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Getting Rid of Terrorism
Nov. 14th, 2015 02:13 pmI remember an Onion article about a terrorist cell in the United States. The gist was that they had all been so successful in going underground while planning their terror attack, that none of them wanted to actually do the terror attack. They had all assimilated into the United States. It's hard to plan on bombing a pipeline when you're too busy looking forward to watching the next Star Wars movie.
Another story, not from the Onion. I half-remember reading it as a comment on some blog or forum somewhere, so don't expect a citation. Basically, the story was that some group was using diplomacy as a carrot and the threat of terrorism as a stick. They had pulled off some terror attacks just to prove they meant business, and behind the scenes, they negotiated a diplomatic solution (behind the scenes, because the other side can't be seen as doing business with terrorists). Having a solution, they found themselves with a problem: A whole bunch of young, desperate men whom they'd indoctrinated into wanting to die while taking a lot of the enemy with them. Can't have that if you're negotiating with the enemy - you might end up with a whole bunch of desperate young men who decide they shouldn't be listening to you.
So what did they do? The gave them all jobs as middle managers in the organization, and married them all off to pretty young women. A few years go by and someone asks them if they still want to be suicide bombers, or whatever. To a man, they all said no. They were all living quiet productive lives supporting their young families. They had something to live for.
I don't know anything about yesterdays attacks on Paris, but I do know this: They were desperate young men who felt this was the best they could do. Whether you think they were right in that assessment doesn't matter. "They should just go out and get jobs if they wanted a life", some would say, ignoring the fact that there probably weren't many jobs handy; and life in a Parisian ghetto as a Muslim is probably not compatible to being a white boy in 1950s America.
What do people want? They want community; they want opportunity; they want family; they want a sense that their contribution to the world, small as it is, means something to someone.
There will always be evil fuckers wanting to burn down the world. Give desperate people an opportunity to contribute to the world and feel comfortable in their family and community, and those evil fuckers will not find recruits. It doesn't seem like much, but most people's needs are small. Productive work, a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, and loved ones, and some sense of security that these won't be whisked away in the blink of an eye - that's all most people want.
Terrorists come from slums. Oh, not all of them (the 9/11 guys were fairly middle class and educated), but enough of their community was that they could see how people who looked and acted like them were marginalized. If you're a young man, and there is no chance that you'll ever get a job, or ever support a family, you're going to be looking for people to blame. If those people, in turn, treat you like dirt and tell you you're not wanted... well, you can lie down and die, or you can get up and fight. There's good and bad ways to fight, and if some evil fucker tells you to go bomb a nightclub, maybe you're going to go the wrong way.
Don't get me wrong, once you've made that choice and start killing innocent people, you need to be stopped, and I have no sympathy for you after the fact. But wouldn't it be great if we could do something about it before it got that far? Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where people never get desperate enough to consider terrorism?
We can give everyone a job and make the world a better place. We've done it for pockets of geography and time and we know it works. This doesn't work well with the predator class's plans though, so we don't do it. We've been taught that it's a zero sum game. That for us to have a comfortable life, others need to suffer. It's not true. I know it's not true because we have minds and we have hands, and people will improve any space they're in, given enough time. It's why I'm writing this on a computer, and not scratching it onto the wall of a cave.
Give the grown-ups jobs. Educate the children. If there's no work, invent some - there's no shortage of things that need doing in the world. Everything else will follow as people learn that we're all the same. This is the work of generations, since it will be running into the prejudice of billions of people, but prejudice subsides with time and comfort. We've seen that here. It hasn't gone away, but the world is better for any sort of second class citizen in the west now than at any time in the past. We can keep moving in that direction.
Or we could bomb the hell out of some shit hole and seem if that makes the people who live there less disparate.
Another story, not from the Onion. I half-remember reading it as a comment on some blog or forum somewhere, so don't expect a citation. Basically, the story was that some group was using diplomacy as a carrot and the threat of terrorism as a stick. They had pulled off some terror attacks just to prove they meant business, and behind the scenes, they negotiated a diplomatic solution (behind the scenes, because the other side can't be seen as doing business with terrorists). Having a solution, they found themselves with a problem: A whole bunch of young, desperate men whom they'd indoctrinated into wanting to die while taking a lot of the enemy with them. Can't have that if you're negotiating with the enemy - you might end up with a whole bunch of desperate young men who decide they shouldn't be listening to you.
So what did they do? The gave them all jobs as middle managers in the organization, and married them all off to pretty young women. A few years go by and someone asks them if they still want to be suicide bombers, or whatever. To a man, they all said no. They were all living quiet productive lives supporting their young families. They had something to live for.
I don't know anything about yesterdays attacks on Paris, but I do know this: They were desperate young men who felt this was the best they could do. Whether you think they were right in that assessment doesn't matter. "They should just go out and get jobs if they wanted a life", some would say, ignoring the fact that there probably weren't many jobs handy; and life in a Parisian ghetto as a Muslim is probably not compatible to being a white boy in 1950s America.
What do people want? They want community; they want opportunity; they want family; they want a sense that their contribution to the world, small as it is, means something to someone.
There will always be evil fuckers wanting to burn down the world. Give desperate people an opportunity to contribute to the world and feel comfortable in their family and community, and those evil fuckers will not find recruits. It doesn't seem like much, but most people's needs are small. Productive work, a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, and loved ones, and some sense of security that these won't be whisked away in the blink of an eye - that's all most people want.
Terrorists come from slums. Oh, not all of them (the 9/11 guys were fairly middle class and educated), but enough of their community was that they could see how people who looked and acted like them were marginalized. If you're a young man, and there is no chance that you'll ever get a job, or ever support a family, you're going to be looking for people to blame. If those people, in turn, treat you like dirt and tell you you're not wanted... well, you can lie down and die, or you can get up and fight. There's good and bad ways to fight, and if some evil fucker tells you to go bomb a nightclub, maybe you're going to go the wrong way.
Don't get me wrong, once you've made that choice and start killing innocent people, you need to be stopped, and I have no sympathy for you after the fact. But wouldn't it be great if we could do something about it before it got that far? Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where people never get desperate enough to consider terrorism?
We can give everyone a job and make the world a better place. We've done it for pockets of geography and time and we know it works. This doesn't work well with the predator class's plans though, so we don't do it. We've been taught that it's a zero sum game. That for us to have a comfortable life, others need to suffer. It's not true. I know it's not true because we have minds and we have hands, and people will improve any space they're in, given enough time. It's why I'm writing this on a computer, and not scratching it onto the wall of a cave.
Give the grown-ups jobs. Educate the children. If there's no work, invent some - there's no shortage of things that need doing in the world. Everything else will follow as people learn that we're all the same. This is the work of generations, since it will be running into the prejudice of billions of people, but prejudice subsides with time and comfort. We've seen that here. It hasn't gone away, but the world is better for any sort of second class citizen in the west now than at any time in the past. We can keep moving in that direction.
Or we could bomb the hell out of some shit hole and seem if that makes the people who live there less disparate.
