Top Farc leader killed
In the hunt to stop terrorists groups many times we hunt persons of interest or the leaders of these groups. In this case the leader was killed as a result of anti-terrorism efforts. My question is what difference does this make ? For example, if we caught Osama would al queda stop attacking ? One thing the article brings up is
"The killing of such a leading figure within Farc's secretariat, whose members are renowned for dying of natural causes, means the group's aura of invincibility has evaporated, our correspondent adds. "
So does the decapitation method they use work just as well against them ?
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9 comments:
Even though Colombia killed Reyes I don't think that it will have too much of an effect on the FARC. If there are still people dedicated to their cause then they probably will still be a problem for Colombia. In class the professor described terrorism as a Darwinian process. When people kill the leaders of terrorist organizations then the terrorist organization changes its structure. I think what will happen because of Reyes death is that the FARC changes its structure.
Our class discussions lead me to think that decapitation is more effective against terrorist organizations than states. Decapitation is the reason hierarchical terrorist groups have been "flattened" into cellular networks. Also, it makes more sense that a terrorist group with a few dozen members would feel the loss of a leader much more strongly than an nation with tens or hundreds of millions of citizens. The FARC is probably robust enough to weather the loss of Reyes, but it is still a serious blow to the organization.
I agree that decapitation works better on more hierarchical organizations. Granted, it is hard to imagine any organization completely unraveling just from the loss of one leader. Killing the leaders certainly takes its toll though.
It seems logical that counterterrorism should have similar strategies as terrorists do. Decapitation is one, as are strong horse, coercion, etc. There is no question that when terrorist leaders are killed it is a tremendous blow to their organization.
I think that decapitation is a rather flawed concept. The problem with the idea of decapitation is that part of the nature of hierarchal structures includes natural replacements. Decapitation in smaller organizations is obviously a lot more deadly because the likelihood of having another good replacement is much smaller. Of course as an organization lives longer and becomes larger, better replacements can rise to the top. I think the best means of implementing decapitation really requires hitting a number of the group's leaders. It's kind of like killing the President of the United States really would not be too effective. However, if you killed maybe the top 3 or 4 on our hierarchal chart of succession, that seems like that would be far more likely to cause some real damage.
In the terrorist organizations it doesn't seem like decapitation is always the most effective method. So many of them persist as a network after decapitation has taken place. Of course their effectiveness is certainly reduced, so maybe it's a good way of dealing with terrorist groups. It's really hard to say.
I also believe that decapitation can be a effective tool against heirarchical terrorist organizations, especially smaller ones. As was mentioned in the presentation on Ansar Al-Islam, the number of attacks they have carried out since their leader was imprisoned greatly decreased.
Here's an interesting byproduct of this attack: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V5H5TG1&show_article=1.
Turns out Hugo Chavez is ready to go to war with Columbia over the killing. Let's clarify: Columbia kills a terrorist leader, and the leader of another country, who wasn't involved in the killing at all, wants to consider it worthy of war. If you ask me, Chavez is just continuing to make himself look even more like a fool. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
I think whether the decaptiation strategy works depends on the size of the group. If Osama bin Laden was killed, while it would certainly be a seriously blow to Al-Qaeda, especially in the funds department, Al-Qaeda would be able to continue to function because it is such a well-established and large terrorist network. However, if decapitation was used on a smaller organization with fewer numbers, the loss of a leader would be felt much more severely. And I agree with Robert, decapitation is more effective against terrorist organizations than states.
It has been discussed in class that terrorists groups have been forced to network their organizations or flatten out their organizations in response to counter-terrorism measures. It seems that if this trend continues, the decapitation of the head of terrorist organizations will become less and less effective. I believe that if Osama bin Laden were to be taken, al-Qaeda would continue to operate in much the same way; they have effectively flattened out their organization.
I think it is always importante to shoot for the head. Even if you get the foot it is still something good. It depends on the way the organization is set but decaptation does not mean that the problem is over because it seems that there is always someone else ready to step up.
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