War on Terror: Part I

The war on terror is very badly named. It reminds one of the war on drugs. And fittingly, the major issue of contention between the democrat and republican elected officials is whether it is or isn't. The D's are trying their best to make it completely into a different version of the war on drugs, the R's are trying their best to keep it a hot war. What should the principled citizen think?

Well, the first principle that jumps to mind is this: Wars are fought between nation-states.

And this is really the crux of the issue. Any reading of recent history shows that the United States, her citizens, and interests have been the repeated targets of terror attacks and acts of war for most of the past thirty years. A good starting point is the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the illegal detention of United States citizens who were seized in the United States Embassy. This is technically an act of war, although most people probably connect the hostage episode with terror. Other acts of war perpetrated against the United States include the bombing of the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut and the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. During the period after the Iranian hostage crisis, the United States and other countries suffered a series of terror attacks including, but not limited to, the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie Scotland, the Achille Lauro Hijacking, the Khobar Towers bombing, the first World Trade Center Bombing, the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the bombing of embassies of other countries in Lebanon and Argentina, and of course the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

Through most of these attacks the United States basically turned the other cheek. Our responses are as few as they were feeble. President Reagan delivered one the most severe responses in bombing Libya after the Lockerbie incident. President Clinton launched cruise missiles at targets in Africa and Afghanistan. There seems to be some that believe we may have hit one chemical weapons facility in the Sudan, but there is evidence, and many people believe, that this was a dairy plant. Our attacks on Afghanistan are less controversial due to their minimal impact.

The question must be asked: did 9-11 really change the world?

Based on their advocated positions, the politicians have differing opinions. The democrats' argument seems, at least to this observer, to be the closest to a pre-9-11 mindset. Their intended course of action is strictly tactical with little bearing to over all strategy with respect to terror. The republicans have put forward psuedo-strategies like "we need to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here." That is actually a decent principle for armed conflict, but it is not a strategy.

It occurs to this writer that the major goal of foreign policy in the post-9-11 world is to eliminate state sponsorship of terror. Our foreign policy, war policy, and tactical moves should give service to this goal. I see little evidence of this.

It is true that Afghanistan under the Taliban and Iraq under Hussein were both state sponsors of terror. Both were long-term residents on the list maintained by the U.S. State Department and figured prominently in the annual report. This reporting function is no longer with State, and the Homeland Security/Counter-terrorism office has taken a vastly different approach. Other long-time listees included Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Cuba. To some extent the elimination of Afghanistan and Iraq are collateral benefits of the Bush 43rd approach. The United States never explicitly demanded that either the Taliban or Hussein get out of the terror business. Instead, we demanded Afghanistan turn-over bin Laden and his gang and that Iraq credibly prove that it did not possess a meaningful WMD capability. Since both regimes failed to comply, hostilities ensued. In the more recent past, the administration has not pressed either Iran or Syria with respect to the sponsorship element.

go to War on Terror: Part II.