samboct
Posts: 1817
Joined: 1/17/2007
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If you're looking for additional facts here- you won't find them. I'm going to propose a different hypothesis than Gitmo....
So far, people seem to have focused on whether or not waterboarding at Gitmo finally did the trick after nearly a decade. How about an alternative- that US ideals actually work? That the capture of Bin Jackass has far more to do with the rise of successful revolutions in the Arab world and the toothlessness of Al Qaeda to affect real change which was far more important than anything out of Gitmo.
In terms of the timeline of events- it seems to me that people are ignoring the elephant in the room- the revolutions breaking out all over the Arab world that are largely peaceful and without extensive US military involvement. However, all of these revolutions owe their genesis to two key ingredients both of which happen to be US inventions: the internet and the key ideas of how to have a successful revolution which were developed by an American academic living in MA. I'll try and find a link to the NYTimes article about the guy. OK found it- he's the aptly named Gene Sharp. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/gene_sharp/index.html?scp=5&sq=revolution%20massachusetts%20academic&st=cse Basically the gist of his idea was simple- that oppressive regimes welcome violence since it gives them an excuse to retaliate with force-thereby cowing the populace. Instead, what's much more effective is humor-cruel humor such as mockery. Dictators don't have a sense of humor about their image, and anything that makes them appear human also makes them vulnerable.
The internet gives the world an effective free press, as long as we don't undermine it by selling technology to countries like China that try and censor it. Big mistake, but the internet may find ways around. But in the Arab world- the internet has functioned as a free press and enabled the exchange of ideas which lead to these revolutions. Do you think the Arabs are so stupid that they don't realize that the technology that enabled their revolutions came from the US? What's amazing is that we in the US forget this fact.
We learn about the concepts of the American revolution in school- how a representative democracy needs a free press, freedom of expression, and protected free speech and that people in other countries want freedom as well. Its our job to export it. Well, we did- and we did a good job at it- better than we give ourselves credit for. And lo and behold it catches on- and we're flummoxed by it.
So in the timeline of events- it seems that we try torture for close to 10 years and get nowhere fast. We try fomenting revolution in accord with our ideals and in 10 minutes, we catch Bin Laden. Seems to me that there's a coincidence here that's just being ignored- that we changed the world's viewpoint about revolution and Bin Laden was left out in the cold....
Sam
< Message edited by samboct -- 5/4/2011 8:31:23 AM >
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What did in Osama Bin Laden? - 
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