According to this month?s Rasmussen Poll, 41 percent of Americansthink we?re winning the war on terrorism. Thirty-one percent think terrorists are winning, while 28 percent think it?s a draw or are undecided.
These are troubling figures. Do they signal a failing counter-terrorist strategy? Or do they reflect a misunderstanding about the nature of this war?
I think our unhappiness reflects a naive view of our enemy and about what military action can achieve.
Our enemies in this war are not just bloodthirsty, evil people, but irrational ones.
We?ve never faced an enemy like this. In most conflicts, opponents surrender when the cost of further hostilities exceeds any possible benefit. So it has been with fascists in hot wars and communists in cold ones. Not many people like to die; fewer like to die for a hopeless cause.
But this enemy is different. They are driven by unearthly and primitive goals that drive them to kill themselves and murder innocent people, regardless of the odds. As they?ve said repeatedly, “you love life, we love death.”
As a result, this war?s objectives are uniquely modest. Tragically, we can?t completely stop them. But we can contain their barbarism and minimize its costs.
Containment does not mean appeasement. The Sept. 11 attacks revealed the folly of ignoring terrorist-friendly rulers like Afghanistan?s Taliban.
Terrorists may be “stateless,” but when they enjoy the explicit or tacit support of a state, their threat to us grows exponentially. With state support, they can train and accumulate the skills and weapons needed to commit not just isolated but mass murder.
This is why we toppled both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.
We knew with certainty that the former supported our enemies. We suspected the latter would do so ? and judged his potential to produce chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons comprised a threat beyond accepting.
Our victories against both despotic regimes are well worth celebrating and have brought us greater safety from large-scale terrorist acts. In the days before Sept. 11, terrorist masters could use these states to exploit their resources and technology. Now they can?t. Nowhere in these lands can they develop weapons of mass destruction, and few places exist where they can train or even hide for very long ? thanks to the brave men and women on the front lines of this war. Though many have made the ultimate sacrifice, not one has “died in vain,” as some claim.
It would be nice to report, of course, that in accomplishing this mission we pacified our enemies and that they immediately embraced the opportunity to build free, prosperous and safe societies.
But the fact that an irrational enemy continues to be irrational should neither surprise nor discourage us.
What we have achieved is not the best we could have hoped for, but it is the most of which we are militarily capable.
An enemy that, left alone, would be building “dirty bombs” or weaponizing toxins in government labs is, instead, on the run, reduced to sniping or improvising roadside bombs. That?s not losing, that?s progress.
Ultimately, of course, this enemy will not be pacified by military means, by appeasement, or by our appeals to reason. If they will be pacified at all, it must be done by the “moderate Muslims” we keep hearing about but rarely hear from.
The irrational extremists have not only hijacked these moderates? religion, but daily bring death and terror to them, as well.
Eventually, these moderate Muslims must awake and become allies instead of bystanders in this tragic war.
Steve Walters is a Professor of Economics at Loyola College in Maryland. Contact him at [email protected].
