Terrorists will never attack Switzerland

[mudesi]

If you want to end terrorism, a fundamental change in foreign policy is the only true solution.

No more invasions. No more bombing campaigns. No more economic sanctions, belligerent rhetoric, or asinine labels of "enemy" and "terror group". No more meddling in others' affairs. No more funding of militias, no more funding for arms.

More diplomacy. More polite disagreement and gentle persuasion. More meeting, talking, discussing, hand shaking, and communication.

Until the majority of Americans get this, terrorism will be an unfortunate reality.

[yardwork]

1. That makes way too much sense to be adopted in the U.S.

Our whole country is based on rip, tear, pillage, and burn. All the way back to the beginning.

[cali]

2. I completely agree with your prescription but

you picked the wrong country to hold up as an example. Switzerland has been running a truly ugly anti-immigrant campaign. I wouldn't be shocked at all if Switzerland got attacked.

[Van23]

7. That's for sure!!!!

"Neutral" my ass. The Swiss government has been making $$$$$ for years off of the misery of other countries. Money laundering via anonymous accounts, hiding property and gold for the Nazis during WWII that was stolen from the Jews, etc...

Fuck 'em.

[hughee99]

3. That is true...

although I can't recall anyone extolling the virtues of Switzerland's foreign policy of the 1930's and 40's, and it was essentially the same back then.

[SteveM]

4. Switzerland's people are too heavily armed. Even Hitler backed off.

[AndyTiedye]

6. Swiss Bank Accounts Have More to Do With It

Don't you think a few of the Nazi high command, possibly including Hitler himself, had Swiss bank accounts?

Same for every other country on Earth.

That is why nobody will ever attack Switzerland.

[rzemanfl]

10. Sorry I missed this response before I posted mine, saying

essentially the same thing. I wouldn't plan on anyone invading the Cayman Islands either.

[alfredo]

5. No they won't. That's where their chocolate comes from.

[BlooInBloo]

8. We're AMERICANS dagnabit! We have a god-given RIGHT to our heathen banana republics!

[rzemanfl]

9. Of course not, that's where their bank accounts are. n/t

[nealmhughes]

11. Here is a small part of an article by Systems Theory Guru Russ Ackoff:

Terrorism: a systemic view. (Notes and Insights). Russell L. Ackoff and Johan P. Strumpfer. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 20.3 (May-June 2003): p287(8).

Paragraph 3:A major factor in the success of terrorism lies in the fear and social paralysis it induces. Through the media, particularly television, the terror produced is rapidly disseminated through a large part of the world. Instantaneous global dissemination by the media, particularly television, of news of terrorist acts promotes the aims of terrorism. Terrorists thrive on exposure of their message. The connections created by the media between most parts of the world directly favor terrorism. There is no better example than CNN and the September 11 attacks on the USA, which allowed a global audience to witness first hand terrorism in progress, in real time. Through violence, terrorism conducts what is primarily a psychological war directed at affecting the mind and the behavior of the public. . .

Paragraph 5: Fundamentalism is a response to a rapidly changing and increasingly complex environment, a chaotic or turbulent environment, and the uncertainty it breeds. Fundamentalists cannot cope with such an environment and, therefore, remove the need for doing so by accepting a set of beliefs that identify an exhaustive set of meaningful questions, answers to them, and the acceptable modes of behavior to which the answers imply. All other questions are dismissed as irrelevant and all other answers and acts are considered to be wrong. There are no alternatives worth consideration. Therefore, this set of beliefs relieves those who accept it of the need to think and choose among alternatives. Acceptance of the doctrine is not a matter of thought but of uncompromising faith. This doctrine becomes dogma, the only 'truth'.

[mmonk]

12. Whenever the followers of our violent ideology

talk about how we were attacked on 9/11 because of our freedoms or because they hate Christians and Jews, I bring up Switzerland and a couple of other countries and ask them wouldn't it be easier and closer for them to attack those countries?

[BrotherBuzz]

13. To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war

Winston Churchill

[baldguy]

14. Switzerland talks to everybody & isn't interested in world domination.

World domination is the central goal of neocon policies, and won't talk to anyone who doesn't share their delusional world view.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. The Swiss think otherwise

In Neutral Switzerland, A Rising Radicalism
Islamic Extremists Newly Seen as Threat

As they have elsewhere in Europe, Islamic radicals are making inroads in Switzerland. Last month, Swiss officials announced the arrests of a dozen suspects who allegedly conspired to shoot down an Israeli airliner flying from Geneva to Tel Aviv. In a related case, a North African man has been charged with organizing a plot from Swiss soil to blow up the Spanish supreme court in Madrid.
...
In an intelligence report completed in May, the Swiss Federal Police reversed previous assessments that the domestic risk of terrorism was nearly nonexistent. The report concluded that Switzerland had become "a jihadi field of operation" and predicted that terrorist attacks were "an increasing possibility."

"It would be dishonest to say that these groups are ready to act in Europe but that Switzerland is an island and that these groups could not be active in Switzerland, too," Jean-Luc Vez, director of the federal police, said in an interview here in the Swiss capital. "It is very, very important for us to say this to the Swiss politicians and the Swiss people."
...
But "we have seen early signs now of anti-Swiss propaganda on the Internet," Pitteloud said. "We have our fair share of radical Islamists, there is no doubt, many of whom we don't know what to do about because many of them are refugees and we can't just kick them out."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071901795.html