisfy the “mujaheddin”. As Amir Taheri notes in today’s Times:

But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.

Now, there is always the danger of falling into the motivations-of-the-terrorist trap. To prevent or deter such incidents in the future or bring to justice anyone involved, it isn’t sufficient, (nor, I’d even say in most cases, necessary) to come to a deep understanding of the terrorists’ rationale any more than it is for an ordinary serial killer. But this wasn’t the precise issue which concerned me. It occurred to me that, regardless of how rational or achievable terrorists’ demands might be, that there was a specific problem attaching to any appeasement of a “low tech” terrorist or guerrilla group that didn’t apply in the case of a conventional army of more or less equal or slightly superior strength to yours (in the case of the overwhelmingly superior force, there is unlikely to be an opportunity to appease).

If you are faced with a “conventional” enemy, say your neighbouring country, and you have estimate a reasonably high probability of defeat, it is certainly worth exploring if some concessions might ward off war. In the case of a guerrilla group, which achieves its capacity to threaten through relatively inexpensive means, safety is not ensured even if that specific guerrilla groups withdraws its threat. If it becomes clear that concessions or demands may be obtained so cheaply, you create an incentive for further terrorist action by other groups.

Latest from BBC News, Guardian and Telegraph. The Times relates some survivor’s tales here.

Update: Via Foreign Dispatches, the BBC has some more eyewitness accounts.

Interesting observations by Ben Good on Osama Bin Laden’s resurrection:

1. I always thought Bush’s description of Al Qaeda’s motives- “they hate our freedom”- was an empty-headed formula designed to cover up the lack of any serious inquiry into that movement’s aims and goals. But, remarkably, it seems to have stung Bin Laden to the quick. He spends a considerable amount of time defending himself against the charge- and convinces me in the process that “Western freedom” (as opposed to, say, “Western agression” or “Western decadence”) is something he does indeed get rather hot under the collar about.[..]

2. […]you could also see the video as an admission by Bin Laden that he was not able to orchestrate a terror operation- indeed, in its battier moments, the video almost reads as an apology for not attacking. It occasionally reminded me of the patronising video inserts recorded by rock stars who can’t be bothered to attend MTV awards ceremonies. “Hi guys, sorry I can’t be with you tonight to create havoc in the run up to your elections. But just to let you know, I’ll be thinking of you next Tuesday- and I sure hope you’ll be thinking of me.”

J Cassian, commenting at Abiola’s blog captures perfectly the thinking behind those clamouring to Nuke Chechnya:

I just hope there’s a serious international effort going on to prevent nuclear materials falling into the hands of LGF commenters and their like. The standard model for this kind of thing runs something like this:”It really, really pains me to have to advocate genocide but I’m just too lazy to distinguish between a handful of murderous Islamist extremists and the entire Chechen people.

I have made my feelings clear on France’s headscarf ban before - I’m against it - However France is quite correct to refuse to drop the ban in response to kidnappers’ demands . This is actually a good example to demonstrate what was so wrong about Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero’s actions in the wake of the Madrid Bombs and Spanish election. So many of his defenders cried that Zapatero, in withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, was only honouring commitments made prior to the bombs and thus couldn’t be accused of acceding to the terrorists’ demands. Yet the threat changed everything. I think that France should scrap its headscarf ban, but not now and not under any circumstances that terrorists may believe that they influenced that decision. Likewise, even though I disagree with the withdrawal of Spanish peace-keeping forces from Iraq - there is no honour in denying Iraqi civilians protection from terrorists - I do respect that that was the express wish of the Spanish people (one can’t really complain considering there are no Irish troops there) but this is not the principal charge against Zapatero which applies even if you thought Spanish withdrawal was the right thing to do. The problem was not the withdrawal but the timing of that withdrawal. Should France drop the ban now it will hand an enormous propaganda boost to Islamic extremists and invite further targeted actions against French citizens and interests. So, even though dropping the ban under any other circumstances, would be the right thing to do, it is the wrong thing to do now.

Abiola adds the following comments to his post about German film The Downfall which portrays the “human side” of Hitler:

And it also opens the way for people to say, “since he was human, he must have arrived at his ideas through reasoned reflection …” in just the same manner that certain people like to go on and on about the “root causes of terrorism” being Western actions. In other words, it opens the way for those who’d like to argue that there was something to the man’s ideas

I think people often underestimate the dangers of (to misappropriate a mathematical term) homomorphism - I intend this to mean assuming that someone else shares a similar method of thinking to oneself. For instance, the classic response of many western liberals [sic] - such as Jenny Tonge - to suicide bombers is to try and put themselves in the mind of the suicide bomber and assume that suicide bombers employ similar reasoning to oneself. What follows from this is the assumption, because one couldn’t imagine becoming a suicide bomber unless there was some compellingly inevitable reason for doing so, that such a compelling justification must exist. This tendency may be similar to Pareidolia, the inbuilt tendency we have to recognise patterns where none exist. Thus, anyone making such a film must be aware of the possibility that viewers may over-identify with Hitler and should take care to avoid unintentionally lending his internal rationale a veneer of external rationality.

It seems as if Ronan Bennett’s film about Al-Qaeda’s Hamburg cell will suffer the same pitfalls. Although in the latter case, given Bennett’s avowed support for the Provisional Republican movement and condemnation for those who would inform, even on the Omagh bombers, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that identification with the 9/11 terrorists is intentional, particularly given the numerous strained connections, evasions and obfuscations in Bennett’s Observer piece on Ziad Jarrah.

I must concur with Perry de Havilland: Bin Laden is surely as dead as Presley. Regardless of the preposterous notion that Europe would negotiate a caliphate opt-out with the Islamofascists, too much credibility is given to the notion that this latest audio tape is authentic. Bit hard to believe that this shadowy organisation couldn’t get its hands on a cheap camcorder and prove that their leader prevails.

I must condemn outright the outrageous extra-judicial execution of Transylvanian “spiritual leader” Vlad “the impaler” Tepes:

The European chancelleries condemned unanimously this murder stating that it was against international legality and would surely be prejudicial to the region’s thousand year old peace process. The UN’s secretary-general said that the British action was “simply unacceptable”, that it was a barbarous act perpetrated against “a democratically chosen leader” (the Count was elected once, in 1496). He also said that even someone accused of vampirism has the right for a fair and two or three centuries long trial at the International Court of Justice. The NGOs, for their part, blamed the international capitalism because, as they explained, Vlad had been for long an obstacle against the woodcutting and wolf-hunting lobbies that have been trying to destroy the delicate ecological balance of the Carpathian

Anyone remotely taken in by Jonathan Freedland’s piece in the Guardian today ought to read Melanie Phillips’s excellent unpicking of his muddled logic:

This argument sets up a quite breath-taking straw man. No-one has suggested that the Spanish voted for al Q’aeda. What happened was that the Spanish voted in a manner engineered by al Qa’eda. Had the bombings not occurred, the election result would almost certainly have been quite different. Al Q’aeda set a trap and the Spanish duly fell right in. Democracy, in other words, was suborned. That is why it was a victory not for democracy but for terror. The Spanish are being accused not of being al Q’aeda’s fellow travellers, but their useful idiots.

..they’re differently emphatic!