April 17, 2004
The Political War Al Qaeda Wages
Listening to an interview on Bill Moyer’s NOW a Columbia University government professor named Mahmood Mamdani, I was struck by a particular sentiment of his.
Even Republicans must admit that Al Quaeda is an odd duck, a stateless terrorist organization. But many conservatives, especially neoconservatives like to make the characterization of Al Quaeda as representing a kind of Islamic fascism. In fact those are the the kinds of terms that the buzzwords surround.
He put forward, though, the political angle deserves more thought than the religious angle. This isn't a war of one religion against another, as much as both sides would want to gather the angels to their ranks. This is about political power, and it has always been.
Why else attack the towers, and the warships, and the Embassies first? If this is primarily about worship, why are the targets so secular? This is not to say that religion doesn't play a big role in the background, in the language used, or even in the intentions of those who commit these acts.
Embassies represent diplomatic power, Planes and Trains represent both economic and technological power. The WTC towers stood as pillars of American economic strength The USS Cole and the Pentagon represent America's military power.
Power is what this is about. This is about countering American influence, and taking its place. Republicans complain about the use of soft power as appeasement, but to fail to use it, is to leave the field open for Al Quaeda to do its worst.
In a political war, outright military conflict is a last resort, In Afghanistan, there really wasn't any other option. But Iraq is a different story. Iraq was pretty much sitting tight when we got there, though depressed by years of sanctions. We went in, and took an admittedly ugly situation, and though we improved it somewhat, we ultimately stirred the hornet's nest for ourselves.
There are some who say that by opposing Bush here, we are help Osama elsewhere in stirring up opposition. Only thing is, it's really not that simple. Osama loves that he has the kind of opponent that he has in Bush. He knows Bush will rise to every provocation, that Bush will walk into the western stereotypes Osama sets up for him to fulfill. He must especially enjoy that Bush has squandered the goodwill abroad, and that he has stirred up so much trouble in Iraq.
If you want to know why Democrats are especially keen to kick Bush out of office, part of it is that Bush is giving the American image the precise kind of help it doesn't need.
We need to transcend the cliches and defeat the expecations of terrorist and Arab alike. We need to redraw the playing field until it works in our favor and not Osama's. Unfortunately, Bush thinks he can win this war playing the game as he always has.
Posted by Stephen Daugherty at April 17, 2004 12:08 AMThe problem here is with a continuous chain of either-or dilemnas in which “what Bush is doing” is counterposed against what would happen in an idealized world where “soft power” is a panacea to problems caused by non-state entities (terrorists, remember, do not have embassies even if their state-sponsors, who have indirect influence over them at best, do). The supposed “good will” squandered abroad is about as real as the Easter Bunny. The entire Middle East and the majority of Europe were also dead-set against Afghanistan (which you apparently approved of), and their anti-Bush rhetoric regarding Iraq is just a continuation of what was already in full swing then. Check the record.
You also ignore the extent to which Bush HAS exercized soft power—to say that it “hasn’t been used” in conjunction with hard power is blantantly false. Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (all states who have and continue to drag their heels, admittedly) have participated to some degree—almost to the limits of what’s feasible considering popular sentiment in those countries—as a result of soft power.
Also, you have an utterly transparent non-sequitor when you say that “in a political war, outright miltary conflict is a last resort,” and so “soft power” is what’s needed to combat terrorists. Your say yourself Al Qaida is not a state actor. So what enticiments and incentives, pray tell, should we be offering Bin Laden? Don’t ask us to believe, just because doing so would benefit a Democratic presidential candidate, that Bin Laden “loves” having Bush as his opponent as he sneaks from cave to cave instead of dining openly in the best restaurants of Kandahar under the last Democratic administration. His newest recording proves otherwise, and we even have terrorists on record saying now that “we may not be able to defeat the Americans on the battlefield, but we can get Bush out of the White House.” I wonder if it makes Democrats even a little queasy to have their interests dovetailing so perfectly with the characters making such statements.
At the bottom of the analysis is the idea that since Al Qaida isn’t completely extinguished
Posted by: Martin at April 17, 2004 01:13 AMOops.. well, I’ll just leave it at that for now…
Posted by: Martin at April 17, 2004 01:15 AMThe supposed “good will” squandered abroad is about as real as the Easter Bunny.
Martin, that’s just goofy. Try telling that to the US soldiers who are sitting (apparently indefinitely) in Iraq wishing it was a blue-helmeted Indian or Frenchman there, instead of them.
