The main problem with responding to the September 11 attacks by proclaiming a “War on Terror” is that terrorism is a tactic. Bush had a better approach before his national security team got together and decided to conquer the Middle East and Central Asia. Remember the bullhorn moment at Ground Zero?
Rescue Worker: I can’t hear you!
President Bush: I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!
The key was that he said “the people who knocked these buildings down.” He didn’t say Saddam Hussein. He didn’t say anyone who ever commits an act of terrorism. He certainly didn’t say Afghan farmers or random Pakistani hill people. He wanted justice. He wanted to track down the still-living criminals who plotted and financed the 9/11 operation.
The good thing about keeping your reaction focused and limited it that you have some hope of success. It also costs hundreds of billions less to track down a few dozen murderous radicals than it does to invade, conquer, occupy, and rebuild two large nations on the other side of the world.
We could never win a ‘War on Terror’ but we could conceivably kill or capture everyone who had any foreknowledge or responsibility for 9/11.
According to our new Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, we’re getting pretty close to finishing that job.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who arrived in Kabul on Saturday, said that the United States was “within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda” and that the American focus had narrowed to capturing or killing 10 to 20 crucial leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.
I notice that none of them are in Afghanistan. I guess we can mop up these last 20 guys, declare victory, and come the hell home. Right?
Mission Accomplished. Right?
