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The Green Guide

In an Unwinnable War, We Will Lose Most

David Corn, AlterNet <www.alternet.org>
September 21, 2001

We cannot win a war on terrorism.

That is not defeatism. Terrorism is a methodology, and a methodology cannot
be vanquished. Specific terrorists can be targeted and perhaps destroyed.
But it is a mistake to declare a set of means the enemy.

By doing so, President Bush and his comrades have given us a war with no
natural finale, with no obvious terms of victory. In his better-than-ever
speech to Congress, Bush did attempt to establish a potential conclusion by
saying this war "will not end until every terrorist group of global reach
has been found, stopped and defeated.'" But that is an objective difficult
to accomplish and tough to certify.

Moreover, the threat of terrorism cannot be conquered. For as long as the
war continues -- and beyond that -- the United States will be vulnerable to
terrorism; no military action is going to alter that reality.

The Bush team does seem to recognize this sad point, without explicitly
addressing it. During a press conference nine days after the September 11
attack, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked what would entail
success in this new war. "Victory," he said, "is persuading the American
people ... this is not a quick matter that will be over in weeks, a year, or
even five years." What an odd remark. Rumsfeld was defining victory as the
populace accepting the notions the threat will be present for years to come
and America will have to remain on a neo-war-footing for a long while.

If this war does stretch on for years -- remember, the war on drugs has been
under way for three decades -- the United States will remain at a
disadvantage in many regards. Anyone who has been watching the military
strategists and politicians on television in the last week must by now be
familiar with the wonkspeak term "asymmetric warfare" -- which means a
conflict between opposing parties of vastly different military strengths.
This asymmetry applies to areas other than military force -- particularly
vulnerabilities. Americans have more to lose in this war than its enemies --
sophisticated infrastructures, the benefits of higher standards of living,
good plumbing. And the United States offers far more targets. Look at one of
the early dilemmas of this war for U.S. military planners. They quickly
considered bombing Afghanistan but encountered a problem: what's worth
bombing there? A few terrorists can do far more damage within the United
States than a company of Special Forces troops can do in Osama bin Laden's
neighborhood. (How will Bush and his advisors even prove they are waging
this war, if it evolves into a series of episodic covert operations? Will he
occasionally release a statement saying, "Last week a five-person terrorist
cell was neutralized, but we cannot tell you anything else about that, and,
by the way, the Empire State Building is still standing"?)

There is no way to secure America from terrorism. In the past two years,
several blue-ribbon commissions -- including one headed by Virginia Governor
James Gilmore, the other by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman --
have issued reports on the threat of terrorism. Post-September 11, they
illustrate the limits of counterterrorism. These commissions warned
terrorism posed a clear and present danger. "Attacks against American
citizens on American soil, possibly causing heavy casualties, are likely
over the next quarter century," the Hart-Rudman panel asserted. And the day
after the attacks of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Hart said, "We
predicted it."

Yet these commissions -- which put out reports chockfull of proposals for
reorganizing the federal bureaucracy and creating new offices to manage
counterterrorism -- said nothing about airport and airliner security. The
most prominent counterterrorist experts in the nation toiled on these
reports, and they didn't get close to guessing what was coming. At a press
conference on September 17, Gilmore noted his panel "didn't have a specific
discussion about airport [security], I believe, because there's no point in
discussing one particular attack, when any million of them might occur."

Any million? How do you defend against a million possibilities? Indeed, the
second report of the Gilmore commission refers to various nightmare
scenarios beyond Hollywood's favorite -- terrorists with a nuclear device.
It highlights "agricultural terrorism" as one form of dirty warfare
deserving more attention, noting it would be a breeze for terrorists to use
"pathogenic agents" to destroy livestock and crops. The study also reports
there are 1500 germ banks throughout the world, where terrorists could
purchase dangerous biological agents. It describes how terrorists could
easily steal a piece of medical equipment, remove radioactive material from
the machine, and use a conventional bomb to spread that radiological matter
in a populated area.

