Thinking about The War on Terror
Well... it's 9/11 again, and had it not been for a co-worker of mine, I'd have probably missed the significance of the date this year. Maybe not, but it was late in the morning and I hadn't noticed the date yet. And this year it got me thinking about the War on Terror. I really can't stand that phrase.
First, I think it's a bit of a stretch to use the word War in the sense of ...a sustained conflict - like the War on Drugs or the War on Terror. Really... are we fighting drugs or the drug users/makers/dealers/distributors? Are we fighting terror or a limited group of selected terrorists? Call it the War on bin Laden if that's what you want to say - but that's not what the administration wants to say. They want to have a reason for their continued existence... their continued hold on power. Make the people afraid and they'll seek refuge in the security of a man with a gun.
I'll be the first to admit that World War II required our involvement. There were very bad people doing very bad things and the only way they'd stop is by armed conflict. They struck first in Perl Harbor... their choice. But that was a country, or group of countries, and we're being asked to believe that the same is true when you're dealing with a group (no matter how large) of free citizens in multiple countries. It's as if we are to believe that a group, no matter how bad their actions, requires military action to stop what they are doing.
What would you say if the Army rolled tanks in Alabama in the 1960s to stop the Klan? Overkill? I'd agree. They did some very bad things to innocent people, but that didn't automatically trigger an armed military response. We have laws, and lawmen (police) should be (and were) put in the places of lawlessness and finally got order restored. Was it perfect? Nope. Would some have liked the military called in? No doubt.
But it wasn't, and I believe that's a good thing.
Was the military the right governmental unit to bring the people responsible for 9/11 to justice? Maybe. It's hard to say with international boundaries involved. But it's arguable that another group - say the State Department, working with other countries could have been used to bring the people involved to justice. And even if we chose to use the military to bring these people to pay for their crimes, what crimes did we commit in tracking them down?
The ends justifies the means is a very dangerous rationalization. It can get you into a lot of trouble really fast if you're not careful. Pretty soon you might find yourself on the wrong end of the justification and then you're very unhappy about the means being used against you.
And let's say the search for the 9/11 conspirators was conducted by the military. I still don't see how invading Iraq and having Suddam hung is anything more than bloodlust and retribution. If there's some solid evidence that this guy did things that would warrant us going after him, then bring them out in the open and don't call it The War on Terror - it should be a task of bringing a law-breaker to justice. But I don't think anyone involved sees it that way.
There were no weapons of mass destruction. And that was the justification used. Even if there were, Israel has them - are we going to invade them? No. They are our friends. Interestingly, so was Saddam not so long ago. Maybe Israel needs to be concerned? No, of course not. But you can't very well say an old ally becomes a horrible person and so we must invade. It shouldn't work that way. We're better than that. Isn't that what we all try to teach our kids?
If there were solid justifications for the war in Iraq, then let them be known. If it's so secret that telling would compromise national security, then maybe they should have come up with unclassified reasons - or at least unclassify enough to make the case. We require as much from our police and public defenders.
I know these views are not widely held. I'm labeled as not supporting the troops which is totally untrue. I support every single person that puts their life in danger for me and mine. Police, firefighters, the military, coast guard, etc. The question isn't support of them... it's support of what they're being asked to do by our government.
Soon enough this will all just be a historical footprint. Something we talk about like people talked about World War II. But for now, I sure do wish if we as a nation wanted to do something, we stopped using the phrase The War on Terror and started saying what it really was. Whatever that really is.