IT’S NOT OVER YET

The United States of America is at war. We didn’t realize it for a long time—several years, in fact—but two years ago, the war came to our shores in a way that we could no longer ignore.

After the September 2001 terror attacks, we were faced with two options.

The first option was to look within ourselves, to attempt to understand what had happened and how it had occurred. We would examine not just the intelligence and security failures, but how our foreign and defense policies had provoked such rage against us. We would then invest heavily in intelligence and homeland defense, to make sure it would Never Happen Again™. We might launch surgical strikes against those who attacked us, but only when we had sufficient evidence of guilt or complicity and could be certain that collateral damage would be minimal or non-existent. Finally, we would re-tool our foreign policy to be less offensive to the Islamic world, encourage Israel to make more concessions to the Palestinians, and pull back our military from the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf. Hopefully, this would remove any incentive for terrorism against the United States, and we could go on with our happy and peaceful lives.

I call this option “withdrawal.” It is exactly what our enemies hoped that we would do.

The second option was to carry the fight to the enemy. We would take away their sanctuaries, force them to go deep underground, and hunt them to the ends of the Earth. We would undermine or overthrow governments that supported them. We would sever them from their networks of financial support, disrupt their planning, and arrest their leaders in the dark of night. We would humiliate and discredit them. Rather than wait for them to strike at our weak points, we would force them to confront our strength. We would draw them into battle, and slaughter them. We would sow discord and division amongst their ranks. Finally, we would bring the war to their homes, and kill them where they live.

I call this strategy “engagement.” This is how we win wars.

Less than two years later, it is very clear which path we have chosen. Within a month of the terror strikes, we were bombing al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Within two months, we had overthrown the Taliban government and forced the terrorists to hide in caves. Then we bombed the caves.

We proceeded to hunt down those who had escaped the onslaught. We seized their assets, and arrested their financial chief. We chased their chief of operations all over Pakistan, capturing him in a pre-dawn raid outside Islamabad. A photograph of him, handcuffed and humiliated, was beamed around the globe.

We launched a campaign to liberate Iraq, and thousands of Bin Laden disciples were urged to come to the defense of Baghdad. But terrorists armed with Kalishnikovs and RPGs were no match for laser-guided bombs and heavy armor. We slaughtered them by the thousands.

The surprising ease with which Coalition Forces took Baghdad has discredited our enemies and caused many of their would-be supporters to question their leadership. There are now well over 100,000 battle-tested US troops in the heart of Arab civilization, and all that our enemies have been able to do about it is launch an occasional sniper attack. At their current rate of assault, it will take about 800 years for them to take back Iraq.

In the meantime, the government of Syria has been “convinced” to shut down the offices of Hamas and Hezbollah in their capital. Students demonstrating across Iran are no longer simply demanding reform—they are now calling for the death of “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Khameini. The US military is moving out of Saudi Arabia, because we no longer need those bases—and the House of Saud is beginning to feel a much cooler breeze blowing in from Washington.

Suddenly, the regional leaders appear very eager to discuss peace plans with Israel.

Al Qaeda has not remained quiet through all of this. Terrorist attacks have occurred in Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco. But these countries are their home, not ours. By going on the offensive, we have seized the initiative and moved the front lines back to their neighborhood. Indeed, many of these recent terror attacks have killed more local Muslims than Westerners, creating animosity between the terrorists and the local populations.

But this is no time to rest on our laurels. This war is not over yet. We continue to hunt terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is still some fighting to be done in Iraq. And there are other havens that must be visited.

The peace process in Israel and Palestine must continue, but terrorists will be given no quarter. Syria must be further “encouraged” to eliminate all support to Hamas and Hezbollah. Their puppets in Lebanon must do the same, and the training camps in the Bekaa Valley must be dismantled. The Palestinian Authority must begin to take responsibility for its own security, and purge terrorist influence from their government. The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict is the single largest source of animosity in the Islamic world towards the United States. We will not achieve victory in this war until there is a reasonable level of peace and stability between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

We must also continue to express moral support for those who oppose the teetering theocracy in Teheran. The best possible outcome in Iran would be a bloodless revolution, where the people seize power and force the mullahs to step aside. Semi-democratic institutions already exist in that country, they merely need to be freed from the shackles of theocratic oversight. There is still hope that such an outcome can be achieved—but it could just as easily turn into a bloody mess. While foreign intervention would most likely undermine the legitimacy of any future Iranian government, we must be prepared to provide such assistance if it is requested. To do otherwise would constitute a betrayal.

We must remember that we are the good guys. We cannot continue to indefinitely support despotic regimes in the region simply because we have common strategic interests. We must encourage them to reform—or they can try their hand at ruling without our assistance. If we are viewed by the people of the region as an obstacle to reform, we will never win their hearts and minds.

Finally, the rebuilding of Iraq is critical. It will not be enough to restore Iraq to its prewar level of misery. It must become the civil and economic model for the rest of the Islamic world. This is not something we can do for the Iraqis—they must do the bulk of it themselves—but we can help (and are helping) to show them the way. This will give the Arab and Islamic peoples hope that a better future is possible. Given a choice between hope and death, most people will choose hope.

This is how we will win the peace.

My answer to Peter (no relation to Dr. Peter), who responded via e-mail to my post “It’s Not Over Yet.”

Peter,

I appreciate that not everyone sees the events of the past two years from the same perspective as myself. Thank you for sharing your point of view.

