Legal slave trade was eliminated for most of the western world in the 18th century. In mid 19th century slavery was banned in the United States. Most of the world slowly banned slavery so by the 20th century slavery was no longer an issue, right? WRONG.
Slavery never ended it merely adapted to new dynamics and governments turned a blind eye to the problem. Now in the 21st century trafficking in humans is the number one international crime. In some cases governments themselves are party to continuing slavery. During World War Two the United States officially imported unskilled workers who were exploited and often held in appalling conditions by Agri-businesses and factories owners. At the end of the war most of these workers were rounded up and ejected from the country without any recourse to justice. Post war Germany sanctioned importation of Turkish “guest workers” who, without rights were exploited by businesses. This practice continues today in many parts of the world as governments seek “cheap labor” to support domestic industry and public works.
The tentacles of human trafficking now reach into virtually every country either in exploitation or supply of cheap labor. Traffickers recruit among the poor, with grand promises, for stoop laborers and the sex workers. These traffickers often add a twist by extorting payments from the victims for the privilege of being of trafficked. Attractive young men, women and children are recruited only to end up as sex workers once in a strange land. As in the 17th century others are captured and sold to traffickers by human dealers in poorer regions of the world.
Once in a foreign land without friend, papers or language trafficking victims are easy prey. Even if they are rescued from traffickers along their odyssey victims may fall into the hands of corrupt officials who trade on fear. Victims have to fear retaliation, attacks on families, criminal charges, deportation and official abuse back in their home countries.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) an estimated 8.1 million victims of forced labor in the world today are denied more than $20 billion due to the perpetrators of human trafficking. These opportunity costs, or "stolen" wages, are incurred largely in the developing world and most significantly in Asia and the Pacific, which accounts for $8.9 billion, or almost half of forced labor's costs in the world. As wages denied and not remitted to workers’ home countries, these costs can be viewed as an impediment to economic development.
Unlike immigrants who eventually work themselves up and take their place in new societies victims of human trafficking are lost in a quagmire that sucks their soul into oblivion. The black market cost of human trafficking is measured (above) but there is another cost that must be considered. Both the supplying and exploiting countries are ignoring the probable potential and future contributions those who are traded as a labor commodity may make in open societies. As nations once learned global societies must learn again that the cost of slavery can not be supported.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Global warfare 072109
Recent media reports are that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is deteriorating with more refugees, deaths and greater intensity in the conflict. This is received with some surprise by the current American administration operating on previous administration’s plan for success. The previous administration should have been able to warn of the deterioration based on its failures in Iraq, but it never learned any lessons.
Administrations change, but the military continues to subscribe to the Cheney-Rumsfeld model for world conquest. To mid-level military bureaucrats continued conflict is the road to promotion and bodies are only promotion points. Destroyed villages are like monopoly houses, chips on the road to winning the game. The military axiom is that although its strategy of more troops and firepower didn’t work in Iraq it will work in Afghanistan.
The Cheney-Rumsfeld model was a failure before its first shot was fired. World conquest is an idea two centuries out of date. It has taken that long for proof of failure to be easily to found. World wars for territory and resources can be dated from the American Revolution where modern great power conflict crossed oceans. The Napoleonic era carried warfare to around the world reaching full global conflict for the first time. The sun finally set on the British Empire in the 20th century. An Empire built through a series of global colonial wars that served as the basis of the Cheney-Rumsfeld model for resource exploitation. That model however was built on a failure to learn, a series of false assumptions and one glaring error in fact, despite two hundred years of death and destruction world conquest has not been achieved.
The Bush administration’s group of Texas oilmen saw an opportunity to cheaply seize vast Mid-east oil reserves. Unsatisfied with only the prospects of oil from Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan the model included Africa, South America and world oceans. A techno-war was to be funded by the sale of capture oil creating a great power win-win situation of forcing the vanquished to pay cost of defeat. A page out of the Versailles Treaty, which not only forced the losers to pay for WWI but also created and subjugated the states of the Middle East. In the decades following Versailles the new states were able to eject their colonial masters creating western resentment and eastern suspicion.
