Terrorism: Politics and Our Current Strategy

 

The United States has a serious problem – one that actually is not directly related to our faltering economy. We are suffering from an untenable position regarding terrorism and how we deal with captured terrorists. The recent handling of the “Christmas Day bomber” has brought to light several major malfunctions of procedure and thought within our intelligence communities, our justice system, and our federal government in general.

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was arrested in Michigan on Christmas Day after attempting to detonate an explosive sewn into his underwear while aboard an international flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The apparent objective was to blow up the airliner, which was carrying about 290 people at the time. Abdul Mutallab’s orders to carry out this mission came from Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. According to the definitions in Chapter 113B of the United States Criminal Code, Abdul Mutallab’s actions can be classified as international terrorism. In addition, his actions qualify as an “aggravated offense” under Chapter 97 since there were people other than himself on the plane.

Basically, the attempted attack merits the strongest form of prosecution under federal law, including a possible death sentence. Although our federal laws sound as if they are the best way to prosecute terrorists, the truth is, they fall far short of dealing with the actual problem in an adequate and rational manner.

Abdul Mutallab is essentially an unlawful enemy combatant in a non-traditional, global war. He is a non-U.S. citizen fighting under the umbrella of a terrorist organization whose leader – Osama bin Laden – had publicly declared war on the United States. His objective was to intentionally target and murder civilians. By any definition from multiple international treaties dealing with internationally accepted rules of war, his act – if carried out effectively – would have been a war crime. In essence, Abdul Mutallab would have accurately been labeled a “war criminal” if he was successful.

Yet, when he was taken into custody in Detroit, he was read Miranda rights and is slated to be prosecuted in the same setting and manner as a common criminal.

Several of our top federal intelligence and national security officials admitted that their respective departments and agencies dropped the ball by nearly allowing another airline attack to occur successfully on our soil. They also admitted their failure to properly interrogate Abdul Mutallab because of the actions taken by the FBI, which read him his Miranda rights after less than an hour of interrogation. It was revealed this week by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that it was his decision to prosecute this terrorist in our civilian courts.

Over eight years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, our intelligence community failed to properly analyze and prioritize the intelligence that it had collected on Abdul Mutallab. Various agencies and departments of our government had the information needed to properly screen this man and prevent him from boarding an airplane into our country. However, and according to multiple excuses provided by that government, he was able to not only board a plane, but attempted to blow it up with explosives that he carried onto it.

Before we get into the finer points of how to deal with terrorists and our war against terrorist organizations around the world, we must address why we continue to fail to catch people who ought to raise some obvious red flags. It all starts with properly identifying potential dangers prior to an act being carried out. Seeing as we continually fall short of stopping, or that we react slowly to, obvious threats – no matter their significance – one can’t help but wonder just how much political correctness has a role in almost failing to prevent the murders of United States citizens by our declared enemies. (It is worth noting that the only reason Abdul Mutallab failed, and 290 people were not murdered, was due to designer/operator error.)

Many people find themselves asking why we are not profiling – i.e. identifying the exact type of people who repeatedly carry out these precise sorts of attacks? Why are we not more closely scrutinizing teenaged to middle-aged Muslim men, usually of Arab descent (now increasingly African as well)? Are we still pretending that it’s likely that these terrorists can be 85 year-old Anglo-Saxon women or their 4 year-old great-grandchildren? Or that it’s reasonable to waste our resources searching them at airports, for no other reason than to appear to be “culturally sensitive”?

It is not racist, bigoted, or xenophobic to accurately identify the age, ethnicity, and religion of people who are committed to murdering us. And it is not racist, bigoted, or xenophobic to pay extra attention to someone who fits that description when they are in an airport – a favorite setting for terrorists to employ their tactics in a means of transportation that generates some of the greatest anxiety and fears for travelers: an airplane. Most people would call such scrutiny “common sense,” or even a critical method of crime prevention.