You wrote:

I fundamentally disagree with your description of the first option, when you write that our enemies hoped that after 9/11 we would not go to war. I don't think this is true; rather, Osama bin Laden hoped that we would go to war in Afghanistan. He thought that the images of America bombing Musim civilians would so outrage Muslims across the world that Muslim governments would at least be forced to cut ties with the US, and he further hoped that some Muslim governments might actually be toppled by internal Islamic revolutions.

Can you be so certain? Al Qaeda lost much in the Afghanistan campaign and the subsequent (and ongoing) manhunts, including their safe havens, their training camps, and several key leaders. Is this what Bin Laden wanted, or even expected to happen? I find this difficult to believe. Indeed, there was an established history of American inaction and even withdrawal in the face of terror attacks, which could only have served to embolden our enemies.

From “The Soil of Arab Terrorism” by Donald Sensing:

There was a clear, consistent record for many years prior to (September 11, 2001) of the West, especially America, barely responding to a rising level of violence against it. Until September, 2001, the American and other Western governments treated terrorism as crimes, with law-enforcement and judicial procedures as the preferred remedy. Therefore, Western military action against al Qaeda was, until then, rare, and when it was done it was weak, erratic and ineffective. From the beginning, the West’s legalistic response to terror convinced al Qaeda that it would not pay a meaningful price for its acts, and that the West, especially America, would actually shrink from confronting al Qaeda.

1988: abduction of 16 western tourists in Yemen that resulted in four deaths. Response: none.
1992: Attempted attack on US troops in Yemen. Response: none
1993: Truck bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six people and injured scores more. Response: FBI investigation, indictments and some convictions. No action outside US borders.
1993: Training and material assistance to Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, whose militia killed 18 US soldiers, wounded many more and destroyed two helicopters one fateful day in Mogadishu. Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for this action in 1997 during an interview broadcast on CNN. Response: US withdrew its troops two weeks later
1996: Bombing of Khobar Towers, an American military barracks in Saudi Arabia, in which 19 American service members died. Response: US requested Saudi cooperation in an investigation. Saudis refused. No action taken by US.
1998: Bombing of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing more than 200 people, most of them Muslim Africans. Response: US launched about two dozen cruise missiles at Afghanistan and Sudan. Al Qaeda undamaged both places; civilians killed in Sudan. No other action taken.
2000: Suicide boat attack on USS Cole while docked in Yemen in 2000, killing 17 US sailors and injuring 39 others. Response: None. US terminated use of Yemeni port facilities.
Thus emboldened, Osama bin Laden decided to attack America itself. Some sort of plan to do so was in the works before the attack on USS Cole; hijacker boss Mohammed Atta entered America with a tourist visa the first half of 2000, and petitioned for a student visa in June of that year. Yet the almost purely rhetorical response of the United States to repeated attacks certainly convinced bin Laden that the way was clear to a massive action within the United States itself…
There is no doubt that al Qaeda was entirely unprepared for America to send ground combat troops to Afghanistan. American special operations forces (SOF) especially surprised them. The speed and agility of SOF in linking up with the Northern Alliance and SOF’s deadly coordination of air power, especially heavy bombers, was something for which al Qaeda gives no evidence of ever having foreseen.

You also wrote:

I also disagree when you write, "Finally, we would re-tool our foreign policy to be less offensive to the Islamic world, encourage Israel to make more concessions to the Palestinians, and pull back our military from the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf." In fact we have just done these things. Part of the motivation for attacking Iraq was to eliminate, in a roundabout way, Osama's two chief greivances against the US: troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions on Iraq. We're in Iraq now of course, but within two years we'll be gone. President Bush has also been twisting Sharon's arm hard to come to terms with the Palestinians. A major lesson of the 20th Century is that terrorism works, and Osama's terrorism is no exception.

In Saudi Arabia, we were confined to a couple of airbases. We now occupy all of Iraq, the heart of Arab civilization. Are you claiming that Bin Laden wanted this to happen? Frankly, I'm a bit skeptical. And don’t kid yourself—Bin Laden didn’t want us to push the peace plan in Israel—he would much rather see Israel eliminated.

Terrorism might work against more timid nations, but a major lesson of the first two years of the Twenty-First Century is that America will not be held hostage by murderous thugs.

Thanks again for writing.

Very Respectfully,
L.T. Smash

Well over a trillion dollars has been spent to ensure 9/11s don't happen and to this date there as not been one resignation or a single dismissal, a pension stripped.

You would reduce 9-11 to a government mistake? We train our police, but can't possibly prevent all crime. A country this size that cherishes freedom, a determined bad guy, especially one fed on hate, can get past any roadblock - once.

This administration is doing good work re. the war on terror. We haven't had a second attack...against the will of our enemies who want American mass-casualties. The America people aren't panicked because they know this administration is made up of responsible, hard working adults - good people doing very tough work under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

Our conservative military leaders are giving the world lessons in the free market economy, individual rights (and responsibilities) - freedom daily. I would argue that a few good men in this administration and this military are what stands between freedom and tyranny in the world today...

..in spite of the wilfull mischief of the powerful, unaccountable, partisan... press.

We're the good guys. We are taking out the bad guys, and those risking their lives to do so put up the neon "Welcome" sign over the nation of Iraq - the 'terrorists roach motel' (with themselves as bait) and take out the bad guys daily - NOT waiting for them to come to America. L.T. Smash is volunteering for a thankless job in heat and sand and under fire to defend the lives and freedoms of even those who disagree with him.

Police state? Those who defended Saddam Hussein and blamed America are not a crowd you could trust to defend (respect) your life, your $$$, your property or your freedom.

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