Under the cover of falsified information the former colonial masters’ Christian west again invaded the Muslim east expecting easy victories. The western techno-warfare appeared victorious as it quickly annihilated regional forces. The apparent victory soon turned sour, as victors became occupiers intent on new colonialism. Domestic power struggles hide the emergence of resistance movements and the colonials blamed everything on Islamic radicals.
Using western military data it is interesting that there are now thousands more “foreign” radicals than when the conflict began. While the bureaucrats see this as opportunity, it fails to correlate foreign military buildup and their excesses with increasing regional resistance. The Afghans long view has resisted the world’s best militaries for centuries.
Administrations change, but the military continues to subscribe to the Cheney-Rumsfeld model for world conquest. To mid-level military bureaucrats continued conflict is the road to promotion and bodies are only promotion points. Destroyed villages are like monopoly houses, chips on the road to winning the game. The military axiom is that although its strategy of more troops and firepower didn’t work in Iraq it will work in Afghanistan.
The Cheney-Rumsfeld model was a failure before its first shot was fired. World conquest is an idea two centuries out of date. It has taken that long for proof of failure to be easily to found. World wars for territory and resources can be dated from the American Revolution where modern great power conflict crossed oceans. The Napoleonic era carried warfare to around the world reaching full global conflict for the first time. The sun finally set on the British Empire in the 20th century. An Empire built through a series of global colonial wars that served as the basis of the Cheney-Rumsfeld model for resource exploitation. That model however was built on a failure to learn, a series of false assumptions and one glaring error in fact, despite two hundred years of death and destruction world conquest has not been achieved.
The Bush administration’s group of Texas oilmen saw an opportunity to cheaply seize vast Mid-east oil reserves. Unsatisfied with only the prospects of oil from Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan the model included Africa, South America and world oceans. A techno-war was to be funded by the sale of capture oil creating a great power win-win situation of forcing the vanquished to pay cost of defeat. A page out of the Versailles Treaty, which not only forced the losers to pay for WWI but also created and subjugated the states of the Middle East. In the decades following Versailles the new states were able to eject their colonial masters creating western resentment and eastern suspicion.
Under the cover of falsified information the former colonial masters’ Christian west again invaded the Muslim east expecting easy victories. The western techno-warfare appeared victorious as it quickly annihilated regional forces. The apparent victory soon turned sour, as victors became occupiers intent on new colonialism. Domestic power struggles hide the emergence of resistance movements and the colonials blamed everything on Islamic radicals.
Using western military data it is interesting that there are now thousands more “foreign” radicals than when the conflict began. While the bureaucrats see this as opportunity, it fails to correlate foreign military buildup and their excesses with increasing regional resistance. The Afghans long view has resisted the world’s best militaries for centuries.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Lessons learned 070209
Lessons learned 070209
It has been said that governments always fight the last war. There is some truth to this but in America’s current wars the generals are reaching even further into history. They attempt to lay a technological veneer over old wars, but looking at their words and deeds quickly demonstrates that they learned the wrong lessons from the past.
The ringing rhetoric of “War on Terrorism” disguised the fact that the (then) administration embarked on an old fashion 19th Century colonial war. Colonial wars are wars of conquest and exploitation of foreign resources. Under the cover of fighting terrorism the national strategy was to secure energy resources for Texas oilmen. The plan was to occupy oil producers everywhere in the world. It appeared that the United States’ plan was to occupy Afghanistan with a mercenary force while invading Iraq with the majority of American troops then turn and attack oil producer Iran from both sides. This would leave America in control of Iraq, Iran and Afghan oil and gas fields but also pipelines from the CAS while threatening other oil producers with displayed force. The plan began to unravel when friendly oil producers refused American occupation of their oil fields and promised resistance to American attempts at occupation.
Fighting on the same British colonial battlefields of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan the Americans borrowed heavily from British policy and tactics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Their grasp of history however failed to note that all three countries established resistance movements that were ultimately successful in ejecting British control. But like America the British are slow learners and the Afghans had to eject three British invasions. With little understanding of regional issues and culture the Americans listened to the British and attempted to establish colonial rule across the occupied territory. It surprised the Americans that resistance movements began to emerge and ally with diverse terrorist movements. Terrorists are fractured ideological competitors unlikely to cooperate among themselves or other ideologues except against a common enemy.
