Illuminati-R-Us

I am just playing the devil’s advocate for a moment. Would a Ghandi-like approach work for the United States after 9-11? Would passive resistance have worked for the United States in fighting terrorism. Would presenting an image of meekness and an unwilling to fight cause the terrorists rhetoric to loose credibility and the enemies of the United States would rot from the inside out?

Of course I a not advocating this approach but I thought it would be a good topic to start.

Ghandi was not an absolute pacifist. His tactics only worked for him because the Brits could be shamed into changing their behavior. Ghandi said: "Given a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."

Source

I'm not even completely convinced that we can say Ghandi's tactics worked. India became independent, sure enough; how much of the credit belongs to Ghandi? If it were up to him, it wouldn't have been partitioned, but it was.

N

Futhermore, his tactics only would work against the Brits of that era. The British calvary horse was trained to not step on people. No other calvary did this. Thus, a bunch of people sitting/standing in the middle of the street could stop advancing British horses if they were brave enough.

Animal - that is a pretty big stretch. Ghandi was saved by horse training? I think that the minor conflict with Germany/Japan had more to do with it. As far as Ghandi's tatics working, remember the Constitution of India was adopted in 1929 - civil disobedience as a tatic was adopted in 1930 - independence was granted in 1947. This, at least to me, indicates that the UK was no longer interested in resisting indepedence after the war.

Back on topic - not only does civil disobedience require a long time to work it also requires an opponent who isn't interested in committing wholesale murder. The people who executed 9/11 have no such issues.

We would be the laughingstock of the world if we tried to fight a group likw Al Qaeda with civil disobedience. I think it would actually encourage more attacks.

Cival disobediance could only work against a democraticlly elected government. If Bust was caught machine gunning Cindy Sheehan and her crowd, his approval ratings would plummet.

Al Qiada woud enjoy it. Why hijack a plane and crash it into anything, when you could just walk around hugging Americans and then cutting their throats?

The Brits weren't exactly the 'democratically elected government' of India,
but if you make that 'civilised' you're probably right.

i dont see how "civil disobedience' woudl work because its not our goverment we woudl be working againt. i dont think al qada would care if we didnt obey our gov. we woudl be sitting ducks for anyone who wants something weve got if our gov. was that laid back.

Halcyon Dayz wrote:The Brits weren't exactly the 'democratically elected government' of India,
but if you make that 'civilised' you're probably right.

Hell, they weren't even the democratically elected government of Britain until into the 19th century :D

N

Superluminal wrote:If Bust was caught machine gunning Cindy Sheehan and her crowd, his approval ratings would plummet.

Yeah, probably. But you must admit she has become more of an annoyance than anything else.