Osama bin Laden and all the al-Qaeda leaders who assisted in the 9/11 attacks must be defeated. We can also protect our homeland from the next terrorist attack. But none of this requires the United States to invade a single foreign nation, and here are five reasons why.
1. The United States is at risk of more terrorist attacks, but not just from the Middle East According to a recent report from the New York Police Department, the greatest terrorist threat to the citizens of the United States now comes from our own people: the local terrorists. This is not news to anyone who knows how different the terrorist threat is from any other enemy we have faced. John Robb, in his excellent book Brave New War, describes the myriad ways any individual dedicated to homicide can circumvent America’s woefully inadequate national security and exploit technology to wreak havoc on a massive scale:
“We have entered the age of the agile, faceless enemy. From London to Madrid, from Nigeria to Russia, stateless terrorist groups have emerged to deal blow after blow against us. Driven by cultural fragmentation, schooled in the most sophisticated technologies and fueled by transnational crime…terrorists have developed the ability to fight nation-states strategically, without weapons of mass destruction.This new method is called systems disruption, a simple way to attack critical networks (electricity, oil , gas, water, communications, and transportation) that sustain modern life.
Depraved desires for manic violence and the ability to carry them out are not limited to the foreign world or to a single country. It is most unfortunate that such an obvious fact is so dangerously overlooked by American neoconservatives. Spending massive resources on an invasion of a single country and rendering our military incapable of responding to another threat, all while domestic terrorism grows in jeopardy, is manifestly stupid policy at best and national suicide at worst. . Protecting our nation against terrorism—fourth-generation warfare—requires developing decentralized resistance and proactive local law enforcement. There is no “fighting them there so they don’t attack us here.” They are already here. It’s about protecting us now.
2. Democracy does not stop terrorism, the police do
The President tells us that we must invade Iraq because democracy will stop terrorism. But to think that democratic government does more than express the opinions of its subjects is an illusion. Although the great democracies help put aside radical views, they by no means eliminate the occasional expression of sadistic savagery. Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber were Americans. The 9/11 hijackers planned their attacks in Germany. Angry inner-city youth recently embarked on a pyromaniac crusade in France. British 7/7 Bombers were British. It’s uncomfortable, but the freedom of speech and tolerance that democracy offers may even be a boon to terrorists, allowing them to communicate more openly, practice their faith more openly, and associate freely.
By contrast, brutal dictators are usually quite effective at crushing terrorists. Authoritarian governments are remarkably adept at removing any perceived threat to their power, and the threat of terrorism is no different. The Middle East is saturated with iron-fisted regimes that cleverly market their brutal counter-terrorism activities as necessary for both public safety and Allah’s Will. Shining examples of this principle are Saudi Arabia, a backward and repressed Islamic society that actively condemns Islamic terrorists as apostates and is a regime considered an ally in the War on Terror; and Syria, a nation that unleashed tanks and bulldozers on its own cities to root out the Muslim Brotherhood.
Stopping terrorism has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with law enforcement.
3. The invasion does not work
While the terrorist leaders who helped on 9/11 are a definite and finite enemy, the terrorists themselves are not. As the greatest political commentator in American history, the late William F. Buckley, Jr., wrote: “Individual terrorists only yesterday were engaged in ordinary occupations, shocking friends and family when they struck as terrorists.” By the way. You can’t invade Iraq to root out potential terrorists any more than you can invade the United States to root out potential terrorists. One can only guard against the inevitable strike.
While US special forces should go after bin Laden and his minions with all deliberate speed, traditional warfare between nation-states is utterly incapable of combating terrorism. As Mr. Robb puts it in Brave New War: “From a security perspective, the most disturbing aspect of 9/11 was not the horrific destruction, but that the men who attacked us that day did not even consider the opposition of the U.S. military in its planning. Despite tens of trillions of dollars spent on defense over the past several decades, this military force proved ineffective as a deterrent at a time when we needed it most.”
Another historical fact that warns against foreign invasion is that no foreign power has ever defeated an internal guerrilla rebellion. The most powerful force in the world is a people willing to sacrifice themselves to expel a foreign occupier from their homeland. This helps explain why Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq until the US invaded it.
No people should better understand the stupidity of foreign occupation than the Americans. Despite living under the freest country in the world in 1776 (Great Britain, purveyors of natural freedom, Magna Carta, democratic government, and a strong legal system), we still cast off the yoke of foreign power, and rightly so. Our very existence is a testament to the lesson that a people will always fight to expel a foreign presence, no matter how benevolent the imperialist motives.
4. Winning hearts and minds requires living people.
Islamofascism is a hideous, ignorant, destructive and blasphemous ideology that must be thoroughly denounced by intellectuals all over the world. However, reckless US military intervention stands in the way of winning this crucial battle of ideas for several reasons.
First, it diverts world attention from Islamo-fascist brutality and focuses it on American belligerence. In a world largely of media censorship and ignorant public opinion, it is all too easy for Islamofascists to play the victim when American tanks are rolling down their side streets. As we are forced to lower ourselves to their level, fighting among civilians, villages, and households, we lose moral authority.
Second, American culture is remarkably adept at building positive views of our country through peace and trade. It was recently reported that when US goods finally entered Iraq, locals happily flocked to buy high-quality goods, even while cursing our military occupation. We can make people love America without resorting to force.
Third, moderate Islamic scholars must publicly condemn Islamofascism. But the United States has recently denied visas (apparently for security reasons) to moderate Islamic scholars who (for good reason) strongly oppose US foreign policy. We must face the fact that many of our allies in the War of Ideas are those who oppose our current pursuit of the War on Terror and accept criticism for seeking a greater victory.
5. Yes, they hate our freedom, but they kill us for being there.
It is enough to consult Osama bin Laden’s declaration of war against the United States to know why he is trying to kill us. Or, if he wants it from an intelligent American rather than a lunatic assassin, ask former CIA senior analyst and head of the agency’s bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer. Jihad has nothing to do with our freedoms and everything to do with our military interventions in the Middle East. Al-Qaida obtains financial support, moral justification, and recruits willing to kill Americans by arguing that the US military presence in the Middle East is interfering with its ability to implement Islamofascism in the Arabian Peninsula. News Flash: Islamofascists Don’t Want To Rule America; They want to rule Mesopotamia.
Of course, a radical adjustment in US foreign policy won’t stop radical Islamofascists from loathing the West any more than eight hundred McDonald’s have stopped the French from hating us. But the point is not to make them like us; it is depriving jihad of resources and support. The only way to do that is to stop legitimizing the Islamo-fascist narrative of an oppressed people suffering under US military occupation.
To acknowledge America’s foreign policy mistakes is to not let the terrorists win. It is simply an intelligent acknowledgment of reality and of our own limitations. We all love this country and want to stay safe. We do not lightly criticize our nation’s foreign policy, nor do we question the patriotic sincerity of those who hold the contrary. We seek only to learn from history and to ensure that, unlike Rome, France and Great Britain, our glorious empire will not buckle under the weight of ill-advised imperial adventures.