Note: The following essay was disqualified because of its length, but the judges feel it is still very much worth reading. LB
forgotten_centrist
In contemplating militant extremism, I first thought of a clear late-summer evening 5 years ago, when I watched the Pentagon burn from the roof of my apartment building. It was a sight I would never forget, and neither would I forget the feeling that America’s 2 oceans and 2 peaceful neighbors would no longer protect her from the low-level, at times almost imperceptible, war declared upon her by a tiny group of madmen a half a world away.
I also thought of another time when America “lost its innocence” at the hands of a tiny group of madmen right here in our own country — the day John F Kennedy was assassinated. The people involved or the motives and forces at play are far beyond the scope of this essay, but it is generally accepted at this point that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone gunman that the Warren Commission said he was. Therefore, madmen (plural).
These 2 cases are tangentially related, at best, but they share some common traits. They both involve attacks aimed right at the heart of America. Both were carried out after months or possibly years of careful planning, under the tightest of secrecy. And both involved small groups acting on radical agendas that were sharply at odds with mainstream society. The people behind these attacks, while completely unrelated, shared the idea that their world view was far more important than the lives of anyone who got in their way — and they embraced extreme violence as the only way to achieve their goals.
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Since the end of World War II, America has lived a somewhat sheltered life. She fought in 2 major wars, several smaller conflicts, and prevailed in the long-running Cold War with the Soviets. But terrorism has been mostly absent. Far more so, at least, than in Europe, where a low level of terrorism has been active since colonial times. The Italians have had numerous governments unhinged by the actions of violent groups (often associated with organized crime), the French have had islamic groups light bombs under them since their ill-fated Algerian colony fell apart, and the ravages of the IRA on the streets of London are well-documented and widely known.
In pre-9/11 America, however, there was a sense of both innocence and vulnerability. We had not colonized and degraded other parts of the world, at least not on the scale that the Europeans had, and as such we simply hadn’t made many enemies. For decades, our only perceived foe was a communist bloc led by the Soviets, and while they fought us through their cold war proxies, they never engaged us directly in military action. Much of the world, in fact, looked upon the US as the shining light that would protect them from Reagan’s “evil empire”. And we felt immune to those few who did have an anti-American axe to grind. The bombing in the basement of the World Trade Center almost confirmed that — a giant bomb went off under one of the great symbols of our prosperity, and not only did it fail to bring it down, we caught the bastards who did it.
Of course, all that changed on 9/11. We instantly lost more civilians than Israel did during both Intafadas, with all the accompanying bus bombing. How? Why?
The mechanics of 9/11 are chillingly simple. A militant assessing our bustling infrastructure has an enormous array of choice targets to exploit, with precious little our open society can do to stop him. The hijackers assembled a big enough group (5) of men ready to kill themselves for their cause, and ready to engage in dirty close combat with unarmed civilians, to take control of a jet and turn it into a flying bomb. We were powerless to stop them — our fighter jets had no precedent to rely on and watched helplessly as 3 of the 4 flying bombs found their targets.
The motivations behind 9/11 are less simple, at least to american society. Whether it’s because our forward military stance and aggressive economic policies have estranged a segment of the third world elite, or that some people “hate our freedoms”, we are clearly the target of choice for any group that wants to attack the status quo. For some, it was as mystifying to learn of 9/11 as it was to see rioting demonstrators attending every meeting of the World Bank — what were they protesting and what was the big deal?? For others, 9/11 was easily predictable, in the face of a laundry list of injustices either initiated or perpetuated by the US.
Although we Americans may disagree over “why” we have been targeted, after 9/11 we can agree that we face a range of radical enemies who are ready to strike again. What can we do?
In any conflict, it is better to “act” than “react”. As such, we need to take an active role in fighting the radical militants who have chosen to target us. The invasion of Afghanistan was a good example of this. The invasion of Iraq? Debatable, but since we’re there, we’ll just take it as a given. How do we “act” against these enemies?
I believe we must fight them on all fronts. We cannot rely on a military solution, even though we must continue to pressure them militarily on any battlefield we can find them on. These are trans-national groups who are fighting an assymetric war. They will never attack our military formations head on, and will never willingly stay in a battle they know they will lose. Rather, they will fade back and attack us where we are weak. In doing so, they are sidestepping the old “rules of engagement” and are attempting to achieve their goals through terrorism. They are fighting outside the box, and are willing to fight dirty because it is the only kind of battle they can hope to hurt us in.
To counter this, and more importantly to remove them from the battlefield entirely, we must also fight outside the military box. We must interdict their funding sources, wherever they lead (ESPECIALLY when these funding sources may end up embarassing our close friends, such as Saudi Arabia.) We must foster close working relationships with the police forces and intelligence agencies of every country in the world, to better track their movements (the recent cooperation between the UK and Pakistan is a great example of this.) But most of all, we must take the wind out of their sails. For far too long, they have had a number of, well, let’s call them “wedge issues”, to exploit among large populations of uneducated and unemployed youth. This is how they build their most dangerous weapons (suicide bombers) and how they screen their cadre of elite fighters (with suicide attacks).
We can’t keep ignoring the wedge issues being used against us in the war for the hearts and minds of the near east. These issues fill their coffers, flesh out their ranks, and continuously inspire the will to fight. While we must fight them, we must also address the reasons they fight, or we will never see an end to terrorism. If terrorists can succeed with 19 thugs armed with knives, we simply can’t assume that we’ll end this war by military supremacy.
Does this mean we have to cut funding to Israel (plainly the biggest wedge issue of them all)? No, but it does mean we have to replicate the pacifying effect of money. Camp David was ultimately a payoff to Egypt to make peace, by guaranteeing them a share of foreign aid nearly equivalent to that which we give Israel. We must do the same for Lebanon, Jordan, and Afghanistan.
Does this mean we have to give southern Iraq over to Shiite fundamentalists? No, but it does mean we have to normalize relations with Iran very quickly and establish the large bounds of a potential “peace dividend” with them that will entice them to draw down their support for Hezbolah in favor of mutually beneficial trade and cultural exchanges.
Does this mean we have to stop propping up totalitarian governments that happen to support our geopolitical goals? No, but we must work aggressively to turn them around and spread the benefits of economic plurality, cultural openness, transparent government, and the rule of law.
Will all of this cost us a ton of money? Yes. But we’re clearly willing to pay exhorbitant sums for our security, as witnessed by the $300B+ spent so far in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the leading beneficiary of economic globalization, we have the most to gain from peace, and the most to lose from unending war. All these non-military options carry significant price tags, and will take years to fully realize any real reduction in the influence of militant extremists. But can we afford NOT to fight this war on ALL fronts?