War on Terror--Next Steps
NPR has a great story this morning about the need to re-think the war on terror, shifting focus from the military activities of the last three years to working at the roots of adding numbers to the ranks of terrorist groups. It's a collection of opinions and voices, from Richard Clarke (former National Security adviser on terrorism and author of the critical Against All Enemies) to David Frum (former Bush speechwriter and author of the supportive An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror with Richard Perle, FOC*). Here are a couple of bits that I'll transcribe, but it's worth a listen on your coffee or lunch break. First, comments from Bruce Hoffman (a vice president at the Rand Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy) at a conference in Washington DC on Al Qaeda:

Hoffman is one of the most respected terrorism experts in the U.S., and he got people's attention with this line: "The concept of a war on terrorism has outlived both its usefulness and its relevance." Hoffman said the U.S. strategy of killing and capturing terrorists has been a good one these first three years after 9/11. But, he continued, it's time to move away from that model, and to focus much more closely on breaking the cycle of terrorist recruitment: "To do this, we have to think and plan strategically, not just to counter the current generation of terrorists out there, but the generation beyond the existing one.

Later that morning, Jessica Stern of Harvard picked up that theme: "Where I think we're making a very profound error is in focusing almost exclusively on the stock, on today's terrorist rather than who becomes a terrorist and why." Trying to stop the flow of new recruits and trying to kill or catpure as many existing terrorists as you can are, of course, not mutually exclusive. But from the beginning, the Bush administration has framed the struggle against terrorists in military terms--terms of capturing them or killing them.

Later, Richard Clarke's comment:

"By going into Iraq with military force, we're actually generating more terrorists than we are capturing or killing them. So, if you want to include the activities as part of the war on terrorism, as the Bush administration does, then I would say that the war on terrorism, so far, has generated more terrorists than it has captured or killed."

With a second Bush administration, I think any hope of working on economic and social roots of terrorist recruitment will continue to be neglected and general anger at the U.S. will continue to escalate.

* Friend of Chalabi