…we even have terrorists on record saying now that “we may not be able to defeat the Americans on the battlefield, but we can get Bush out of the White House.”
The terrorists actually want Bush re-elected.
Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades: “Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilization. Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected.” :)
I wonder if it makes Democrats even a little queasy to have their interests dovetailing so perfectly with the characters making such statements.
I often wonder the same thing about Republicans who have helped bin Laden actually achieve his stated goals of removing US troops from Saudi Arabia, toppling corrupt Arab leaders like Saddam, creating a new Islamic state in Iraq, and encouraging new recruits and radical Islamic movements to flock to al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Lee at April 17, 2004 02:10 AMI am not criticizing the use of lethal force. We should be doing our best to deprive them of their most experienced commanders, their most knowledgable people. We should smack them down, as it is, when they gather in any appreciable numbers in an open battle.
But that’s not how we will always be engaged. In fact it’s rarely how they will inflict their damage. They attacked us with our own jumbo jets, not with fighter jets. They entered our country the by the same means that millions of innocent people do. So, it was a policing problem, by definition.
I recognize that the military is part of the solution, I just think it can’t be the solution we rely upon. We must also deprive Osama Bin Laden of the international popular support he enjoys among disaffected muslims.
It is sad that Bush has so tested and damaged the relationship we had with our allies, because it would have been a lot easier to wage a war on terror, if we could take advantage of the mix of relationships that other nations have, perhaps we could go to every war we wanted to, but we could do things that would make such wars unnecessary. I mean, imagine Osama’s people suddenly finding themselves deprived of a standby sort of funding by a rule change we encouraged to put forward, or a border patrol we encouraged another country to intensify.
There are a million things we could do diplomatically to make Osama’s life difficult.
It is simply unrealistic to believe that we can use the blunt instrument of the military as our primary weapon in our battle against terrorism. It is also insufficient.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at April 17, 2004 10:25 AMStephen:
OBL can like bush all he wants. It really doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that it is only a matter of time before a terrorist goes nuclear. 9/11 proved that terrorist will us WMD against us.
The other bottom line is that we have terrible intelligence. President Clinton bombed a pill factory, and Bush invaded Iraq on bad intelligence.
We still have bad intelligence because we do not know where the WMD that were in Iraq are. Some would like to forget about them, and assume they were never there, but the UN documented these weapons at one time.
So here is the formula as I see it. OBL has the money and the intention to use WMD against us. We have crappy intelligence and seem to be flying blind, The Soviet Union is gone, and there are some 100 weapons that have “disappeared” (poor bookkeeping I guess).
Liberals are Conservatives are arguing over whether Iraq is a war or a battle. I am firmly in the battle camp.
My conclusion is that the world right now is an extremely dangerous place.
Craig
Posted by: Craig Holmes at April 17, 2004 04:08 PMStephen,
Are you aware that Muslims see no difference between religious and political power? They deem the western idea of a separation of church and state as ridiculous, false, and even blasphemous.
Martin had a good point, this is not about either using military force or using soft power, we should be using both. This is a war. One cannot expect those who hate you and want to kill you to be persuaded that they shouldn’t just by ‘making their lives difficult’.
The State Department, the CIA, and the FBI are doing their job in the war on terror, and the military is doing it’s job in the war terror. If John Kerry is only willing to use one tool in our tool box then he is not the right man for the job.
There are a million things we could do diplomatically to make Osama’s life difficult.It is simply unrealistic to believe that we can use the blunt instrument of the military as our primary weapon in our battle against terrorism. It is also insufficient.
I don’t want to make Osama’s life difficult, I want him to meet his maker and answer for his crimes.
I too believe in other forms of persuasion, but sometimes force is the right tool for the job. Going into Afghanistan, demolishing Al Qaeda and the Taliban and the removal of Saddam and attempting to make it a free country was the right job.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at April 17, 2004 04:27 PMThinking this all through, I don’t see how Kerry wins in November now that Kerry and Bush’s positions on the war are almost the same.
I think the far left wants the troops out of Iraq now, no matter what the cost. I think they are noisy and organized. It just seems very likely that someone will step forward to “send a message”. The their logic will be something like, “Well since the democratic party has abandoned me, and Kerry has abandoned me, I don’t have much to loose. I might as well vote my convictions and vote for Nader!!” I wonder if there may be another Democrat to go independent.
