[Edited mostly for form, in the morning, without studying. Sigh.]
Classes are over. I seem to have a little more of a chance to breathe, at least until I start studying for finals, which--oops--I probably should have started doing a month ago.
So, as I promised to do, let me take a longer stab at a response. My first problem with your
post, as I
mentioned, is that it leapt directly over the questions of
- Whether we are in fact in a "war" (I'll stipulate to yes, as I'm not quite that stupid, though "GWOT" describes it poorly and leads to this type of confusion--"GSAVE," while stupid in and of itself, is more apt),
- Why are we fighting (I'll stipulate to something along the lines of "because it's the natural state of humans, because we started it by our mere existence as the most powerful state in the world and a culturally imperialistic one [note: I have no problem with this; I think it's true and good], because we were attacked and have to defend ourselves more actively," or just about anything. If you think it's a question worth addressing, let's get into it; otherwise, I'm happy to set it aside as not terribly useful),
- What sort of a war it is,
- What we're fighting for,
- Where we're fighting, and
- Who we're fighting.
Instead, you moved directly to the vital question of how to win the war. (The other commenter
raised some valid concerns about the method he thought you were proposing. I think you
knocked them down effectively, but only by backing off of what you seemed to be saying initially, which accords with your
initial response to me, that "things got muddled.") Part of this, as you
indicated, is that you wanted to start with the Washington quote. I completely agree with you: it's very striking. I doubt that I'd've been able to restrain myself from starting with it. I would have gone a different direction with it, though.
How
best to win the war is the question that comes last. It requires addressing the other questions. Metaphors have never been my strong point, but let me try this: Lighting a furnace to burn a hair is effective, but not efficient; using a bicycle to haul a 20-ton trailer is ineffective and inefficient. The means should fit the goals. Thus, we first have to figure out what the goals are before moving to the means of achieving them.
What Sort of a War Is It?Like any other war, it's "the continuation of [
politics/
policy] by other means." And beyond this generality, we can also compare how this war
is being fought--and necessarily will be fought--with how other wars have been fought. To do so requires answering the other questions, so I'll be brief here and try to summarize.
- It is not a declared war against an organized state.
- In this regard, it's significantly different from WWII and the Civil War. I also note that the strategic bombing campaigns you point to are themselves of dubious effectiveness (not entirely sure that the link to Fog of War is directly on point or terribly supportive of my point, but it's certainly relevant to other points).
- As stated above, it's a fight about policy, more aptly, perhaps, ideology. We're trying both to protect ourselves from an extremist, unrealistic, negative (as opposed to affirmative) ideology. At the same time, we're trying to (continue to) spread our own way of life. (I recognize that this latter point may be controversial, but I think it's both true and good.)
- Physical fighting, obviously, is ongoing, and the threat of physical fighting in other places remains. The ideological and military aspects affect each other, as well.
- Thus, it follows, and is borne out by reality (more accurate to put it the other way around?), that we're fighting throughout the world. It's not a war limited to a discrete region, discrete countries, discrete provinces, discrete areas, discrete cities, discrete neighborhoods, discrete blocks, discrete buildings, discrete apartments or houses, or even discrete rooms.
- This further differentiates it from WWII, the Civil War, or even Roman wars. And, while it's true that in a certain sense WWII was not limited in region, what with its being a world war and all, there were clearly defined friendly and enemy countries.
- It also follows then that we're fighting for and against everyone and no one.
Moreover, the virtually unlimited scope of the struggle combined with the interplay between the two ways of fighting to make the physical aspects have particular resonance beyond the single areas in which they are pursued. For example, actions in Abu Ghraib affect minds throughout the world, and not to our benefit. I'm particularly concerned with this interplay.
What Are We Fighting For?We're fighting for a way of viewing, interpreting, and controlling our environment. That is, we're fighting for our ideology. As a shorthand, let's call it "the West."
At its core or at its best, I'd say this encompasses science, rationality, non-teleological assumptions, doubt, optimism, realism, defining humans and community as broadly as possible, and, most importantly, the rule of law, as developed over time in a democratic way, not the rule of leaders or god(s). We certainly fall short often and in many ways. (
See, e.g., the current administration, which seems to oppose just about everything I list except for unfounded optimism; the inherent inequities in capitalism; flaws with globalization; global warming; classism; sexism; racism.) But it's forward looking and human.
The corollary is that we're fighting against a reactionary ideology. I haven't heard a term that seems to work well as a description, but let's call it, as shorthand, "Islamic terrorism," while recognizing that it's a decidedly imperfect name.
I don't have the background to go beyond the
surface of what exactly it entails (but that surface knowledge is probably more than 99% of people, including a sizable number of policymakers). I wouldn't say it's a perfect inverse of "the West"; it happily uses science and seems to proceed fairly rationally from irrational and outright wrong premises. I don't doubt, also, that its followers are optimistic and believe that they've defined community quite broadly. And I'm sure they'd argue that they believe in the rule of law--a superior law, even.
I just think that they're wrong. Their premises are fundamentally flawed. Their ideas, based in part on teleology, lead to a dead end. It bears noting, too, that these premises and conclusions share less with ours than the opposing sides' in the wars you mentioned shared. (Excepting the Indian wars, I suppose.)
