New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | July 11, 2005

Stephen J. Lyons reviews two recent books assessing our progress—at home and abroad—in the fight against terrorism.

Comments

|7.11.05 @ 10:49AM|#

We'll know we're winning the war when we no longer see casualty lists of American troops who were smothered to death under the weight of all the flowers the Iraqis throw at them.

|7.11.05 @ 11:02AM|#

And we'll know we're losing when oneliners and gotcha points aren't the norm of discussion and debate.

|7.11.05 @ 11:12AM|#

Chthus-
We were losing LONG before we reached that point. I think we started to lose when Colin Powell warned the UN that if we didn't invade Iraq they'd use their super-powerful war machine to destroy us.

|7.11.05 @ 11:16AM|#

To put it another way--if the only way you can drum up support for your cause is to lie about it, you're fucked.

|7.11.05 @ 11:20AM|#

"if the only way you can drum up support for your cause is to lie about it, you're fucked."

This is what 99.9% of politicians do on any given issue, and yet they continue on.

|7.11.05 @ 12:13PM|#

Yes, Chthus, but lying about a war, and having large numbers of people die as a result, is in a different league entirely. Lincoln didn't have to lie about whether the Confederates attacked Ft. Sumter. Roosevelt didn't have to lie and invent a Japanese threat where none existed.

We're going to be in Iraq either until we can invent a face-saving "peace with honor" way of pulling out, or until the country faces a REAL threat (maybe from China) that requires our troops actually defend their country rather than occupy someone else's.

|7.11.05 @ 12:25PM|#

"Roosevelt didn't have to lie and invent a Japanese threat where none existed."

Though he did invade Morrocco and fight the French in one of the first land invasions after Pearl Harbor. Would have loved to see him sell that one today. Sometimes the broad picture and narrow view don't mesh really well. It's understanding individual points in their context of the larger situation that is important.

|7.11.05 @ 12:29PM|#

It's understanding individual points in their context of the larger situation that is important.

Well, we were attacked by terrorists who had support from the Afghan and Saudi governments; we attacked Afghanistan, but ignored Saudi in order to attack a country that had nothing to do with the initial attacks on us. Is invading the wrong country and telling lies to do it the "individual point" or the "larger situation?"

|7.11.05 @ 1:06PM|#

This is what 99.9% of politicians do on any given issue, and yet they continue on.

Yup. At their peril of being fucked. Which they often are.

Though he did invade Morrocco and fight the French in one of the first land invasions after Pearl Harbor.

Pretty easy sell, really. Germany declared war on us. Algeria/Morocco were colonies of the German-owned Vichy puppet state, whom nobody but the Axis powers recognized. I don't know what the psychobabble in the rest of that post referred to, but it had nothing to do with politicians inventing excuses for wars.

|7.11.05 @ 1:58PM|#

"Germany declared war on us." Well shit, if that's all it takes, Iraq was in violation of the cease fire agreement that ended our last war with them. No psychobabble needed there. As for politicians inventing excuses for anything, they play their silly games, what's new. Whether or not it was a good call is an entirely different case.

Well, we were attacked by terrorists who had support from the Afghan and Saudi governments; we attacked Afghanistan, but ignored Saudi in order to attack a country that had nothing to do with the initial attacks on us. Is invading the wrong country and telling lies to do it the "individual point" or the "larger situation?"

Those are a couple of individual points handpicked and sorely alone in the broad picture.

I disagree with neither the fact that we were attacked by people who had support from Afghanistan and SA, but it wasn't the first time we'd been attacked by jihadis, aQ or otherwise. Nor was Afghani and Saudi support the only there. Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Jordon, Syria as well as others had aided and abetted our attackers in the past. While under your rules of ingagement we would have been forced to attack all or none of these, a look at the broader picture indicates a regional problem. I'm sure there's a hundred ways to address such a regional problem.

