< PREVIOUS ] [ 2004 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
It's easy to predict that one big issue in this year's presidential election will be the American response to terrorism. It's certainly been an important topic since Sept. 11, 2001. With the current congressional hearings, and the testimony and book of former national security staff member Richard Clarke, it has returned to the front pages.
As with most political questions, both sides want to
frame it and spin it in a certain way. Right-thinking
pundit Cal Thomas explains the issue this way: The
Clinton administration approached terror as a law
enforcement problem, not as a national threat, which is
precisely the strategy Democratic presidential candidate
John F. Kerry would pursue if he were to become
president.
Another conservative commentator, Jack Kelly in the
Washington Times, put it like this: Can terrorism be
defeated with subpoenas, dialog and nuance, or are bombs
and bullets required? The key issue in this election is
whether we will continue waging war on terror, as Mr. Bush
plans, or retreat to the failed legalistic approach of the
Clinton years, as advocated by Mr. Clarke and Sen. John
Kerry of Massachusetts.
Framing the issue this way is a serious distortion,
since it asks the question fight them on the battlefield
or in the courtroom?
in such a way that you can't give
the right answer, which is both.
That's because terrorist attacks are different from other acts of war. Consider the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The Japanese bombers were marked with the imperial rising sun emblem. It required no investigation to determine who was attacking. We knew where they were based, what equipment they used, their chain of command, what they were after.
Now consider various terrorist attacks. Remember April 19, 1995 and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City? And do you remember the commentary for a day or two immediately thereafter, about how this horror was definitely a product of Middle Eastern terrorists?
Note that it was law-enforcement -- investigation, subpoenas, nuance -- which determined the responsible parties and brought them to justice. An effective American response did not require the invasion of Yemen or bombing the thumb of Michigan.
Move to the March 11 railway bombs in Spain. Would a military response make any sense when the Spanish authorities didn't know whether this was al Qaeda operation or another assault from Basque separatists? Of course not, and it is the tools of law-enforcement, not those of military campaigns, which determine responsibility.
As for our own tragedy of Sept. 11, wasn't it the FBI, a law-enforcement agency, which quickly came up with the names and affiliations of the perpetrators? Once that was known, our military invasion of Afghanistan was a sensible response.
Indeed, it could be argued that the law-enforcement approach -- investigate, find the suspects, assemble evidence, build a case -- works better for our long-term security interests than a military approach.
That's because terrorism is generally a political statement, aimed at winning hearts and minds. When America invades other countries, especially for reasons that later turn out to be unfounded, it does not win us friends in the world. We have a better chance of building good will when we make our case.
For evidence, note the differing world reactions to our invasion of Afghanistan (generally favorable) and our invasion of Iraq (generally unfavorable).
The right-thinking commentators have also missed a significant Republican response to terrorists: Give them what they want.
Twenty years ago, terrorists were setting off bombs and taking hostages in Lebanon, hoping to drive out foreigners. President Ronald Reagan responded by sending in the Marines. Terrorists bombed their barracks and killed 241 Americans. On March 31, 1984, Reagan ordered the Marines home -- which is what the terrorists wanted.
As for Sept. 11, one al Qaeda grievance was the presence
of U.S. troops in the sacred land
of Saudi
Arabia.
The soldiers were there to protect Arabia from Iraq, and by conquering Iraq, the U.S. no longer needed soldiers in Arabia. They were withdrawn last fall, and thus al Qaeda attained one of its goals.
That's one way that the invasion of Iraq probably improved U.S. security, by removing one of al Qaeda's major rallying points.
But for some reason, the right-thinkers won't point to that. Instead, they'll keep posing that false either-or question about law-enforcement and military responses to terrorism.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 2004 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >