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CounterPunch
October
16, 2002
Fighting Terrorism
with the Wrong Weapons
by AHMAD FARUQUI
Just over a year ago, we began our war against
the Taliban in Afghanistan, in order to effect regime change
in Kabul and eradicate the al-Qaida terrorist movement. In a
couple of months, the Taliban were deposed from power, and several
leaders of al-Qaida were killed or captured. The war against
terrorism looked like it had been won.
However, it is now clear that neither
the Taliban nor al-Qaida have been eliminated. The battle at
Tora Bora was a failure. The terrorists escaped into the remotest
parts of Afghanistan and the rugged tribal areas of northwestern
Pakistan. Arguably, we are no safer from terrorist attacks on
US soil than we were a year ago, even though billions have been
spent on the war in Afghanistan and on beefing up homeland security.
Stating that Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction that may be transferred to al-Qaida operatives, we
are about to launch another military strike designed to effect
regime change in Baghdad. Prior to the vote in Congress, the
president spoke in Cincinnati. He said that no definitive proof
of Iraq's intentions is needed, since the only "smoking
gun" we may live to see is a mushroom cloud over a US city.
The most likely cost of a war against Iraq is a hundred billion
dollars, but it is likely to be no less than fifty billion dollars
and may well end up being two hundred billion dollars.
Can the American economy afford such
a hike in defense spending at a time when our budget surplus
of $127 billion has been turned into a budget deficit of $160
billion? Federal revenues have dropped by $130 billion in a
single year, the sharpest decline in 56 years, mainly because
of the weakening economy. The much talked about $5.6 trillion
surplus, that was going to enrich us over the next decade, has
completely evaporated from political discourse in Washington.
There is no doubt that the US has the
military muscle and political will to carry out regime change
in Iraq. But we are unlikely to stop with Iraq, since we are
sure to find that the threat of a terrorist attack will not disappear
with the removal of Saddam Hussain and his cronies from power.
We will have to deal with Israeli intelligence reports that
another member of the axis of evil, Iran, has been supplying
arms to various terrorist groups in the Middle East, has to be
disarmed. Even though Iran provides one of the few examples
of a democratic government in the Muslim world, and even though
it has not used biological or chemical weapons either against
its own people or attacked any of its neighbors, we will soon
convince ourselves that it poses a grave threat to American national
security. People will remind us that the Ayatollah's government
seized the American embassy twenty years ago, and held American
citizens as hostages for a year. We will hear from the Shah's
son, Cyrus Reza, who has since the revolution lived in exile
in the US, that he is ready to take over the throne of the Pahlavi
dynasty.
After we have effected regime change
in Tehran, we may feel compelled to go after other "rogue"
states that harbor terrorists, such as Syria and Libya. North
Korea, another member of the axis of evil, that has provided
ballistic missile technology to states that harbor terrorists,
may also invite American military action, even though its natural
enemy, South Korea, has already begun to heal its divisions with
it.
For the past decade, several of our opinion
leaders have been writing about the coming war with China. Chinese
military spending continues to be the subject of much controversy,
but according to most estimates China is spending more on its
military than any other country save us. It is the only country
with enough demographic, political and economic mass to pose
a credible threat to our economic and military interests. Its
navy has posted a fifty-year plan on its web site, and its continued
modernization represents a challenge to our supremacy of the
Pacific. If we continue down this path of global military dominance,
we may well find our selves engaged in hostilities with the Chinese
navy at some point in the not too-distant future. That would
indeed be a far cry from our initial charter, on which we have
a global consensus, of eliminating terrorism.
Over the long haul, will a strategy of
military confrontation that spans sixty countries improve our
national security? The renowned British historian of war, Sir
Michael Howard, writes in The Times that the rhetoric and expectations
of 'war' are counter-productive and much military experience
is irrelevant when dealing with transnational terrorism. What
is required is skillful political management and patient police-work,
backed up where necessary by military force in aid of the civil
power.
However, such a nuanced approach cannot
be found anywhere in the document on the National Security Strategy
of the United States of America, which has been issued by the
White House. This document is the clearest statement yet of
the Bush Doctrine, and implements the vision that was presented
during the presidential elections of 2000 by the Project for
a New American Century (PNAC). Written for former secretary
of defense and now vice president Dick Cheney and current secretary
of defense Donald Rumsfeld, the PNAC document described American
armed forces abroad as "the cavalry on the new American
frontier." Its emphasis on harnessing military force has
resulted in the militarization of our foreign policy by the Bush
administration.
The Bush Doctrine singles out the Muslim
world as an incubator of terrorism, and pledges to support "moderate
and modern government, especially in the Muslim world, to ensure
that the conditions and ideologies that promote terrorism do
not find fertile ground in any nation." The message is
very clear. Muslim governments that do not comply with our dictates
will be forced out. While we have not established colonies in
the traditional sense of the term, our military has bases and
storage depots that can be accessed in wartime throughout the
globe. Our military presence is a perceptible indicator of our
intent and will to force a regime change.
