On Sunday, Bush said, "Iraq is now the central front in the War on Terror." Maybe I've got my terminology wrong, but when I think of a "front," the image that comes to mind is a strip of armies butting up against each other on a map. Like WWII, the French tried to fortify the Maginot line and created a line of troops to sweep into Belgium and Luxembourg. (Can you tell I just got a 4 hour dvd of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight"?)
So anyhow, that line was France's eastern front, right? From Germany's perspective, it was their western front.
Now how the hell do you have any "front" in a War on Terror? Al-Qaeda cells are supposedly operating out of 40-60 different nations. How can you have a front against that? It's not like there's a line that can be guarded against with a bunch of bad guys on the other side of it and only good guys on our side. The bad guys are hidden all over. You could call it the "center" or "focus" of the War on Terror (and you might get laughed at for having shown no connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda), but to call it a "front" is to demonstrate once again how military tactics from traditional wars are totally useless to describe a fight against decentralized networks of enemies. If it can't even describe the situation properly, how can we base strategy on traditional military tactics?
They present no "front" for us to push against. Al-Qaeda should have been brought to justice with police tactics or investigation, not by invading a nation where they gathered last week or last month. Conducting a "War" on Terror is like trying to stop the infestation of roaches in your apartment with a blow-torch. Works well on one cockroach, but they're too evasive for you to burn them all, even if you scorched every inch of your place. You'll have ridiculous damage to your place, maybe destroy your neighbor's apartment or the whole building, and meanwhile, the cockroach will slip back under your refrigerator as soon as your back is turned. It's not effective, and wouldn't be worth the cost even if it was effective.
So anyhow, that line was France's eastern front, right? From Germany's perspective, it was their western front.
Now how the hell do you have any "front" in a War on Terror? Al-Qaeda cells are supposedly operating out of 40-60 different nations. How can you have a front against that? It's not like there's a line that can be guarded against with a bunch of bad guys on the other side of it and only good guys on our side. The bad guys are hidden all over. You could call it the "center" or "focus" of the War on Terror (and you might get laughed at for having shown no connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda), but to call it a "front" is to demonstrate once again how military tactics from traditional wars are totally useless to describe a fight against decentralized networks of enemies. If it can't even describe the situation properly, how can we base strategy on traditional military tactics?
They present no "front" for us to push against. Al-Qaeda should have been brought to justice with police tactics or investigation, not by invading a nation where they gathered last week or last month. Conducting a "War" on Terror is like trying to stop the infestation of roaches in your apartment with a blow-torch. Works well on one cockroach, but they're too evasive for you to burn them all, even if you scorched every inch of your place. You'll have ridiculous damage to your place, maybe destroy your neighbor's apartment or the whole building, and meanwhile, the cockroach will slip back under your refrigerator as soon as your back is turned. It's not effective, and wouldn't be worth the cost even if it was effective.
posted by Robert T. Northrup @ 9/12/2003 06:14:00 PM
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