On terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...
Below is a reply to a friend, who wanted to know what I had to say about a letter being circulated by (ret.) Major-General Vernon Chong, entitled "Muslim Terrorists and the USA".
* * *
Dear Mxxxxx,
Sorry for the long-winded response below. A big cup of coffee may be due. I really wrote this to clarify some ideas in my own mind.
Major-General Vernon Chong has some good points but makes a mistake in conflating the war against the terrorists with the war in Iraq (read his letter). It is important to tease out the differences between them, as not everyone we are fighting has the same agenda.
1. To begin with, one should bear in mind that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, has many different interpretations and obviously not all Muslims support terrorism. Terrorists like Al Qaeda use graphic violence, such as suicide bombings, to grab the global media's attention because they lack large armies and resources and support – including that of a majority of their own people.
Of course, this doesn't make them less dangerous, in particular as they have found common cause with a slew of tiny violent and similarly minded cells in places like Indonesia, the Philippines, Yemen, Pakistan, etc. Even in Pakistan, however, where fundamentalist groups like Al Qaeda have greater visibility, it is surprising to learn that 97% of the population practice Sufism, a form of Islam that is, as I understand, antithetical to the mindset that gives rise to terrorism.
While I wouldn't give the issue of names as much weight as Major-General Chong does, the moniker "Muslim terrorist" seems a bit too broad. (For example, I don't think it would sound right if we called Timothy McVeigh a "Christian terrorist," as his actions weren't particularly Christian.) Some people prefer "Islamist" but I'm sticking with Al Qaeda as their self-selected umbrella name.
2. Did 3,000 plus people deserve to die on 9/11? Emphatically no. But our Government had a hand in the rise of the Taliban, which in turn gave Al Qaeda the room to grow.
In the 1980s, we armed, trained, funded and advised (on the ground) the Afghan rebels in their fight against the Russian invasion (read about). They won the war for us but their country was ruined – and then we lost interest (more about: our waning interest and aid shortfall).
The disintegration of post-war Afghan society produced the Taliban. The Taliban gave refuge to Al Qaeda (whose mostly foreign-born members were coincidentally trained and armed by us). Had we helped the Afghans in their hour of need, there is a chance 9/11 would never have happened. We should bear this lesson in mind for the future.
3. Our invasion brought the terrorists into Iraq. There were no terrorists in Iraq prior to our invasion (read more). That is because the otherwise despicable Saddam Hussein violently suppressed them. Al Qaeda used our invasion to recruit many more followers to "fight the American infidels" on a real battlefield, accusing us of invading Iraq as the first step to taking over the Middle East.
4. Why did they attack us? It is true that the core of Al Qaeda's followers – mostly young educated men from the Saudi middle class – envy our power/wealth and despise our freedoms. But there are other sources of resentment, and we should be aware of what goes on in our name without our sometimes knowing it .. without going to the other radical extreme of thinking the attacks against us were justified.
In short, since the 1980s, U.S.-dominated agencies like the IMF and World Bank have imposed ruinous economic schemes on poor "developing" countries that made their nations' elites (and Western interests) very rich, while giving rise to widespread famine and civil war. This was done under the name of "structural adjustment" or "economic development," and millions suffered. (Click here for one author's easily digested rundown.)
However, as a country we have also offered opportunity and relief to people from around the world, as well as championed the rights of others and served as a model of hope. This is why in part there was such a tremendous (and deserved) outpouring of sympathy after 9/11.
5. Since Iraq initially had neither WMDs nor terrorists, there was no valid reason to enter. (And there is mounting evidence that we knew as much.) In so doing, we lost the trust of our allies and – more importantly – we siphoned off much-needed funds and personnel from the legitimate war in Afghanistan, a war we are now far from winning.
6. By removing Hussein, we opened Iraq's door to Iran. Headed by a Shiite theocracy, Iran would like to control Iraq (with its majority Shiite population). The problem is that Iran will then dominate the Middle East and world oil production. No one wants this -- including America's arch-enemy Syria (who may nonetheless be allowing terrorists to cross its borders into Iraq in order to undermine both Iran and us).
