U.S. Wages War on a Concept

by Robert Sprackland for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

August 11, 2006

On Sept. 11, 2001, religious fanatics hijacked four commercial jets and crashed them in the most egregious acts of war against the United States' mainland since the British burned Washington, D.C., in 1814. No perpetrator was an Iraqi, but the White House had decided Iraq was a locus of anti-American terrorism. While journalists dutifully presented each administration justification against Saddam Hussein, the lynchpin of condemnation became the effervescent weapons of mass destruction.

The administration has drawn lines between nations that are "with us, or with the terrorists." An Axis of Evil was defined, in which one nation was invaded and cast into a civil war, while two others hastened to develop nuclear weapons capabilities. Afghanistan was occupied, Iran joined the Axis and all hell broke out in the Middle East as Israel slammed at Hezbollah. And still there are claims that all is still hopeful on the roadmap to peace. How can there be any progress in a war in which there are no contiguous elements? The U.S. is not waging war against Iraq, or Baathists, or even Muslims. It is not fighting a place or entity but a concept -- "terrorism." What enemy can be more of a phantom, impossible to kill or contain, than an idea? That is why dictators so enjoy a good book burning -- books contain ideas.

The government, when queried about when troops will come home and the war will end, repetitively answers "we will stay the course until we defeat terrorists." Yet the methods employed to attack terrorists provides precisely the feeding ground to produce their replacements. Worse, the largely artificial lines of nationhood drawn in the sands of the Middle East quickly blow away in the hot winds of fanatical Islam. Terrorists do not wear a national uniform, but come dressed as civilians. Wars against ideas never achieve victory. China may have overthrown its 2,200-year tradition of emperors, but it is still an empire led by a hereditary aristocracy; the United States failed miserably in its wars against drugs, poverty and alcohol, but admitted defeat only when it repealed Prohibition. And although the Third Reich is a memory, Nazism is still among us. Were the goal of World War II to destroy the Nazis, it would still be fought today.

So I ask the president: How will we know when we have defeated terrorism? If it is outlawed by all the Middle Eastern nations, it will still exist, as do slavery and drug dealers. What will it take to recall U.S. troops, admit that this is a foe that armies are not meant to fight, and that the idea of fighting "terrorism" is as poor an idea as any that led to the debacle ongoing in the Middle East? Regarding troops, Tennyson eloquently wrote: "Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do & die." Those of us at home must hold government accountable and demand to know why. It may not be the most important way to support the troops, but after three years of war it certainly seems we should get answers. Question one is "How do you defeat a phantom menace?"