Letter: Law enforcement better at fighting terrorism
Source: Mlive
North Muskegon
By Muskegon Chronicle
October 14, 2009, 6:23AM
As the political debate about a strategy in Afghanistan rages, we continue to discuss the issue in the wrong framework — that of a “war” on terrorism. As President George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers failed to understand, no war on terrorism can ever truly succeed anywhere in the world. Terrorism is hydra-headed evil spawned among those either in. or perceiving themselves to be in, desperate circumstances and wanting to strike at whatever they see as the cause of their distress. There will always be desperate people falling into this category in all cultures, including our own.
Terrorist acts (at least those Americans are most concerned about) are acts committed by small, loosely organized groups not by governments. Terrorism is criminal activity, and criminal activity is best suppressed and contained by national and international intelligence networks and law enforcement action not military action.
Think about it. Over the past eight years while we’ve been waging our war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, how many “homegrown” potentially serious terrorist plots have be halted not by military action, but by coordinated national and international law enforcement backed by ongoing undercover operations? Examples include the recent bust of a plot to use hydrogen peroxide bombs on targets in New York City; Scotland Yard’s foiling of a plot to blow up international airline flights in 2006; recent arrests of 24 terrorist suspects in Morocco; Indonesian and Australian police action, which resulted in the killing of the mastermind behind hotel bombings in Jakarta; and on and on. None of these successes at foiling terrorist activities were the result of our bogged down military activities in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, we continue down the road wrongly chosen by Bush. It’s time to head back to the fork in the road where we choose again between long-term, costly and dubiously successful military action (the road we’ve traveled) or the road to stronger international police action, which has a proven track record of detecting and stopping terrorist threats worldwide. Strengthening the international law enforcement approach would be much cheaper than our current military approach in terms of money, equipment and most of all, the precious blood of our military men and women. It would also be more effective in protecting Americans and other innocent civilians around the world. Think of what the estimated $3 trillion to $4 trillion projected to be spent on Iraq plus a few trillion more on Afghanistan could have done or could do if funneled into international law enforcement.
As far as troops in Afghanistan and our nation-building attempts there in the Graveyard of Empires, we need to reduce rather than increase our presence and, at the same time, work more closely with Pakistan to improve ways of infiltrating and disrupting Taliban and al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan’s western provinces adjacent to Afghanistan. Our military presence is mainly a stimulus to terrorist recruiting. Trying to impose some sort of stable democracy on regions with no democratic history or culture in a geopolitical environment controlled by tribal chiefs fed by the opium trade, and with a puppet government kept in power by our military presence is not a prescription for success against terrorist threats to America. The argument that our continued military presence in the Middle East is necessary for the safety of America is a red herring, and it’s starting to smell badly.
Jerry Lang
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