7. To understand the Iraq war, it is useful to avoid lumping everyone together as "Muslim terrorists". For example, the majority Shiites feel they should be in control. Fundamentalist Sunnis like Al Qaeda believe Shiites should be killed outright as infidels. The Baathists -- a secular Sunni minority used to ruling Iraq with an iron fist – hate the Shiites and Al Qaeda both. Al Qaeda is despised by many as an invading force. While there are a number of groups on our side (especially those who would like to see democracy reign and no one minority dominate), there are others who don't want to see foreigners running their land for any length of time or reason.
8. While being aware of these divisions can help our position, we should avoid (as some have advocated) pushing Iraq towards becoming another Somalia. We only need look at Somalia to understand why. Somalia – which has had no government since peacekeeping efforts failed in 1992-95 – is both a humanitarian disaster and a breeding ground for terrorists. In fact, Al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen and Kenya have received support and training from Somali warlords. Afghanistan is yet another example of why anomie doesn't work.
9. While Major-General Chong believes (as a soldier proper) that it is dangerous to criticize government in wartime, this administration's refusal to listen to criticism has led to one disaster after another:
• All of our top generals -- except one -- warned against invading with insufficient troop levels but they were not heeded. Had we sent enough troops in the beginning to secure territory and weapons stockpiles, there would be no insurgency today.
• The administration was also warned by top Middle East scholars and government advisers about the likelihood of civil war. Those who spoke out were sidelined or demoted.
• No matter what one feels about the ethics of torture, Abu Ghraib gave Al Qaeda fodder to recruit more terrorists – because they used it as evidence of our hatred of Muslims. And when 25% of the world is Muslim, we need to conduct a war as much in the media as we do on the ground.
(Note that while the grunts were punished, the actual CIA interrogators and government officials who orchestrated the torture policy remain untouched and the policy remains unchanged. read more)
• Our reconstruction effort under Paul Bremer put the oil fields before food transport, rebuilding hospitals, water and power lines, etc. This gave the Iraqis the impression that we were there to steal their oil, not help them rebuild as a society.
• This idea was further borne by the fact that the Iraqi engineers who had built the original dams, refineries and other infrastructure were not hired or even consulted, leading to costly error and the perception that we were arrogant colonizers. This was the wrong message to send to the Iraqi people.
(BTW $2.7 billion awarded to Halliburton for reconstruction has never been accounted for nor will it ever, as Halliburton's main office has relocated to Dubai to avoid paying taxes on war profits or testifying before congress.)
• While millions of U.S. dollars went to private security contractors (aka "mercenaries"), many U.S. soldiers did without sufficient armor. This led to unnecessary soldier deaths and more media fiascos (when the contractors decided gunning down civilians was sport). The point is the U.S. military is the best outfit to conduct our wars and not private outfits.
• Bremer also unilaterally decided to dismantle the Iraqi Baathist army, members of which were angered into carrying out the market-place bombings. We have only recently begun to admit Baathists back into the fold and thus defuse them as an enemy.
• In wartime, Governments often recruit enemy prisoners to their side, to act as spies. The harsh conditions and torture of detainees at Guantanamo, however, have turned even the innocent against us. The fact is we need better intelligence to beat Al Qaeda – especially as they are an amorphous network with no national territorial boundaries -- and we need spies to infiltrate them.
• Not only have we failed to recruit enough spies, at the start of the war we cut federal funds to train Arabic linguists in our universities – making it kind of hard to monitor our enemies' communications. In addition, few administrators in charge of reconstruction in Iraq today speak Arabic.
(Ironically, it seems our soldiers – trained to fight, not to rebuild – are nevertheless doing the best job of working with communities on reconstruction. And we're not even giving them decent jobs when they return.)
10. The point of all the above is that the military branch of the Pentagon – and not the administration – should be dictating warfare strategy and battle plans, as well as directing military operations. The last time something like this happened was the Vietnam War, when Robert McNamara and later Henry Kissinger started meddling with the same .. with disastrous results.