Seeking to deflect criticism that the
Bush Doctrine espoused American global domination, Ari Fleischer
said that the US had consistently worked for the advancement
of good over evil during the 20th century. He must not realize
that during the second half of the past century, it was our neo-imperialistic
policies that made "Yankee Go Home" a household phrase
throughout the third world. They also produced a best selling
book and movie about The Ugly American. Not much else could
have been expected, given that we chose to install tyrants such
as Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Augusto Pinochet in Chile,
Kemusu Suharto in Indonesia, and Mohammad Reza Shah in Iran.
To add insult to injury, we got involved in a civil war in Vietnam
that resulted in 58,000 American casualties and hundreds of thousands
more Vietnamese casualties. Our Central Intelligence Agency
indulged in a rogue campaign of botched up assassinations around
the globe, resulting in a presidential order that banned such
attempts on foreign heads of state.
In the Bush Doctrine, while the US will
seek allies in the battle against terrorism, it will not hesitate
to act alone, if necessary. That includes "convincing or
compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities"
not to aid terrorists. As evidence of civilian casualties in
Afghanistan mounted, American historian Howard Zinn noted that
fighting terrorism was a just cause, but the White House had
confused a just cause with a just war. A war that killed thousands
of innocent people, and drives hundreds of thousands from their
homes could not be a just war, regardless of the provocation.
It was likely to alienate large numbers of people in the Muslim
world, and lead to more terrorist attacks being carried out against
us.
We are the leading military power in
the globe, and spend more on our military than the next nine
nations combined. Our five naval fleets are located strategically
across the globe in the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Middle East
and Europe. Our navy is equipped with twelve carrier battle
groups that are without equal. We can launch 1,040 strike aircraft
from these carriers against any nation in the world within a
few days notice. Our stealth aircraft can take out enemy air
defenses within the first 24 hours of a war, and we can dispatch
B-2 stealth bombers to any location in the world from their base
in Missouri. We are proud of our laser guided technology that
allows a few special operations forces on the ground to bring
in B-52s armed with satellite guided bombs and "destroy
three thousand Taliban in an afternoon", as we did near
the Bagram airbase north of Kabul.
Yet this overwhelming military supremacy
is of limited application when fighting a war among the shadows.
Observes Yale historian Paul Kennedy, "In today's fractured,
war-torn, neo-medieval world, it is quite inadequate to guarantee
lasting peace and security, even in the American homeland itself,
let alone in the protection of US interests abroad."
We need to rethink the premises of our
policy against terrorism. Like other criminal problems, terrorism
has a supply side and a demand side. We have focused exclusively
on the supply side, and deployed military force to eliminate
the existing terrorist networks. This is an incomplete cure
at best. As Israel has found out over the past three decades,
killing terrorists will not eliminate terrorism. For every terrorist
that is killed, another one is created.
This is not to say that we should condone
murder by terrorists. We should continue to prosecute terrorists
to the fullest extent of the law. However, without condoning
terrorism or letting terrorists go free, we should also focus
our energies on preventing future terrorists from being created.
We should seek to understand the political problems that are
leading large numbers of young people throughout the Muslim world
to become terrorists. We should find a way to communicate with
these people. We may never be able to convince the likes of
Osama bin Laden, but may be able to reach large numbers of their
existing and future followers. Then we would be able to develop
political solutions that will draw people away from a path where
they are willing to sacrifice their lives, in order to take other
lives. Only then will the demand for terrorism diminish.
In some ways, the problem of fighting
terrorism is analogous to that of fighting narcotics trafficking.
If all we do is go after the sources of narcotics, we will fail
because the users will find other sources. We also need to go
after the users, their family and friends, and educate them about
the harmful effects of using narcotics. We will never get all
users to quit, but we may be able to deter a large number from
using drugs. In other words, we have to focus on the demand
for narcotics, and not just on the supply. The same applies
to terrorism.
In this vein, we should take the time
to listen to a key ally in the fight against terrorism, President
Musharraf of Pakistan. Speaking last October at a globally televised
press conference at the beginning of the war against Afghanistan,
Musharraf offered "unstinted cooperation" to the US
in its fight against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In the
months that followed, he delivered on this promise to such an
extent that several of his countrymen named him "Busharraf."
Yet Musharraf has never advocated a military
solution for dealing with terrorism. In the same press conference,
the general compared terrorism to a tree. One can pluck off
its leaves, or even cut off its branches, but the tree will grow
them back again unless one cuts off its roots. The root causes
of terrorism have to be tackled, and they are more often then
not political. They cannot be solved through military means,
but require deft political maneuvering.
As we gear up to engage in a war with
Iraq that is designed to diminish the supply of terrorists, we
should consider the probability that this war would enhance rather
than diminish the demand for terrorists, thereby defeating the
very objectives for which it is about to be fought.
Ahmad Faruqui,
an economist, is a fellow with the American Institute of International
Studies and the author of Rethinking
the National Security of Pakistan. He can be reached
at faruqui@pacbell.net
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