"Covert operatives will carry out terrorist activities? Am I reading that correctly?"
Not necessarily. That is, a close and careful reading gives a somewhat different reading, but not one that obviates at all the possibility of containing your reading, nor necessarily even makes yours a low probability.
In others, your interpretation is not inherent to the words you are reacting to, but may or may not be, nonetheless, within the meaning of those words as they actually play out.
"...local citizens could be recruited and asked to join up with guerrillas or terrorists. This could potentially involve organizing and carrying out combat operations, or even terrorist activities."
On the face of it, they may simply mean that our agents, at whatever level of direct or indirect connection to an agency of the U.S. government or armed forces, will seek to infilitrate terrorist groups, to our advantage. Similarly, we will attempt to recruit pre-existing members of terrorist groups and turn them. This interpretation is relatively anodyne, and would generally be applauded by many folks, at least insofar as they are not starting from a grounding that anyone connected to the CIA or U.S. government is, per se, a dreadful and frightful personage.
On the other hand, if one starts questioning how "dirty" the people we employ or aid will be in their actions, in one direction or another -- that is, in the course of, it is to be hoped for, helping us, how many murders, whether of stipulated Bad Guys, or perhaps of innocents and "good guys" in the course of maintaining a cover at some point, than, well, things become rather more open-ended (and therefore alarming) in the moral arena. And that's an arena where an entirely valid, indeed, necessary, discussion must be held as to what is the wisest course of action, and what lines must be drawn. It would be nice if that were an entirely simply and tidy subject, but t'isn't.
I always think it's more fun to dodge the deep moral issues and get down to practical brass tacks. Which "local citizens," exactly, "could be recruited" for this terrorist infiltration system? Is that the tens of millions of Pakistanis known at this very moment to be eager to put their lives on the line for the United States of America? Or are we referring, perhaps, to our many fans throughout the Arab world? I find it very, very, very hard to imagine anybody doing this job. Maybe you could just offer a lot of money, but there'd be no guarantee that it wasn't just going to genuine wannabe jihadis who would "infiltrate" the terrorist group and then never leave.
You know, I'm analogizing from Iran a bit here, but in these societies with tribal roots and hierarchies, it's not so hard to leverage grievances and differences in status to recruit people. And there are always fewer true believers than it seems to outsiders. You can't recruit publically, but I don't think a lack of collaborators would be the problem.
Infiltration is a much harder problem. Ideally, you'd solve it by again using existing tribal and famlilial units, but that presumes a pretty thorough knowledge of local conditions; knowledge I'm sure we don't have.
You know, I'm analogizing from Iran a bit here, but in these societies with tribal roots and hierarchies, it's not so hard to leverage grievances and differences in status to recruit people.
Well, I don't know whether you read Imperial Hubris, and I cite Scheur while fundamentally disagreeing with him, but he made the case that the return you get on investing from tribes is pretty low. That it's easy to tap ethnic or tribal rivalries and get one side to take your money and weapons, but it's harder to get them to make your priorities their own. So, if they were going to go blow up camp A on Thursday, they're happy to take your money beforehand, but because they've taken your money doesn't mean they'll do camp B first or wait until Saturday to do anything.
That's a good point. Though, strictly speaking, again related to execution rather than recruitment. And that's all the defending of the administration that I'll do.
Can I just say that it kinda gravels my ass that you're writing "I finally got around to reading the Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker" about a piece that appears in a magazine that I subscribe to and haven't got yet? I feel like a total dinosaur.
Mr. B's reading is that we hire terrorists who may or may not realize who they're working for.
Set a thief to catch a thief, I think, is the logic.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-18-05 2:40 PM
"Covert operatives will carry out terrorist activities? Am I reading that correctly?"
Not necessarily. That is, a close and careful reading gives a somewhat different reading, but not one that obviates at all the possibility of containing your reading, nor necessarily even makes yours a low probability.
In others, your interpretation is not inherent to the words you are reacting to, but may or may not be, nonetheless, within the meaning of those words as they actually play out.
"...local citizens could be recruited and asked to join up with guerrillas or terrorists. This could potentially involve organizing and carrying out combat operations, or even terrorist activities."
On the face of it, they may simply mean that our agents, at whatever level of direct or indirect connection to an agency of the U.S. government or armed forces, will seek to infilitrate terrorist groups, to our advantage. Similarly, we will attempt to recruit pre-existing members of terrorist groups and turn them. This interpretation is relatively anodyne, and would generally be applauded by many folks, at least insofar as they are not starting from a grounding that anyone connected to the CIA or U.S. government is, per se, a dreadful and frightful personage.
On the other hand, if one starts questioning how "dirty" the people we employ or aid will be in their actions, in one direction or another -- that is, in the course of, it is to be hoped for, helping us, how many murders, whether of stipulated Bad Guys, or perhaps of innocents and "good guys" in the course of maintaining a cover at some point, than, well, things become rather more open-ended (and therefore alarming) in the moral arena. And that's an arena where an entirely valid, indeed, necessary, discussion must be held as to what is the wisest course of action, and what lines must be drawn. It would be nice if that were an entirely simply and tidy subject, but t'isn't.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 01-18-05 5:38 PM
I always think it's more fun to dodge the deep moral issues and get down to practical brass tacks. Which "local citizens," exactly, "could be recruited" for this terrorist infiltration system? Is that the tens of millions of Pakistanis known at this very moment to be eager to put their lives on the line for the United States of America? Or are we referring, perhaps, to our many fans throughout the Arab world? I find it very, very, very hard to imagine anybody doing this job. Maybe you could just offer a lot of money, but there'd be no guarantee that it wasn't just going to genuine wannabe jihadis who would "infiltrate" the terrorist group and then never leave.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias | Link to this comment | 01-19-05 12:02 AM
You know, I'm analogizing from Iran a bit here, but in these societies with tribal roots and hierarchies, it's not so hard to leverage grievances and differences in status to recruit people. And there are always fewer true believers than it seems to outsiders. You can't recruit publically, but I don't think a lack of collaborators would be the problem.
Infiltration is a much harder problem. Ideally, you'd solve it by again using existing tribal and famlilial units, but that presumes a pretty thorough knowledge of local conditions; knowledge I'm sure we don't have.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-05 12:12 AM
You know, I'm analogizing from Iran a bit here, but in these societies with tribal roots and hierarchies, it's not so hard to leverage grievances and differences in status to recruit people.
Well, I don't know whether you read Imperial Hubris, and I cite Scheur while fundamentally disagreeing with him, but he made the case that the return you get on investing from tribes is pretty low. That it's easy to tap ethnic or tribal rivalries and get one side to take your money and weapons, but it's harder to get them to make your priorities their own. So, if they were going to go blow up camp A on Thursday, they're happy to take your money beforehand, but because they've taken your money doesn't mean they'll do camp B first or wait until Saturday to do anything.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 01-19-05 6:27 AM
That's a good point. Though, strictly speaking, again related to execution rather than recruitment. And that's all the defending of the administration that I'll do.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-05 9:18 AM
Can I just say that it kinda gravels my ass that you're writing "I finally got around to reading the Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker" about a piece that appears in a magazine that I subscribe to and haven't got yet? I feel like a total dinosaur.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-19-05 5:06 PM
Go East, old man.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-19-05 5:07 PM