This article is a pretty good summary of the major misconceptions and oversights that one finds in pro-war arguments.
The first, and probably worst, of these is the assumption that the choice is between invasion and passivity. This is simply not the case. If we’re talking about confronting Iraq, there is a whole menu of military and non-military options available between what we have done and what we propose to do. I’m listing some of them elsewhere, so I won’t bother repeating them here. If we’re talking about the entirely different war on terror, invading nations won’t help us in any event. I hope I’m not giving the impression that I’m advocating what the article you cite calls a “gentle” or “non-confrontational” stance in the fight against terrorism. I’ve repeatedly said that I think it is and will continue to be necessary to kill, or better yet kidnap, interrogate, and then kill terrorists wherever they may be, including the US and Europe. This is not a terribly gentle idea. The important thing is that we have to realize that we are fighting an asymmetric conflict in which the entire organization of our enemies is designed to negate our overwhelming advantage in the deployment of massed force. The terrorists will meet this advantage by dispersing among populations in areas where the use of massed force is not an option. If we want to get them – and we have to – we have to beat them at their own game.
The second common misconception is lumping all of “America’s enemies” into one basket, and assuming that a strike on one will hurt them all. This is both wrong and dangerous. Saddam and Al Qaeda have used each other in the past, but Iraq is in no way a critical link in the terror net. A strike at Saddam is not a strike at Al Qeada, and it is not a strike on terror. The Islamists don’t need Saddam: if they could choose one Arab leader to toss to the sharks, Saddam might well be the man. He is an enemy, but there must be a hierarchy of enemies, and I wouldn’t put him at the top of it. After 9/11 we had a huge reserve of sympathy, respect, and positive felling around the world. We moved very effectively, with restraint and cooperation, in Afghanistan. We had come close to achieving unity in the free world, and even in much of the less free world, against terrorism, and we were in a position to put together a coalition against terrorism that might have actually worked. That opportunity has been ignored and squandered over the Saddam obsession. Now the countries that need to work together against terror are squabbling and disunited, and that helps the terrorists more than Saddam ever could. We will never address the terrorist threat effectively without active cooperation among many nations, not only in Europe. If we drive a wedge among the nations that need to cooperate to address the terror problem in the process of removing Saddam, we lose more than we gain.
It seems insufficiently recognized that our biggest problem spots in the war on terror are not our open enemies. The terrorists are not getting their key people, their money, their safe havens, and their resources from the axis of evil. They’re getting them from within countries that have nominally friendly governments, but in which government is unwilling or unable to control terrorist activity. In this category you can place Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and for that matter much of Western Europe. A growing problem with potentially catastrophic ramifications is Indonesia, and its spillover into the Southern Philippines, where radical Muslim secessionist movements operate beyond any Government control, and are increasingly linked to Al Qaeda and other Islamist umbrella groups. If you don’t see the danger in Indonesia, imagine a source of suicidal terrorists that do not fit the traditional racial profile, and imagine how much harder the security-related challenges could be. With the current mood in America, if an Arab male in his 30s rented a warehouse in a major American city and trucks driven by young Arab males started moving in and out, there’s a pretty good chance that somebody would notice and report it. If the people in question were indistinguishable from Malaysians, Singaporeans, Filipinos, or Chinese, nobody would notice a thing. Don’t think it can’t happen.
The challenges posed in all of these countries have one thing in common: invasion is not an option. If we want to address the terror problem in these areas – and again, we must – we will have to do it through means other than military force. The harsh reality is that even if we could create regime change in all three countries in the axis, the terrorists could continue to operate with impunity. The axis of evil countries are real problems and real challenges, but the first threat in the hierarchy is the terrorists, and dealing with them should take the first priority.
But, as I’ve said elsewhere, it’s too late now. Our leaders, more concerned with scoring domestic political points than effectively addressing global challenges, have committed too early and placed us in a situation where we have little or no room to maneuver. Not very bright, but what can one expect? |
