{"id":87,"date":"2002-07-03T01:47:00","date_gmt":"2002-07-03T06:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=87"},"modified":"2008-06-29T12:52:06","modified_gmt":"2008-06-29T17:52:06","slug":"winning-the-war-against-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"Winning the War Against Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(Final essay of the series.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In previous essays in this series, I have <a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?m=200206#48\">described<br \/>\nIslam<\/a> as a warlike and bloody religion subject to periodic fits of<br \/>\nviolent fundamentalist revival.  I have analyzed the roots of Islamic<br \/>\nterror in the Koranic duty of jihad, and elucidated Osama bin Laden&#8217;s<br \/>\ngoal as nothing less than the destruction of the West and the <a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?m=200206#6\">establishment<br \/>\nof a global<\/a> Islamic theocracy.  I have analyzed the reason<br \/>\nAmericans have trouble <a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?m=200206#51\">comprehending<br \/>\nthe scope of the threat<\/a>, and I have explained why Western-style<br \/>\ndiplomacy is <a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?m=200206#22\">next<br \/>\nto useless<\/a> in this situation.  In this final essay I&#8217;ll suggest<br \/>\npaths towards a solution.<\/p>\n<p>In order to win, we must begin with realism about the scope of the<br \/>\nwar and the objectives of the enemy.  We must realize that although in<br \/>\ntheory and theology al-Qaeda is making war on the entire infidel West,<br \/>\nin practice they are only interested in attacking the U.S., the<br \/>\n`hyperpower&#8217; that leads it.<\/p>\n<p>There is no possible gain for al-Qaeda in attacking Europe and<br \/>\nrisking a change in the pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian tilt of the EU<br \/>\n(which has just resumed support payments to the Palestinian Authority<br \/>\ndespite conclusive evidence that the money is diverted to pay for<br \/>\nmassacres of Israeli children).  Nor can al-Qaeda gain any leverage by<br \/>\nattacks on the remainder of the world.  The theaters of the war will<br \/>\ninclude the U.S. and terrorist base areas in the Islamic arc<br \/>\nstretching from Morocco through the Maghreb through the Middle East to<br \/>\nPakistan, and perhaps in Indonesia and the Phillipines as well.<\/p>\n<p>To people who view the entire world through the lens of the Western<br \/>\ntradition, the strategy I will outline is doubtless going to sound<br \/>\nbellicose and regressive.  It is not; it is founded on a cold-blooded<br \/>\nrealization that Arab cultures (and the Arabized cultures of the rest<br \/>\nof the Islamic world) regard victory in war as a sign of Allah&#8217;s favor<br \/>\nand regard compromise and concession as a sign of weakness.<\/p>\n<p>The war against Islamic terror must be fought on three levels:<br \/>\nhomeland defense, military power projection, and cultural subversion.<br \/>\nWe must foil terrorist acts; we must imprison or kill the terrorists<br \/>\nwho plan and execute them; and we must dry up the pool of potential<br \/>\nrecruits before they become terrorists who can only be stopped by<br \/>\nbeing imprisoned or killed.<\/p>\n<p>Homeland defense includes all those measures designed to make the<br \/>\nattacks on U.S. civilians less likely to succeed.  These will include<br \/>\nconventional police and security measures.  It must also include a<br \/>\nrevival of the role of the unincorporated militia and the armed<br \/>\ncitizen.  Al-Qaeda has limited resources, but the advantage of<br \/>\nchoosing where they will strike; since the police and military cannot<br \/>\nbe everywhere, civilians (like the passengers of flight 93) must take<br \/>\nanti-terrorist defense into their own hands.<\/p>\n<p>Military power projection includes direct military action against<br \/>\nterrorist bases and havens.  As an anarchist, I would prefer a world<br \/>\nin which private security agencies under contract to insurance<br \/>\ncompanies pursued al-Qaeda; persons of some other political persuasions<br \/>\nmight propose supranational agencies such as the U.N.  Unfortunately,<br \/>\nunder the current world system there is no alternative to governments<br \/>\nto do this work.  The U.S. has begun it in Afghanistan; the war must<br \/>\ncontinue in Iraq, and it is likely to encompass Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi<br \/>\nArabia as well.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of military power projection must be twofold: physical and<br \/>\npsychological.  