So, what we face is less a clash of civilizations than a clash of radically and fundamentally different ideologies. The fighting is manifested most obviously in physical war, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and New York, but also in subtler forms, like the media, schools, the internet, and any other way people learn about ideas. Your post focused on the former, which under other circumstances wouldn't be overly problematic, but here, for reasons I'll lay out below, it is.
Where Are We Fighting?We're physically fighting in a few places; the clash of ideologies is taking place everywhere and nowhere. The two fields affect each other.
For the live wars, the answer to the question is pretty obvious. For the threat of terrorism, the primary targets are pretty obvious, too.
The ideological fight takes place anywhere someone can read, listen, see, and think. Each side is trying to convince those who aren't (strongly) on a side. (The lack of a conversation between the two sides makes this conflict
different from the Cold War, where I've always been struck by the fact that both sides were constantly talking and negotiating.) There's a lot more involved here, both geography- and population-wise, than there is in the shooting wars.
I don't want to ignore the out-and-out warfare aspects. This'll sound weak, but that's obviously a vital side of the fight--survival matters, duh. I certainly don't think that the solution is to switch from conventional bombs--you know, the ones that explode and kill people--to knowledge bombs that contain the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, flowers, $100 bills, the complete works of Mozart and Shakespeare,
The Origin of Species, and the current
New York Times bestsellers in both fiction and nonfiction (which, if they landed on someone, could probably kill). The US, as you
argue, isn't going to win the physical conflict through negotiations at this point--no one's talking. We're not going to convince most of the fighters to stop and open a Starbucks instead. It's a fight, and we've got to kill the
dead-enders, to cop a term from Rumsfeld.
The problem comes in the interplay. As we've seen, our actions in Iraq, say, have a major impact in Europe or Indonesia. Words in England affect what happens in Iraq.
Sayyid Qutb visits and loathes the US, goes back to Egypt, writes, and is executed. His writings have major impacts on a variety of thinkers, including Zawahiri, who, in turn, foment war.
Thus, I think your original post didn't really take the scope or interconnectivity of the conflict into account. (I recognize that it was probably something you dashed off. This post, eh, not so much.) You focused on the physical fighting without really considering the ramifications for the broader fight--again, I recognize that you called only for the country actually to consider its options, not to take one particular one, but in doing so I feel that you elided some of the factors that we should be thinking about in making that determination. By doing this, though, you've overlooked what I feel, based on personal biases and on the fundamental nature of what war--especially this one--is, to be the more important part of the fight.
Who Are We Fighting?I covered much of this in the last section,
supra. (Law school--so delightful.) Suffice it to say, there are the enemies we're fighting physically, and there are the enemies who we fight through soft power. Among these, there are irredeemable enemies, and those who can yet be converted, for they may not yet be enemies. Additionally, given the lack of firm boundaries of fighting and the ideological dimensions, there are the enemies we know and the enemies who are still underground.
And we have the same issues of interplay as above, as well. The different types affect each other, especially with regard to how we fight them. Thus, while one method of attack might work well in a vacuum, or without taking too much account of efficiency, it may fail overall.
Putting this together, we don't necessarily know who we're fighting. We're fighting over minds that belong to people who we maybe should be fighting. Do you have any idea how many die-hard fighters, military or intellectual, there are on the other side? Does anyone? I don't. But I'd bet it's several orders of magnitude smaller than the number of undecideds. I also think that it's not worth the risk of losing them in order to crush the enemies we have recognized or think we have recognized. I don't think we can win them all, either, but I would like to minimize the
hydra-head problem. Getting it done right is more than just a moral imperative; it's a functional one.
The Next QuestionsFirst, personally, where'd I goof? What assumptions did I make that I didn't even realize I was making? What did I give short shrift to? (Strategies of the enemy, or is that better addressed later, when we get into the how?) Where'd I go wrong?
In terms of addressing your initial post, though, I'll pause here. I think you're right to suggest that we need to look closely at how we're fighting the war and how much restraint is too much. (I also agree with
you that we, as Americans, "are pathologically bad at" "self-censorship, deception, and manipulation of hatred," and that this is good.)
It doesn't seem to me like we're addressing this first issue, much to our detriment. This is my inane attempt to do so. I call it inane mostly because I have no deep knowledge and recognize that, as my mind has not yet been shaped in the full subtleties of legal reasoning, my attempts at organization and avoiding rambling likely fall short. Bah. So it goes.
Later, I intend to get into my thoughts on the question of how best to fight. Obviously, I'm interested in this point and want to explore it more. For now, before I make my lame excuses, I just want to point out a key corollary of what I've said here: the combinations and complexities I've tried to elucidate make the war a slow fight.
Two links as previews of what I think about how
not to proceed: the last three grafs of this
review really helped me figure out what I think, and this
article is just one of many that epitomizes how badly this administration's screwed up and frustrates me to no end. (And, no, the solution is obviously
not to cover these incidents up--self-censorship's not the solution.)
So, lame excuses: it's late, and I've got to start studying for finals....now. That is, in the morning.
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