The op-ed below illustrates why semantics (i.e. rhetoric) and framing the debate are so important to decision-making: Using the wrong words to describe things puts the wrong emotions, images and associations in our minds, leading us to make very bad decisions.
Are we indeed "at war" with al Qaeda? I've argued that we are not. At least not according to any traditional definition of warfare. Yet "war" still seems like the most suitable term available, since military combat operations are involved, and because we are fighting an organized enemy determined to kill us.
As I've also argued, we should treat the fight against al Qaeda with the seriousness of a war, but we should not call it a war, even if we think it is one. Why? Because our enemy al Qaeda – who is inferior to us by almost any metric – wants a big war. Their problem, operationally, is that they can't bring a war to us. Al Qaeda can only try to provoke us into starting a war in a Muslim country sympathetic (or potentially sympathetic) to its cause, hence its 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, we chomped on their bait. Since then al Qaeda has had us where it wants us: mired in two Islamic countries fighting counter-insurgency operations, where enemy casualties, seizing territory, and other standard metrics of victory in war are nearly irrelevant.
Operationally, it makes almost no difference to al Qaeda where they fight us, as long as that country has a Muslim population. Nor does al Qaeda care if the ensuing war destroys that country or its people. But we are America; we are different; and we should care.
And let's be honest: We can never stomp out al Qaeda completely. Not as long as all it takes to be a member of al Qaeda is an Internet connection, a Koran, some weapons or homemade chemicals, and a lot of anger.
Therefore, we should focus on limiting al Qaeda's ability to attack the U.S. homeland, which I think we have done, somewhat, since 9/11. And concurrently, we must de-legitimize terrorism as a form of jihad in the Muslim world. We can start doing that by taking the moral high road, and practicing what we preach: respect for democracy and self-determination, (even if people vote for bad leaders); respect for international law; respect for personal dignity, regardless of nationality or religion; and most important, we must stop invading or occupying Muslim countries.
It's impossible to start a dialogue with Muslims when they feel under attack. Their religion requires them to come to the aid and defense of other Muslims. Which is why bin Laden was overjoyed when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. We shouldn't provide any more fuel to al Qaeda's fiery rhetoric about America's plans to kill and enslave Muslims. We shouldn't jump at the chance to play the role of bloodthirsty villain and callous bully. We shouldn't willingly pose for any more of al Qaeda's "Allah Wants YOU" recruitment posters.
We're smarter than that, right? Then come on!
On which battlefields will we wage war against al Qaeda?
By Cliff May
June 22, 2007 | NationalReview.com
America is at war with al Qaeda — on that surely we can agree — and we know that al Qaeda has bases in Pakistan. In fact, it is probable that Osama bin Laden resides at one of those bases. But we can't fight al Qaeda in Pakistan because Pakistan is an ally, and America does not violate the territorial integrity of its allies.
Al Qaeda is active in Gaza, according to Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence. Al Qaeda supports Hamas which has just waged a bloody — and successful — civil war against Fatah, its Palestinian rival. But we're not about to invade Gaza in pursuit of al Qaeda. Even Israel, which withdrew from Gaza two years ago, is not eager to return there.
In Lebanon, Fatah al-Islam, which is fighting the Lebanese government, is believed to be linked to al Qaeda. But the last time U.S. troops were in Lebanon, they were attacked by suicide bombers dispatched by Hezbollah, a terrorist organization directed by the regime in Tehran. There is no way the U.S. is going to send troops into Lebanon again.
Groups linked to al Qaeda are in Somalia. We have supported Ethiopian troops fighting there. But a serious effort by Americans against al Qaeda in Somalia seems unlikely.
Al Qaeda cells operate in Europe. But it is problematic for American operatives to kill or capture terrorists there: To do so sparks allegations from the "human rights community" and the media about violations of international law, torture and secret prisons. Also, as has happened in Italy, it can lead to criminal prosecutions of Americans thought to be involved. So America's ability to fight al Qaeda in Europe is limited.
There are probably al Qaeda cells in the U.S. too. One hopes the FBI is monitoring them. But until the members of these cells commit crimes, there is not much that can be done. On what basis could Mohammed Atta, ringmaster of the 9/11/01 hijackers, have been arrested on 9/10/01?
What's more, some judges and legal activists are now insisting that even combatants illegally in the U.S. are entitled to all the rights enjoyed by American citizens. If this view prevails, fighting al Qaeda within the U.S. will become even harder.
That leaves only two places where we know for sure al Qaeda and its associates are operating actively — and very lethally — and where the U.S. can send its best warriors against them with the approval of the local, elected governments. Those places are, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan.
But many politicians, looking at polls showing Americans fatigued by a war that was not supposed to be so prolonged or arduous, now favor withdrawing from Iraq — retreating from the battlefield al Qaeda calls the central front in their jihad against us.
And does anyone seriously believe that, after leaving Iraq, we would not soon exit Afghanistan as well? How many suicide bombings of police academies, market places and mosques would be required to get us out — slaughters that the major media will, as usual, blame not on the killers but on the "foreign occupation"?
If this is where members of Congress want to go, they ought to be honest about where it leads: Al Qaeda will still be waging a war against us, but we will no longer be waging much of a war against al Qaeda.
To be sure, the war we've been fighting is not the war Americans signed up for when President Bush made the decision to enter Iraq four years ago. In the 20th century, international conflicts took the form of great European armies clashing. In the 21st century, Pentagon strategists thought conflicts would consist of short, decisive battles with small, well-trained American forces wielding high-tech weapons to produce "shock and awe" and break the enemies' will to fight.
Our enemies had other plans. They decided to fight from the shadows — kidnapping, torturing and mass-murdering whatever victims are at hand, relying on key groups in the West to blame the carnage not on them but on us, thereby eroding our will to fight.
Today's wars, military analyst Tom Donnelly has written, are "like the frontier fighting of the 19th century — in the American West but also in the far-flung outposts of the British Empire … the prime directive for U.S. land forces is neither deployability, nor mobility, nor lethality, but sustainability."
[Let's recall how the U.S. Army and the British Empire won their colonial wars of the 19th century: by enslaving, imprisoning, or killing every man, woman, and child who might be associated with the enemy. In other words, ethnic cleansing. "Sustainability" is just a euphemism for old school atrocity – because that's what it will take to subdue Afghan and Iraqi nationalists who resist U.S. occupation. – J]
And right now, sustainability appears to be the capability most lacking — not among America's troops in the field but among the political classes in Washington. Almost a decade ago, Osama bin Laden said that Americans were "unprepared to fight long wars." Secure in his Pakistani redoubt, he must be pleased that his analysis is proving so uncannily accurate.
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