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February 20, 2006

Breeding Bin Ladenism, Losing the Long War

If this is what policy makers think, we're all fucked:

Gen. Douglas Lute, director of operations for U.S. Central Command (which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East), dropped by the offices of The Wall Street Journal recently. He noted that bin Ladenism has deep roots in many Islamic countries and that bin Laden isn't the only terrorist leader trying to appeal to populations oppressed by dictators. There are some 18 terrorist organizations that are part of what the military calls al Qaeda and Affiliated Movement. The military, he said, even has an acronym for it: AQAM.

To counter bin Ladenism, the military is planning a two-stage war. The first is being fought in open battles in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere and looks a lot like the kind of war most Americans assumed we'd wage on al Qaeda and terror-sponsoring states after the Sept. 11 attacks. The second stage is what senior military planners--including Mr. Rumsfeld--call "the Long War." It involves countering one set of ideas with another.

It is this stage of the war that President Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and other members of the administration worry isn't well understood by most Americans and therefore is in danger of being lost after Mr. Bush leaves office. At the Press Club, Mr. Rumsfeld reminded the journalists in the audience that al Qaeda and its affiliates have "media relation committees." "Think of that--they get up in the morning, have committee meetings and think about how they're going to manipulate the world's press to their advantage," he said. It's not just that al Qaeda members watch CNN or the Fox News Channel for tactical information, but they have "proven to be highly successful at manipulating the world's media here in this country."

The good news is many Americans have a healthy skepticism when it comes to the media, and, as in the Cold War, the U.S. is well positioned to win the long war on terrorism. What that will require is a better understanding of what such a war involves. For starters, it requires not withdrawing from Iraq. Spreading freedom is the best way to appeal to oppressed people and therefore is essential to undercutting bin Ladenism. It also involves making the military more flexible and able to respond to natural disasters and other crisis in unstable regions. The help America's armed forces delivered after Pakistan's devastating earthquake last year might have done more to build goodwill with ordinary Pakistanis than anything else in the past 50 years. The same is true for tsunami relief in Indonesia and other countries.

Instead of replacing Bin Laden's ideas with another set of ideas, were are making Bin Laden's ideas sound better and better every day. For those unfamiliar with the concept of "screwing the pooch" it is an allegory used to described a situation where someone has done something that leads others to not look at them the same ever again. Another example would be the difference between telling someone his wife is attractive, and telling him that you want to sleep with her.

Killing tens of thousands of Iraqis - after Saddam was deposed. Yeah, that qualifies as screwing the pooch. As a direct result of the decision not to give up control of the occupation and future of Iraq to the UN or Arab League, the most popular Iraqi politician is a sworn enemy of America who supports the caliphate.

As a result of Americas continued support for Israel and for the exact same repressive regimes that Bin Laden opposes, we are rapidly turning the 85% of Middle Eastern Muslims who themselves despise Bin Laden, into Bin Ladenists in terms of their world view. Support for terrorism is not the defining feature of this view, any more than support for death camps was a defining feature of Nazism. By playing both sides of the fence and making a coalition out of the countries Bin Laden opposes, we are in fact creating the conflict he desires.

The central feature of any world view is defining "us" and defining "them" so that it is easy to support killing them, because they will never be like us. As the recent cartoon protests have highlighted, Muslims worldwide have been sufficiently inflamed by American and European aggression in the so-called War on Terror, that they see the differentiation between "us" and "them" more and more each day. Terrorism is a symptom, a tactic. By focusing on it, we overlook the larger conflict. The conflict is not what plays out on American television, as Rumsfeld would have us believe. The conflict is what plays out in the mosques and neighborhood restaurants in the Middle East, where everyday Muslims grow increasingly disenchanted with American policy and increasingly disoriented with American TV.

Instead of helping, our efforts to reach out seem hypocritical when juxtaposed with the reality that Muslims live and breather each day. As a result, while they themselves do not support terrorism, and would prefer not to live under religious rule - they support America even less and are prepared to take up arms against us. In other words, the Long War strategy Rumsfeld advocates is the same strategy that created the Long War, and the same one that will lose it.

To avoid radiation poisoning you might consider moving to New Zealand.

Posted by Mike at February 20, 2006 12:48 AM

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