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Arms-Discussion Digest                 Sunday, October 20, 1985 1:00AM
Volume 1, Issue 2

Today's Topics:

Terrorism: States and Individuals
Double Standards for Us and Them
One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah (2 msgs)

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Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA by MIT-MC.ARPA.ARPA; 10 Jul 85 04:53:48 EDT
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From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Message-Id: <8507100847.AA20187@UCB-VAX.ARPA>
Date: 10 Jul 85 00:14:23 CDT (Wed)
Received: by ihnp4.ATT.UUCP id AA26345; 10 Jul 85 00:14:23 CDT (Wed)
To: arms-d@mit-mc.ARPA
Subject: Terrorism: States and Individuals

> > Should we assume that hostages held by terrorists are already 'dead'
> > and say target any airport where a hijacked airliner lands with an
> > ICBM?
>   
>    This would be terrorism in spades, wouldn't it?  One of the main
>    functions of a government is to protect its citizens.  How many
>    U.S. citizens would you be willing to sacrifice in order to "probably
>    break the cycle"?  Would you be willing to sacrifice your life or those
>    of your loved ones for this cause?

That's a nasty way of putting it, but it's a nasty issue.  Which is more
important:  saving the lives of the hostages in any given terrorist act,
or saving the lives of those who will be victimized *next time* if the
"cycle" is not halted?	If the lives immediately at risk are the major
issue, then giving in to terrorist demands is probably the best course
of action in most cases.  This is, unfortunately, absolutely the worst
possible thing to do in the long run.  "Once you have paid the Danegeld..."
Bribing people to leave you alone doesn't work; somehow it always occurs
to them that they can come back for more.

It isn't clear, though, that immediate destruction is the best strategy
even if long-term concerns dominate your thinking completely.  (My own
view, by the way, is that both sets of lives are significant, with some
emphasis on the long-term problems because they affect more people.)
Creating martyrs is often a bad idea, likewise attracting publicity to
terrorist attacks.  The Soviet Air Force apparently has standing orders
to shoot down hijacked airliners, but they work in an environment where
such incidents can be kept completely quiet.  Not so for us.  The ideal
end to a hijacking incident is probably dead terrorists and no publicity;
demolishing the whole plane achieves the former but not the latter.  It's
a hard problem.

To rephrase your own query, how many U.S. citizens would *you* be willing
to sacrifice in future hijackings to protect the victims of the current
one?  Would you be willing to sacrifice your life or those of your loved
ones because your government didn't think it was right to firmly discourage
hijackings?  This sort of appeal-to-the-emotions cuts both ways; let us
try to keep this rational.

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

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Received: from apg-1 by MIT-MC.ARPA.ARPA; 10 Jul 85 08:41:35 EDT
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 85  8:36:49 EDT
From: Jeff Miller AMSTE-TOI 4675 <jmiller@apg-1>
Subject: Double Standards for Us and Them
To: arms-d@mit-mc
Cc: rbloom@apg-1, jmiller@apg-1

     There seems to be an amazing and dangerous view amongst many otherwise 
intelligent and reasonable people in the West that, somehow, because we are 
members of Democratic Western civilization, we must judge ourselves 
differently from the totalitarian East.  I recently saw such a manifestation 
on this digest.  Referencing  recent events in the Near East, one writer makes 
the claim that the Israelis are no less "terrorists" than the Amal, Hezbullah, 
and I suppose the PLO and the Islamic Jihad.  Why? Because they pointed guns 
at suspected guerillas when they arrested them.  Thus the logic goes, the 
prisoners were put under threat of death, just like the American hostages.  
I won't get hung up on the question of how to arrest a lot of hostile 
people without pointing guns at them, or the the notion that they should never 
have been treated as POWs because they didn't have nice uniforms on or possess 
papers saying; " The bearer of this document is an official Guerrilla fighter, 
but since that is a secret don't tell anyone."  With the total anarchy of 
Lebanon, the savagery that is displayed between Lebanese and Lebanese, and 
between Lebanese and Palistinian, the daily killing in great, big bloody 
batches,  I can only assume that the writer I'm refering to must be making a 
qualitative comparison, using a different standard against which to rail 
against the Israelis.