Care to suggest a few of your favorite or is gotcha a satisfactory level of discussion for a quickly fleeting thread?

|7.11.05 @ 2:20PM|#

Chthus-
Do you seriously believe that Iraq had more to do with the 9-11 attack than the Saudis did? Even NOW, the Saudis are spending their money to fund the madrassas that are raising another generation of people to hate our guts. For every half-assed excuse this government used to justify the invasion of Iraq, there were other countries that fit the profile even more:

"Iraq has ties to the 9-11 killers"--nowhere near as many as does Arabia. They never provided nearly as much money to the attackers, either.

"Iraq has or will have the power to attack the US"--North Korea was and is a far more imminent threat. Iran's not looking so hot, either.

"Iraq is a cruel dictatorship with an atrocious human rights record"--true, but North Korea is far worse, Sudan is far worse, LOTS of countries are far worse.

"Destroying Iraq will hurt the cause of Islamic extremism"--if you think destroying one of the most secularized governments in the Arab world hurts Islamic fundamentalism, then this is true.

So WHY the fuck did we invade again? Never mind, it doesn't matter. We're stuck there, we've already lost (if you define victory as the establishment of a stable, pro-American Iraq), and I have an almost impartial curiosity as to how many more body bags we'll fill before the government figures this out.

|7.11.05 @ 2:34PM|#

Im not really sure who the WE is when you ask are We winning the war on terror, or for that matter, what qualifies as terror. Is firing cruise missles 500 miles away an act of terror? Who exactly is us or them, recognized governments only? Why?

|7.11.05 @ 2:44PM|#

Phillip--
I think the rule is, Terrorism is when they do it to us; fighting for freedom and All That's Right With The World is when we do it to them. Killing American civilians is a crime against humanity; killing Iraqi civilians is unfortunate but necessary and they probably deserved it anyway.

And invading Arabia, the font of terrorism, is absolutely undoable because that would require Americans to modify their standard of living and "the American way of life is non-negotiable."

I hope this clarifies matters.

|7.11.05 @ 3:20PM|#

Jennifer,

No, I didn't nor wouldn't assert that that was the case. But trying to find simply the guiltiest party is an reasonable way of assessing the problem, but overly simplistic when trying to come up with a solution. There were reasons for going after a number of different countries next after Afghanistan (as well as reasons for none). And while some places like SA and NK scored higher than Iraq in certain areas (culpability in 9/11 and immediate danger to the continental US, respectively), none came with quite the package as Iraq. From legality of invasion, to his lesser dalliances with jihadi terrorists, from his volatility in the region to his obviously (with hindsight) bluffed levels of possesion of CBRN, he managed to score on all accounts, sometimes pretty high. Add to that mix the humanitarian costs of maintaining the status quo and it doesn't hurt his invadability level at all. Further, looking at the larger regional picture, we can't invade everyone that might need it, nor would we want to while trying to actually quell the overall spread of Wahabbism, Salafism, Qutbism and all the other vitriolic strains of jihadi Islam that have been gearing folks up to train, plan, and sometimes try and even succeed to kill us. So trying to inject a new meme of representative rule and self govt, with varying amounts Islam remaining to help the medicine go down, would best be done by pissing off as few people as possible. HOWEVER, we also don't have the time to allow Islam to go through the growing pains and reformations that xianity did. So a calculus of sorts must be drawn up (accelerate change while minimizing short term escalation of problem) and invading the most secular arab country, that's got a history and a problematic present, is probably going to inspire fewer new jihadis than, say, invading the land of Mecca and Medina. His image status, deserved or not, that he had crafted throughout the ME, of being the new Saladin, was additionally helpful in that it served to quickly and most effectively change the view of the US as a country that could be attacked at will with little or no reprecussions. This is a view crafted by presidents from Carter to pre-9/11 lil' Bush, and sighted repeatedly by jihadis both Sunni and Shiite as a reason to go after us. Like it or not, it is a very modern western view of strength as a thing to be quietly downplayed, shows of strength have far different effect in other parts of the world. This is perhaps the reason there has been no major uprising of the Arab Street aafter two US invasions in their neighborhood, one in an Arab country.

So this is a brief summary of why Iraq was best. Invading SA, as you have suggested, wouldn't have done the same. I'd be interested to see if you think differently on this and hear your reasoning, for while I've heard a number of people say we should have invaded SA after Afghanistan, I've not heard any solid reasoning given to the broader picture of what this would accomplish/cause.

