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We will lose a war against terrorism
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The misuse of the word “war” has led the United States into a no-win position with regard to terrorists in general and al Qaeda specifically. Last summer, the Rand Corporation issued a report accepting the viewpoint from officials in the Pentagon that military force and a military focus will not defeat terrorism; the issue should be considered a police-criminal one.
In the United States, we express strong social aims and concerns as “wars on …” We have had, over the years, Wars against Poverty, Inflation, Drugs and now, against Terrorists. The indiscriminate use of such terms causes confusion and flaws in our government’s thinking.
The United States and other western nations are threatened by groups that find our freedoms and valuesinconsistent with their values. There is no rational doubt that those groups wish to undermine and destroy western countries replacing them with regimes consistent with their beliefs.
The fanatics-terrorists have attacked this country and it is certainly possible, if not likely more acts of destruction and horror may occur. The type of threat we face, however, is not the consequence of “war”; we are being attacked by an ideology not another nation.
We are engaged in a different kind of war.
Conventional "war" is a fight between nation-states; it has a definite start and a definite conclusion, the latter being the surrender by or utter destruction of the losing entity. War, in its classical definition, was fought by formal military forces. Warring parties usually hold territory, which they can win or lose; and each has a leading person or organization which can surrender, or collapse, thus ending the war. The War on Terror has none of these attributes; our adversaries are part of no nation-state, albeit some nations give them financial and logistic support. Terrorists are not part of a formal army or military unit. And, far more important, there is no central authority which could end the war.
In discussing the status of "detainees" at Guantanamo, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield has indicated that some detainees, even if acquitted in criminal proceedings, may remain in detention "for the duration of the conflict." When asked to specify when, in his view, this would be, he replied, "when we feel that there are not effective global terrorist networks functioning in the world."
In discussing the status of "detainees" at Guantanamo, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield has indicated that some detainees, even if acquitted in criminal proceedings, may remain in detention "for the duration of the conflict." When asked to specify when, in his view, this would be, he replied, "when we feel that there are not effective global terrorist networks functioning in the world."
Secretary Rumsfeld's statements have at least an arguable basis in the laws of war.
According to the Geneva Conventions, captured combatants may be detained without charges until the end of active hostilities. The justification for this rule is that a government involved in an armed conflict has an obvious interest in ensuring that enemy soldiers are kept away from combat for the duration of the conflict.
In an ordinary war, it is fairly easy to determine when hostilities have begun and ended. In the fight against terrorism, when did it start? Was it with the attacks on New York and Washington or with the commencement of the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan? That does not really matter, except as to future historians but it is important to determine when it can be deemed to have ended. It also has consequences in the new administration’s anticipated closing of Guantanamo
In other words, at what point must the "war on terrorism" be understood simply as a rhetorical formula, like the "war on drugs" (or, back in the idealistic past, the "war on poverty")? And an even more preliminary question is whether terrorism, even in its most extreme manifestations, should be recognized as a form of conventional war.
As former Secretary Rumsfeld's comments suggest, the Bush administration's views on this issue were unequivocal. The Bush administration stated that the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were acts of war; that the war on terrorism is a real war, not a rhetorical device; and that the Guantanamo detainees could be held without trial until the war on terrorism was over.
The conflict in Iraq has devolved into an apparent civil war with our attempts at "nation-building" in disarray. Are we any closer to a world without terror and terrorists? I do not think so. It is clear to me, at least, that the battle against terrorism has no foreseeable end. Already, the administration has acknowledged that it may take decades before the United States can claim victory in the war on terrorism. And, when one thinks soberly on the question, even an estimate of decades seems overly optimistic.
Georgetown Law Professor David Cole put it, to say that we will hold the Guantanamo detainees until the war on terrorism is over means that "we're going to keep them for eternity because there are going to be terrorist organizations as long as there is a common cold."
But it appears that, for the first time in years, events in this country have put al-Qaeda on the defensive and has threatened it to its core.
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