Think of all the targets awaiting terrorists. Water supplies. Many major
cities receive their water through pipes that traverse hundreds of miles.
Every inch cannot be protected. Chemical factories, nuclear plants. How
difficult would it be to crash a Cessna into one and unleash a Bhopal or
Chernobyl? Or set off a McVeigh-like bomb near a facility that handles
hazardous substances. One terrorism expert raises the prospect of celebrity
assassinations on live television. A Pentagon consultant notes that a war
game he participated in came to a sudden finish when the "terrorists" (of
which he was one) found a way of planting dangerous bacteria in the oil
supply of western nations; the West caved. A dozen or so car bombs probably
could cut off all access to Manhattan. A suicidal extremist could drive a
car packed with explosives on to the Golden Gate bridge. The Hoover Dam.
Attacks on food supplies. Are their any limits to their diabolism?
Explosions at churches, synagogues, hospitals or universities. Car bombs at
elementary schools. A suicide bomber in decent shape could easily bolt past
the guards at the Capitol. A free nation the size of the United States
cannot control immigration to prevent the entry of the small number of
people needed to engineer dastardly (and low-tech) operations.

In this war on terrorism, the violence is not likely to flow in only one
direction. That is not to say bold and severe steps should not be taken
against the mass-murderers who orchestrated and executed the September 11
attack. The United States should move against them. But the profound
vulnerabilities of the United States ought to be weighed heavily when
options are considered, and responses ought to be designed to minimize the
prospects these vulnerabilities will be further exploited.

So, many readers ask, what is to be done? It is fine to understand the
historical, cultural, and geopolitical contexts of the event, they note. But
what about action? I refer them to a proposal of Michael Klare, a professor
of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College. In an article for
Salon.com, he suggested that the United States indict Osama bin Laden and
his associates as mass murderers and organize a multilateral campaign that
pursues their capture as a criminal manner -- not a war. Additionally, Klare
would have the United States mount an effort to encourage influential Muslim
clerics to condemn bin Laden as an enemy of true Islam.

"To win over peace-minded Muslims to our side in this struggle," Klare
writes, "we will, of course have to show greater sympathy for their
concerns." That is, recognize context and revisit U.S. policy in the Middle
East -- not to appease bin Laden (who cannot be appeased) but to construct a
coalition that can help us achieve justice without a war that could create
new set of problems, such as civilian casualties, destability in important
nations, and greater antipathy toward the United States. Klare's strategy
might even be less likely to stir further terrorism than a heavy-handed
military-oriented approach.

Would a touchy-feely endeavor succeed? We will never know. The war on
terrorism has already been declared. To those who seek alternatives to
(rather than critiques of) the current plan, it is too late. For the time
being, we are stuck with Bush's metaphor of war, and perhaps a war itself.

It is no surprise that Bush in his speech to Congress -- in which he finally
managed to display stature -- dodged contexts and urged us to look forward.
But as we step into this war, we should continue to contemplate what brought
us to this dangerous point.

Let's start by asking this loaded question: was inconveniencing the Soviet
Union in the 1980s by having the CIA support the anti-Soviet Afghan
resistance worth the lives of 5000 or so American civilians in 2001? It was
in the breeding ground of the mujahadeen -- where the United States trained
and supplied a resistance force that included anti-democratic,
fundametalist, misogynist extremists and drug traffickers -- that bin Laden
and his lieutenants received their starts in the take-on-a-superpower line
of work. Bin Laden was one of the prime recruiters for the CIA-backed
mujahadeen. In his work for that band, he developed an international
network.

With this in mind, a friend who works in the Pentagon -- on the other side
of the building from where the airliner hit -- sent me the following note.

"The night of the attacks I saw Bud McFarland [who was a national security
adviser to President Reagan] being interviewed. I wanted to reach through
the TV and choke the living shit out of that bastard, after his Afghan
mujahadeen buddies tried to blow up my ass that day. Whatever weenie was
interviewing him asked for his expert views on international terrorism, but
never had the balls to ask what his evaluation was now of the 1980s policy
of supporting those psychos in order to stick it to the Soviets. I knew that
idiocy would produce a blowback, but I never dreamed it would be this
monstrous."

He is right to view the policy decision to assist the mujahadeen so
personally. Perhaps without the CIA intervention in Afghanistan, bin Laden
would still have developed into a dangerous threat? But did McFarland and
his colleagues consider the consequences that could arise from arming and
emboldening anti-democratic, fundamentalist thugs in a far-away land? There
is no indication they did.

Their failure to do so should serve as a caution to the policymakers of
today: bombs can continue to reverbate long after they have exploded;
special operations set off ripples that emanate for years. Such reflection,
though, is unlikely when Americans are dead and war is at hand.

In his speech before Congress, Bush noted that "it is my hope that in the
months and years ahead life will return almost to normal," and he insisted
we have not entered an "age of terror." He was trying to be reassuring. But
this was not straight talk. It is hard to envision a years-long war on
terrorism that will not produce times of tremendous terror.