I am sure we are familier with the need to end states which sponsor terrorism, that is not even something worthy of debate.
The recent attacks in London provide for a moment to consider what the response should be as the most recent attack may not have recieved any sort of state backing. There are many radical cells which are not part of the Al-Qaeda money chain which just attach the name “Al-Qaeda” to their own for marketing.
If that is the case, with the most recent attack, and if that means that no state was directly responsible (not that state sponsorers in the middle east should not be dealt with ASAP anyway) what does this mean for the proper evolution of the strategy to deal with terrorism?
Or alternatively, how does one deal with home grown terrorism?
State-sponsorship can range from housing them at presidential palaces, to allowing them to operate in your country. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s a piece of land on Earth that isn’t controlled by a sovereign country.
Meh, I’m sure the Russian government doesn’t pay much attention to the frozen deserts in the North.
Anyway, you’re right when you say a lot of groups just kind of attach Al Qaeda to their names, for marketing reasons. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of Al Qaeda.
It’s sort of like how, in this country, anyone committing arson in the name of environmentalism/animal rights can refer to themselves as members of the Environmental Liberation Front or the Animal Liberation Front. Most of the members don’t know each other and there is no central structure.
Well, in Al Qaeda, there is a more centralized structure, but it’s still an umbrella organization, kind of like Hizballah. It encompasses a bunch of different groups. So many Islamic groups are connected with so many others that it really becomes impossible to draw distinct lines between who belongs to what group and which groups are independent, as opposed to belonging to some larger group.
So, it’s not likely that this attack happened on orders from Usama bin Laden, Al Zarqawi, or Ayman Al Zawahiri, but they probably have some ties to the central Al Qaeda organization.
Well, this may not be connected to any foreign governments.Theproblem is that Britain has a HUGE muslim population . . . Remember, this is primaraly an ideological problem not a foreign goverments problem.
Even if we were to wipe out Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, that would still not take care of all the wacky muslims we have HERE who also want to kill us.
State-sponsorship can range from housing them at presidential palaces, to allowing them to operate in your country. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s a piece of land on Earth that isn’t controlled by a sovereign country.
Your remark, while sarcastic, has nothing to do with this discussion. You “try” to undermine the discussion by asserting that if something happens on earth that it must be state sponsored. You, however, seem to have these strange definitions of “sponsor” and “allow” that imply that when a murder occurs in a state that the state not only allowed the murder to happen, but actually sponsored the murder.
No, really, that’s what your statement says. When you define State-sponsorship as allowing someone to operate in your country, and then make a smart ass comment about there not being a piece of land that isn’t controlled by a sovereign country, you are implying that countries allow and thereby sponsor every action that takes place on their territory. If the people involved had not previously committed a terrorist action or broken a law, you imply that these facts are irrelevant to whether the action was allowed by the state or sponsored by the state. You have completely left context out of the assignment of guilt.
You could argue that building bombs is breaking the law, but I don’t think that a country can be charged with “allowing a terrorist to operate” if they are unaware of the terrorist’s bomb building. I am not refereing to any sort of “We didn’t know…*Wink* *Wink*” but it seems unrealistic for a government to be able to always know when someone has built a bomb in a free society…or even a less than free society. I for one would not want to live in a society that does not “allow,” in your sense of the word, crime. Can you even imagine the total lack of freedom such a country would necessarily have? I am glad such a horror has not yet been realized on Earth.
*EDIT* In my miffed state I forgot to explicitly add anything to the actual discussion. I apologize. Here is what I meant to add:
I do not think that home grown terrorism, as you aptly put it, can ever by stopped unless one of two things happen: a government exists that is sufficiently powerful to take away virtually all individual freedom, or a state exists that is completely made up of rational people who know that terrorism is not a way to express ideas, but that rational debate is. The same would apply to and sort of crime.