How do you fight an enemy with nothing to lose?

How do you fight an enemy that gives you two options, conform to their will or die? An enemy that views death as a reward.

The war on terror or the war on radical Islam has made me ponder this question. If you are dealing with an enemy that values nothing, how can you come to any sort of terms? Previous wars were won by breaking the will of the enemy, inflicting enough damage until they eventually submit out of a fear of losing everything.

Now we are faced with an enemy that has nothing to lose and is eager to die. I just can't wrap my head around how you could possibly win such a fight.

Radical Islam is not the only case of this. I have noticed the same mentality in the tribal warfare in Africa. They are arming children with weapons and they have completely desensitized them to murder and torture. They have no fear of death and no repsect for human life.

The mindset is something that I can not come to terms with. Normally you can negotiate with people because ulitmately, no one wants to lose everything. Those rules no longer apply, so no there can be no mutual terms. We (rational people) have everything to lose and therefore have no bargaining chips. All we can offer is absolute conformity.

So, how do you deal with such an enemy?

I want this to be about the philosophical aspect of it, not the political. Meaning, I don't want this to be a discussion about invading countries or poor political policies that have brought us to where we are. I just wonder how people view the question.

How do you fight an enemy with nothing to lose?

Stop fighting and start talking, that is one way. The people that are at the point that they do not have anything to lose (at least they are in that mindset rightly or wrongly) had a lot of traveling to do before they got there. Lost their family (Son, daughter, wife, husband etc etc) is feeling a desperate anger. Just try to imagine you have been wronged for something, in this case in a store and you want to return the product but get ignored and belittled. You're getting nowhere fast and am feeling helpless because you do not have a way to get what you deserve. Now multiply this a thousand times, throw in your family members being dead or maimed and in stead of one person in a store doing it to you the whole western 'superiour' world is pounding on you (at least it looks like that from their viewpoint and they do not have as much internet as we have so the propaganda machine works even better with them).

Anyway, i would say to let them the hell alone, only go into a pure defensive stance, say that you will let their countries be sovereign entities let them build up something so they do have a thing to lose. Give them some quiet time. People are only extreme in their actions when they are psychotic magelomaniacs like some global leaders of ours or when they are being treated like they do not matter in the world. Give them a hand. We tried the bitchslap method for long enough so let's try the make nice method for a change.

This goes for everyone, not only the muslim extremists or other 'enemies of the month' People in Africa have the same thing, they have nothing so the anger is building up nicely inside of them. The only thing left is their honour or a mangled image of that.

[edit on 19-8-2008 by Harman]

reply to post by Harman


Thanks for the reply. I agree with what you have said. I think that in many cases it would work (sadly, I don't think we will ever try that approach and in many cases it may be too late). Especially in relation to our "wonderful" Middle East policies.

What about situations like in Africa for example? Religious civil war where people are chopping up neighbors and family? A situation where each side is demanding absolute conformity with no respect for human life. Do you think they can come to any form of mutual terms?

Reverse the rolls.

Hypothetical: If Russia or China invaded and completely destroyed innocents in 30% of the country. Nearly rendered Americas military to a pile of nothing. They were rounding up citizens to put into camps for defending themselves. Your families and friends were being accused and murdered. Russia and China were closing in and gaining more ground in the US on a monthly basis. Now you are in a "I have nothing to lose and everything to gain" position.

I would hope you would do anything it took to deliver a blow to the invaders hoping for them to retreat.

reply to post by fastwalker23


There's a vast differnece between the concept of a country invading another country, devestating it, the soldiers backing me into a corner where I will, indeed, defend with my life ........... and the concpet of the OP, wherein there is no invasion needed before one would sacrifice his own life to further his cause.

The former is of fight or flight, the latter of religious doctrine.

reply to post by fastwalker23


But we have Mutually Assured Destruction that has effectively prevented that from happening. Both sides have too much to lose, so no conflict has come about. I can understand the reasoning behind those politics. The threat of nuclear retalliation is not a deterrent to people that view their own destruction as a ticket to heaven.