With inflated expectations and little understanding of the regional dynamics the military soon came to recognized that they would be unable to stage a successful invasion of Iran and worse, they had failed in Iraq. The American generals did learn one successful tactic from the British, loudly declare victory and just go home, a tactic that is now being attempted in Iraq with little success. Faced with failure in Iraq the Americans refused to recognize failures of policies and are now attempting to apply their same tactics to Afghanistan, with assurances that failed tactics will work in that country. Unable to see beyond misinformed preconceptions to face the reality of a vast region of diverse cultures loosely aligned by a common religion the war is now expanding into Pakistan, China, CAS and Africa. While it is unlikely that China will ever allow an American occupation forces on its territory the other areas are unable to resist American coercion and local dissent groups are now scattering the seeds of resistance.
There are two types of military, there are the troops who fight and die and then there is the military bureaucracy claiming credit for the sacrifices of the troops. The bureaucracy learned one lesson from Vietnam. During the Vietnam War the public blamed individual soldiers for the government’s flawed policies that carried the country into war. In the present war the bureaucracy used the public’s guilt over the treatment of Vietnam veterans as a tactic of deception. The government mounted major campaigns for public support of the troops as a cover up of even more flawed policies. According to the bureaucrats to question policy is denigration of the troops’ sacrifices, which silences political debate in a cloak of Vietnam shame.
Vietnam makes an interesting school for lessons learned. There is the lesson of body counts, “Every dead body is an enemy body and a battle success.” While history identified flaws of body count policy, it has again been adopted as policy. Vietnam also provides the lesson that big bombs make impressive holes. Thousand pound bombs dropped on Afghan mud huts creates a fine dust that covers lots of bodies for the count. Repeated investigations proved that many of these bodies are in fact non-combatants becoming collateral damage in military speak. In 2007 the military announced with great fanfare that it would no longer drop 1000-pound bombs on villages as a humanitarian gesture. It the future they would only drop increased numbers of 500 pound bombs. Villagers soon saw that smaller but more bombs destroyed more of the village and increased the civilian body count.
Vietnam also restated many lessons on resistance and insurgency right out of Mao’s thesis on war. It is interesting that Mao drew on American Indian resistance and the American battles in the Philippines along with classic resistance to the Romans, Napoleon and the British in developing his thesis. In modern history the American have faced insurgencies and resistance movements more than any other country with the exception of Britain. One of the lessons is that a foreign nation can support an internal insurgency but can not create a successful insurgency that supports its own policies. Occupation of territory by a foreign power, no matter how benign, will generate a popular resistance. Eventually frustration will drive resistance to prolonged insurgency, a lesson that the Afghans have been teaching centuries of occupiers.
While the lessons of the past are there for all to see powerful governments attempt to reinvent the wheel in their favor. The American military, born by resistance, with all of its experience in counter-insurgency express surprise when faced with resistance. In the present wars American General Petraeus re-published counter-insurgency lessons but they appear to fall on deaf ears as more troops and bombs continue to fracture Afghanistan. Again the American policies are spreading resistance where the past will haunt the future of the powerful. A major unlearned lesson is that the military is ill equipped for nation building.
Government policies can not ignore that in true education, lessons must be honestly applied rather than recited for a grade. For international policy today the grade is cooperation rather than 19th/20th Century conquest. The greatest lesson is that self image is never the world’s image of self.
It has been said that governments always fight the last war. There is some truth to this but in America’s current wars the generals are reaching even further into history. They attempt to lay a technological veneer over old wars, but looking at their words and deeds quickly demonstrates that they learned the wrong lessons from the past.
The ringing rhetoric of “War on Terrorism” disguised the fact that the (then) administration embarked on an old fashion 19th Century colonial war. Colonial wars are wars of conquest and exploitation of foreign resources. Under the cover of fighting terrorism the national strategy was to secure energy resources for Texas oilmen. The plan was to occupy oil producers everywhere in the world. It appeared that the United States’ plan was to occupy Afghanistan with a mercenary force while invading Iraq with the majority of American troops then turn and attack oil producer Iran from both sides. This would leave America in control of Iraq, Iran and Afghan oil and gas fields but also pipelines from the CAS while threatening other oil producers with displayed force. The plan began to unravel when friendly oil producers refused American occupation of their oil fields and promised resistance to American attempts at occupation.