It is also neither a violation of civil liberties nor privacy to ask anyone in an airport or any other mass transportation setting, especially someone fitting the aforementioned description, to step out of line and submit to more advanced screening. There is no right to travel by airplane, train, boat, or bus to any destination. Travelers voluntarily agree to take such transportation, so there should be no complaints if or when security personnel feel the need to further investigate something or someone suspicious. If someone is uncomfortable with being searched before boarding any mass transportation, then they can find an alternative means of travel.

Beyond political correctness – if one acknowledges that as a factor – is an even more unnerving matter: the basic misunderstanding of our enemies and how to prevent them from achieving their goals.

Eric Holder has admitted that he was the person who decided to prosecute Abdul Mutallab as a common criminal. According to at least three of our nation’s top intelligence and homeland security officials, in hearings before members of the U.S. Senate, he apparently did so without consulting any of them. This is not merely one terrible decision by what ought to have been an unqualified candidate for Attorney General. What we have here is a top-down systematic ignorance of the fight against Islamic radicals and the fundamental “laws” of war in general, which begins with the Obama version of diplomacy and his apologia for it.

In an effort to try to distance himself from the policies of the previous administration, Obama has gone out of his way to apologize to and placate the Muslim world for our war efforts and our anti-terrorism tactics. While doing so, he has surrounded himself with like-minded allies throughout the federal government who draft and implement policy for our intelligence and national defense agencies.

The results have brought us a Secretary of Homeland Security who last year referred to terrorist attacks not as “terrorist attacks,” but “man-caused disasters.” Janet Napolitano claims she used such a term in order to “move away from the politics of fear.” So, instead of properly identifying a terrorist act for what it is, our main federal official responsible for homeland security attempted to transform our continued threat into something that sounds a little less malicious and perhaps just a bit more natural. Later last spring, her department released a report on right-wing extremism – focusing on domestic Americans – in which it was concluded “that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.”

While Islamic terrorists have in fact committed catastrophic attacks on our soil, and pledge to do more – since they have actually declared war on us – Napolitano finds it easier to use the words “extremist” and “terrorism” when describing United States citizens with a right-wing political ideology, but not for actual extremists and terrorists who have proven their ardent commitment and intent to murder Americans anywhere in the world.

But that’s not all.

We have a United States Attorney General who believes it is acceptable to investigate the policies and actions of the Central Intelligence Agency regarding terrorists and their capture and interrogation techniques, while at the same time allowing a terrorist to be read Miranda rights after attempting to blow up an airliner with almost 300 people on board. Eric Holder is also responsible for the currently slated federal trial of Khalid Skeikh Mohammed in New York City – a move that has appropriately received strong backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, New Yorkers and the general citizenry alike.

Barack Obama and many of his federal appointees have a fundamental misconception about who our enemies are and how to deal with them. Consequently, each United States citizen is placed at an increased and unnecessary risk due to the colossal ignorance, arrogance, and stubbornness of our federal political leadership. Without comprehending the seriousness of the enemy and the threat they pose, we cannot properly and successfully execute our war strategy against terrorists and their organizations.

Carefully read the following excerpt by Carl von Clausewitz, a former general and chief of staff for the Prussian army. This was published in 1832, but take a moment to understand the truth of his words and the relevance it has in our war efforts today:

“Now philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skillful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the Art of War. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as War, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst. As the use of physical power to the utmost extent by no means excludes the cooperation of the intelligence, it follows that he who uses force unsparingly, without reference to the bloodshed involved, must obtain a superiority if his adversary uses less vigor in its application. The former then dictates the law to the latter, and both proceed to extremities to which the only limitations are those imposed by the amount of counteracting force on each side.

“This is the way in which the matter must be viewed, and it is to no purpose, it is even against one’s own interest, to turn away from the consideration of the real nature of the affair because the horror of its elements excites repugnance.