I don't think you can fight someone with this mentality.

I guess the only way would be to give them something to live for. What that is or how it could be done, i haven't got a clue.....

Stop fighting and start talking, that is one way.

Yes, the best way. But it doesn't work out if you are the one pushing them to fight.

The best course of action is not to attack these people in the first place.

Its not that the Arabs (for example) have nothing to lose, it is just that this seems the best course of action to them. They obviously don't have the same value on their physical existence than us and seem to have much more of a value on their spiritual existence post mortem.

They see themselves as freedom fighters against the oppression of their people, their land and their existence. When it comes down to a view like that, it is impossible to stub out a resistance. Especially in a place like Iraq, against a group with Islamic beliefs, until the oppression force is gone.


[edit on 19/8/08 by Dermo]

as for the minions & the youngsters that chop up and muder in cold blood, there is no rehabilitation possible...only the utter destruction of these 'soldiers' is a solution.


but, just like we heard for ages... you have to 'cut off the head' of the evil serpent (aka: adversary, enemy...).
to do this, there must be created small teams of assassins, who will slay every family member, relative, in-law...the whole family tree & family heritage up to 3rd cousins wherever they might live, of everyone in a leadership position, Starting with the political or military leaders or religious leaders...(premiers/presidents...generals/colonels....imams/bishops...etc)

with all the digital computer power available, supporting intelligence gathering, DNA identification models... all the layers of leadership can be targeted for the purpose of eradicating all and any of that bloodline from the face of the earth... a total eradication of both the perps and the innocents , annhilation to the nth degree. That degree of action should
cause most, but not all, to rethink their circumstance.
If the leadership shrinks by 50-70% then the 'army' of minions also contracts... then its just a mop-up exercise,
of course this model could take a decade to a generation to accomplish the complete genocide of these ghouls
and would not keep new sects of perverse nhilists from arising and drawing other weak or maleable minds into their fold.

Originally posted by drock905
give them something to live for.

Very nice, in fact exactly the words I was going to use.

Wars don't necessarily need to be fought with bullets. Many civilizations have been absorbed in the past by the will of the "aggressor" or dominant force through the spread of culture.

Advance their technology especially medical and infrastructure capabilities. Educate, educate, educate... There is no greater power in the world than knowledge. Instead of hording it, by sharing, you might in fact make some friends in places you would not have looked before.

Open communication is also a must in today's world. Closing ties with other nations (as we've seen in the Bush Doctrine) has caused a complete collapse in international trust.

drock905 is exactly right. Give them something to live for so that they might find value and happiness in life. Give them hope.

Originally posted by Misfit
reply to post by fastwalker23

 

There's a vast differnece between the concept of a country invading another country, devestating it, the soldiers backing me into a corner where I will, indeed, defend with my life ........... and the concpet of the OP, wherein there is no invasion needed before one would sacrifice his own life to further his cause.

The former is of fight or flight, the latter of religious doctrine.

Hm, i think that the religious zeal thing hangs tightly with the internal peace of mind. In countries where you do not get peace of mind you are more likely to hang on to some religion that gives you a semblance of the forsaid peace of mind. So people that get hassled like the people in the poorer countries are not some kind of unreasonable devils living for the glorified martyrstatus. They do that because they have nothing to lose, they have nothing to lose because people are taking it away from them. Nobody gets born with the ideal they want to die in pieces spread over a half mile radius, the get pushed. Stop the pushing.

reply to post by St Udio


That is certainly the non PC method

I think there is a lot of truth to what you say though. If one was to go down that road, it certainly would open up another can of worms.

The answer is surprisingly simple and yet so politically incorrect in our time of a group hug to solve any problem.

Forget talk, forget reason, you just kill everything and resettle the land.

It worked in olden days and it will work now. Amazingly simple answer that our forefathers saw and executed in all parts of the world.

Will it happen, no; but that is a different argument as to why we care what other people think about our actions.