11. I agree the harm done by this war (or rather these wars) to us is irreparable. I also agree that our being frightened out of Beirut and Somalia gave Al Qaeda the courage to attack us and escalate their violence.
So how do we win this one? The Iraq war has sadly shown us to be much weaker than the world believed when we entered. Because we are now stretched too thin, we are losing war on not one front but two. And we look powerless to contain any other flash fires (like Pakistan or North Korea), which emboldens our enemies. So our continuing to stay in the Iraq war keeps us in a very exposed position – but withdrawing too soon may bring more calamity.
12. I personally think we need to negotiate an end to this war – not as losers but as those in a position to force everyone to the table. This will require us to negotiate with our enemies, including Iran and Syria. It is important however to keep the balance of power equal in the Middle East, or we risk a greater world war. But we will need to be more clever than we have been to date.
13. Then we need to re-focus on the real enemy – which was never Iraq and has always been Al Qaeda. The greatest threat to us is if Al Qaeda's supporters in Pakistan (a small but dangerous minority) manage to topple the government and get hold of a nuclear bomb. Unfortunately, much that we have done to date has made Al Qaeda stronger, not weaker – including entering Iraq.
Further, we have to be careful how we tread in Afghanistan as, in its entire history, it has never been successfully occupied and any perception of occupation will not be well taken. In other words, time is of the essence. We also need Afghanistan to be stable so Al Qaeda's foothold there is permanently loosened – meaning we need in the short term to commit more troops and, in the long term, reconstruction funds and expertise.
14. Lastly, our belief in the rights of the individual, the rule of law and the checks and balances of government are what distinguish us from our enemies. I was in downtown NYC during the attacks of 9/11 and, while for months after I had nightmares, at no point did I feel it worthwhile to abandon the ideals that distinguish us as a nation. "Give me liberty or give me death" was after all a rallying cry of the American Revolution. I sometimes wonder where is our backbone?
15. On a positive note, an important Al Qaeda leader imprisoned in Egypt recently spoke out against the use of terrorism and suicide. Maybe Al Qaeda will in the end implode from within. We should do everything we can to actively encourage as much.
Dear Mxxxxx,
Sorry for the long-winded response below. A big cup of coffee may be due. I really wrote this to clarify some ideas in my own mind.
Major-General Vernon Chong has some good points but makes a mistake in conflating the war against the terrorists with the war in Iraq (read his letter). It is important to tease out the differences between them, as not everyone we are fighting has the same agenda.
1. To begin with, one should bear in mind that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, has many different interpretations and obviously not all Muslims support terrorism. Terrorists like Al Qaeda use graphic violence, such as suicide bombings, to grab the global media's attention because they lack large armies and resources and support – including that of a majority of their own people.
Of course, this doesn't make them less dangerous, in particular as they have found common cause with a slew of tiny violent and similarly minded cells in places like Indonesia, the Philippines, Yemen, Pakistan, etc. Even in Pakistan, however, where fundamentalist groups like Al Qaeda have greater visibility, it is surprising to learn that 97% of the population practice Sufism, a form of Islam that is, as I understand, antithetical to the mindset that gives rise to terrorism.
While I wouldn't give the issue of names as much weight as Major-General Chong does, the moniker "Muslim terrorist" seems a bit too broad. (For example, I don't think it would sound right if we called Timothy McVeigh a "Christian terrorist," as his actions weren't particularly Christian.) Some people prefer "Islamist" but I'm sticking with Al Qaeda as their self-selected umbrella name.
2. Did 3,000 plus people deserve to die on 9/11? Emphatically no. But our Government had a hand in the rise of the Taliban, which in turn gave Al Qaeda the room to grow.
In the 1980s, we armed, trained, funded and advised (on the ground) the Afghan rebels in their fight against the Russian invasion (read about). They won the war for us but their country was ruined – and then we lost interest (more about: our waning interest and aid shortfall).
The disintegration of post-war Afghan society produced the Taliban. The Taliban gave refuge to Al Qaeda (whose mostly foreign-born members were coincidentally trained and armed by us). Had we helped the Afghans in their hour of need, there is a chance 9/11 would never have happened. We should bear this lesson in mind for the future.
