Outstanding piece in the WSJ today about the thinking behind 9-11, and what we should do now

[glenn1]

A little long, but well worth it

 

[Howard]

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[Rainsford]

Damn, that was long. But I think he brings up a lot of interesting points. I personally think that the issue is exactly what he was saying, that terrorists don't live in the same world that the rest of us do, and that is why we're having so much trouble understanding and dealing with them. We try to figure out why they hate us and what we need to change to get them to like us, but that seems to be the wrong approach. If they really wanted us to change our policies, they would have some sort of strategy of attacks or messages. Instead they attack seemingly at random with little follow up or "or else" type threats. All we hear from them is how America is "The Great Satan". Well super, but if they really cared about making us change, I would think they would be a little more specific. Now I know that a lot of people will chime in with all the negative aspects of US foreign policy, and I might even agree with some of those points, but the fact remains that what the terrorists are doing doesn't seem to be directed towards making us change that.

At one point the author says that we should deal with terrorism as if it were a plague. While that sounds bad, I think we might have no other choice. Attempting to put their actions in context of "what do they want?" does not seem to be working. While we might guess, we really have no idea what they hope to gain by their actions. Previous attacks of this magnitude on the US (like Pearl Harbor) had a goal. The Japanese wanted to take out our Pacific Fleet capabilities to prevent the US from preventing their conquest. This was a goal that we could either agree with or fight against. We choose fight and in the end we won and now Japan and the US are allies and they "attack" us with cheap and high quality electronics. But I personally don't think the terrorists have any concrete goal that can be either solved or ignored. I believe that "The Great Satan" is not a name that is used because of our actions, but because the terrorists really think we are "The Great Satan" and they see hurting us as a positive thing to do. The Japanese had no problem with the US per se, merely with our desire to prevent them from making war on all the countries around them. Once this issue was solved, Japan and the US were able to work together. But the Japanese did not attack us because they hate us, they attacked us because they wanted to accomplish something. IMHO, the terrorists do not seem to have any goal beyond the attacks.

If the attacks really are the end and not merely the means, Bush's approach, as much as people might dislike it, is the right one.