gwern comments on Terrorism is not about Terror - Less Wrong
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I'm a little surprised that you're arguing anecdotally against a statistical generalization. But once more into the breach...
You're citing the IRA as a terrorism success? Let's look at that:
Yeah, how's that worked out for them? Oh right, Northern Ireland still exists! How about that.
Funny thing, one never hears of any Palestinian legislation being passed in East Jerusalem, or any rights of returns. That's because, you know, the PLO accomplished jack squat.
Israel is still there, and still killing as many Palestinians as it pleases. Your vaunted organizations haven't achieved a heck of a lot of their goals.
As for Hezbollah:
I'd note that what notable successes they've had stem from guerrilla campaigns and open warfare; and not primarily terrorism.
Finally, I get the impression you didn't even bother to read the paper I carefully linked, Why Terrorism Does Not Work, specifically to address such objections. Let's spoonfeed some important bits...
(Personally, I wouldn't even count the Tamil Tigers, as they currently seem to be screwed.)
Already read that paper. It uses the unrealistic criteria of "achieving objectives". Nobody achieves their objectives. The Republicans were in control of the US for 8 years and didn't achieve their objectives. What percentage of US Presidents "achieved their objectives"? Less than 7%, I'll bet.
England made compromises with the IRA. Israel has made compromises with the Palestinians. This would not have happened without terrorism.
GWB was tremendously successful in achieving stated objectives. Lowering taxes, passing PATRIOT, No Child Left Behind, invading Iraq, invading Afghanistan, the surge, the Medicare private insurance revamp, blocking stem cells, and even more than that. There were, what, 3 noteable failures? (Privatizing Social Security, Clear Skies, and immigration.) That these policies were all miserably ruinous in the real world doesn't matter. A lot of his programs went through. 7%? Not hardly! You've just pulled that assertion out of your arse.
If we really believed that <7% of presidents achieved their goals, then that implies less than 3 US presidents were successful, and the other 41 failures. We can obviously count FDR, Lincoln, and Washington as successful (which technically is all we need to disprove x<7%); is it really plausible that no other president achieved their goals? Of course not. Goetz's reading of 'achieving objectives' is absurd. To quote the paper again:
The decks are heavily stacked in this analysis in favor of the terrorist groups.