3. Our invasion brought the terrorists into Iraq. There were no terrorists in Iraq prior to our invasion (read more). That is because the otherwise despicable Saddam Hussein violently suppressed them. Al Qaeda used our invasion to recruit many more followers to "fight the American infidels" on a real battlefield, accusing us of invading Iraq as the first step to taking over the Middle East.
4. Why did they attack us? It is true that the core of Al Qaeda's followers – mostly young educated men from the Saudi middle class – envy our power/wealth and despise our freedoms. But there are other sources of resentment, and we should be aware of what goes on in our name without our sometimes knowing it .. without going to the other radical extreme of thinking the attacks against us were justified.
In short, since the 1980s, U.S.-dominated agencies like the IMF and World Bank have imposed ruinous economic schemes on poor "developing" countries that made their nations' elites (and Western interests) very rich, while giving rise to widespread famine and civil war. This was done under the name of "structural adjustment" or "economic development," and millions suffered. (Click here for one author's easily digested rundown.)
However, as a country we have also offered opportunity and relief to people from around the world, as well as championed the rights of others and served as a model of hope. This is why in part there was such a tremendous (and deserved) outpouring of sympathy after 9/11.
5. Since Iraq initially had neither WMDs nor terrorists, there was no valid reason to enter. (And there is mounting evidence that we knew as much.) In so doing, we lost the trust of our allies and – more importantly – we siphoned off much-needed funds and personnel from the legitimate war in Afghanistan, a war we are now far from winning.
6. By removing Hussein, we opened Iraq's door to Iran. Headed by a Shiite theocracy, Iran would like to control Iraq (with its majority Shiite population). The problem is that Iran will then dominate the Middle East and world oil production. No one wants this -- including America's arch-enemy Syria (who may nonetheless be allowing terrorists to cross its borders into Iraq in order to undermine both Iran and us).
7. To understand the Iraq war, it is useful to avoid lumping everyone together as "Muslim terrorists". For example, the majority Shiites feel they should be in control. Fundamentalist Sunnis like Al Qaeda believe Shiites should be killed outright as infidels. The Baathists -- a secular Sunni minority used to ruling Iraq with an iron fist – hate the Shiites and Al Qaeda both. Al Qaeda is despised by many as an invading force. While there are a number of groups on our side (especially those who would like to see democracy reign and no one minority dominate), there are others who don't want to see foreigners running their land for any length of time or reason.
8. While being aware of these divisions can help our position, we should avoid (as some have advocated) pushing Iraq towards becoming another Somalia. We only need look at Somalia to understand why. Somalia – which has had no government since peacekeeping efforts failed in 1992-95 – is both a humanitarian disaster and a breeding ground for terrorists. In fact, Al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen and Kenya have received support and training from Somali warlords. Afghanistan is yet another example of why anomie doesn't work.
9. While Major-General Chong believes (as a soldier proper) that it is dangerous to criticize government in wartime, this administration's refusal to listen to criticism has led to one disaster after another:
• All of our top generals -- except one -- warned against invading with insufficient troop levels but they were not heeded. Had we sent enough troops in the beginning to secure territory and weapons stockpiles, there would be no insurgency today.
• The administration was also warned by top Middle East scholars and government advisers about the likelihood of civil war. Those who spoke out were sidelined or demoted.
• No matter what one feels about the ethics of torture, Abu Ghraib gave Al Qaeda fodder to recruit more terrorists – because they used it as evidence of our hatred of Muslims. And when 25% of the world is Muslim, we need to conduct a war as much in the media as we do on the ground.
(Note that while the grunts were punished, the actual CIA interrogators and government officials who orchestrated the torture policy remain untouched and the policy remains unchanged. read more)
• Our reconstruction effort under Paul Bremer put the oil fields before food transport, rebuilding hospitals, water and power lines, etc. This gave the Iraqis the impression that we were there to steal their oil, not help them rebuild as a society.
