August 20, 2007

War on What? Crime and Criminals are Really the Enemy in Terror Fight

 

Among the many ways the Bush administration has gotten it wrong on national security since 9/11, treating the fight against our attackers as fundamentally military, rather than criminal, is perhaps the most egregious.

 

It was politically expedient for the President’s Men, lying in wait with all those Iraq (and who knows what other) war plans gathering dust, to present this challenge as military and requiring an extraordinary response. Also, looking at this problem as legal means the administration itself might have to follow the law – a bit against the grain.

 

They chose the name “War on Terror”, as if “Terror” were an evil country, rather than bad actions by groups we don’t like. They wanted something bad for us to be fighting against – understood. But this disingenuous crusade has made eyes roll and inspired questions about what makes our own bombing less terror-like to its victims.

 

The attacks – 9/11, Madrid, London, Bali, Amman, and others – on innocent civilians by global outcasts were horrific, fueled by a marginal ideology that is rejected by every legitimate leader of Islam, the great global religion which they claim to represent. Even if Muslim leadership does not take on this affront, as they should, we must be clear what we are about.

 

If the administration needs words with very negative connotations, “crime” and “criminal” work pretty well. These acts are against the law in most countries, even many that are totally opposed to U.S. policies. Furthermore, it is in the interests of most ruling groups for these actions to be against the law. By politicizing this fight, we lose much intrinsic moral and political leverage.

 

Tom Friedman points out that we lose much ethical high ground by not consistently bringing these crimes before the UN, International Court of Justice and other international bodies concerned with the rule of law. By making the battle fundamentally military and political, we force countries to take stands against other countries, rather than against generally accepted rules of behavior.

 

With the possible exception of our initial attack on Al Qaeda, in hijacked Afghanistan, our most successful strategies have involved police actions – stopping a gang of potential bombers from coming in from Canada, breaking up violent cells, tracking down potential perpetrators. The “Old Europeans”, especially the Germans, have been very helpful in this effort, despite major opposition to our politics. The conviction of Jose Padilla, after years of back-and-forth about his legal status, seems to reinforce the point: A U.S. citizen an enemy combatant – huh? A dangerous criminal? Perhaps.

 

If a country provided national refuge and support for the mafia, pirates or other generally recognized criminals, it ought to be a military target – not because of its ideology or political philosophy, but because of its criminal behavior. Current events show our Afghanistan strategy, initial gains notwithstanding, isn’t likely to become a poster child for the administration’s military approach.

 

Of course, combating a complex international organization is different from fighting individual criminals. The administration has made this point many times, in making its case for treating this as a war – though the war is not against any particular country (except Iraq), and of course doesn’t require any formal declaration, as required by our Constitution. That silly document just gets in the way. It used to be mainly the liberals who said that.

 

We do have some experience fighting against complex criminal organizations – for example, the mafia. We’ve had a pretty good run against those folks without treating these renegade Italians (and non-Italians) like a political adversary, making “War on Murder” a political slogan or attacking countries that seem to sympathize with their “message”.

 

Bin Laden is more like Al Capone, or perhaps Charles Manson, than Adolf Hitler. The criminally insane are still criminals. A political ideology that insists on Sharia law for the world, and is willing to kill anyone who disagrees, is not taken seriously as a legitimate political ideology. Of course political issues that create sympathy for this position must be addressed – as the complex issues they are, and not simply “us against them” loyalty tests. Ask Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf about this.

 

Clear ground-rules are important for teams, organizations, countries and even the international system. Defining transgressions clearly and with some level of acceptance, without regard to who does the committing, should help minimize those transgressions. I’m not saying that global tensions are like organizations, but the principle of “criminalizing” and persecuting bad behavior, rather than groups of people, has something to be said for it.