I keep seeing the same rehashed idea outside the SMDB… and I think it reinforces Bush’s position more than we give it credit: “Keep on the offensive”. The idea of not letting terrorists strike back… by pounding away at them elsewhere. Sometimes this is put as “its better to fight the terrorists outside the US” or “its better to fight terrorism abroad”.
How can we attack the "keep on the offensive" point of view ?
I’ve tried pointing out that if your offensive goes to the wrong country (Iraq) it doesn’t help… but these people think Iraq was justified because Saddam was evil ™… I then argue that Saddam wasn’t helping terrorists… and they say he gave money to palestinians… etc… etc… So no use by that logic. I got to attack the “keep on the offensive” itself. Defending “defensive” should bring maginot line comparisons…
If the U.S. had already been in Iraq and Afghanistan on Sept. 11, 2001, how would that have prevented the 19 hijackers from doing what they did? The “terrorists” aren’t an army, all concentrated in one place. You can’t “pin them down” militarily. They operate in dozens of countries, in relatively small cells. It’s not possible to maintain some sort of “offensive” that will keep them all occupied, and keep their attention turned away from the U.S.
There is a certain amount of sense to the “keep on the offensive” idea. We’re just not doing it right.
The best way to defeat the terrorists is to rely upon our intelligence communities, plural because of the “global effort” and all, and law enforcement agencies to investigate and arrest the various small cells of terrorists out there and only using our military in the event that they hole up in groups large enough to squash (i.e. Afghanistan) or in locations remote enough to be blown up by a cruise missile/air strike (training and summer camps). Using the military as we are now to invade and occupy countries just makes easier for the terrorists to recruit new members.
“You see, the devil americans do want to destroy us and our moral way of life.” Let’s go blow them up."
It’s also a bit like trying to rid your house of cockroaches (hehe, cock) with a sledgehammer. We may get a few, but we’ll never get them all and we are going to make more of a mess than it is worth.
I should also say that given the current state of our national military, we may want to stick to sanctions on nations suspected of harboring terrorists. We seem to be kinda stretched at the moment.
And indeed, the US being in Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t prevent terrorist attacks in Bali and Spain and Russia, for example. And Israel has been “keeping on the offensive” against the Palestinians for years without quashing terrorism. There is simply no guarantee that state-to-state, or state-to-insurgency, warfare will actually produce a decrease in terrorist activity. As revealed in the famous DoD memo, even Rumsfeld doesn’t know how to estimate whether our military actions have decreased or increased terrorism. “There are no metrics”, as the saying goes.
What bothers me most about the “keep on the offensive” approach is that it gets uncomfortably close to “hang out some bait”. As already noted, you can’t really take a war “to” the terrorists, because the terrorists aren’t in a specific place accessible to warfare (except for certain subgroups in, say, the mountains of Waziristan or Sri Lanka).
It seems to me that a more accurate description of what we’re doing is stirring up a shitstorm to attract the terrorists to vulnerable targets outside our own territory—hanging out more appealing bait, in other words. I’m sure that very few people, if any, would deliberately advocate or support such a policy, but I can’t really see what else we’re achieving in Iraq in terms of counterterrorism. (I know that the ostensible goals in Iraq are to undermine terrorism by making it a stable and prosperous pro-Western democracy, which will indeed be a good thing if it can be accomplished, but we have to be judged on what we actually do, not just what we’re trying to do.)
At what point does “fight terrorists outside the US” turn into “use war and chaos among non-US people to attract terrorists to softer targets”? I think the second approach is an appalling and indefensible abuse of the Iraqis, not to mention of US servicepeople, and as I said, I’m sure nobody really wants to do that. But is it in fact what we’re doing? And if so, don’t we have to re-examine the “keep on the offensive” rhetoric to see what it realistically implies?
mks57:The problem is that you do not see news coverage of all the terrorist attacks that didn’t happen due to Israeli security measures.