• This idea was further borne by the fact that the Iraqi engineers who had built the original dams, refineries and other infrastructure were not hired or even consulted, leading to costly error and the perception that we were arrogant colonizers. This was the wrong message to send to the Iraqi people.
(BTW $2.7 billion awarded to Halliburton for reconstruction has never been accounted for nor will it ever, as Halliburton's main office has relocated to Dubai to avoid paying taxes on war profits or testifying before congress.)
• While millions of U.S. dollars went to private security contractors (aka "mercenaries"), many U.S. soldiers did without sufficient armor. This led to unnecessary soldier deaths and more media fiascos (when the contractors decided gunning down civilians was sport). The point is the U.S. military is the best outfit to conduct our wars and not private outfits.
• Bremer also unilaterally decided to dismantle the Iraqi Baathist army, members of which were angered into carrying out the market-place bombings. We have only recently begun to admit Baathists back into the fold and thus defuse them as an enemy.
• In wartime, Governments often recruit enemy prisoners to their side, to act as spies. The harsh conditions and torture of detainees at Guantanamo, however, have turned even the innocent against us. The fact is we need better intelligence to beat Al Qaeda – especially as they are an amorphous network with no national territorial boundaries -- and we need spies to infiltrate them.
• Not only have we failed to recruit enough spies, at the start of the war we cut federal funds to train Arabic linguists in our universities – making it kind of hard to monitor our enemies' communications. In addition, few administrators in charge of reconstruction in Iraq today speak Arabic.
(Ironically, it seems our soldiers – trained to fight, not to rebuild – are nevertheless doing the best job of working with communities on reconstruction. And we're not even giving them decent jobs when they return.)
10. The point of all the above is that the military branch of the Pentagon – and not the administration – should be dictating warfare strategy and battle plans, as well as directing military operations. The last time something like this happened was the Vietnam War, when Robert McNamara and later Henry Kissinger started meddling with the same .. with disastrous results.
11. I agree the harm done by this war (or rather these wars) to us is irreparable. I also agree that our being frightened out of Beirut and Somalia gave Al Qaeda the courage to attack us and escalate their violence.
So how do we win this one? The Iraq war has sadly shown us to be much weaker than the world believed when we entered. Because we are now stretched too thin, we are losing war on not one front but two. And we look powerless to contain any other flash fires (like Pakistan or North Korea), which emboldens our enemies. So our continuing to stay in the Iraq war keeps us in a very exposed position – but withdrawing too soon may bring more calamity.
12. I personally think we need to negotiate an end to this war – not as losers but as those in a position to force everyone to the table. This will require us to negotiate with our enemies, including Iran and Syria. It is important however to keep the balance of power equal in the Middle East, or we risk a greater world war. But we will need to be more clever than we have been to date.
13. Then we need to re-focus on the real enemy – which was never Iraq and has always been Al Qaeda. The greatest threat to us is if Al Qaeda's supporters in Pakistan (a small but dangerous minority) manage to topple the government and get hold of a nuclear bomb. Unfortunately, much that we have done to date has made Al Qaeda stronger, not weaker – including entering Iraq.
Further, we have to be careful how we tread in Afghanistan as, in its entire history, it has never been successfully occupied and any perception of occupation will not be well taken. In other words, time is of the essence. We also need Afghanistan to be stable so Al Qaeda's foothold there is permanently loosened – meaning we need in the short term to commit more troops and, in the long term, reconstruction funds and expertise.
14. Lastly, our belief in the rights of the individual, the rule of law and the checks and balances of government are what distinguish us from our enemies. I was in downtown NYC during the attacks of 9/11 and, while for months after I had nightmares, at no point did I feel it worthwhile to abandon the ideals that distinguish us as a nation. "Give me liberty or give me death" was after all a rallying cry of the American Revolution. I sometimes wonder where is our backbone?
15. On a positive note, an important Al Qaeda leader imprisoned in Egypt recently spoke out against the use of terrorism and suicide. Maybe Al Qaeda will in the end implode from within. We should do everything we can to actively encourage as much.
Labels: afghanistan, al qaeda, iraq, terrorism, war strategy
posted by Ella Fantry at 9:10 AM
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