The theory goes if you could go back in time and kill Hitler…would you?
Argued many times both for and against.
But let’s make it topical.
Would you back an assasination campaign to behead the leadership of Al Qaeeda, or do you think that the current campaign of murdering hundreds of innconce as well a the Foot Soldiers of the Al Qaeeda forces is a better way to deal with the situation?
Ie would you condone several key murders, or would you prefer the more traditional “open-warfare” between Western “democratic” (ha ha ha) forces and the anti-Western forces of Al Qaeeda?
(This is kind of similar to the dilemma that faced the British government int he 80’s…they knew who the leadership of the IRA was, the SAS could have “removed them” on several occassions, but the argument went, that A) YOu don’t just assisinate people and B) Knowing the leadership meant the BRitish forces knew their enemy that much better.)
DISCUSS… (hey its early, but coffee wait’s for no man, )
Interesting premise, it doesn’t appear that there is an identifible head of al-queeda anymore, and even if you were to eliminate a few supposed key members, I believe that the movement as a whole would continue. There was a time shortly after the 9/11 events (preferably before) that eliminating Bin Laden may have ensured a certain delay in progress, but that time has long since passed. The events in Afghanistan are precipitated by a lack of follow up by forces in that country, allowing the Taliban to exert it’s “influence” in many areas. The ongoing supply of volunteers in various “al-queeda” camps across the world are evidence of desire to continue the fight against non believers and the evil of the USA and others.
I suggest that if the events of 9/11 had been advoided, it may have prevented/delayed the serious upturn in US offensive foreign policy.
I accept that it was always likely that US return to Iraq, just needed an excuse. The al-queeda and iraq link was purely that they both have the letter q in their respective names!
Therefore, would it be more prudent to assasinate Bush, or ensure that the airplanes where never hijacked, by eliminating the group involved in the planning.
Just my coffee fuelled thoughts at this time - feel free to comment
It is difficult to know wheather a Mata will be made, and splitting the one group into factions, as no one agrees, and therefore increasing the diversity…
for example…
The Peoples Front of Judeah…or The Judeans’ Peoples Front!!!
It is a hard call…There are a few peeps amongst us that have this responsibility for taking a life, should it be neccesarry in their line of work…!
This also poses another question…to what level of taking lives, or number therof, is it possible to decide when it is right to take a human life for their actions?
You’d have to do it early enough, although I think this gives too much credence to Bin Liner. After all, the hatred was there, he just manipulated the weak minded fools.
As with the Hitler debate, if circumstances were ripe, someone else would have stepped into his shoes.
No, far better to have UBL skulking about in caves, eating bugs and humble pie, not able to do anything. All the while we get to fight in their country instead of ours, bombing the crap out of bored wannabe ‘jihadists’, killing their innocent civilians instead of ours (go on, someone tell me they’d not pick that option).
Hitler was an amazing visionary in that he trying to unite Europe, a feate that we have almost been able to acheive 60 years later. Trouble is as we know he went about it the most terrible way and at the cost of sooo many innocent lives. There was an assasination attempt on his life, a bomb in a meeting he was attending, which of course he survived. Would I pop him off, yes for the greater good and do I think our Goverment should have made a better attempt to do so - yes regardless of the moral dilema.
Al Qaeeda, now then on this one I would rather shoot the American idiots that trained Bin Laden and decided set a theif to catch a theif senario, which they trully did not think would bite them in the ass. Again considering the huge loss of life involved I do think that he should be popped off. I know for a fact that they have known his precise location at times and that silly moral attitude of us British has prevailed.
However, in saying all that we will never right the terrorists in this world even if we do execute prime targets. For every one killed there will be a ten more to take their place. You have to also look at the reaction to the Sadam hanging despite being tried and killed by his own people it was in the end a fiasco that was quite applalling and on the whole has been condemned by the western world… The stark reallity of death is what makes us ashamed.
However throughout history the world has been challenged by one terrorist group after another, as I have said before the one thing we should learn is that we never learn and that history always repeats itself.
The person who can resolve why one human being would ever take the life of another is the age old question which I fear there will never be an answer too.
The “10 following the one you remove” argument works once an organisation is established and has a hierarchy, so I think I’d agree Al Qaeeda is NOW too well entrenched, if not as a cohesive organisation, but certainly as a cohesive collection of independent cells.
Even if you took out hte whole of the Bin Laden establiushed management structure, you would still be looking at established groups that would rise up and replace them.
Question is, would a series of SAS/Navy Seal/Special Forces style assasinations straight after the events of 9/11 have nipped this growth in the bud?
I repeat a view I’ve said earlier, I don’t have ANYTHING against the soldiers who have to do our governments bidding, but I truly believe that poor implementation of British/US/Western policy coupled with our being in Iraq has COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY Catalysed all of these diverse and uncoordinated groups of loonies into a clear and cohesive force.
We now have a definitive enemey…in more than one country which will NEVER be resolved, unless the West declares war against every NON-Western country in the world. Christ we’re growing our very own nutters in Bradford and Luton right now. Before 9/11 and Iraq II, they were just disgruntled and unassisted students who’d probably shout a lot, but little else…now they’ve got a flag to rally round.
And Bush thinks he’s going to resolve this with MORE troops. In his speec h yesterday justifying this decision he said, " We took out all the terrorists and insurgents in a village but then didn’t have the man power to hold those villages, but now we will."
I am horrified by the idea that this man still persists in callign a foreign nations “soldiers” as terrorists or insurgents jsut to catalyse public opinion aginst them and for the US…is anyone still buying that idea that our forces are “soldiers” for the godd" and everyone against us, isn’t a soldier but rather “a dirty terrorist!”???
swings and round abouts this one, its never going to end the west should have stayed away from the east, if they want to brutalize their own people let them get on with it I say, I mean have you ever see a beheading video what kinda loonie does that, they live in the stone age and we should have left them to it.
And like you say we have home grown ones now, and its going to get worse because the goverment dont really know who they are or when they will strike next.
IF it hadn’t been for some of Hitlers complete and utter f*** ups we probably wouldn’t have won the war.
So the old go back in time and assasinate him may actually make us all German speakers with an effinity for tight shorts and braces !
As for the talk of taking life to save others … well I do believe in that but not in an assasination style, it must be done to stop an immediate threat on life and be completely open, justified and within our laws.
I go along with Trojan, take someone out before they take you out, attack is best form of defence. However if you know where leaders are, it is sometimes better to leave them, and track them and their contacts, so can take the lot out.
Problem is that Al Queda is now as much a concept as a physical entity, whilst bumping off Bin Laden & the rest of the leadership may be good for western morale, in the larger picture it’ll make liitle difference. Even if it was a defined organisation & we wiped it out completely there’s a thousand other groups out there with similar views & enough fanatics to create symbolic attacks like 9/11 or 7/7
The human race is by nature tribal & confrontational, we need opponents, enemies & bogeymen to bind us together, be it Islam & the west, or cagers & bikers, if they don’t exist we’ll create them, once the Iron curtain came down it was pretty obvious that we in the west would be drawing up battlelines with Islam in order to replace the Soviet Union as our number one global opponent.
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