Looking for the war on terror

THERE ARE SO MANY PROBLEMS in the Bush Administration's pursuit of terrorists these days that it is difficult to know even where to begin the list, but key among them is the fact that there really is not any war at all on terrorism. You cannot have a war against a concept. That tact did not work with the War on Poverty, nor with the War on Drugs, and it never will go anywhere with terror, either. We do not seem to know who it is we are fighting or what it is we should do to fight them (or it?).

Identifying where it is that we are fighting the War on Terrorism is most of the game. Locating the war should involve finding where it is that terrorists are. They are not in Iraq. The fighting there is not a War on Terrorism. Pres. Bush continually refers to everyone not on our side in Iraq as "the terrorists." In this ongoing effort to achieve simple common denominators, the President is glossing over the obvious complexity of who is at war in Iraq while misidentifying who our troops should be fighting, helping create the very havoc that fosters terrorism and missing an opportunity to combat actual terrorists. Is it any wonder that we are unable to win the war in Iraq while failing to make any inroads on the spread of terrorism?

Pres. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should have started with a definition of terrorism instead of using it as a stupifyingly simple pejorative. From Sept. 11, 2001, on, the President has confused terrorism with revolution, rebellion, ethnic conflict, anarchy, and war.

In What Terrorists Want, Louise Richardson draws on her decades-long study of terrorist movements to define it with seven components. First, a terrorist is politically (or religiously) inspired. Second, a terrorist act involves violence. Third, the point of a terrorist act is to send a message--that is, induce terror, not to kill the enemy. Fourth, in doing this, the act and the victim have symbolic significance. The psychological impact has to be greater than the physical act. Fifth, terrorism is an act of individuals or groups, not nation-states. If a state commits such an act, it is war. Sixth, in a terrorist act, the victim of the violence and the target audience that the terrorist is trying to reach are not the same. Terrorists want to inculcate fear in a much larger population than just the few (even 3,000) that they can kill. Terrorists' objectives are tar beyond the reach of weapons and often are multidimensional (political, religious, social, economic, universal, or global). Lastly, there is no soldier class in terrorism. Anyone can carry out a terrorist act and anyone can be a victim. We are far beyond lines of musket-firing professionals in uniform, whether in red or camouflage. Civilians are the preferred targets.

In attacking Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. and its allies went after the support system for a terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, and alter one leader, Osama bin Laden. The individual proved illusive and the support system was far more deeply imbedded than just the Taliban in the government. Alter sitting for five years in the deep shadow of the Iraqi invasion, Afghanistan appears to be no more stable, progressive, nor violence-free than it was five, 10, or even 20 years ago.

In State of Denial, Bob Woodward notes that Pres. Bush refuses to (or cannot) look beyond the simplest of divisions of his own religious belief--that the world is divided into good and evil. The U.S. and Great Britain invaded Iraq to rid the world of an evil Saddam Hussein without taking the time--or maybe having the ability--to understand the very gray world of political violence. They ended up with an array of physical and psychological conflict by employing an unidimensional and unadaptive tool a conventional army looking for the enemy.

However, the opposing forces in Iraq are not one. Take a look at what we face in a complex configuration of sometime allies, often enemies, and occasional opportunistic bystanders. The array of players obviously is dizzying to our soldiers and Bush Administration policymakers alike: Arab Sunnis; separately, Sunni supporters of Saddam Hussein; Arab Shia (the majority population); religious insurgents; some Iraqi nationalists: Kurds (Sunnis, but not Arabs--the racial component makes a big difference); tribes (either Shia or Sunni, but with local interests put first): organized crime (it exists everywhere): opportunity criminals; foreign fighters (divided into warrior romantics and international terrorists): and Al Qaeda in Iraq (these indeed are true terrorists, religiously motivated, broadly linked).

Separating these groups out to find who we should be fighting, and how, has been beyond the Administration's capabilities. We cannot have a War on Terrorism that goes on forever against enemies whose identity is in their motivation, not behavior. Moreover, we certainly cannot kill, catch, or imprison all of the growing number of terrorists and their supporters who have fed on the U.S. presence in Iraq. There is an effort to contain radical Islamic terrorism. It exists in the banking and financial system, where U.S.-led efforts have found some success in limiting the funding that goes to those planning terrorist attacks. It also can be found in the monitoring of communication, travel, and coordination among terrorists, as well as in police systems that have prevented some attacks on the ground. Yet, it goes little beyond that.