     Here then is a problem- holding ourselves to an impossibly higher set of 
standards than we hold other, usually hostile countries and groups.  If an 
identifiable group bombs a civilian target in a Western country, producing 
civilian casualties, any discussion of like retaliation is smothered by 
excessive handwringing that we should never do such a thing- we are better 
than they.  It doesn't take terrorists long to realize how to play such 
attitudes expertly against us.

     It never fails to amaze me what kinds of acts are largely ignored when 
carried out by the Soviet Union, or a satellite thereof, or a hostile third 
world country or group.  But should a western country transgress, then the 
public outcry is tremendous.  The US has 55 advisers in El Salvador!  There 
goes the US again, threatening world peace!  I'll bet everybody in the US 
above the fifth grade level can tell you how many advisors we have in 
Salvador, but how many know that there are more Soviet advisors in Peru than 
there are US advisors in ALL of Latin America?

     The Syrian Army, under government orders,in 1982 massacred an entire 
town, men women and children.  I recall it did not make the front page around 
here.  Yet when the Lebanese Christians massacred Palistinians at Sabra and 
Shatila, world opinion welled up against the Israelis- for not taking better 
precautions in controlling the Phalange.  Even when the Israelis held the 
matter up to public judicial scrutiny, something unthinkable in Syria, it 
wasn't good enough.  Those Israelis were just plain bad guys and that was it.
No matter that no Israelis participated in, or planned or condoned the 
massacre in advance.

     Must Western democracies hold themselves to high standards?  Of course.  
Does that mean that any act by a Western nation be judged more harshly than 
others? No. This is stupidity.  If we insist on self flagellation for just 
thinking about striking back in our own defense, how long can our Western 
democracies last?

     ( It isn't just a natural intellectual fad to indulge in excessive 
national self-deprecation, the hand of the Soviet Union is clearly seen 
manipulating Western opinion, but I don't feel like stirring up the same kinds 
of arguments that accompanied recent discussions about the nuclear freeze 
movement.)
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Received: from MIT-OZ by MIT-MC.ARPA via Chaosnet; 10 JUL 85  09:00:11 EDT
Date: 10 Jul 1985  08:59 EDT (Wed)
Message-ID: <MDC.WAYNE.12125874765.BABYL@MIT-OZ>
From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To:   Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Cc:   ARMS-DISCUSSION@MIT-MC.ARPA, wayne%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah
In-reply-to: Msg of Tue  9 Jul 85 10:19:52 EDT from Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>

    Date: Tue,  9 Jul 85 10:19:52 EDT
    From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>


    The Poliboro is a very conservative institution.  Unless you are
    talking about a coup of some sort at this time (which I regard as
    exceedingly unlikely), the entire group would have to be convinced
    that their caution should be abandoned.

If the Soviet empire began to seriously crack--due to natural internal
strains, and to prodding and poking by a militantly and aggressively
anti-Soviet American Administration--and if the Soviet ruling class
began to feel vitally threatened, then the less cautious and more
hardline views in the Politburo and other government institutions
could come to the forefront.  We can't count on the Soviets being
cautious and moderate for all eternity.  They're only human, and
subject to fits of irrationality like any other nation, particularly
under severe stress.

        And what exactly would we have done if Israel had continued
        its dismemberment of the Egyptian Army (this
        Soviet-American crisis was precipitated in the first place
        by Israel ignoring our requests to back off), and the Soviet
        Union had then called our bluff and intervened?

    But it didn't.  I think it is likely that US/Israeli relations
    would have been enormously damaged.  Indeed, it is that threat
    that has by and large kept Israel in line.  That's the whole
    point: you can certainly take any scenario, and say "what if
    X had happened instead of Y".  If you do that, anything is
    possible.  But you have to judge the plausibility of X.

But the chief point of that incident is that Israel defied American
wishes for a significant period of time, a deliberate action which
caused the escalation of the conflict to DEFCON 3.  What if in a
similar future situation Sharon, or someone even more extreme, is in
power?  Might they not ignore American wishes entirely, and listen
instead to a still small voice for their inspiration and guidance?
This is exactly the kind of situation--a client state getting out of
control of its superpower patron--that we need to worry about.

    Aid (in the form of logistics) does not necessarily mean troops
    for intervention.