“If the Wars of civilized people are less cruel and destructive than those of savages, the difference arises from the social condition both of States in themselves and in their relations to each other. Out of this social condition and its relations War arises, and by it War is subjected to conditions, is controlled and modified. But these things do not belong to War itself; they are only given conditions; and to introduce into the philosophy of War itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.” – On War, Book I, Chapter One

Benevolence and moderation in executing war strategies are considered grave errors according to the author of the book that is generally considered to be one of the greatest, or even the only great book on war. And these problems were identified within the first two pages out of 800. In particular, von Clausewitz mentions that the accepted international “laws” of war are not actually principles of war itself. Instead, they are self-imposed rules meant to restrict unseemly practices by civilized nations during hostilities. Essentially, these principles are inapplicable when fighting what he referred to as “savages.” So, how would they be applied to our war against Islamic terrorists, who behave and carry out their operations in a savage – or internationally condemned – manner?

We are not dealing with an extreme government that leads a constituency and relies on international trade or treaties for its economic well-being. In other words, our enemies are not bound by the accepted social conditions of modern society.

Our war consists of tracking down people of sometimes unknown nationality who have few, if any connections to a particular state, and who seemingly operate with a goal of destroying their adversaries for the sake of destruction, not to attain a political end or to improve their condition. To make matters worse, they mostly target civilians to achieve their goals, not opposing government forces. Their acts are cowardly, but they are also savage and merciless. Attempting to fight with benevolence or attacking the enemy in moderation will do more to impede our efforts than the attacks and the will of the enemy itself.

We cannot be hindered by self-imposed rules meant for civilized nations that fight wars based on philosophical and political differences and that have legitimate, attainable objectives. Our actions must be swift and decisive and we must be able to execute our tactics without any irrational barriers.

Another relevant quote from von Clausewitz opens the discussion on how to overcome the enemy:

“If we desire to defeat the enemy, we must proportion our efforts to his powers of resistance. This is expressed by the product of two factors which cannot be separated, namely, the sum of available means and the strength of the Will. The sum of the available means may be estimated in a measure, as it depends (although not entirely) upon numbers; but the strength of volition is more difficult to determine, and can only be estimated to a certain extent by the strength of the motives.”

The available means of the terrorists we face cannot be accurately estimated. They obtain their weapons and supplies from a multitude of sources around the globe and range from military-grade to common household materials. They are equally as shrewd in both how they create and employ their weaponry and how they are able to strike their targets undetected. The terrorists we face are determined to carry out their attacks, but what are their motives and how strongly are they motivated?

Most of the terrorists we encounter today are driven by religious zealotry, fervent nationalism or ethnic identity, and/or similarly associated propaganda engineered to foment intense hatred. They believe that it is not their way of life that is the problem; that the rest of the world is wicked and is preventing them from either advancing as a society or living their lives free from improper foreign influences. Whether these influences are real or imagined – and as trivial as they may be – the rest of the world needs to be punished. They are willing, and even proud, to sacrifice their lives and the lives of their families to accomplish their stated goals.

Their goal is to kill people like us – Westerners, “infidels,” and others who do not agree with their distorted conception of social order. The terrorists’ notion of success seems to hinge on the amount of people they kill, particularly civilians – and more is better. They do not care if they die. In fact, for many of them, dying for their cause is their intent. They gladly blow themselves up in order to advance their agenda.

Will they ever consider making the sacrifices we demand – to stop targeting us and our allies for attacks; to give up on their aim to bring down Western culture? Most likely, they will not.

In other words, the strength of their will is essentially about as tough as we could encounter. As the object of war is to make your adversary submit to your will, their tenacity makes the process in this next excerpt from von Clausewitz much harder to accomplish:

“If our opponent is to be made to comply with our will, we must place him in a situation which is more oppressive to him than the sacrifice which we demand; but the disadvantages of this position must naturally not be of a transitory nature, at least in appearance, otherwise the enemy, instead of yielding, will hold out, in the prospect of a change for the better. Every change in this position which is produced by a continuation of the War should therefore be a change for the worse.”

