By Ted Belman
I recently posed the question What War on Terror?
Now Victor Davis Hanson assumes otherwise and questions Is the War on Terror Over?
Do we still need to fight a war on terror?
The answer seems to be no for an increasing number in the West who are weary over Afghanistan and Iraq or complacent from the absence of a major attack on the scale of 9/11.
The British Foreign Office has scrapped the phrase “war on terror” as inexact, inflammatory and counterproductive. U.S. Central Command has just dropped the term “long war” to describe the fight against radical Islam.
An influential book making the rounds – “Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them” – argues that the threat from al-Qaida is vastly exaggerated.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, goes further, assuring us that we are terrorized mostly by the false idea of a war on terror – not the jihadists themselves. Even onetime neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama, who in 1998 called for the preemptive removal of Saddam Hussein, believes “war” is the “wrong metaphor” for our struggle against the terrorists.
Others point out that motley Islamic terrorists lack the resources of the Nazi Wehrmacht or the Soviet Union.
This thinking may seem understandable given the ineffectiveness of al-Qaida to kill many Americans after 9/11. Or it may also reflect hopes that if we only leave Iraq, radical Islam will wither away. But it is dead wrong for a number of reasons.
First, Islamic terrorists plotting attacks are arrested periodically in both Europe and the United States. Just last week a leaked British report detailed al-Qaida’s plans for future “large-scale” operations. We shouldn’t be blamed for being alarmist when our alarmism has resulted in our safety at home for the past five years.
Second, have we forgotten that Nazi Germany was never able to kill 3,000 Americans on our homeland? Did Japan ever destroy 16 acres in Manhattan or hit the nerve center of the U.S. military? Even the Soviet Union couldn’t inflict billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy in a single day.
Third, in some ways stateless terrorists can be more dangerous than past conventional threats. Autocrats in some Middle East countries allow indirect financial and psychological support for al-Qaida terrorists without leaving footprints of their intent. They must assume that a single terrorist strike could kill thousands of Americans without our ability to strike back at their capitals. This inability to tie a state to its support for terrorism is our greatest obstacle in this war – and our enemies’ greatest advantage.
Fourth, jihadists have already scored successes in all sorts of ways beyond altering the very nature of air travel. Cartoonists now lampoon everyone and everything – except Muslims. The pope must weigh his words carefully. Otherwise, priests and nuns are attacked abroad. A single false Newsweek story about one flushed Koran led to riot and death.
The net result is that terrified millions in Western societies silently accept that for the first time in centuries they cannot talk or write honestly about what they think of Islam and the Koran.
Fifth, everything from our 401(k) plans to municipal water plants depend on sophisticated computers and communications. And you don’t need a missile to take them down. Two oceans no longer protect the United States – not when the Internet knows no boundaries, our borders are relatively wide open, and dozens of ships dock and hundreds of flights arrive daily.
A germ, some spent nuclear fuel or a vial of nerve gas could cause as much mayhem and calamity as an armored division in Hitler’s army. The Soviets were considered rational enemies who accepted the bleak laws of nuclear deterrence. But the jihadists claim that they welcome death if their martyrdom results in thousands of dead Americans.
Finally, radical Islamists largely arise from the oil-rich Middle East. Since 9/11, the price of oil has skyrocketed, transferring trillions of dollars from successful Western, Indian and Chinese economies to unsuccessful Arab and Iranian autocracies.
Terrorists know that blowing up a Saudi oil field or getting control of Iraqi petroleum reserves – and they attempt both all the time – will alter the world economy. Even their mere threats give us psychological fits and their sponsors more cash.
This is a strange war. Our successes in avoiding attack convince some that the real danger has passed. And when we kill jihadists abroad, we are told it is peripheral to the war or only incites more terrorism.
But despite the current efforts at denial, the war against Islamic terrorism remains real and deadly. We can’t wish it away until Middle Eastern dictatorships reform – or we end their oil stranglehold over the world economy.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of “A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.” You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
© 2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc..
Permit me to respond with a comment I composed 10-7-2002. I feel it is not out-of-date.
AMERICANS JUST DON’T GET IT!!
I have a gut feel I know exactly what this country’s problem is and what it must do to solve it and if I an right I will be labeled an warmonger, or worse.
If the Unitesd States have angered others, it is simply now too late to apologize and say: “We are so very sorry we angered you by our Foreign Policies.” It now matters little that there are Muslims that hate us, for whatever reason, real or imagined. One can counter that The United States has come to the aid of several Muslim nations in the past few years. It will be replied that the aid was self-serving –oil– but at this point who cares! It is simply too late for rationalizations. Charge and counter-charge. Blood is now running in the streets and the War is on.
Of course, when it comes to what’s right or wrong it is Religious Muslims who mean to tell us how a civil society ought to behave and govern.
We –America– is a nation of sinners, or worse. Whereas the Muslims are the pure of heart. Americans think them radical and dangerous fundamentalists. So the tit-for-tat accusations amount to the same thing and each cancels the other.
Watch TV, read the papers, listen to the radio, listen to our fearless leaders–what reality do you see and hear? They say we are at war with “terrorismâ€. And we are dead wrong, some of us literally, and all of us, figuratively. Let me explain.