No, but it /could/ mean that.  I challenge you to find anyone in the
State Department knowledgeable about Mideast affairs who would rule
out, for instance, the possibility of the Soviets providing troops to
Syria under certain circumstances.

    The Soviets are among the most racist and predjudiced people
    in the world, and they couldn't manage an alliance
    with Iran if they wanted to.

The Soviets already have a large Moslem population within their
borders, do they not?  This provides them a natural link with Islam
around the world.  They may be smart enough to exploit the link, and
find the key to Iran's heart.

        An attack launched by the combined forces of
        Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and others might well put Israel's
        back againt the wall in a matter of hours, not days, well
        before the Soviets could disengage themselves in
        the Israelis' mind from complicity with the Islamic forces.

    That threat has been projected since 1948, and rests on the
    alliance you describe.  As recent events have illustrated, I
    believe that such an alliance is becoming less likely, rather
    than more likely.

The current period of warfare between Iran and Iraq, and of
internecine conflict between sects of Islam, could prove to be a
prelude to the triumph and consolidation of a rejuventated Islamic
fundamentalism throughout the Middle East, one that has been tested in
fire, and strengthened by the ordeal.  Certainly the U.S., Egypt,
Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are deeply worried by this possibility.

At the top of the agenda of this Islamic movement would be an all-out
effort to destroy Israel; its ferocity and military strength might
well make Israel long for the good old days of simple and relatively
mild pan-Arabism and Palestinian nationalism.

        Israel might be crushed, and view the Soviet Union as being
        in large part responsible.  She might retaliate as massively
        as possible.

    True.  The question is how that leads to super-power war.
    IF Israel had a nuclear arsenal like that of the British, then I
    can believe your scenario.  But it doesn't.

Perhaps not yet.  But she's working on it.  Remember that my scenario
was set in 1990.  We might extend it to anytime in the 1990's.
-----------------------------------------
Received: from COLUMBIA-20.ARPA by MIT-MC.ARPA.ARPA; 10 Jul 85 11:30:53 EDT
Date: Wed 10 Jul 85 11:29:35-EDT
From: Arthur Werschulz <WERSCHULZ@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA>
Subject: re: One Apocalyptic Scenario (Digest V3 #57)
To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA


In response to Wayne McGuire ...


      > The  forces of aggressive religious  fundamentalism which dominated
      > Israel under Begin and Sharon have again thoroughly take command of
      > the Israeli government, and are even more fanatical than before.

The most extreme fundamentalists do not play any part in the government  of
Israel.  These people (such as Neturei  Karta) feel that the present  State
of Israel exists against the will of the Almighty.  They feel that the only
legitimate state would be one headed by a Messianic king.  They would  most
likely  consider  the  tumultuous  events   surrounding  them  to  be   the
"birth-pangs of the  Messiah," and would  hang on tight  until they  ended,
bringing a Messianic kingdom in their wake.

      > In this volatile situation, a Jewish terrorist group ... manages to
      > blow up the Dome of the Rock (stage 1).  The Israeli government  is
      > not entirely displeased, since the Jewish fundamentalists in charge
      > of the nation can now proceed with their longstanding plans to  ...
      > rebuild the  Biblical  Jewish  Temple  on  the conveniently cleared
      > sacred site.

A little problem with  this part of the  scenario.  Jewish law states  that
the Temple cannot be rebuilt until the coming of the Messiah.  This is  due
to a number of "practical" reasons, such as our lack of knowledge as to the
exact location of where the Temple  and its accoutrements must be  located,
not to  mention the  fact that  we don't  really know  how to  perform  the
ancient rites.  In fact, there's no  reason for humans to destroy the  Dome
of the Rock,  since the  building of the  Third Temple  will presumably  be
performed miraculously.  In short, the re-establishment of the Temple would
not be a motivating factor for blowing up the Dome of the Rock.

There's also one more problem with this part of the scenario.  According to
Jewish law, everybody who is currently alive is considered ritually impure,
due to "contact" with dead bodies.  (Everybody has been to a funeral, or
his/her parents have.)  For this reason, they are once again forbidden by
Jewish law to approach the site of the Temple (which can only be approached
in a state of ritual purity).  Hence they cannot blow up the Dome of the
Rock (unless they hired non-Jewish surrogates).  Even if they did succeed
in this attempt, they would be unable to re-build the Temple, due to said
"contamination."  

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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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