Is That Legal?

And the best part? We'll leave when the Iraqis are ready to fight our war for us!

Actually Eric, that’s a fairly conventional analysis of the situation that any reasonably well schooled military officer might give you. It’s always better to fight on neutral ground, or on the other guy’s home ground. Ask what the alternative is. Ever since their stadium in Afghanistan was put under new management, AQ lacks a home pitch, so it would be terribly difficult for Don Rumsfeld to schedule an away game with them. The alternative to fighting AQ abroad, of course, is “let’s fight them in New York.”

Part of the military justification for such thoughts is the primary job of the military is to defend this country. It’s a good thing to defend Iraqis, and it may be part of the mission, but the overall mission, the strategic goal, follows the oath to defend the Constitution and this country from enemies, foreign and domestic.

Another part of the reason to fight outside CONUS where possible, is it’s hard to keep your mind on your (dangerous) job when your rear area is threatened. From time immemorial that troops fight much more effectively when the battle is to the front, rather than to the rear, though troops have become exceptionally brutal and inhumane on occasion, when their women and children were threatened. There’s also a lot to be gained by grasping the initiative by taking the battle to the enemy whenever possible, and dictating the terms on which the enemy engages you, even if the best you can do to manage the terms involves setting a series of defensive traps. It’s harsh, but fighting AQ in Iraq, where they have been driven by desperation to attacking Iraqis (whereby they are losing popular and even Baathist support) makes a lot of sense from a strategic standpoint. Morris’ statement is no more nauseating to me, than a parallel observation that it was better to fight the Japanese in WWII in the Pacific Islands, than in Honolulu and Alaska.

I’m starting to agree with one thesis of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, that most people very much want security, but really don’t want to know what goes into making a place secure. Paraphrasing Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men,” do you really want the truth? Can you handle the truth? If Morris’ comment nauseates you, I’d advise you to stay well away from military operations, including even the most apparently benevolent ‘peacekeeping’ ops, because I haven’t seen one of them that comes without its own special brand of inhuman ugliness. The essence of war is imposing the national will on a resistant country or rogue group, usually by making the cost of resistance prohibitive. This is as close to a rule of physics as there is in international relations, and there is an inherent and all too human bit of viciousness encapsulated in it. Sadly, it does not appear to be revocable at this stage in human evolution.

I don’t want to sound condescending, but I think your comments are a great example of why we need more Ivy Leaguers to serve in the military. It would add a real perspective to the Academy’s opinion on a lot of issues surrounding foreign policy and military actions, and frankly, the military should stop in horror once in a while and think about what it’s doing, and finely tuned Ivy League consciences in the officer corps would help spur the debate. Chauncy Gardener isn’t the only person who benefits from being there.

And the other beautiful thing about seeing a genius like Morris singing the praises of the 'fly paper strategy' is that he gets to present it like it was a grand strategy of the administration, rather that noting that it was an after the fact 'lipstick on a pig' rationalization: "well it may not turn out to be as bad as it seems that our troops and others get slaughtered, because maybe, just maybe, we can attract the terrorists to our grand disaster rather than to NYC."

It's long past time Morris had any credibility in the subjects he knows about, much less that we should be listening to the man spout off about military strategy.

The last audio link you posted was really good. So I clicked on this one.... ouch.

I'm trying to remember what we call it when a country uses another country as a buffer against it's enemies.... oh, that used to be Eastern Europe. If all we wanted was a remote target for terrorists, we could have stayed in Afghanistan... oh, wait. We're still there.

Morris is an idiot. I read in the news the other day that a CIA report says that the jihadists are basically getting on the job training in Iraq in carrying out bombings against humvees, kidnappings and other skills useful to terrorists. The people blowing themselves up are the expendable ones. The people who send the suicide bombers on their missions have portable terrorist skills that they will be able to take with them back to their home countries, or even here to America.

Funny how we were not in Iraq when 9/11 happened, but somehow by us being in Iraq we are safer from terrorist attack. What stupidity!

Why does anybody listen to Dick Morris? He has absolutely no credibility.

Funny Thomas. I had you pegged for one of the "root causes" crowd who figured general oppression and U.S. support for tyrants was the sine qua non of pan arab islamacist terrorism.

Hi Al,

It's more complicated than that of course.

I understand that the people of the Middle East have grievances against us, some legitimate, some illegitimate. The Mohammed Attas of the world come out of that mindset.

When Madeline Albright is asked on 60 Minutes in the mid-1990's if the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children as a result of international sanctions was worth it, and she answers that it was, what message did that send to Arab Muslims? We do not value your lives. You are expendable. When we bomb a building in Sudan that turns out to be a pharmaceutical plant, what message does that send to Arab Muslims? It's okay if we blow up your buildings, because our intentions are good, and if we blow up the wrong building, oh well, it was just an innocent mistake.

