Rethinking the war on terror

During our recent trip to New York City with our grandchildren, we visited some of the usual tourist attractions. Our eight year old granddaughter had advised us that it was her dream to visit the Statue of Liberty, so the Circle Line ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands was on the schedule. It also seemed to be on everybody else’s schedule as well as the lines snaked all the way through Battery Park. One of the reasons for the long lines was the extraordinarily tight security that was in place. The very sensitive metal detectors and searches that took place were even more stringent than those at most airports and required an enormous number of security personnel to accomplish. (Perhaps this was all necessary as some terrorist might want to fly the ferry into a building) If Usama Bin Laden and his people can see the enormous changes that they have brought about in the U.S. and realize the enormous unproductive use of resources that their actions have engendered, they must be very happy. Currently we are spending $720b a year or 25% of the federal budget in defense, security and intelligence. Compare this to the $14.5b we spend on diplomacy and the $64b we spend on education at the federal level. I wonder who is winning the “war on terror” and what is the “war on terror”? Shortly after the events of 9/11, President Bush declared a “global war on terror”. (I thought only Congress could declare war, but I won’t go there.) I thought at the time that this was probably not a useful way of framing the issue. He probably should have declared war on Al Quaida as terror is not an enemy, but a tactic used by politically motivated groups to achieve their objectives. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King – violence is the voice of the voiceless. When we lump ETA (the Basque separatist group), the IRA, Hamas, and Al Quaida together as terrorists, we miss their differing agendas and try to impose a one size fits all solution. Why do we do it? Well, the military-industrial complex likes it because it is a war you can never lose, but also a war you can never win. As long as we are engaged in a never ending “war on terror” we can justify huge defense expenditures and massive weapons procurement programs. Comparisons are often made between the situation in Iraq and the Vietnam War. I am not sure that comparison works, but it may work with the “war on terror”. It is a war for which we have no defined strategic objective; we don’t even know who the enemy is. We are reduced to defining progress in terms of body counts and terror cells broken up. Usama Bin Laden, on the other hand, does have a strategic objective. He wants to return to the Islamic Caliphate that existed prior to WW I. He will use whatever tactics he thinks will be effective in achieving that strategic objective, including terror. For that reason he may well win. The guy with the biggest gun doesn’t always win in an asymmetrical war. (For more than you wanted to know on this subject from people who are much smarter than I am click here)