America doesn’t know it yet, but America’s war is not against “terrorismâ€. Terrorism is only a concept. Grand theater. Our war is the beginning of America’s war against radical Islamists, specific identifiable people whom we plan to find and kill. This radical “religion†has now reached critical mass to destroy other Middle Eastern countries and now has trained its sights on us. It is now to be defeated or if we delay, we will be defeated by it.
I am of the firm opinion that we can shoot the head of every terrorist whose image pops up like at a shooting gallery at an Arcade, one after the other, for many years, and they well still keep coming. Our “war” is going to be an infinite regress–we shoot, they bomb; we shoot, they bomb, ad infinitum. Terrorism cannot be stopped by “going after the terrorists”. How then do we stop terrorism from repeating September 11th.
I have come to the belief that the wrong people are going after the terrorists. We –the United States–cannot eliminate Muslim terrorists. I believe it is only Muslims that can eliminate Muslim terrorists. Let me explain .
The only way to accomplish the objective of our war—elimination of terrorism now and forever—is to get their attention—the Muslim’s attention, that is, not the terrorists!!.
True enough, they –the terrorists–have now gotten our attention–with a vengeance. What an understatement! Just look at the outpouring of patriotism in this country. Everybody is running about singing “God Bless America! Whether 6000 or 600,000 perished, makes no difference now. We cannot –we are resolved not — to have any repetition of September 11th. I make the assumption we mean it.
Hence, if we are serious in wanting terrorism to stop there is only one ways to get their –the Muslim’s—attention: First, we level the mountains of Afghanistan. The country is gone from the geography of the earth. That only starts to even the score. We then get the Muslim’s attention by announcing we will first destroy Mecca, if that doesn’t get their attention, Medinah is next and then any other city of radical Islamists with the same degree of destruction if they fail to eliminate the terrorists in their lands– or we will do I for them, city by city.! The rulers of the Muslim nations have experienced terrorism within their own country and they know how to stamp it out, but they have been cowards or reluctant for fear they would be themselves defeated and lose power. This may, indeed, be a real fear for having bribed the radicals, given in to “shakedownsâ€, or tarried too long allowing the radical elements to thrive and grow becoming now a “clear and present danger†to them if they appear to help the “infidels†[read “Americansâ€]. Indeed, they may very well welcome our doing the dirty work for them, and it wouldn’t be the first time we did! Remember the Gulf War?
Until we make such an announcement, no one will have ever explained our resolve so clearly to all Muslims– their Kings, Princes, Ruling Families — that we are dead serious. The Muslims–trust me—will then and by themselves eliminate terrorism as only they can. and they will not fail, not in light of the consequence of failure.
That is the only way to eliminate Muslim terrorism–to get them to clean out their own house–we cannot do it for them . There is no other way? Getting Muslims to eradicate radical Muslims is not original with me. Some Muslims have without a western coalition successfully controlled and eliminated terrorism in their midst. President Assad faced a mortal threat from Islamic extremists, who sought to topple his regime. President Assad identified the city of the rebellion , he literally leveled it, killing 10,000 to 25,000 , mostly civilians, and Syria has not had a Muslim extremist problem since!
See what I mean?
Without the firm resolve of the Arab nations to eradicate the terrorists in their lands any coalition to “fight terrorism†will be futile. Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt will not come to our aid and render full support, unless they are under threat of direct attack. Our Secretaries of State and Defense are running all over the world drumming up support for our planned war on terrorism. What a waste of effort!! Egypt and Saudi Arabia —our “strongest†allies—allies?—have had experiences with terrorism but their leaders are now too frightened of being overthrown to be of any use to us.
Failure to accurately evaluate the meaning of “terrorism†is our fault. Americans just cannot understand or have not been wise enough to understand why some people do not love us–and it seems just about everybody wants to “be an American”. At least 11,000,000 Mexicans think so!
We ought to have known — it was no secret– that for many years Anti-Americanism
–an intense visceral hate–has been a significant and repetitive lesson given to 16- to 24- year old boys and men in many Islamic religious schools, called “madrasa”. They are inculcated with a frightening picture of America as a sinister center of evil, and the enemy of Islam. Their religion, their mind-set easily accepts violence as a response to an enemy of Islam and perceived injustice to their religion.
I am not surprised at all that the work of Bin Laden is easily accepted, supported and bears fruit. His Qur’an instructs him to avoid the unjust peoples–Jews and Christians, lest he be classed with them.[ Surah 5:51] Radical Muslims are, if anything, religious to a literal fault!
We are–in his eyes–occupying the holy lands of Islam since the Gulf war, having invaded and are desecrating his land with no intention of leaving. Citizens, don’t you understand, we are terrorising them, for heavens sake!! We are the “Judeo-Christian enemy”, and he has a religious duty to kill and terrorize us in turn—we are the oppressors, the criminals , the thieves. Our fight is with the Radical Muslims in the Muslim Countries, not “terrorismâ€. We must get their attention!
Get it?
Mark my words.
Martin Kessler
mdk4130@aol.com