Why War is Not the Answer

A Plea for Bigger Thinking

See, here's the thing. Without 9-11, this war isn't happening. I take this personally as a New Yorker. There's not even circumstantial evidence connecting Iraq with those acts, only a kind of intuitive conjecture people seem willing to make that "they must have had something to do with it." While I find the way in which most people use 9-11 to justify the war abhorrent and personally insulting, there is clearly a correlation between that event and this war.

Now, there is a logical argument to be made that 9-11 awoke America to its own vulnerability, and in our state of heightened vigilance, we suddenly realized "the Threatening Storm" of Iraq and decided to take action. However, I don't think that's really what's going on here. At best, we all seem to be suffering from some post-traumatic paranoia. At worst, we're being manipulated through fear.

Putting my bitterness aside, let's look at the stated goals of the war. Most persuasively, we've been told this is a war to defend our country. You'll hear a lot of people talk about not waiting for them to come get us, about preventing more 9-11s, about our "refusal to live in fear." I believe that this is largely why the war enjoys the popular support that it does.

However, if this is about protecting America, preventing more terrorist attacks, going to war is a bad way to do it. Terrorist attacks are the work of small motivated groups, and free societies will always be vulnerable to them. The way for free societies to be safe/safer from terror is to not have people want to commit acts of terrorism. This doesn't mean capitulating to terrorist demands, but it does suggest that creating large amounts of ill will toward your nation is counter-productive.

One of the most insightful things the president has said about this phenomena -- that of 9-11 leading to the war with Iraq -- is that the terrorist attacks made us realize that oceans no longer protected us. This is a telling statement. Previously, we'd only had to worry about people within our borders (or very nearby) who for one reason or another became agitated enough to commit acts of terrorist violence -- Oklahoma City, for instance. But todays world is a connected one, and it was only a matter of time until we realized that the feelings of people halfway around the globe were germane to our security as well.

Quickly I want to qualify that I am not justifying terrorism or even asking anyone to try and "understand" the terrorist mindset (foreign or domestic). All I am suggesting is that terrorism is committed by individuals, and that policies which inflame individual hatreds will increase it. As such, we need to seek means of decreasing antipathy towards our country.

This is not a new problem. When this country was in its infancy, Thomas Jefferson realized that unless the people were invested in the success of the new nation, there would be a series of revolutions and the American experiment would be a failure. He realized that in order to have safety, stability and subsequent prosperity, these things had to be attractive to the majority of the people. The solution at the time was to give land away -- taken from the natives, true, but that's not really relevant to what I'm talking about here -- and this mindset of aligning the success of the people with the success of the nation has been the underpinning of all successful modern states.

Since their inception, the only way liberated societies have been able to increase their level of security was to have fewer people strongly desire to wound them. Again, this does not mean we should capitulate to terrorists, but it does mean we need to seriously undertake efforts to engage and embrace parts of the world we have historically isolated and shunned. Unless we can create more win-win situations and meaningfully associate the success of America with the success of these parts of the world (the Middle East, N. Africa, S.E. Asia, etc), we will face increasing terrorism in spite of -- and because of -- our military (mis)adventures.

Terrorists are forged in the crucible of despair. While it may be true in some sense that they "hate our freedom," this does not mean they cannot be brought around to seeing its virtue if we can engage them with it. Lobbing explosives around is a poor way to start this conversation. We must seek to honestly partner with the disenfranchised peoples of the world -- this means a great deal more than providing aid or purchasing their natural resources and cash crops -- if we are to address this problem seriously and with any chance of success.

Now, if you truly believe that invading Iraq is a means for creating win-win situations, or represents "partnering" with the population and region in question, then we simply have to agree to disagree and go our separate ways in peace. Since we have already made the decision to let slip the dogs of war, I dearly hope you are correct, though I must admit that this hope is quite faint in my heart. Unless we can find a way to make this war a win for the people of Iraq and a win for the region as a whole -- wins in spite of the opposition and antipathy we are already facing, and which is likely only to increase -- it is a loss for America.