[Originally published in the Randolph Herald.]
In pointing out blandly in a March 15 CNN interview that America has not suffered a terrorist attack since 9/11, former Vice President Cheney stated that he believes that the policies undertaken by the new Obama Administration are making America less safe.
In saying this, Cheney was making a direct comparison between the policies of the Bush Administration and those of President Obama. He was saying that the standby policies of the Bush administration—preemptive military action, wireless wiretapping, enhanced interrogation techniques (torture), Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the CIA ‘s rendition and overseas detention programs, to name but a few—were what kept us safe and that their ongoing repudiation will make us more vulnerable.
Democracies are never completely safe. They are inherently dangerous. If they were safe, they would not be democracies. To make us safe from terrorism, we would have to employ all the questionable techniques listed above, plus many more. In the process of doing that, we Americans would have to give up layer after layer of our constitutional guarantees. Remember Benjamin Franklin’s admonition that “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety“.
To get back to Cheney, let’s just arbitrarily stipulate that what he says is true. Even then, it is only a tactical response to the terrorist threat. Optimally, it may stop the occasional attack, but it won’t solve the fundamental problem. We need a new strategy that deals with the weaknesses in this terrorist threat with a view to stopping the movement, not just the attacks. Without such a strategy, there will be no foreseeable end to this problem.
The essence of a successful strategy against terrorism lies in not losing your old friends in the Muslim world, and also gaining new ones. In that context, it is critical that we keep moderate Muslims on our side. Basically, our entire approach to terrorism has been misguided. Our major response after 9/11 was the invasion of Iraq which, in itself, was offensive to all sorts of Muslims. Then we added torture and all of the questionable activities enumerated above which, in the aggregate, although they may have eliminated some terrorists, create an environment in which moderate Muslims have turned away from us. When moderate Muslims do that, there are not many alternatives available and they turn toward terrorism. Our questionable activities become recruiting posters for terrorism and their ranks swell.
On the positive side, we have decimated Al Qaida management to the point where the organization is on the run and marginal. The result has been the MacDonaldization of Al Qaida, in which groups spring up in the spirit, but not in the line of command of Al Qaida Central. That turns them into local groups vulnerable to the authorities in the countries in which they exist and makes them far easier to cope with, if we maintain good relations with those countries’ security services.
The real issues that remain are the futures of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. Somalia is in the mix because there is no effective central government there, creating the kind of environment that existed in pre 9/11 Afghanistan which Al Qaida found so amenable.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are problems for us, but not terrorist problems. They are insurgencies and they have to be dealt with as such. In addition to that, we have to deal with state sponsors of terrorism like Syria and Iran, a process that appears to be underway with Syria and could well be a part of any future negotiation with Iran.
According to a recent Rand study, between 1968 and 2008, 648 terrorist groups disappeared. Of that group, 75% were absorbed into their national political systems, 10% were defeated by police activities, and a mere 7% by military action. The critical point here is that military force often has the opposite effect of what is intended. It is often overused, alienates the local population by its heavy-handed nature, and is a boon to terrorist recruiters. The US military should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, especially in large numbers, where its presence is likely to create more problems than it solves.
The default position for dealing with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism is talking. Like the three-way baseball trade analogy, everyone has things they want and things they will give up. The key is to find out which is which and the only way to do that is to talk with all those involved.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff. A longtime resident of Brookfield, he now lives in Williston.
