by Chris England
this "War on Terrorism" has, in some sense, already been won, just well, quite frankly, not by us.
Clearly we live in a nation which is less than politically astute, to say the least, a nation in which the vast majority of people can't seem to conceive of anything besides oversimplified one-dimensional solutions to the extremely complicated political problems we are dealt and in which inane two word slogans seem to carry more weight than well-thought out, logical arguments, but even in this dismal political atmosphere it's hard to find any cliche' quite so overplayed as this "War on Terrorism" gibberish.
I guess there actually are some
people who think that we can treat terrorism as a war of attrition, that
we can just run around killing a bunch of bad brown people -- any somewhat
sinister looking brown people will do really, no need for them to actually
be associated with terrorism -- and one day the bad guys will give up and
we can have our little ticker tap parade and run around getting drunk and
bathing in our new found oil. I'm not of that persuasion. Not at all. I'm
actually of the belief that this "War on Terrorism" has, in some
sense, already been won, just well, quite frankly, not by us.
I'm sure a lot of people are wondering how the hell I can make such an outlandish statement, and I respect that, because I honestly don't think people shouldn't believe everything they read, however, let me explain myself.
Despite popular opinion, war isn't just about body counts, -- I mean we did kill god knows how many people in Vietnam, and we sure as the hell didn't win that war -- it's about using violence to achieve certain, very particular goals, and the terrorists, like all other war mongers before them, had their own objectives, which we in America never really seemed to question. We have the tendency here to think that all the "bad guys" are just a bunch of crazies who do what they do for no logical reason, which is obviously an ill-informed and ignorant perspective since these people, no matter how evil they might be, were intelligent enough to gather a following and as such need to be taken seriously and understood.
One of the most dangerous things we can ever do is to underestimate our enemies. Did these "bad guys" think that American society was just going to crumble after the Twin Towers fell? No, most certainly not. Well, then, what was their purpose? According to Osama himself he was trying "to incite the jihad against America, Israel and their allies." He wanted to create an open war between America and the Islamic world, and that's precisely what he's done with the help of our good President, George Bush. With the majority of Americans oblivious to what was going on, our president gave Osama what he wanted on a silver platter when he invaded Iraq and somehow managed to pass it off as part of his War on terrorism. It's kind of funny how extremist war mongers on both sides always seem to be able to find so much common ground, but, in the end, those who just happen to get caught in the middle, which I guess would be you and me, end up paying for it.
Of course, Al Qaeda hasn't captured total victory yet, more like the first step, which is why I was somewhat hesitant when I made my little statement earlier. Perhaps it's more like they've won the first battle rather than the war, though however you look at it they've won a victory of sorts. Terrorist attacks are still a reality, though an increasingly insignificant one as we come to accept the fact that young Americans are losing their lives on a daily basis as a result of the actions of our president. It seems almost selfish for us to spend so lavishly on our own security against merely hypothetical attacks, when we won't even fork out the cash to buy bullet proof vests for soldiers who are right in the line of fire.
What's the answer? It's a hard question, and honestly, I don't think there really is a right answer, just some which are perhaps slightly less wrong than others. The invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake which I think we will all, in one way or another, be paying for decades from now. It's created an animosity towards Americans, which will not soon be forgotten, and which will more likely than not manifest itself in attacks worse than we could ever imagine. We'll never fully be able to right the wrongs that have been done. But, it appears as if things aren't getting any better in Iraq, and there's little reason to assume that they will, so we are left with two choices: leave Iraq soon with all of its problems or leave Iraq ten years from now with even greater problems and a lot of dead, young Americans. There is a very real possibility that if we were to give them their own representative government fairly soon -- and not the puppet regime that Bush wants-- it will serve to placate the majority of Iraqis. Should that fail, then honestly I'm not optimistic.
Chris England, england9@uclink.berkeley.edu , an undergraduate at UC Berkeley , has also worked with the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition.