Fighting on the same British colonial battlefields of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan the Americans borrowed heavily from British policy and tactics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Their grasp of history however failed to note that all three countries established resistance movements that were ultimately successful in ejecting British control. But like America the British are slow learners and the Afghans had to eject three British invasions. With little understanding of regional issues and culture the Americans listened to the British and attempted to establish colonial rule across the occupied territory. It surprised the Americans that resistance movements began to emerge and ally with diverse terrorist movements. Terrorists are fractured ideological competitors unlikely to cooperate among themselves or other ideologues except against a common enemy.
With inflated expectations and little understanding of the regional dynamics the military soon came to recognized that they would be unable to stage a successful invasion of Iran and worse, they had failed in Iraq. The American generals did learn one successful tactic from the British, loudly declare victory and just go home, a tactic that is now being attempted in Iraq with little success. Faced with failure in Iraq the Americans refused to recognize failures of policies and are now attempting to apply their same tactics to Afghanistan, with assurances that failed tactics will work in that country. Unable to see beyond misinformed preconceptions to face the reality of a vast region of diverse cultures loosely aligned by a common religion the war is now expanding into Pakistan, China, CAS and Africa. While it is unlikely that China will ever allow an American occupation forces on its territory the other areas are unable to resist American coercion and local dissent groups are now scattering the seeds of resistance.
There are two types of military, there are the troops who fight and die and then there is the military bureaucracy claiming credit for the sacrifices of the troops. The bureaucracy learned one lesson from Vietnam. During the Vietnam War the public blamed individual soldiers for the government’s flawed policies that carried the country into war. In the present war the bureaucracy used the public’s guilt over the treatment of Vietnam veterans as a tactic of deception. The government mounted major campaigns for public support of the troops as a cover up of even more flawed policies. According to the bureaucrats to question policy is denigration of the troops’ sacrifices, which silences political debate in a cloak of Vietnam shame.
Vietnam makes an interesting school for lessons learned. There is the lesson of body counts, “Every dead body is an enemy body and a battle success.” While history identified flaws of body count policy, it has again been adopted as policy. Vietnam also provides the lesson that big bombs make impressive holes. Thousand pound bombs dropped on Afghan mud huts creates a fine dust that covers lots of bodies for the count. Repeated investigations proved that many of these bodies are in fact non-combatants becoming collateral damage in military speak. In 2007 the military announced with great fanfare that it would no longer drop 1000-pound bombs on villages as a humanitarian gesture. It the future they would only drop increased numbers of 500 pound bombs. Villagers soon saw that smaller but more bombs destroyed more of the village and increased the civilian body count.
Vietnam also restated many lessons on resistance and insurgency right out of Mao’s thesis on war. It is interesting that Mao drew on American Indian resistance and the American battles in the Philippines along with classic resistance to the Romans, Napoleon and the British in developing his thesis. In modern history the American have faced insurgencies and resistance movements more than any other country with the exception of Britain. One of the lessons is that a foreign nation can support an internal insurgency but can not create a successful insurgency that supports its own policies. Occupation of territory by a foreign power, no matter how benign, will generate a popular resistance. Eventually frustration will drive resistance to prolonged insurgency, a lesson that the Afghans have been teaching centuries of occupiers.
While the lessons of the past are there for all to see powerful governments attempt to reinvent the wheel in their favor. The American military, born by resistance, with all of its experience in counter-insurgency express surprise when faced with resistance. In the present wars American General Petraeus re-published counter-insurgency lessons but they appear to fall on deaf ears as more troops and bombs continue to fracture Afghanistan. Again the American policies are spreading resistance where the past will haunt the future of the powerful. A major unlearned lesson is that the military is ill equipped for nation building.
Government policies can not ignore that in true education, lessons must be honestly applied rather than recited for a grade. For international policy today the grade is cooperation rather than 19th/20th Century conquest. The greatest lesson is that self image is never the world’s image of self.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Generation of greatness
Passing 061509
My father died yesterday, he was over 100. It was an expected death and he went fairly quickly and easily so it wasn’t such a shock. Looking at his death with some perspective this morning it brought home the passing of the 20th century, the American Century.