As you state, though, we are there and the situation is not what it was two years ago, it is what it is now. While I disagree with your assessment of a lost cause, I will agree that failure was and still is a possibility. Nonetheless, I don't find discussion of what we should have done in recent previous years to be worthless, as it may help to understand situations and aspects that may still repeat themselves. I'm more than willing to try to discuss the then or the now, as time is available to me. Though oneliners and gotcha are fun on occasion as well.

|7.11.05 @ 3:35PM|#

Well, for starters, invading SA would have accomplished roughly the same thing as the invasion of Afghanistan--the destruction of a corrupt government with a vile human rights record and (even worse from our perspective) a fondness for supporting the terrorists who attacked us.

As for all the reasoons you listed for invading Iraq, they basically seem to boil down to "Saddam was a scumbag jerk." Which is true, but he WASN'T the scumbag jerk who attacked us. And all we've done is shoot ourselves in the foot--U.S. soldiers have access to less of the country now than we did back when Saddam was in power and our no-fly zones were in place.

And invading Iraq wasn't necessary to change the idea that America could be attacked with little or no repurcussions--Afghanistan already did that, and Saudi would have further emphasized it.

|7.11.05 @ 4:42PM|#

His jerkness aside, there are several distinct reasons I listed that aren't easily summed up under that heading.

As for the invasion of SA, it does have some of the upside you mention, now try and think of the downside, as well as the legal and logistical problems. I think they're considerable, though maybe not insurmountable. What are your thoughts on the whole picture of a Saudi invasion?

|7.11.05 @ 4:46PM|#

A Saudi invasion would be far more difficult that the invasion of Iraq; to invade Saudi Arabia would affect the life of EVERY American, as opposed to Iraq/Afghanistan which really only affects the folks in the military and their family members. But is the purpose here to invade the easiest country, or invade the country whose defeat will help defeat Islamic terrorism?

|7.11.05 @ 4:50PM|#

I'm not talking about simply ease or convienence (I assume you mean oil). I'm asking to consider what the fallout to the jihadi ranks would be with a western invasion in the holy land? We saw what happened when we went in invited in 1990, what happens minus the invite is what I'm asking you to consider.

|7.11.05 @ 4:59PM|#

Chthus-
Presumably they'd be filled with an intense hatred and desire to destroy us, but how is that different from now? If *I* were in charge, I'd try one of two things--the moral option, which would be to turn Mecca/Medina into a sort of Muslim Vatican, an independent state; or the immoral option, which would be to have an undercover operative plant a nuke in the city, and then when it goes off it could be blamed on a local terrorist with really shitty bomb-making skills.

I think I'm kidding about the nuke. But the Iraq invasion is like the drunk guy who hates his boss, but can't beat up his boss so he goes home and beats his wife instead--it's not going to do a goddamned thing to solve his problem, but since he can't attack the one who deserves it, at least he can feel more like a man by attacking SOMEBODY!

I'll be leaving work in a couple of minutes, but I will check this thread when I get home if you want to continue the discussion.

|7.11.05 @ 5:07PM|#

Jennifer-

I can think of lots of justifications for invading SA. I can also think of lots of horrendous consequences. Even more jihadis than before, oil at $500/barrel, etc.

Personally, I thought Afghanistan was sufficient. In this debate over whether we should invade SA instead of Iraq, I opt for "None of the above."

|7.11.05 @ 5:07PM|#

Again, what war? There is no war.

|7.11.05 @ 6:34PM|#

Thoreau-
I don't know if Arabia would have actually been doable even before we got bogged down in Iraq, but I have little patience for those (and I do NOT mean you) who say that this is a super-important war and our very existence as a civilization is at stake--but we can't lower our standard of living to fight it. I'm just picturing F.D. Roosevelt as this administration: "If we have to ration pantyhose so that our women go barelegged; if we have to ration gasoline so that you can't drive whenever you feel like it; if we have to ration food so that you can't have all the candy you want, then THE NAZIS HAVE WON!!!"