In the first place, we need to clarify what’s meant by “security measures” versus “keeping on the offensive”. As Harborwolf pointed out, “security measures” in the sense of aggressively pursuing terrorists by non-military means are definitely helpful in fighting terrorism. When terrorists are legally detected, captured, tried, convicted, and imprisoned or executed, terrorist activity is seriously hampered and very few **non-**terrorists are hurt or outraged.
The question is whether “offensives” in the form of military attacks, destroying and disrupting a lot of civilian lives and property in the process, are useful. You’re exactly right that it’s very hard to tell precisely what net effect any one action is having on terrorism as a whole, or precisely what would have happened if we’d done something different. As Rumsfeld acknowledged, “there are no metrics” for evaluating whether military aggression decreases or increases terrorism.
That’s kind of my point: since we can’t even tell whether such actions are helping or hurting, we should be more careful about initiating attacks that kill innocent people and immiserate the survivors, as well as making them really pissed off at us.
I’d say that the problem is that you do not see news coverage of all the terrorist attacks that didn’t happen due to Israeli forces proactively striking the terrorists first.
Debaser:I’d say that the problem is that you do not see news coverage of all the terrorist attacks that didn’t happen due to Israeli forces proactively striking the terrorists first.
The problem is that we don’t know how many such attacks there are, nor whether a different counterterrorism approach would increase or decrease them.
You and mks both seem to be assuming that any such “proactive strike” is automatically a net positive that ultimately reduces total terrorism instead of increasing it. I think that assumption is both unsupported and potentially very dangerous.
Exactly right. You can’t just exclaim “Staying on the offense didn’t prevent terrorist attacks in Lower Slobovia!” and conclude that this is the wrong way to go.
I think that staying on the offensive is a large part of the right strategy. To significantly defeat terrorism you need:
• Intelligence assets close to the terrorists, to be able to predict their movements.
• International cooperation to follow the money trails.
• Precision targeted military response when a training camp is positively identified.
• The political will to confront any country that supports the terrorists, not just the ones that you want to hit anyway (not necessarily a military response, but Saudi Arabia, for instance, didn’t even get a funny look).
• A compassionate, considered approach to foreign policy, so that your every action doesn’t just create more terrorist recruits.
Just IMO, of course.
So to the OP, I think the offensive is valuable. But the way it is being done now is more bad than good.
Well put. Vote MrFantsyPants '04! Why, oh why, can’t we get a candidate that will say things like this? I suppose they think that the average voter can’t handle any plan with more than one or two elements, or anything with more than two syllables.
By what measure is our presence in Iraq “being on the offensive”. Are we dictating the timing and location of conflicts, attacking terrorist strongpoints and supply locations? Seems to me we are fighting a largely defensive war there - most of the fighting occurring according to the insurgents’ and terrorists’ timetables, mixed in with occasional US/coalition counterattacks. A case could be made that we are engaging in a war of attrition with them, but that’s not the same as being on the offensive.
Well…there are two sides to this question. If by “keep on the offensive” you mean we should keep on the MILITARY offensive, then you are right…no chance in hell of that working in the real world. My understanding of Bush et al’s thoughts on this (such as they are) is that what they want to do is go to the root cause of ‘terrorism’, and attack the terrorists on multiple fronts. These include attacking their finance, attacking or changing the nations that harbor terrorism, as well as directly and indirectly attacking the terrorists physically. THATS a different kettle of fish IMO, and is perhaps a viable course of action…as viable as tuck tail or re-bury our heads at least.
Why we needed to INVADE Iraq is still unclear to me…still. Even assuming that Iraq and Saddam were or potentially could be a future harbor or supplier for terrorists (something I actually DO buy…to a certain extent), its unclear to me that US strategy should involve invasion and occupation, where air strikes and covert SF forces would suffice.