First of all there is no "War on Terror", that's some bs made up to scare Americans into another couple wars, false flag attacks have happened quite often in recent history, 9/11 was a state sponsored event, no way to go around that with the USA's incompetence + unwillingness to investigate properly and quickly + all the ties to Israel. If you want to see some of Israel's involvement in the 9/11 show, check out this essay:

www.iamthewitness.com...

Israel also tried to blow apart one of our navy ships years ago because our president asked them too - it's not a conspiracy theory anymore it's a fact, look up the U.S.S Liberty if you haven't heard of it.

In addition to that, Israel might be planning another false flag attack to get us into Iran - source is: Mark Glenn – The Ugly Truth

"Someone from within the intelligence or military apparatus of the United States has looked towards the horizon and concluded that Israel is planning a ‘USS Liberty Pt II,’ meaning an attack on a US ship, most likely in the Persian Gulf, leading to a massive loss of life to be then blamed on Iran. As was intended in 1967 when Israel attacked the Liberty, Americans would be incensed into such a war frenzy that they would demand the ‘obliteration’ (a la Hillary Clinton) of the guilty party, the false identity of which the Jewish media establishment in America would be all too glad to provide."

With all that out of the way... no country is unbreakable imo, not because of their religion or mentality but because the people governing them or controlling the financial aspects of the problem would give in, in whatever ways necessary to secure what power they have. These are the guys that might pretend to be jews, christians, muslims - but they know when they die they won't get virgins or go to heaven, they deal with reality. The ones dying for their religion are the sheep, just like H Kissinger said - "Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."

That's all the muslim fighters are, that's all an American soldier is to these people - stupid animals

Edited to fix link, worked fine in preview but not on reg post

[edit on 19-8-2008 by jomie-ky]

Thats easy...nuke them all to hell or whatever valhalla they believe at least the rest of the world could live in peace.

Originally posted by Sopwith
Thats easy...nuke them all to hell or whatever valhalla they believe at least the rest of the world could live in peace.

Nope, we would just look for the next enemy to kick against. We tried the slapping method, after thousands of years we should be able to learn something from it, maybe that it does not work?

Originally posted by Harman
In countries where you do not get peace of mind you are more likely to hang on to some religion that gives you a semblance of the forsaid peace of mind.

Right there lies a core problem. The fact that this scenario of "no peace = grab religion" continually cycles between the two, becoming not only exponential in reason for cause, but propegating through more masses, resulting in more marytism, careless of life.

Did that make sense? I rrrreally suck at putting thoughts of aspects into words, just this took forevers to do!!! lol

[edit on 19/8/08 by Misfit]

reply to post by Harman


I think that with the current power structure in society, it is impossible. The world is ruled by greedy, corrupt men and it always has been. I can't forsee any way to change the balance of power to allow for such diplomacy. The powerful will continue to exploit the weak for eternity.

It is a nasty situation. But like you say, if we solve it with force, we will only manufacture a new enemy. Too bad I have ZERO faith in the people that are actually in a position to make such a choice.

educate the children. They are the only ones with enough brain power to learn new things. The adults have made up their minds and nothing will change it. I still find it hard to believe that the entire muslem population thinks this way. It seems the Koran is easier to misinterpet than the Bible.
Every time I try to get into a conversation about what Muslems believe, the masses inform me that they all want us to conform or die. (crusades?)
I thought we already went through that and it wasn't such a good idea. Maybe some muslem ATSers could shed some light on this fact for us.

reply to post by network dude


I don't for a second believe that all Muslims think the world should bend to their will or die. I do firmly believe that there are many "Radical" Muslims that do believe this. I am not trying to bash Muslims here or Islam. Fundamentalists of any religion distort it for their own reasons.

I am just talking about the mindset of the Radical Muslim and the other people who subscribe to the "Do what I want or die" philosophy.

I agree that education is a key to change. Now, how we would go about educating the children of Radical Muslims is beyond me.