How can we make the terrorists’ conditions worse than they are? For most of them, their social and economic conditions are already poor, so focusing on their ability to succeed in their attacks and in their ability to use propaganda as a recruiting tool would be a more plausible option. Of course, as a long-term objective, we can encourage the leadership of those nations to modernize and improve on basic human rights, but in the short-term we must be able to execute a reasonable war strategy.

At this point, the argument about how to deal with terrorism generally falls between war powers and those of law enforcement. Deciding which one is appropriate for carrying out our strategy is the first critical step in order to successfully achieve our ultimate goal. So it must first be decided whether or not we need to preemptively eradicate the threat or simply react once the threat becomes visible, imminent, or a terrorist act is committed.

Most rational people would rather choose preemptive action. Reacting to a visible threat or to an act of terrorism already carried out does very little or nothing at all to eliminate the adversary and prevent them from achieving their goal. The level of organization and action required to carry out such an objective exceeds the normal jurisdiction and capacities of law enforcement, as most of the terrorists are non-U.S. citizens residing somewhere other than within our geographical or jurisdictional boundaries. Therefore, the reasonable method for implementing a strategy would be to grant war powers.

For all intents and purposes, we accepted the role of a co-belligerent in a war with Al Qaeda in the fall of 2001. However, that organization is not a nation and it does not fight as a proxy for any nation. Their tactics violate practically every international rule or custom of war and they are not a part of any international treaty or convention. As previously mentioned, all terrorists are virtually war criminals fighting in a non-traditional conflict.

The Hague and Geneva Conventions were not designed to adequately guide the actions of belligerents in this type of war, especially when one side purposely defies them. Adhering to these treaties only hampers our ability to sufficiently implement a meaningful war strategy against terrorist organizations. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to either belligerent in such a conflict as our war against terrorists, since the terrorist organizations are neither a High Contracting Party nor have they agreed to presently accept or apply the provisions.

To apply an effective war strategy that will worsen the conditions of the terrorists we fight, we must be willing to use all necessary force to kill or capture them. When detained, we must aggressively interrogate them and get every bit of information possible, then send them before a military tribunal for appropriate punishment – which, in most cases, ought to be death. After all, they are war criminals and they have no inherent Constitutional rights if they are not U.S. citizens. They are enemy combatants – unlawful ones at that – and need to be quickly prosecuted under the same war powers that were granted for the implementation of the general war strategy.

It is also necessary to eradicate any regime or organization that provides support or safe-haven for terrorists and their operations. This is a vital component of the war effort. So long as terrorists have a place to hide and plan their operations without pressure from national authorities, there will always be a threat of attacks. And as long as they have a continuous flow of funding or the materials needed to carry out their attacks, they will find few obstacles between them and their goal.

With regards to terrorists and their supporters, our military tribunals ought to be able to operate using rules similar to principles of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act. Whether they are providing weaponry, supplying or laundering money, creating fraudulent documents, or aiding and abetting terrorists in any other way, supporters ought to be captured and sent before a military tribunal for crimes that are basically of the same severity as terrorism itself.

Taking a strong stance against both terrorists and their supporters is the only effective way to prosecute the war. We cannot vacillate between war powers and those of domestic law enforcement. And we certainly cannot allow public show trials of captured terrorists.

Nearly all of these terrorists do not care if they are prosecuted. They do not care if they are executed. Most of them want to die either for their religion or for their cause. Catching and prosecuting them in our civilian courts, with constant media coverage, hurts us in many ways.

In the case of the “9-11 mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the message sent is that murdering nearly 3,000 people by destroying a multi-billion dollar complex in one of the world’s most prominent cities, attacking our military headquarters, necessitating the complete or partial shut down of our commercial airlines for several days, and causing the close of our stock market for nearly a week, is nothing more than a criminal act, not an overt act of war, despite the fact that the organization that attacked us had declared war on us long beforehand.