The physical goal must be to destroy the physical<br \/>\ninfrastructure of terrorism &#8212; the headquarters, bases and training<br \/>\ncamps.  While this is important, the psychological goal of humiliating<br \/>\nand crushing jihadists is even more important.<\/p>\n<p>Islamic armies and resistance movements are fanatical in attack but<br \/>\nbrittle on the defense.  When motivated by the conviction that Allah<br \/>\nguides their arm, suicidal bravery is routine.<br \/>\nOn the other hand, when the fortunes of a cause decline past a<br \/>\ncertain point, Arabs tend to consider the will of Allah to be manifest<br \/>\nand abruptly abandon it. These tendencies form part of the cultural<br \/>\nbackground that includes even secularized terrorist movements<br \/>\n(such as Yasser Arafat&#8217;s al-Fatah) in the Islamic world.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. was able to exploit this brittleness effectively in<br \/>\nAfghanistan.  By moving in overwhelming force when it moved at all,<br \/>\nthe U.S. was able to intimidate many warlords affiliated with the<br \/>\nTaliban into switching sides &#8212; an important reason the campaign<br \/>\ninvolved so little actual fighting.<\/p>\n<p>We must repeat this maneuver on a larger scale.  We must teach the<br \/>\nDar-al-Islam to respect and <em>fear<\/em> the power of the West.  We<br \/>\nmust not negotiate or offer concessions until it is clear from the<br \/>\nbehavior of governments, the umma, and the &#8220;Arab street&#8221; that the<br \/>\npublic will to support jihad has been broken.<\/p>\n<p>Our most important long-term weapon against Islamic terrorism,<br \/>\nhowever, will be cultural subversion.  That is, to break the hold of<br \/>\nthe Islamist\/jihadist idea on the minds of Muslims.  To do this, it<br \/>\nmay be necessary to discredit the entirety of Islam; the question<br \/>\ndepends on whether any Islamic figure will be clever enough to<br \/>\nconstruct an interpretation of Islam purged of jihadist tendencies,<br \/>\nand whether that version can propagate and displace the<br \/>\nSunni-fundamentalist varieties now dominant in the Islamic world.<\/p>\n<p>I can do no better than to quote Michelle Efird, the woman who<br \/>\ninspired my essay<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?m=200206#5\">We Are All Jews Now<\/a>.  In private mail afterwards<br \/>\n(quoted with permission) she wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nI don&#8217;t want to appease them, I don&#8217;t want to understand them, I<br \/>\ndon&#8217;t want to let them reap the benefits of our liberalism while<br \/>\nplotting our destruction. Like most Americans, I would have been more<br \/>\nthan happy to let them pretend the last 400 years of progress never<br \/>\nhappened, as long as they didn&#8217;t force their warped-vision goggles on<br \/>\nanyone else. But since they brought the war to us, let&#8217;s pave the<br \/>\nmiddle east with outlet malls, fast food franchises, and Disney<br \/>\nMecca. Let&#8217;s infect their entire population with personal liberty and<br \/>\ndissension and critical thinking. And if that doesn&#8217;t work, let&#8217;s<br \/>\nflood them with porn spam.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Osama bin Laden may, in the end, have materialized his own worst<br \/>\nfears.  The ideology of jihad has created its mirror and opposite; the<br \/>\ndawning sense that we in the West have the right, the power, and the<br \/>\n<em>duty<\/em> to wipe bin Laden&#8217;s brand of religion from the face of<br \/>\nthe earth before it destroys us all.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE: N.Z. Bear has written an<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthlaidbear.com\/001188.html#001188\"><br \/>\nexcellent essay<\/a> on memes and cultural subversion.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/enetation.co.uk\/comments.php?user=esr&amp;commentid=78500864\">Blogspot comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Final essay of the series.) In previous essays in this series, I have described Islam as a warlike and bloody religion subject to periodic fits of violent fundamentalist revival. I have analyzed the roots of Islamic terror in the Koranic duty of jihad, and elucidated Osama bin Laden&#8217;s goal as nothing less than the destruction&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=87\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Winning the War Against Terror<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terror","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}