Archive for September, 2014
Miscellaneous Musings: On America, and How We Are Losing the War on Terror
I was in 5th grade when 19 men hijacked four airplanes and crashed three into the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon. A fourth plane was crashed in a field in Pennsylvania instead of in Washington, D.C., when the men and women aboard flight United 93 decided that they weren’t going down without a fight. I remember walking into school that day after having briefly heard something on the news about planes crashing into buildings. I remember walking past my third grade teacher at the door, who remains to this day the only person I personally know whom I actively wish death upon (I’m not kidding or exaggerating about this), and asking her, “Did you hear? Some people crashed a plane into some buildings in New York.” I remember I was wearing a white T-shirt and jean shorts and a blue plaid short-sleeved shirt over my T-shirt. I remember it was sunny.
I remember moments of silence, and hearing the Star Spangled Banner play in foreign countries, and flags at half mast. We’d never been attacked like that. Oh sure, we had the Oklahoma City bombing and the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center, and the odd lone lunatic. But we never imagined something on this scale. Things like that happened in other countries, not here. We never imagined that anyone would be gutsy or stupid enough to punch us in the face like that and piss off the world’s most powerful superpower.
In 2001 we shaped our national narrative – that we were the noble warriors who had been sucker-punched by the evil terrorists, and by God we were going to even that score! We would hunt al-Qaeda in their caves in Afghanistan and make them pay for our orphaned children and the blood they shed on our soil. In 2003 we told ourselves that Saddam Hussein, that evil lunatic who had massacred the Kurds and bloodied Kuwait and was sitting on all the weapons of mass destruction and who murdered his own people, needed to go; after all, he was helping terrorism. In the intervening years, we decided we needed to strike in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia, because, after all, there were terrorists there as well. We decided to supply our police in tiny towns and colossal cities with mine resistant vehicles and surplus body armor and sniper rifles and tear gas, because, after all, we don’t know where the terrorists will strike. We decided that the collateral damage was acceptable when a drone strike in a city or compound or convoy killed some civilians; after all, if they were good people, they wouldn’t be living near terrorists. In 2010, we decided that it was okay to murder US citizens without a trial; after all, if they’re an a terrorist then they’re an enemy of the state. We decided to torture people for information, but that was okay; after all, they were terrorists and they do the same to us and we were saving lives with that information. We decided that it was okay to spy on Middle Easterners and people who looked like Middle Easterners and put them on watch lists, because, after all, even if they weren’t terrorists they might know someone who was. We decided that it was okay to suck up the data of American citizens and tap their communications without warrant or due process because, after all, they have nothing to fear if they’re not doing anything wrong, and the threat of terrorism is worth a few crushed civil liberties.
When did we get so far down this slippery slope, anyway?
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America isn’t doing so hot in the Middle East right now in the “killing the bad guys before they kill other people” department, what with Hamas killing Israelis, Israelis killing Hamas and anyone who happens to be standing close to Hamas, Sunnis killing Shi’ites, Shi’ites killing Sunnis, ISIS killing everyone who disagrees with them and also some people who agree with them but happen to be standing next to people who disagree with them, dogs and cats living together, and generalized mass hysteria. I’m not going to talk about that. Instead, I’m going to make what is probably a fairly controversial statement:
In terms of America “winning” the War on Terror, the outcome of the situation in the Middle East doesn’t matter.
Let me explain that statement. I am NOT saying that the situation in the Middle East isn’t important. I’m not saying it isn’t godawful and horrible and an affront to whatever deity you choose to believe in. I’m not saying that the innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and every other country in the Middle East don’t matter, because they absolutely, certainly do. I am not saying that that situation is or isn’t ultimately completely the fault of imperialism and a bunch of other factors. I am saying that ultimately, victory in the War on Terror will not be achieved by killing all the terrorists or killing all the people that look like terrorists or killing all the people who might one day become terrorists, or by preventing terrorists from killing anyone. I am saying that the victory conditions for the War on Terror do not pass anywhere near the Middle East.
Oxford defines terrorism as “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims”. Merriam-Webster defines it as “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal.” The important thing to note here is that creating violence and fear is NOT the goal of terrorism. That is simply a means to an end. (That isn’t to say that there aren’t people in terrorist organizations who care about anything beyond that. The guys organizing the show, however, very much have an endgame in mind.) The goal of terrorism is to cause political change. So if we define winning a war as “preventing the opposing side from carrying out their intended goal” (ie, preventing the US colonies from breaking away from Britain, preventing Britain from stopping the colonies from breaking away from Britain, etc.), the US is absolutely, 100%, losing the War on Terror.
Terrorists don’t win when they kill people. They don’t win when they walk into a mall and open fire on shoppers. They don’t win when they bomb subways or ships. They don’t win when they strap on a bomb and blow up a marketplace. They don’t win when they cut off a journalist’s head and then splash the video on YouTube. They don’t win when they murder schoolchildren for the crime of getting an education. They don’t win when they fly airplanes into buildings, even if that kills 3,000 people.
Every time the NSA spies on American citizens, terrorists win. Every time we write off innocents killed in a drone strike as “acceptable losses”, terrorists win. Every time a SWAT unit using military surplus equipment kills or maims an innocent American, terrorists win. EVERY. SINGLE. FREAKING. TIME. a politician says “because if we don’t the terrorists will win” or “think of the families of the 9/11 victims” or “DEAR GOD THE TERRORISTS WILL EAT OUR CHILDREN” in justifying taking away your fundamental, specifically established, unalienable rights and acting contrary to basic human decency, THE TERRORISTS. F*CKING. WIN.
When we abandon the bedrock upon which this nation was founded – when we decide that truth and justice are no longer the American way and that freedom is a more palatable currency than blood, the terrorists win.
When we decide that it’s okay to use the tactics that make the bad guys the bad guys, the terrorists win.
If we truly as a nation think that it’s better to sacrifice our freedom for security, than it is time for us to be open and honest about. Let’s sit up and look it straight in the face and admit that we do not value our right to live free from governmental intimidation and the erosion of our Constitution and Bill of Rights more than we value our lives. Let’s stop calling ourselves the land of the free and the home of brave. If we give into intimidation and terror we aren’t brave and we certainly aren’t free.
I’ve read articles and opinions written by people who believe that it’s impossible for us to go back to the way we were – that we can only hope to slow down our now inevitable fall. Maybe that’s true. Maybe there’s too much apathy and hopelessness and lack of faith in our country right now. As one of my favorite authors (Terry Pratchett) wrote, however, “It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
We may not be able to recover from what we’ve done and allowed to be done in our names. But we should not ever stop trying. Because when we admit that defeat, the terrorists win.
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