My father lived through most of the century and saw change in land, the people and the world as a whole. I wish I had listen more closely to his conversations with his contemporaries when there were some who understood his time. There were a few stories that stand out, as a teenager he drove the family across country before there were highways or maps to show the way. He learned to fly in an old WWI Jenny and hopped freights during the depression he was not unique for his time there are many such stories of his generation.
His was a generation of giants that built a new culture they grew up when a man’s word was a bond, honest work was the norm and invention and discovery carried the nation from conquering forest to conquering space. These old men fought two world wars and numerous minor wars where not only they served again but their sons also. They survived the great depression, dust storms and industrial migrations that changed the nation. They invented and manufactured cars, planes and communications networks that bind the world today. It was their honor and hard work that carried America to respected great power status. They had vision and overcame obstacles, solved problems and created new solutions to achieve their visions.
Theirs was a hard scrabble life that shaped their character. They passed their values to a new generation but it became diluted for they wanted their children to have a better life without the challenges and struggles they had experienced. As generations multiplied the culture and values began to erode. It lasted for most of the 20th century as the Giants built a New World and controlled the development of the American Century for almost all of the century. They began to die off, from the wars, from their hard work and finally from old age.
The Giants left a legacy for the 21st century, their R&D and inventions continue to be exploited well into this century. Their greatest contributions to society however are being lost. Their values and their culture that made them Giants of the American Century are rapidly disappearing. These Giants who survived the challenges to old age may not have been happy with the direction of those changes but they were to old and tired to lead the nation to greater innovations and back to a respected place in the world.
My father was not a great statesman or a captain of industry but like most his generation a man of vision, invention, backbreaking labor and honor. I’m grateful to have known not only my father but also so many other 20th Century Giants, I wish I had paid more attention to their teachings.
My father outlived most of his generation, in the end missing the companionship of his generation of Giants. The passing of my father signals the passing of our greatest era.
My father died yesterday, he was over 100. It was an expected death and he went fairly quickly and easily so it wasn’t such a shock. Looking at his death with some perspective this morning it brought home the passing of the 20th century, the American Century.
My father lived through most of the century and saw change in land, the people and the world as a whole. I wish I had listen more closely to his conversations with his contemporaries when there were some who understood his time. There were a few stories that stand out, as a teenager he drove the family across country before there were highways or maps to show the way. He learned to fly in an old WWI Jenny and hopped freights during the depression he was not unique for his time there are many such stories of his generation.
His was a generation of giants that built a new culture they grew up when a man’s word was a bond, honest work was the norm and invention and discovery carried the nation from conquering forest to conquering space. These old men fought two world wars and numerous minor wars where not only they served again but their sons also. They survived the great depression, dust storms and industrial migrations that changed the nation. They invented and manufactured cars, planes and communications networks that bind the world today. It was their honor and hard work that carried America to respected great power status. They had vision and overcame obstacles, solved problems and created new solutions to achieve their visions.
Theirs was a hard scrabble life that shaped their character. They passed their values to a new generation but it became diluted for they wanted their children to have a better life without the challenges and struggles they had experienced. As generations multiplied the culture and values began to erode. It lasted for most of the 20th century as the Giants built a New World and controlled the development of the American Century for almost all of the century. They began to die off, from the wars, from their hard work and finally from old age.
The Giants left a legacy for the 21st century, their R&D and inventions continue to be exploited well into this century. Their greatest contributions to society however are being lost. Their values and their culture that made them Giants of the American Century are rapidly disappearing. These Giants who survived the challenges to old age may not have been happy with the direction of those changes but they were to old and tired to lead the nation to greater innovations and back to a respected place in the world.
My father was not a great statesman or a captain of industry but like most his generation a man of vision, invention, backbreaking labor and honor. I’m grateful to have known not only my father but also so many other 20th Century Giants, I wish I had paid more attention to their teachings.
My father outlived most of his generation, in the end missing the companionship of his generation of Giants. The passing of my father signals the passing of our greatest era.
