Momentum for a New Approach to Terrorism?

I've long disagreed with the dominant mindset that we are fighting a "war on terror." (See here, for example.) While there may be times when military action is the appropriate course of action, I've long been of the opinion that it will generally be more appropriate morally, and more effective strategically, to approach terrorism from a law enforcement perspective. I'm beginning to see some movement in this direction from different sources- a direction that was largely embraced by Sen. Kerry during the '04 campaign.

George Will, for example, takes the Bush Administration to task in an August 15 column called "The triumph on Unrealism" in the Washington Post, saying, in part...

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a "senior administration official," insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point. The official told The Weekly Standard:

"The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It's like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn't work."

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."

In the August 13 edition of the NY Times, an article entitled "Does Calling It Jihad Make It So?" makes a similar point.

Soon after the British police announced last week that they had broken up a plot to blow up aircraft across the Atlantic, President Bush declared the affair "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

British officials, on the other hand, referred to the men in custody as "main players," and declined to discuss either their motives or ideology so that they would not jeopardize "criminal proceedings."

The difference in these initial public characterizations was revealing: The American president summoned up language reaffirming that the United States is locked in a global war in which its enemies are bound together by a common ideology, and a common hatred of democracy. For the moment, the British carefully stuck to the toned-down language of law enforcement.

A critical debate in America today among political candidates and among national security experts is whether five years of war declarations and war-making have helped to make the United States more secure.

The question is whether that approach, and the language that goes with it, creates a trap for the administration.

"I think that what is happening is that everything is getting magnified," said Stephen Cohen, a Mideast scholar at the Israel Policy Forum. "Just like every small crisis around the world was part of the cold war, every one is now part of the struggle between militant Islam and the United States. And that makes individual conflicts harder to solve," and an inspiration for jihad.

James Fallows [of the Atlantic Monthly] argues that the imagery of the "long war", one that has already lasted longer than the Korean conflict, is self-defeating. "An open-ended war is an open-ended invitation to defeat," he wrote. "Sometime there will be more bombings, shootings, poisonings and other disruptions in the United States. Some will be the work of Islamic extremists, some not." He added: "If they occur while the war is still on, they are enemy victories, not misfortunes of the sort that great nations suffer."

There's a lot to mull over in these paragraphs, but we would do well to spend some time thinking about what approach to terrorism is the best one. I would argue that our "war" rhetoric and mentality-

1. Causes us to use language that alienates moderate Muslims in the world and thus makes it more difficult to contain the terrorists.
2. Causes us to use tactics- such as our use of the military in Iraq- which seems to confirms radical Islamist propaganda about the US as a military power bent on the destruction of Islamic nations.
3. Causes us to fuel the cycle of terrorism and violence by causing excessive loss of life through the use of military power which is rarely as precise as we would like to believe.
4. Causes us to be less secure as we find our military bogged down in nations like Iraq against an insurgency that will never stop fighting so long as we are there.
5. Causes us to be trapped in those countries by our own rhetoric- we cannot leave until the insurgency is quelled, but it will never be quelled.
6. Causes us to lose the moral high ground as we lose support around the world and become seen as a nation of 'might makes right' rather than a nation of justice.

I'm hoping that we are seeing only the beginning of a rethinking of our approach to the problem of terrorism. If a staunch ally like Great Britain and a conservative like George Will can begin change the nature of the rhetoric, perhaps the Bush Administration will eventually find itself pulled along by a wave of change.

GP