That being said, the message of people like bin Laden is similar to Nazism in that it teaches an inculcation of hatred for an external enemy who is responsible for all of your problems, and that weakening or destroying that enemy will solve all of their problems and usher in ther perfect Islamic society. A bunch of bunk.

But seriously Al, if you were Osama bin Laden or Zarqawi, wouldn't it be humiliating for America to carry out a bombing or other mass casualty attack within the United States while we have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?

That brings up another question that has been raised before, which is, why haven't we had another terrorist attack here? It could be that it takes years of planning and training to carry out a mission that will inflict the mass casualties of a 9/11 incident and maybe there is a cell here in America currently working on the next attack. Stricter visa procedures might be keeping terrorists out. Who knows? Remember, it was more than 8 years between the WTC bombing in 1993 and the WTC and Pentagon attacks on 9/11/01.

I think your comment that it's more complicated than that is about right. I firmly believe that 9/11 was the bitter harvest from our rapid de-commissioning of our Cold War strategies. After WWII, we wrapped our guns sloppily in cosmoline and brown paper. We just parked our tanks and most of our airplanes, and many battleships. As a result, we were materially unprepared for the Korean War and the brushfire wars that followed. Likewise, when the Warsaw Pact disintegrated, we stood down our Cold War policy of fighting the Soviets by proxy through client states. Our failure to "clean up" the geopolitical guns - to pressure the police states we used as weapons against Soviet imperialism - created conditions in which the Islamacist militants could prosper. This latest wave of Islamacism dates back to the 1880s, but it has prospered only in places where the great powers have neglected their duty to clean up their messes. I think we shouldn't try to fix blame for murderers solely on imperial powers, nations that often meant well - but we, and our great power predecessors in interest in the Middle East (and South Asia) bear some responsibility. Insofar as we helped build murderous police states, we are culpable; insofar as we fail to bring freedom to those states now that the back of Marxist totalitarianism has been broken (for the time being) I believe we are obligated to do so. Once that commitment was clear in my mind, it became a question of which tactics were appropriate to winning this particular struggle in the most efficient manner. It is ironic that since the Cold War ended, it is conservatives that have wholeheartedly picked up what once was a liberal fight, against fascist governments; doubly so, that the post-9/11 talk about root causes by the likes of Mailer and Sontag is now taken seriously by the right, but rejected in some substantial part by the left. I think the debate that needs to be happening, is *how* we go about helping reformist elements transform Middle Eastern and South Asian politics, not whether we do so. The triumph of a radical in the Iranian elections (with 10% turnout) and that country's burgeoning nuclear weapons program indicates disengagement is not an option for us.

As for why we haven't been attacked, there are probably several factors at play. First, AQ and its allies have had their operational capacity substantially degraded by a steady stream of military attacks and law enforcement actions. Denying them a permanent base in Afghanistan was one key; putting a substantial occupying force in the middle of the land bridge between Asia and North Africa probably helps too. Second, having worked in joint military deployments in peacekeeping areas - where terrorist groups were hunted - I know that a lot goes on that doesn't make the papers. In spite of the loud European protests against draconian U.S. military and law enforcement policies in the WOT, the Europeans are cooperating. (The burgeoning, alienated Muslim population of Europe may have something to do with the European commentary on our efforts, in which they quietly cooperate). Third, AQ is partially a victim of its own success. Any concerted attack lesser than the 9/11 attack, will not achieve the psychological shock that AQ needs to create, and will be viewed as a failure. Fourth, AQ and their allies have not chosen to attack. There is no way a country the size of the U.S. can avoid attack. Too many people come in and out, and there are too many hostile elements already existing inside the U.S. for any government agency to track and monitor. Fifth, we have boosted security at some ports of entry, though the land borders remaine sieve-like. If you follow the news regarding the biometric checks on incoming travelers, you'll note that a lot of wanted criminals have been caught by a simple thumbprint check on the way into the country, along with a few people on the watchlists. You can't disprove a negative, so there is no way of knowing how many bad actors have declined to come to the U.S. or who have had their entry greatly complicated by the existing partial measures, but the stepped up enforcement probably has at least some deterrent effect. I don't believe we can stop looking at the more obvious vulnerabilities like power plants, water supplies, the markets, and major events (sporting events, national elections, etc.) but prominent security measures likely do affect terrorist recon and planning efforts. My main worry is that the government continues to rush willy-nilly toward new security measures and technologies without sufficient thought toward civil liberties protections. I wouldn't be concerned if I thought this would be a short war of 5 years in duration, but I believe it will be a multi-generational struggle. Thoughts?

Wasn't that the rational behind Dien Bien Phu. Suck 'em in and chew 'em up. We must win they however merely have to not lose.

The rationale of all military action is to pick the time, place, and manner of engagement, and to destroy the enemy, or a critical node of the enemy, taking advantage of surprise and other advantages gained by dictating the terms of engagement.