Monday, June 15, 2009
great game 052209
052209 Great Game
In democratic societies as administrations near the end of their tenure they begin to worry about how history will view their legacy. Administration “spin” and dis-information bombards the public, public records disappear, and open source files become classified in the “national interest.” Their interpretation of national interest being prevention of political embarrassment.
History, unlike the administrations, takes a long view of success and failure. History also looks beyond era public pronouncements of politicians and self-serving officials. In the past historians could call on period journals, not meant for publication, as keys to truth. Today the truth is a little more difficult to find in the vast information ocean electronically manufactured by spin-doctors. Administrations’ egos ignore that the information age cuts both ways, allowing publication of both their official politically correct pronouncements as well as contradicting documentation. In recent years administrations have shredded files and erase computer memories in vain attempts to leave history only favorable views of their regime. Linked computer workstations and the Internet however have insured that obscure accurate records remain as flotsam and jetsam on the information ocean to be salvaged by future historical researchers.
US administrations count on the public’s short attention span to enhance their image, disseminated PC sound bites in place of factual dialog. Sound bites are catchy buzzwords that hang on in a disinterested public’s mind. Honest explanations of events are papered over by Sunday morning talk show sound bite spin, which set the agendas for the coming week’s amplification. More substantive analysis and discussions of current events however condition the international community’s views and it like historians have long memories of both words and actions.
Public long memories also consider more than an administration’s waning months in evaluating legacies. Actions and rhetoric undertaken early in the first few months in power defeat slanted legacies requiring redefinition. As embarrassing documents bob to the surface of the information ocean member of the former administration attempt to cover up, deny and spin but without a forum and following to legitimize their ossification of responsibility.
This year’s change of American administration keyed on two lost wars, failed policies, declining power and an economic melt down. These are historical indicators of great power decline. Instead of contributing to reversal of this trend, members of the previous administration are attempting to justify their failed policies, which have carried to country to crisis. Lost wars and failed polices will eventually reside in dusty archives but the economic melt down and fall from power will impact a generational culture change long remembered by the international community and those that have lived through dynamic change.
In democratic societies as administrations near the end of their tenure they begin to worry about how history will view their legacy. Administration “spin” and dis-information bombards the public, public records disappear, and open source files become classified in the “national interest.” Their interpretation of national interest being prevention of political embarrassment.
History, unlike the administrations, takes a long view of success and failure. History also looks beyond era public pronouncements of politicians and self-serving officials. In the past historians could call on period journals, not meant for publication, as keys to truth. Today the truth is a little more difficult to find in the vast information ocean electronically manufactured by spin-doctors. Administrations’ egos ignore that the information age cuts both ways, allowing publication of both their official politically correct pronouncements as well as contradicting documentation. In recent years administrations have shredded files and erase computer memories in vain attempts to leave history only favorable views of their regime. Linked computer workstations and the Internet however have insured that obscure accurate records remain as flotsam and jetsam on the information ocean to be salvaged by future historical researchers.
US administrations count on the public’s short attention span to enhance their image, disseminated PC sound bites in place of factual dialog. Sound bites are catchy buzzwords that hang on in a disinterested public’s mind. Honest explanations of events are papered over by Sunday morning talk show sound bite spin, which set the agendas for the coming week’s amplification. More substantive analysis and discussions of current events however condition the international community’s views and it like historians have long memories of both words and actions.
Public long memories also consider more than an administration’s waning months in evaluating legacies. Actions and rhetoric undertaken early in the first few months in power defeat slanted legacies requiring redefinition. As embarrassing documents bob to the surface of the information ocean member of the former administration attempt to cover up, deny and spin but without a forum and following to legitimize their ossification of responsibility.
This year’s change of American administration keyed on two lost wars, failed policies, declining power and an economic melt down. These are historical indicators of great power decline. Instead of contributing to reversal of this trend, members of the previous administration are attempting to justify their failed policies, which have carried to country to crisis. Lost wars and failed polices will eventually reside in dusty archives but the economic melt down and fall from power will impact a generational culture change long remembered by the international community and those that have lived through dynamic change.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
terror 2
042609 terror
Government officials who are the practitioners of State terror come to believe their own propaganda that it is legitimate to use any means to achieve their goals. They fail to recognize that terror generates terrorism.
