disrespecting our way to victory

[drewkitty]

Someone (who may out himself here if he wishes) stated, "But drewkitty, we can't simply IGNORE the terrorists! We have to war with them!"

My reply:



Actually, yes you can play the "ignore" game, if the disparity of forces is such that the opponent can only use psychwar and asymmetric warfare techniques such as incompetent, half-hearted terrorism.

It's like a big, grown man making a point of ignoring the 6 year old with the 2" knife until he stabs you in the leg. Ok, that hurt, but then you take the knife away and spank him. Instead of declaring "war" on the boy and torturing the little punk until he grows up big and strong and highly motivated to kill you, for real this time.

I believe firmly that the United States would be on better strategic ground to treat every Islamist terrorist as a common criminal. Instead of exalting them as "unlawful combatants" and essentially shattering the protection of Prisoner of War status, treat them like common thugs arrested by the FBI. We have the courts, the prisons and the legal tools necessary to do exactly that.

Yes, the occasional guilty terrorist will be found innocent. Sweet! Let him go and follow the bastard. :)

I am not saying that we should ignore the terrorist acts, as the Republicans did for so long. (Clinton didn't ignore the issue, in fact he's the only president who authorized action against Bin Laden prior to 9/11.)

I am saying that treating terrorism as "warre" in the bitter-do-or-die sense is like treating a few isolated cases of voter fraud as a rebellion and sending out the Marines to supervise the next election. In Ohio, in case it wasn't clear.

If only the War on Terror were fought with the tools one uses to fight terrorists. Psychwar, human intelligence gathering, intelligence officers, diplomats, educators, translators, academics and military attaches all have a role to play. (Yes, some will be in more than one category.) Infantry and armor have as little to do with counterterrorism as ABM systems and nukes have to do with counterinsurgency.

If we were going to pull a "tar baby" maneuver, we could have done far better than to pick Iraq. Pakistan would be a much more plausible place, if only we weren't so afraid of pissing off China. (Afghanistan is out primarily due to logistics issues, the same ones the Russians snarfed on, but any logistics problem is solvable with enough money . . . and I'm puzzled why we didn't play that particular card.)

Here's an unpopular view. We can afford to take the hits. We can afford them a lot more than we can dispensing with the Constitution and throwing the legitimacy of the American way of life into question around the world.

I am reminded of a quote after the London bombings, from a London resident. "In a number of wars, someone has had the idea of bombing London and inflicting gruesome civilian casualties. This guarantees that they will lose a few years later."

Are New Yorkers less brave than Londoners?

Comments

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

May I metaquotes?

[meowse.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of a quote after the London bombings, from a London resident. "In a number of wars, someone has had the idea of bombing London and inflicting gruesome civilian casualties. This guarantees that they will lose a few years later."

Are New Yorkers less brave than Londoners?

Lovely quote.

No, New Yorkers aren't less brave than Londoners--but the American people in general quite demonstrably are.

I'm entirely in agreement about treating terrorists as common criminals. That's what we did, until the Bush administration needed a monster under our collective beds.

[taral.livejournal.com]

It's a combination of rather irksome glitches in human reasoning.

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Regime change in Iraq was a complete blunder, unless of course the objective was an occupation in order to gain some kind of foothold in the region. And even then it's a dumbass move. But war has been, historically, a great motivator and a huge income producer. Same old game, alas.

It also doesn't help to have the idiot son of an oil man in the Oval Office.