The Interests -- Securing the Homeland

Update on Previous Entry. Since writing the previous entry on my economic perspective, three financial firms have been in the news: Lehman Bros. is filing for Chapter 11, Merryl Lynch has been acquired by Bank of America, and AIG has been given an $85 billion loan from the Federal Government -- this was done at what analysts have determined to be an 11% interest rate along with the Federal Government now owning stock in the company. Personally, I don't see how this can be done without legislation generating from the House of Representatives. And since when do we have any government ownership of a private corporation? So, this is how the Red Revolution comes -- not in the streets, but in the boardrooms.

The ultimate irony here was that I became aware of this story listening to NPR while driving home from hearing Tom Friedman speak at Heinz Hall. He was talking about a friend of his who thought government mandates pertaining to energy conservation was the best way to conserve. His response was: "So you want to be China for a day?" Unbeknownst to us, that's exactly what Hank and Benny were up to at the exact moment those words were uttered. I want to have Mr. Friedman's crystal ball for a day.

Homeland Security. How are we best able to secure the homeland? Curiously, this isn't really a new topic. It just used to be called National Defense. What has changed is not the issue, but the antagonist. We do face a new enemy, but I have always found it odd that we insist on fighting this new enemy as if it was an old one. There seems to be an admission that this is a new threat to be combatted in new ways, yet the current administration and John McCain insist that the way to defeating our new enemy and preventing their attacks is by having a strong military. This is wrong on so many levels.

First, let me say that I am not a passivist. Not since Adolf Hitler has the world faced a more severe threat than Islamic Extremism. That is not to say, however, that Usama bin Laden (UBL) poses a threat identical to that of Nazism. While the two appear comparable in severity, they are most incomparable as far as tactics, and even further apart when considering strategy (without argument Islamic Extremism is a far more capable adversary).

Similarities:

1. Both strive/have striven for the complete annihilation of "the other". For Islamic Extremists, "the other" is Western Civilization. For Nazis, "the other" was anyone not of the Aryan race.
2. Both have/had extraordinarily effective propaganda campaigns rooted in vengeance for prior humiliations. For Islamic Extremists, the humiliation stems from Western support for Israel, our propping up of regional dictatorships such as the Shah of Iran, Hosni Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, and the Saudi Royal Family, as well as our military presence in the region. For the Nazis, it was the brutal and excessive punishment visited upon Germany (by Great Britain, France, and the US) in the wake of the First World War.
3. Both have/had direct access to the tools they need(ed) to bring about the realization of their vision. For the Nazis, it was the ability to mass produce conventional armaments. For Islamic Extremists, it is the emergence of the global civilization with world travel and world communication becoming more available than ever before (this characteristic, in turn, has contributed to a more efficient global black market that not only provides weapons but funding as well).

Differences:

1. State-based Organizational Structure vs. Corporate Organizational Structure. Germany built its Axis among countries and formed an overt conventional threat. Islamic Extremists build their structure based on a communication network among individuals and benefit from their anonymity.
2. Isolated Propoganda Campaign vs. Multilateral Propoganda Campaign. The scope of Hitler's rhetoric was isolated among a specific group of people -- those of Aryan descent. Consequently, it was inherently confrontational to anyone not included in that group. While UBL's rhetoric is also aimed at a specific group of people -- Muslims, it also possesses something Hitler's did not -- invitation. In nearly every one of UBL's addresses, he asks Westerners to convert to Islam and makes the case for everyone to rise up against the West.
3. Reckless Fortitude vs. Patient Measuring. Hitler had done many things throughout the course of his chancellorship to telegraph the Second World War. His flaw however, was in his determination to conquer Russia at any cost (even the cost of victory itself, ironically) and his constant waffling over whether to grab the oil in Baku or sack Moscow. Hitler eventually became a victim of his own obsession. I don't know if that can yet be said about UBL. In the current framework, the Islamic Extremists don't need to do much more than just stand by as we kill countless civilians in their pursuit.

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, I was struck by how much media coverage was devoted explicitly to the body counts, destruction, and devastation. It shaped the event in the public's mind simply in the context of an act of war that demanded retribution. While that's true, it's perhaps the smallest truth of what occurred that day. The real story was in asking the following question: What, through this act, was UBL trying to achieve? This question was not only ignored, but ridiculed.