When legitimate political dissent is characterized as terrorist activity dissidents are forced into the roll of resistance and even insurgencies. Dissidents begin to mirror the State by grasping the tools of terror out of frustration in their sense of powerlessness. The State seizes on this resistance to justify imposing greater State terrorism. The State uses its power to legitimize detaining people with out charges: torture to terrorize detainees becomes a norm. Innocents and dissident are both swept into a broad state network of terror.
Dissidents develop a political agenda that embraces terror as a tactic to achieve their goals. Their acts of terror fall into two categories first direct attacks on the government and second attacks on the population. Attacks on the government generate an even more oppressive State reaction. Attacks on the population generate fear and distrust in a government unable to protect its citizens. These attacks also bring recruits to the dissent movement; they may also generate additional dissents that immediately embrace terror as the way to advance their own agendas.
Both the dissent groups and the State develop splinter groups that are more radical extremist in the use of terror. Terror generates ever more brutal terror until the objective is no longer political change but rather terror for the sake of terror. Nearly a hundred years ago the Soviet Leon Trotsky said that the purpose of terror was to terrorize. Trotsky was speaking of State terror and as practiced by the Soviets was successful at the cost of millions of citizens. Ultimately Soviet terror failed as dissents rejected the Soviet system. The collapse of the Soviet Union generated competing criminal terrorist groups as well as regional dissents employing terror for a share of political power.
Foreign terrorists attack in other countries in today’s linked international community because the community supports oppressive home countries. International terror hopes to generate pressure for change and cut off support for oppressive regimes. International terror however generates terrorist activities as the international community embraces terror in the name of counter terrorism.
Whatever the type, terrorists are difficult to defeat and counter terror generates reactive terror. Terrorism however can be prevented or defeated by understanding the dynamics that generate political dissatisfaction with the current government and giving dissent a voice. This requires enlighten leadership in states and the community of states.
Government officials who are the practitioners of State terror come to believe their own propaganda that it is legitimate to use any means to achieve their goals. They fail to recognize that terror generates terrorism.
When legitimate political dissent is characterized as terrorist activity dissidents are forced into the roll of resistance and even insurgencies. Dissidents begin to mirror the State by grasping the tools of terror out of frustration in their sense of powerlessness. The State seizes on this resistance to justify imposing greater State terrorism. The State uses its power to legitimize detaining people with out charges: torture to terrorize detainees becomes a norm. Innocents and dissident are both swept into a broad state network of terror.
Dissidents develop a political agenda that embraces terror as a tactic to achieve their goals. Their acts of terror fall into two categories first direct attacks on the government and second attacks on the population. Attacks on the government generate an even more oppressive State reaction. Attacks on the population generate fear and distrust in a government unable to protect its citizens. These attacks also bring recruits to the dissent movement; they may also generate additional dissents that immediately embrace terror as the way to advance their own agendas.
Both the dissent groups and the State develop splinter groups that are more radical extremist in the use of terror. Terror generates ever more brutal terror until the objective is no longer political change but rather terror for the sake of terror. Nearly a hundred years ago the Soviet Leon Trotsky said that the purpose of terror was to terrorize. Trotsky was speaking of State terror and as practiced by the Soviets was successful at the cost of millions of citizens. Ultimately Soviet terror failed as dissents rejected the Soviet system. The collapse of the Soviet Union generated competing criminal terrorist groups as well as regional dissents employing terror for a share of political power.
Foreign terrorists attack in other countries in today’s linked international community because the community supports oppressive home countries. International terror hopes to generate pressure for change and cut off support for oppressive regimes. International terror however generates terrorist activities as the international community embraces terror in the name of counter terrorism.
Whatever the type, terrorists are difficult to defeat and counter terror generates reactive terror. Terrorism however can be prevented or defeated by understanding the dynamics that generate political dissatisfaction with the current government and giving dissent a voice. This requires enlighten leadership in states and the community of states.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Terrorism 1
042309 terror
For all most a decade the political buzzword is terrorism and claims that terrorist are everywhere poised to destroy civilization. Radical right politicians justified bad legislation as defense against terrorism, while prosecutors capitalized on the new anti-terrorism laws to avoid due process by charging local crime as terrorist activity.
