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The EditorsDecember 03, 2007
In an ideal world, a presidential election campaign would be a time to consider competing visions of the most important challenges that now confront the United States. How to respond to the continuing threat of international terrorism assuredly is one of those challenges. Unfortunately our present political culture, dominated by political consultants, pollsters and focus groups, does not encourage candid and thoughtful debate. Discussion of international terrorism has been dominated by the politics of fear, each candidate striving to persuade U.S. voters that he or she would be tough enough to deal with the dangers of terrorism. Very little attention is paid to who would be smart enough to understand the nature of the danger we face and develop an effective strategy to contain it.

No candidate has been more singleminded in exploiting the politics of fear than Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is one of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination. Mr. Giuliani won national and international respect for his leadership in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on his city, a reputation that proved financially rewarding for him on the lecture circuit and for his consulting business in the years that followed. Even his most persistent critics recognize the courage and eloquence with which he rallied the city in the aftermath of the attack. In the years before the 2001 attack, however, the Giuliani administration did not act on the recommendations made after the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The failure to clarify command structures and provide better communication between the police and fire departments compromised the heroic response of city agencies on that second day of terror. Mr. Giulianis record, then, on understanding and responding to the threat of international terrorism is, at best, mixed.

The other candidates, however, both Democrats and Republicans, have failed to address the challenge of international terrorism in ways that would enlighten and encourage the American voters. Little attention has been paid, for example, to the fact that the 2003 pre-emptive invasion of Iraq was not a necessary or wise response to international terrorism but, in fact, a costly distraction that has compounded the dangers we face. Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator, but he was not behind the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The Bush administration, however, appealed to popular anger over those attacks to gain emotional support for a war of choice. The possibility that Saddams regime had weapons of mass destruction did represent a real danger, but it was a danger that would have been more wisely contained by international oversight. The decision to invade Iraq, against the counsel of long-time U.S. allies, was a costly blunder and has not made the region or the world safer. Yet some voices both within and outside the Bush administration seem bent on repeating that error in dealing with the nuclear ambitions of Iran by suggesting unilateral military action by the United States may be necessary.

Nearly five years after the invasion of Iraq, the United States has a responsibility to the Iraqi people to try to heal the wounds of war by supporting the transition to a stable government in a society divided by sectarian conflict. The administration also has a responsibility to help relieve the suffering of families who have lost sons and daughters on the battlefield and those veterans who are returning severely wounded in body and spirit. But the moral and emotional investment demanded by the Iraq invasion should not prevent us from recognizing that it was a mistake and gaining some wisdom from its painful lessons.

A more enlightened approach to dealing with the continuing threat of international terrorism might begin by retiring the misleading phrase war on terror. Instead of a war that might end with a surrender or a treaty, we are engaged in a continuing police action waged by the international community against a loose network of nihilists with no coherent political agenda. In dealing with an international threat, Washington must recognize the necessity of international cooperation, sharing intelligence and working toward the kind of consensus necessary to support effective military action.

Above all, in this continuing struggle, we must repudiate any tactics that compromise our commitment to human rights and international law. If we compromise our fundamental values, we run the risk of becoming mirror images of our adversaries. The struggle with Islamic extremism in the decades ahead will be, above all, a contest of ideas and values. We must recognize the self-defeating strategies of a politics of fear and have confidence that a civilization grounded in respect for human dignity will, in the end, prevail.

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lLetha Chamberlain
16 years 4 months ago
Amen! (to this article) We must as individuals do a thorough inner search--looking to our own hates and self-righteousness. Then we must know our faith very thoroughly, because the Muslim fundamentalists have been trained to place doubt in our beliefs in hopes of converting us. They ask salient questions to see if you know what is the Trinity and the Incarnation--and try to talk you out of it. They have other methods, too, and what could convincing arguments, if you don't know and experienced your faith deeply. It is only then that you know the purpose and reason for your own most marvelous beliefs--and the TRUTH of them. They can be very persuasive. It is no wonder Islam is the fastest growing faith in the US--they have been preparing for this! There is much money from Saudi Arabia going into this push to convert Americans right now. Terrorism is, in itself, nothing to fear--it is the conversion of so many people right under our noses that is so worriesome to me. We have to promulgate our faith and its TRUTHS because the multitudes do not SEE!
Nicholas Clifford
16 years 3 months ago
Le's retire the misleading phrase “war on terror,” suggest the editors. Yes, yes, yes; this can't be said too often, too loudly, or by too many people. It is absolutely essential if we are to see our dangers for what they are, and if we are to come up with intelligent ways to meet them. For our current predicament, "war" is a metaphor (if that!) at best, because it conjures up a military defeat of a well-defined enemy, and yet an over-reliance on conventional military tactics simply seems to dig our hole deeper. Easy phrases about "regime change" or "surgical strikes" only serve to make our situation worse, and to cause our country to lose ground.

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