This merits a federal trial to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs to United States citizens. Not only do we increase our security risks, but we also farcically grant a terrorist Constitutional rights while our prosecutors are subjected to abide by criminal rules of evidence and court procedures, all for a man who planned acts of war – which were successfully carried out – against innocent civilians on our soil.

It is a mockery of our war strategy and our efforts – and they know it. The world knows it.

To make matters worse, both Barack Obama and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs have stated publicly that they are certain Mohammed will be convicted and probably executed. Attorney General Holder has stated that even if he is not convicted, the U.S. will not release him. How can we put our justice system on display to the world in order to prove our benevolence and fairness when we are publicly condemning a man who has not yet had his trial and stating that he will not be released from custody if not convicted? This trial, and others like it, will be a mockery of our system – and the terrorists are undoubtedly very aware of it. It is almost guaranteed that they will be using those statements and the trials as propaganda for recruitment.

This is a dilemma that needs to be avoided at all costs. We cannot show weakness or hypocrisy that can and will be used to our disadvantage.

Most of the world did not question George W. Bush’s resolve or strength of his will to defeat terrorists, even if his strategy was not as forceful as it could have been. As Obama looks to be more conciliatory and to show the world that he is not Bush, he sets himself and this country up for failure with the policies he implements and the attitude he conveys. But despite his efforts, he is similar to Bush – he’s not aggressive enough. Their unwillingness to completely disregard the self-imposed restrictions of inapplicable international treaties, as well as their willingness to use the federal courts to prosecute war criminals in an ongoing war, was and is a misguided strategy.

However, Obama has a more prominent shortcoming. His soft stance on war in general and his persistence in using “diplomacy” at all costs – even when it’s not effective – does not strike fear in our adversaries or those who give them aid and safe harbor.

The results of these flawed strategies over the last eight and a half years are becoming more evident. Our intelligence communities are once again admitting that they do not have the capabilities to prevent terrorist attacks, but not because they can’t gather the required information. They are now having a problem piecing everything together. Moreover, despite the fact that terrorist organizations have been fractured and are continually evolving into smaller cells, our Secretary of Homeland Security recently spoke as if she was surprised by the determination of terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda in Yemen, and lone wolf-style attacks like Nidal Hasan.

Just this week, our top intelligence officials stated that an attack by Al Qaeda – inside the United States – is “certain” to happen sometime before July. In a few months we will find out whether or not this was just a ploy to keep people vigilant and/or to secure their respective agency funding.

It’s not too late to rectify our errors. We need to take our war against terrorists seriously, including both how we execute the military campaigns against them and how we prosecute them when caught, or we will continue to be attacked long into the future. We can begin by promptly removing Abdul Mutallab from whatever state or federal facility he is currently in and delivering him to the military to be tried and convicted by a military tribunal. This process can be repeated for any and all terrorists currently being held for civilian trial, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

George W. Bush explained that this would not be an easy war at the outset of it. It’s difficult, chaotic, expensive, and it’s draining on the public psyche to be at war for so long. We must now redouble our efforts and implement a significantly more fierce strategy for defeating our adversaries. But we do ourselves no favors “to turn away from the consideration of the real nature of the affair because the horror of its elements excites repugnance.” If we cannot – or if we are unwilling – to meet our enemy with a stronger will and more intensity than they are capable of, then we will not defeat them.

Whether our government is tracking down terrorists through our intelligence agencies, fighting them in an open battlefield with military personnel, or prosecuting them for crimes committed, they must adhere to the war strategy and never stray from it until victory is achieved. Either we are at war, or we are not.

How we choose to proceed will determine our success. We can choose to understand and accept the harsh realities of our situation, or we can choose to mollify the international community by agreeing to a strategy with which they are a bit more comfortable – at our own peril. The decision is ours and ours alone.

Will we choose victory by the strength of our will? Or will we choose defeat by not utilizing our strengths?

 

Copyright © 2009 by RationalLiberty.com

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