You Cannot Fight Terror with Terror

You cannot fight terror with terror.  It is literally impossible.  There will never be a solution to the conflict in the Middle East which involves military force.

This morning as I enjoyed my breakfast burrito and sweet tea, I thought about our own country, and it's failed War On Terror.  I do not think war is ever going to prove to be effective in fighting terrorism.  With the disclaimer that I think all war is morally wrong and can never be justified, from a pragmatic standpoint, I just do not think it works.

When the attacks of 9/11/2001 happened in this country, I remember the administration at the time (Bush 43) tried to portray the situation as a War On Terror.  We were led to believe that Afghanistan, and eventually Iraq, were two fronts, two prongs of the same war.  I remember hearing that Dick Cheney told intelligence officials to find a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq. Of course, no such link existed at that time, but eventually there was an entity known as "Al-Qaeda in Iraq."  Our government, by its own policies, created the very thing which it said it wanted to destroy.

Cheney, and others, was part of an effort called The Project for a New American Century.  One of the people who was part of that was Paul Wolfowitz.  One of my cohort members when I spent a week at Oxford in 2007 knew Wolfowitz and said he was a war-monger.  One article summarized the Project like this:

The glory days of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) quickly passed. When neoconservatives William Kristol and Robert Kagan formed PNAC in 1997, they aimed to set forth a new agenda for post-Cold War foreign and military policy that would ensure that the United States could claim the 21st century as its own—where U.S. military dominance would not only protect U.S. national security and national interests but would also establish a global Pax Americana. 

https://sites.ualberta.ca/~raitken/documents/0606riseanddemise.pdf

Part of the felt need for the Project was that neo-conservatism needed a new raison d'etre because the fall of the Soviet Union presented both a problem and an opportunity.  The opportunity was for the idea of a Pax Americana,  The problem was the world would never accept such expansion of American power without some cause to justify the use of force.  9/11 was a gift to this group.

The bottom line is that the United States spent 20 years in pursuit of this Pax Americana, spending trillions of dollars, and losing.  The withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan happened, and basically nothing has changed.  The fact that the Taliban now governs Afghanistan is a case in point.

As horrible and evil and unacceptable as the recent Hamas attack on Israel was, keep in mind that Israeli attacks on the people of Gaza and the West Bank have been, for half a century now, as commonplace as a Friday night High School football game in the US. I think the US government's support for Israel is misguided and mistaken in at least three ways.

1.  It is not possible to advance the cause of peace by means of war.  That is like saying to a heroin addict they also need to get hooked on cocaine or meth.  It is like addressing the problem of drunk driving with free, all-day happy hour.  More violence will not lessen violence.

2.  It is not wise to look at the recent Hamas strikes in isolation from 56 years of occupation and apartheid.  I am astounded at how our political leaders and media  have expressed unequivocal support for the Israeli response to the  horrific Hamas attack without any expression of condemnation for what Israel has done to precipitate it.

3.  We know from history that terrorism cannot be extinguished by means of warfare.  The 20 year experience of the US in Afghanistan ought to tell us that approaching terrorism with military might does nothing but cause terrorism to grow and expand.

The security of Israel is inextricably linked to the freedom and prosperity of the Palestinian people.  When St. Paul said, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him", he had no idea of what 21st century warfare would look like, but I do think he would have agreed that bread is more helpful than bombs.  As long as the basic dignity and necessities of the people of Gaza and the West Bank get ignored, Israel's own policies significantly increase her vulnerability to attack.

St. Paul said as well, right after "if your enemy is hungry, feed him,"  "do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good."  The evil which threatens to overcome us is not the evil of potential attackers.  The evil which threatens is the damage we do to our own humanity when we threaten the humanity of others.  The guy who fights back is the one who is overcome with evil, not the guy who feeds his enemy. 

As I said, the security of Israel is inextricably linked to the freedom and prosperity of the Palestinian people.