Winning the War Against Terror
<p><em>(Final essay of the series.)</em></p>
<p>In previous essays in this series, I have <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?m=200206#48">described<br />
Islam</a> as a warlike and bloody religion subject to periodic fits of<br />
violent fundamentalist revival.  I have analyzed the roots of Islamic<br />
terror in the Koranic duty of jihad, and elucidated Osama bin Laden&#8217;s<br />
goal as nothing less than the destruction of the West and the <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?m=200206#6">establishment<br />
of a global</a> Islamic theocracy.  I have analyzed the reason<br />
Americans have trouble <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?m=200206#51">comprehending<br />
the scope of the threat</a>, and I have explained why Western-style<br />
diplomacy is <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?m=200206#22">next<br />
to useless</a> in this situation.  In this final essay I&#8217;ll suggest<br />
paths towards a solution.</p>
<p>In order to win, we must begin with realism about the scope of the<br />
war and the objectives of the enemy.  We must realize that although in<br />
theory and theology al-Qaeda is making war on the entire infidel West,<br />
in practice they are only interested in attacking the U.S., the<br />
`hyperpower&#8217; that leads it.</p>
<p>There is no possible gain for al-Qaeda in attacking Europe and<br />
risking a change in the pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian tilt of the EU<br />
(which has just resumed support payments to the Palestinian Authority<br />
despite conclusive evidence that the money is diverted to pay for<br />
massacres of Israeli children).  Nor can al-Qaeda gain any leverage by<br />
attacks on the remainder of the world.  The theaters of the war will<br />
include the U.S. and terrorist base areas in the Islamic arc<br />
stretching from Morocco through the Maghreb through the Middle East to<br />
Pakistan, and perhaps in Indonesia and the Phillipines as well.</p>
<p>To people who view the entire world through the lens of the Western<br />
tradition, the strategy I will outline is doubtless going to sound<br />
bellicose and regressive.  It is not; it is founded on a cold-blooded<br />
realization that Arab cultures (and the Arabized cultures of the rest<br />
of the Islamic world) regard victory in war as a sign of Allah&#8217;s favor<br />
and regard compromise and concession as a sign of weakness.</p>
<p>The war against Islamic terror must be fought on three levels:<br />
homeland defense, military power projection, and cultural subversion.<br />
We must foil terrorist acts; we must imprison or kill the terrorists<br />
who plan and execute them; and we must dry up the pool of potential<br />
recruits before they become terrorists who can only be stopped by<br />
being imprisoned or killed.</p>
<p>Homeland defense includes all those measures designed to make the<br />
attacks on U.S. civilians less likely to succeed.  These will include<br />
conventional police and security measures.  It must also include a<br />
revival of the role of the unincorporated militia and the armed<br />
citizen.  Al-Qaeda has limited resources, but the advantage of<br />
choosing where they will strike; since the police and military cannot<br />
be everywhere, civilians (like the passengers of flight 93) must take<br />
anti-terrorist defense into their own hands.</p>
<p>Military power projection includes direct military action against<br />
terrorist bases and havens.  As an anarchist, I would prefer a world<br />
in which private security agencies under contract to insurance<br />
companies pursued al-Qaeda; persons of some other political persuasions<br />
might propose supranational agencies such as the U.N.  Unfortunately,<br />
under the current world system there is no alternative to governments<br />
to do this work.  The U.S. has begun it in Afghanistan; the war must<br />
continue in Iraq, and it is likely to encompass Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi<br />
Arabia as well.</p>
<p>The goal of military power projection must be twofold: physical and<br />
psychological.  The physical goal must be to destroy the physical<br />
infrastructure of terrorism &#8212; the headquarters, bases and training<br />
camps.  While this is important, the psychological goal of humiliating<br />
and crushing jihadists is even more important.</p>
<p>Islamic armies and resistance movements are fanatical in attack but<br />
brittle on the defense.  When motivated by the conviction that Allah<br />
guides their arm, suicidal bravery is routine.<br />
On the other hand, when the fortunes of a cause decline past a<br />
certain point, Arabs tend to consider the will of Allah to be manifest<br />
and abruptly abandon it. These tendencies form part of the cultural<br />
background that includes even secularized terrorist movements<br />
(such as Yasser Arafat&#8217;s al-Fatah) in the Islamic world.</p>
<p>The U.S. was able to exploit this brittleness effectively in<br />
Afghanistan.  By moving in overwhelming force when it moved at all,<br />
the U.S. was able to intimidate many warlords affiliated with the<br />
Taliban into switching sides &#8212; an important reason the campaign<br />
involved so little actual fighting.</p>
<p>We must repeat this maneuver on a larger scale.  We must teach the<br />
Dar-al-Islam to respect and <em>fear</em> the power of the West.  We<br />
must not negotiate or offer concessions until it is clear from the<br />
behavior of governments, the umma, and the &#8220;Arab street&#8221; that the<br />
public will to support jihad has been broken.</p>
<p>Our most important long-term weapon against Islamic terrorism,<br />
however, will be cultural subversion.  That is, to break the hold of<br />
the Islamist/jihadist idea on the minds of Muslims.  To do this, it<br />
may be necessary to discredit the entirety of Islam; the question<br />
depends on whether any Islamic figure will be clever enough to<br />
construct an interpretation of Islam purged of jihadist tendencies,<br />
and whether that version can propagate and displace the<br />
Sunni-fundamentalist varieties now dominant in the Islamic world.</p>
<p>I can do no better than to quote Michelle Efird, the woman who<br />
inspired my essay<br />
<a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?m=200206#5">We Are All Jews Now</a>.  In private mail afterwards<br />
(quoted with permission) she wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>
I don&#8217;t want to appease them, I don&#8217;t want to understand them, I<br />
don&#8217;t want to let them reap the benefits of our liberalism while<br />
plotting our destruction. Like most Americans, I would have been more<br />
than happy to let them pretend the last 400 years of progress never<br />
happened, as long as they didn&#8217;t force their warped-vision goggles on<br />
anyone else. But since they brought the war to us, let&#8217;s pave the<br />
middle east with outlet malls, fast food franchises, and Disney<br />
Mecca. Let&#8217;s infect their entire population with personal liberty and<br />
dissension and critical thinking. And if that doesn&#8217;t work, let&#8217;s<br />
flood them with porn spam.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Osama bin Laden may, in the end, have materialized his own worst<br />
fears.  The ideology of jihad has created its mirror and opposite; the<br />
dawning sense that we in the West have the right, the power, and the<br />
<em>duty</em> to wipe bin Laden&#8217;s brand of religion from the face of<br />
the earth before it destroys us all.</p>
<p>UPDATE: N.Z. Bear has written an<br />
<a href="http://www.truthlaidbear.com/001188.html#001188"><br />
excellent essay</a> on memes and cultural subversion.</p>
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