When Mayor Guiliani spoke to the UN on October 1, 2001 he said: "Let those who say that we must understand the reasons for terrorism come with me to the thousands of funerals we are having in New York City..." In essence, let's defeat this enemy while at the same time remaining willfully ignorant of them. Never in the whole course of human history has a war ever been won on the basis of ignorance and lack of understanding. This mentality was precisely what UBL was hoping would prevail because it statistically would render our victory less likely.

The primary strategic goal of these attacks was to provoke a US invasion of Afghanistan (read Michael Scheuer's Imperial Hubris). Something we waited nearly a month to do. The idea from their perspective was to draw us into a conflict similar to the one which defeated the Soviet Union, so that they could sow outrage among the Arab community and future generations of Muslims. As of right now, we have been there for nearly seven years and the enemy is regrouping and waging far more formidable attacks against our troops and the US-backed Karzai administration. We have now only been there just half as long as the Soviets (who, incidentally, not only shared a border, but could afford to be far more ruthless than the US) and yet we insist on muddling through -- the opportunity cost for a horendously executed invasion of Iraq.

So, what is missing from our efforts? Let me start by first identifying what's present: We have a prolonged overt military presence in the Middle East, a surveillance program (allbeit a controversial one), and probably some covert or clandestine activities which are not available for public scrutiny. I want to make clear that, generally, I don't have any problems with the aforementioned approaches. I do find it believable that our military presence in the Middle East probably has pre-occupied Islamic Extremists from pulling off successful attacks in the US, though it does not seemed to have helped Europe. I also believe that some kind of surveillance program is warranted, though not without judicial (or, at least FISA) oversight -- when we ignore the Constitution, we divide ourselves to the point of dangerous vulnerability. And, finally, covert or clandestine action/infiltration is the most efficient way to defeat this enemy -- I hope we do a great deal of this, but I doubt we are doing so effectively considering the blatant lack of funding.

What's missing are our propoganda efforts, our educational efforts, and our diplomatic efforts. I'll take the last two first, but really they are all intimately connected. Read Jennifer Bremer's article from October 16, 2005 in the Washington Post and you'd be amazed to learn just how few of our Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) are proficient enough in Arabic to address large groups of people. As of right now, FSOs being dispatched to the Middle East get only a two-week course in language training -- not much has changed in 3 years. Without sufficient foreign language education, there is no hope for effective diplomacy in the region. How can we forge collaborative relationships when hardly anyone can speak the language?

Of course, there are many English-speaking Arabs -- yet, we don't even forge those relationships. One of the greatest missed opportunities over the past 5 years was in Iraq, and was the major reason why I initially supported the invasion. We had the opportunity to correct something we should have been corrected a generation ago, our support for the most ruthless dictator since Pol Pot (read Peter W. Galbraith's End of Iraq). We could have approached Iraq in such a way that would have made it impossible for anyone to deny its importance and necessity -- we needed penitent diplomacy. If we had approached Iraq with an open book saying: "Yes, we helped this madman because we were too focused on the Ayatollah. We unwittingly helped him slaughter innocent Shias, we unwittingly helped him slaughter innocent Kurds, we unwittingly helped him establish himself as the scourge of all things good and holy and we are heartily sorry for having offended thee." If that had been the talking point in the lead up to Iraq, not that we would have changed bin Laden but we would have rendered him rhetorically impotent.

Finally, where's our propoganda? So many talk about this being a "different kind of war" almost to the point where it becomes a cliche. That's unfortunate, because it's probably the greatest truth that's ever been spoken of it. It is a different kind of war...it's almost characteristic of a vendetta -- something that goes on and on for generations with no end in sight. To ignore the trans-generational aspect of this endeavor, is to ignore the most obvious path to victory and this is where we need to temper our military involvement. How do you convince a 15 year-old kid not to succumb to Islamic Extremism after a family member becomes collateral damage in an Israeli, US, or British air-strike? What happens when that 15 year-old kid has children of his own? What stories will he tell them? Will he tell him about the time a US Marine gave him a candy bar, or when his life was turned upside down by a B-2 bomber?

That, my fellow citizens, is the true threat. Do we need military prowess to fight terrorists? Sure, those lost souls who have already started down that path are beyond reform and unfortunately violence is our only option for dealing with them. However, we need get to those who have not yet strayed -- that's where the audience is. Without attacking the root of terrorism, it will never be defeated.