Required Reading
November 14th, 2005 - 12:33 am
We embarked on a defensive war in 2001, and 4 years later we are winning. There have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11, and the global war on terror is confined to the theaters where we have chosen to fight it.
I’d quibble with the phrase “defensive war,” because we’ve been on the offensive tactically since Afghanistan (Oct, 2001) and strategically since Iraq (March, 2003). But that’s my only quibble. Go read the whole thing already.
Amen Amen Amen! I know Steve kinda hinted at the dual-war theory with his Arm-of-Decision thing, but finally a military guy is willing to say “the political battle is just as important, if not more important, than the military battle.”
Although Steve, I think what he was trying to say with “defensive” was that they attacked us first, not vice-versa.
I’m 110% on-board with the every-american-is -a-soldier idea.
Read this post, frame it, take pictures of it and send it to all your friends and family.
“Defensive” is in fact correct; it refers to the overall purpose of the the war, as opposed to the current strategic, operational, or tactical posture. America and her allies are fighting this war to remove a threat to themselves, thus it is a defensive war. If the loony left was correct and the war was being fought to gain access to cheap oil, that would be an example of an offensive war.
I appreciate John Noonan’s heartfelt essay, although I’m not sure that the Madrid commuter lines, London tubes, and hotels frequented by Westerners in the Bali, Amman, and elsewhere are theaters we have chosen to fight. I’m not at all clear that the sorts of enemies you attract and engage with a “flypaper” strategy are the sorts who fly aircraft into buildings in the US. Fighting one does not preculde future attacks by the other, particularly since the Amman debacle might prompt al Qaeda to stage a “recovery” strike on US interests somewhere.
But, the essential point that the war will be waged and won in the US public opinion is an excellent one. It is amazing to me how disinterested domestic critics of US war policy are in the prospect of a US defeat. It seems like many of these critics actually want us to lose, as opposed to have us do a better job winning.
“There have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11″
Meaningless. There were no foreign based terrorist attacks (Oklahoma City was domestic) on US soil between 1993 and 2001. That means that the “law and order” Clinton model kept us “domestically safe” for 8 years.
Let’s see where we are in 2009 before we declare the homeland safer.
Chuck, the fact that we are almost into 2006 without a terrorist attack on U.S. soil is far from meaningless.
I agree with Noonan.
The 1990s saw an evolution of terrorism, as their attention turned from the Soviet Union towards the United States.
93 WTC was a failure for them, so they worked foreign targets, slowly growing more bold: barracks in Saudi Arabia, to American Embasses in Africa, to a combat-ready U.S. warship in Yemen.
Then they tried the WTC again and succeeded.
The levels of sophistication that terrorists were at in 1993 and 2001 are so different that they aren’t worth comparing.
What IS worth noting (and as Noonan pointed out) is that we have pulled out an old Cold War trick: we’ve established “choke-points” for the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In other words, they willingly walk into our own killboxes, focusing their men and resources into those areas.
“The war on terror is confined to the theaters where we have chosen to fight it.”
Yes Sir it certainly is.
To win this war we must first be armed with the belief that we are winning it.
Here Here John. Sign me up.
Jon:
Our flypaper is so good that they can’t spare 19 men to come to the US like they did in 2001?
I don’t buy it.
Chuck, that’s completely aside the point.
It’s not a matter of numbers, it’s a matter of mindset.
Right now the AQ folks look at Fortress America and think “why should I go through all the trouble to kill Americans there when I can do it in Iraq or Afghanistan?”
Which is fine with me. Let them go up against our kick*ss military if it keeps them away from civilians.
Chuck you seem like a smart guy, so I’m assuming I can save myself the trouble of explaining the old battle cliche of the best defense is a good offense?
I think part of what Chuck is saying is that flypaper does not preclude an attack on US soil. After all, the Luftwaffe still managed to get their shots in on Great Britain even after the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command took up the offense.
A flypaper offense might be a very good idea (although it doesn’t seem that Chuck agrees I don’t want to speak for him). But the US strategy seems designed to achieve a long-term victory in changing the way Middle Eastern nations govern themselves. Even if this is a winning doctrine, there is still the possibility that al Qaeda might be able to hit us. If that were to occur, would that invalidate the flypaper strategy? Or would it be the give-and-take of a long war?
If we set ourselves up for the “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” expectation, then the enemy is perceived as winning if they score a hit on the US. As they are likely to at some point, particularly of their strategy of bombing fellow Muslims into submission backfires.
But, if we are fighting “over there” to achieve a long-term strategic objective and we understand that there will be setbacks in the meantime and even possible attacks on US soil, but that we are prepared to see our strategic goals through nevertheless, well, then we will have a more realistic view of the situation.
And in this situation, John Noonan’s essential point about the importance of US public opinion is underlined.
Ken Piernick, the FBI agent in charge of the Kenya and Tanzania investigations, used the exact phrase “killbox” to describe the current situation in Iraq.
He felt that Iraq was a distraction, and kept Al Qaeda’s minds off of planning U.S. operations.
That’s sorta the direction I’m leaning as well.
Also one of the other officers at The Officers’ Club followed up on Noonan’s post. He feels like winning the political war may be easier than we think.
http://officersclub.blogspot.com/
Post: “Their Own Worst Enemy”
BT
Maybe “reactive” or some other term would have been better. It was a war we didn’t start, in other words.
The flypaper strategy is a good one when there is a huge amount of trouble involved in getting assets into our country.
I don’t believe that it’s that much more difficult today than it was in 2001 or 1993. I work in commercial lending. Talk to some of my clients re: shipping containers and how many are searched. How about the US-Canada border?
I’ve got no problem with the war. I even bought into the domino theory for a while (Iran was next, etc.). But the flypaper angle doesn’t work for me because of the nature of the enemy.
It doesn’t take much to get through to cause major damage.
I don’t disagree with his general point but will quibble with this:
There have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11
Only if you ignore the anthrax attacks, the Beltway snipers, and the Muslim who shot up the El Al terminal at LAX in 2002. True, we don’t know if Al Qaeda had anything to do with them, but I think they count as terror attacks nonetheless.
PapayaSF