(Mods -- Please move to OMNI if that's a better place for this topic
)
I was thinking this morning during my run about the famous terrorist groups in the 1970s-80s and trying to compare them to the Al Qaida of today. Some names that popped into my head were: the SLA, Red Army Faction, Bader-Meinhoff, Black September, and the Weather Underground. I suppose you could even throw the IRA into the mix. I thought about similarities and differences and why none of the 1970s groups are around anymore. Then, I ran out of time (only an hour run this AM!) before I could draw any conclusions about whether or not we could learn from the "War on Terror" back then and apply those lessons to today. This is hardly a completely thought-out notion, but I'll try to briefly elaborate.
Similar or identical characteristics:
1. Both eras had groups organized and operating within the US, including US citizens among their members;
2. All of the groups committed terrorist acts against the US domestically and abroad;
3. The groups were well-hidden within the society and culture that existed during their particular eras;
4. Each group had political causes they thought could only be adopted through terrorist attacks;
5. The groups were externally funded and covertly supported by legitimate nations;
6. Both eras had groups with well-organized leadership.
Possible differences --
1. Threat of WMD use didn't really exist in the 1970s-80s, except for the threat of a Soviet-US nuclear exchange;
2. A lot of anti-US & West stuff happened politically and non-violently through the Cold War, perhaps reducing the need for lots of transnational terrorist groups;
3. Al Qaida has access to much more funding (But, if you were to compare them to the previous groups using then-year dollars, is this really true?);
4. Oil is a central theme;
5. Religion is a central theme;
6. Al Qaida is bigger and in more places (or is this really true if you aggregate all of the previous groups?)
7. Today's groups have thoroughly studied the previous groups, learned pertinent lessons, and have taken the art of terrorism war to the next level.
Somehow, all of the 1970s & 80s groups are either dead, in jail, disbanded, or at least dormant. All of this managed to happen without the Patriot Act, without the DHS & TSA, without overthrowing dictators by overt military action, and generally within the bounds of the Law of Armed Conflict. Are we trying to reinvent the wheel?
Does all this make for interesting conversation, or was there more blood in my legs than in my brain this morning?