I certainly understand why Afghanistan was invaded and agree with both the invasion and how we went about doing it…i.e. basically with minimal ground forces committed, but still effectively. The current Democrat meme I’ve been hearing about how we didn’t committ massive ground forces to capture Bin Laden when we had him ‘cornered’ in Tora Bora, instead relying on Afghan ‘warlords and mercenaries’ is complete bullshit IMO…we did exactly the right thing there by NOT committing major US ground forces (we DID of course send in many SF teams who were with said ‘warlords’ and ‘mercenaries’) into some of the most inhospitable and difficult terrain in the world. We won’t even get into HOW (logistically) we COULD have sent in such a huge force there.
But Iraq…I still don’t get it to be honest. I still consider it a major fuck up in the ‘war on terror’, and though I’ve listened closely to Bush’s explaination and understand a bit better his and his boys thinking, I’m still not buying it. However, I think that ‘keep on the offensive’ is not NECESSARILY a bad strategy, depending on what exactly you mean by that statement…and what EXACTLY it means to Bush et al (or to Kerry who has made similar statements in different language).
Of course, you can’t just exclaim “Think of all the terrorist attacks that could have happened” and assume it is the right way to go either. All you can do is look at what has happened and make judgements based on that.
In the case of Israel, the offensive strategy may have prevented some attacks but they are still happening in part because the strategy they (the israelis) are using is being used to promote more terrorist attacks by the other side.
I think kimstu hit the nail on the head as far as Iraq/Afghanistan and the war on terror. All we seem to be doing is hanging better bait out for the terrorists, and in their own backyard no less.
I don’t think it’s an issue of the ***strategy ***of “keeping on the offensive” but rather the particular ***tactics ***of executing that strategy. Kerry, too, will stay on the offensive, but would use some different tactics than Bush.
I wouldn’t disagree on “attacking” funding and terrorist bank accounts… but the way I hear them mantra like repeating the “staying on the offensive” is clearly refering to Iraq and being aggressive militarily. Somehow I feel its about punishing arabs too… but they won’t admit it.
I think you’re right on here. I think most agree that a strategically defensive posture is a loser in the TWoT (unless you are willing to abandon all intercourse with the Islamic world). But what is meant by keep on the offensive is relatively up in the air.
xt:My understanding of Bush et al’s thoughts on this (such as they are) is that what they want to do is go to the root cause of ‘terrorism’, and attack the terrorists on multiple fronts. These include attacking their finance, attacking or changing the nations that harbor terrorism, as well as directly and indirectly attacking the terrorists physically. THATS a different kettle of fish IMO, and is perhaps a viable course of action
For the most part, I’d agree. “Attacking nations that harbor terrorism”, though, is a very iffy proposition, as we’re seeing all too clearly in Iraq. There are very few, if any, nations that actually consider themselves patriotically committed to the cause of terrorism, in the way that WWII Germany was to the Reich, or North Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh. Killing lots of non-terrorists in order to eradicate a few terrorist nests may well breed more hatred and revenge than it eliminates.
As for attacking terrorist finance, I couldn’t agree more. I wish the current Administration had been more receptive to measures against terrorist money-laundering and international banking secrecy in general before the 9/11 attacks.
Why would being defensive be a loser ? If you basically work the diplomatic and political cooperation, protect your embassies and screen cargo coming into the US... you can stop terrorists from getting any stuff through. You could leave it to your allies to actual arrest or kill terrorist elements... this low profile war would certainly mean terrorism gets the least possible exposure.
Then point out that they are presenting a non-sequitur. Are you discussing terrorism or are you discussing despotic regimes? “Saddam is evil” is not an argument in support of the proposition that Iraq supported terrorism.
Then point out that Saudi Arabia did much more to help terrorists than Iraq ever did, yet they are considered friends of the Bush Administration. And “giving money to palestinians” is not necessarily terrorism. Ask these people if they can come up with examples of anything Iraq did that every other Arab nations didn’t do. Ask them why, if that’s their reasoning, we didn’t attack Saudi Arabia first.
Nah, that’s a losing proposition. There’s nothing wrong with keeping on the offensive if it’s necessary. The problem is that what Bush has done hasn’t really helped keep on the offensive at all. It’s just made things worse.