Craig
Posted by: Craig Holmes at April 17, 2004 06:54 PMAre you aware that Muslims see no difference between religious and political power? They deem the western idea of a separation of church and state as ridiculous, false, and even blasphemous.
Is that so? Talk to Ayatollah Sistani, and most mainline Shiites. It is actually a characteristic of Shiite religion that they have little trust for the intersection of church and state. Some extremist have gone a little far and create religious governments, but for the most part, they want religion to be a model, but not the blue print for political life.
As for making Osama’s life difficult, the idea is that you knock them off kilter so they become vulnerable. Put Osama or his people through enough stress, and they will start to make mistakes. I mean it’s like what Henry Czerny’s character says in Mission impossible- “Everyone has pressure points, Barnes. You find something that’s personally important to someone and… you squeeze.”
Well, we find Al Quaeda’s pressure points. We cripple them, cripple their relationship to their constituency, make it to where engineering their plots becomes a object lesson in frustration. We don’t give them the chance to meet us in a fair fight, with glorious sacrifices for the cause. We humiliate them, we put them on the defensive, and we make them pay dearly for every success, before or after the attempts. These are nuts and bolt things I’m talking about employing here. It’s not glamorous, but then again, a lot of times the stuff that works to the best effect isn’t.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at April 17, 2004 11:17 PM“Martin, that’s just goofy. Try telling that to the US soldiers who are sitting (apparently indefinitely) in Iraq wishing it was a blue-helmeted Indian or Frenchman there, instead of them.”
What do wishes have to do with it? It is either us or nobody. There aren’t enough UN-available troops to make a difference in Iraq.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at April 18, 2004 02:04 AMWell, we find Al Quaeda’s pressure points. We cripple them, cripple their relationship to their constituency, make it to where engineering their plots becomes a object lesson in frustration. We don’t give them the chance to meet us in a fair fight, with glorious sacrifices for the cause. We humiliate them, we put them on the defensive, and we make them pay dearly for every success, before or after the attempts. These are nuts and bolt things I’m talking about employing here. It’s not glamorous, but then again, a lot of times the stuff that works to the best effect isn’t.
I agree with that. I just happen to think that Iraq is part of that squeeze. It drives them bonkers when the crusaders come rolling into sacred arab countries. I don’t think Osama has a lot of time to strategize right now anyway. He has to stay hidden or running.
I don’t see how Iraq precludes us from doing that. Except that socialist Europeans are miffed. But they say they still want to fight terror, why would they not continue to cooperate with us intelligence and investigative wise? Because they don’t like Bush? That would be rather dumb and petty.
I think the far left wants the troops out of Iraq now, no matter what the cost.
The far right isolationists also wants troops out now. In fact, everyone agrees that the majority of our troops will eventually need to leave. The only question is when and under what circumstances.
There aren’t enough UN-available troops to make a difference in Iraq.
Sebastian, the theory is that if this had been a UN operation, we wouldn’t need the number of occupation troops that we currently do. In fact, the Pentagon is asking for more. Hmm… Could Gen. Shinseki have been right? :)
I agree with that. I just happen to think that Iraq is part of that squeeze. It drives them bonkers when the crusaders come rolling into sacred arab countries. I don’t think Osama has a lot of time to strategize right now anyway. He has to stay hidden or running.
You’re only thinking of Al Quaeda’s reaction. If it were just them, I might agree with you. But that reaction is being shared by many more. It’s not merely needling a few terrorists, it’s angering great swaths of the populations we have to convince to stop supporting Osama Bin Laden.
As for Osama not having time to strategize, look at Madrid. That operation has to be pretty recent. Richard Clarke would also tell you that it may not be so necessary for Osama and his crew to be in direct control of their terrorists cells, that in the wake of the fall of the Taliban, the terrorist cells have become more independent.
I don’t see how Iraq precludes us from doing that. Except that socialist Europeans are miffed. But they say they still want to fight terror, why would they not continue to cooperate with us intelligence and investigative wise? Because they don’t like Bush? That would be rather dumb and petty.
First, you have to acknowledge that our resources are limited, and that Iraq, for many reasons is draining a lion’s share of those resources. We have only so many men and women to deploy as soldiers, only so many sattelites to task and to keep an eye on. Afghanistan is getting some attention, the question is, with all the forces of ours going to Iraq, when will it be possible for us to deploy a nice solid force into Afghanistan to do the job right on the Al Quaeda and Taliban remnants?
We are a great country, and a powerful one, but we have our limits, and the Iraq war is testing them.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at April 18, 2004 09:38 AM
