No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

How Do You Defeat Terrorism?

Let me start off by admitting that I don't like Bush, I don't like Cheney, and I consider Ashcroft someone who should be in a mental asylum. Rumsfield seems to me to simply be so full of himself that no one can talk sense to him. But I merely don't like or don't trust them. I hate terrorists. That is a different level from mere dislike. I have never seen a terrorist organization which offered an explanation that justified what they do. For the most part, terrorists seem to be hopeless individuals who perform extreme, odious actions in behalf of someone else who is using them.

I would happily .... no, let's say, willingly .... support the Bush administration in any ~effective~ war against terrorism, especially when the terrorism is aimed against Americans, but also anywhere else. Unfortunately, the Bush administration seems to be using the ~so-called~ war against terrorism as a weapon with which to politically defeat their Democratic opponents, not as a real war to stop terrorism. The Bush administration's goal seems to be to get Bush re-elected in 2004, and the war against terrorism simply provides another source of sound-bytes with which to accomplish that goal.

So here is a description of what seems to be the manner in which the war against terrorism is being fought.

"The IISS [the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies] estimates that while 10 senior leaders and some two thousand rank-and-file members of al-Qaeda have been killed or captured since Sept. 11, at least 20 senior leaders and 18,000 followers who went through the training camps in Afghanistan are still at large -- and the flow of new recruits, many of them driven towards extremism by US policy in the Middle East, almost certainly far exceeds the rate of losses.

Operations like the attacks in Bali and Mombasa last autumn are planned and carried out by local sympathisers who may have little contact with al Qaeda's leadership: all they need is approval in principle and perhaps some financial help. "The only physical infrastructure al Qaeda required (after Afghanistan) were safe houses to assemble bombs and weapons caches," said the IISS report. "Otherwise, notebook computers, encryption, the internet, multiple passports, and the ease of global transportation enabled al Qaeda to function as a `virtual' entity that leveraged local assets -- hence local knowledge -- to full advantage in coordinating attacks in many 'fields of jihad."

In other words: the Islamist terrorists are here to stay, and they cannot be stamped out by military force. The `war on terrorism' should be seen in the same way that we view the often-proclaimed `war on crime': merely a militaristic metaphor for an operation that is really statistical. Nobody imagines that the `war on crime' will one day end like a real war, with an absolute victory where all the criminals come out with their hands up and then there is no more crime. Success is a matter of keeping the crime rate down, not eliminating all the criminals.

Terrorism is exactly the same. As Stella Rimington, former head of Britain's MI5, said last year: "Terrorism did not begin on September 11 and it will not end there...The history of terrorism in the 20th century shows that a `war on terrorism' cannot be won, unless the causes of terrorism are eradicated by making the world a place free of grievances, something that will not happen. Terrorism has proved so effective in catching the world's attention and even, ultimately, in achieving the terrorists' objectives, that it will continue to appeal to extremists. However good our counter measures, some of it will succeed, but it can be made more difficult."

The US intelligence services understand all this, too, but it's a hard sell politically in a country that expects instant solutions and glories in its military power. To people who have only a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

It was not the Central Intelligence Agency that pushed to keep American troops in Saudi Arabia after 1991, thus creating the original grievance that brought al Qaeda into existence, but they couldn't get the generals to listen.

It was not the CIA that concocted stories about Saddam Hussein's fabulous `weapons of mass destruction' and his fictional links with al Qaeda as a pretext for conquering Iraq, but they couldn't get the political ideologues to listen.

No military victory over terrorism is possible anyway, but it really does not help to go around manufacturing more grievances. "

Bush the daddy defeated Saddam Hussein in 1991, but his military victory was not one that was able to override the angst caused by the poor economy in 1992, so he lost the election. The 1991 war ~against Iraq~ had been long over, and did not carry into November of 1992.

Bush junior and his eminence gris, Karl Rove, have repackaged the new war against Iraq into the (eternal and unwinnable) war against terrorism. In furtherance of this war they have used our unmatched military power to conquer and occupy two middle eastern nations so far, and every terrorist action around the world keeps their actions in the forefront of the 2004 voters' minds. When the voters make a decision between national security and a poor economy, the Bush people are betting they will vote for national security no matter how bad the economy is.

The second arrow in their quiver is that this nation is currently set up so that the wealthy determine who gets elected. This is the entire issue of campaign finance. So the tax cuts are specifically designed to buy the majority of these votes. The middle class is swayed by TV ads and TV news, so if they can get the big donors to donate to their campaign they get a major advantage. This is aided by the centralization of the media and the unwillingness of most major media to question or effectively analyze the activities of the government. Then there is the conservative-dominated media such as that owned by Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife, Gaylord, and the Moonies (UPI and the Washington Times). There is no equivalent concentration of liberal-dominated media. The rest try to present both sides.

The third arrow in their quiver is that the only large organizations which can effectively compete against the wealthy and the large corporations for votes are the Unions. The laws which used to allow unions to function effectively have gradually been gutted since the Nixon era, and especially since Reagan destroyed the Air Traffic Controllers Union. The unions today are comparatively powerless.

The result of all this is that the so-called war on terrorism is really a PR stunt used to elect conservative Republicans, much as the war on drugs was intended to be from the Nixon era on. Frankly, I think that if the war on terrorism were to start being effective, the current administration would have to hide that fact from us, much as conservatives glossed over the fact that the largest single source of financial contributions to the US Communist Party by 1960 was the dues paid by FBI infiltrators.

In short, the war on terrorism inspired by 9/11 is a shame. Any brief look at the federal budget recommended by the White House will clearly establish that.
Which is one reason I really dislike the Bush administration.

posted by Richard at 4:20 AM