It is apparent that there is still a lack of understand of terrorism. The fact that an individual is terrified does not make a conspiracy of international terrorism. Terrorism falls into three broad categories there is “State terrorism”, political minority tactical terrorism, and organized crime terrorism.
Criminal terrorism is easy to understand criminal elements terrorize local populations into acceptance of criminals as de-facto rulers of a neighborhood or city. Terrified citizens are afraid to walk the streets or speak out against criminal elements. Examples abound of gang control of “turf”; drug dealers using terror to control markets, in some cases organized crime uses its power to terrorize in order to gain control of elected offices and become the government. Criminals terrorizes for power over the population and profit by that power.
State terrorism is more difficult to identify or understand for States have immense power over its domestic population and in the international community. The goals of State terror are to leverage existing power into total power and control. States target their own population through disinformation that frighten citizens into acceptance of loss of freedoms and insure the governing party’s stability. Political dissent is quickly labeled a threat to stability and dissidents as terrorist intent on overthrow of the existing social order. Governments utilize their legitimacy to establish disinformation bureaus, which reinforce the party line to establish public acceptance of abuse of powers.
Once the domestic population is sufficiently terrorized by its government, that government is free to use terrorism on the international community. Force and threats of force are used on smaller states to gain political control of their decision processes and control populations. States ultimately come to believe it their right to use the tools of terror against other states in order to gain more power. A State may justify invasions, concentration camps and even torture in the name of security and counter terrorism. Domestic opposition is muted in the fury of official disinformation that conceals the illegal nature of State terror. That same disinformation is also directed at international and human rights organizations, naming them as supporters of terrorism even as terrorist.
When State terrorism has been legitimized in the minds of the governing it becomes a dynamic. Members of the government begin to follow their own agendas of rational maximization. They push state terror activities to extremes for the maximum benefit to their careers. These activities begin to become crimes against humanity protected only by the power of the State. Once that power is compromised then the State will face the fury and accountability of the international community.
For all most a decade the political buzzword is terrorism and claims that terrorist are everywhere poised to destroy civilization. Radical right politicians justified bad legislation as defense against terrorism, while prosecutors capitalized on the new anti-terrorism laws to avoid due process by charging local crime as terrorist activity.
It is apparent that there is still a lack of understand of terrorism. The fact that an individual is terrified does not make a conspiracy of international terrorism. Terrorism falls into three broad categories there is “State terrorism”, political minority tactical terrorism, and organized crime terrorism.
Criminal terrorism is easy to understand criminal elements terrorize local populations into acceptance of criminals as de-facto rulers of a neighborhood or city. Terrified citizens are afraid to walk the streets or speak out against criminal elements. Examples abound of gang control of “turf”; drug dealers using terror to control markets, in some cases organized crime uses its power to terrorize in order to gain control of elected offices and become the government. Criminals terrorizes for power over the population and profit by that power.
State terrorism is more difficult to identify or understand for States have immense power over its domestic population and in the international community. The goals of State terror are to leverage existing power into total power and control. States target their own population through disinformation that frighten citizens into acceptance of loss of freedoms and insure the governing party’s stability. Political dissent is quickly labeled a threat to stability and dissidents as terrorist intent on overthrow of the existing social order. Governments utilize their legitimacy to establish disinformation bureaus, which reinforce the party line to establish public acceptance of abuse of powers.
Once the domestic population is sufficiently terrorized by its government, that government is free to use terrorism on the international community. Force and threats of force are used on smaller states to gain political control of their decision processes and control populations. States ultimately come to believe it their right to use the tools of terror against other states in order to gain more power. A State may justify invasions, concentration camps and even torture in the name of security and counter terrorism. Domestic opposition is muted in the fury of official disinformation that conceals the illegal nature of State terror. That same disinformation is also directed at international and human rights organizations, naming them as supporters of terrorism even as terrorist.
When State terrorism has been legitimized in the minds of the governing it becomes a dynamic. Members of the government begin to follow their own agendas of rational maximization. They push state terror activities to extremes for the maximum benefit to their careers. These activities begin to become crimes against humanity protected only by the power of the State. Once that power is compromised then the State will face the fury and accountability of the international community.
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