National security and foreign policy stinks and will continue to stink as long as the obsession with You Ess Seecureetee continues to the detriment of multinational, cooperative endeavors. I am sick to death of rogue this and terrorist that and the Pentagon gearing up for WWIII.
"I am sick to death of rogue this and terrorist that and the Pentagon gearing up for WWIII"
Many people are also sick of Islamist radicals engaing in wild killing sprees of unarmed civilians.
Talk is great, international cooperation and foreign aid are good. We need more of it and more FSOs too. Negotiate and cut deals with even the more reasonable wing of the Islamist crazies. That's fine IMHO; we talked with Mao and Brezhnev so we can talk to Ahmadinejad or some Pushtun chieftain too.
That said, the hard core jihadis are still going to have to be killed off and there's nothing the U.S. needs to apologize about in that regard.
No, what the U.S. needs to apologize for is it's unilateral strategy of preemptive strikes to kill suspected terrorists. With such actions, the number of people we have created who are hostile, be it in action or word, toward the U.S. far outnumbers those we have killed. The level of our violence has been highly disproportional to violence inflicted on us.
"Security" has become little more than a code word for preemption in some circles. Don't fall for that confusion zenpundit. That's not a road we want to continue down, less we desire another bloody period of history where states (say India) claim rights to invade their neighbors to stop what amounts to upscaled cross-border gang warfare. That's not where we want to go.
Lets hope Obama begins not only to rebuild existing multilateral structure, but to also investigate the creation of a new global anti-terrorism information and policing organization. This isn't a problem that is fixable by the U.S. military alone.
hello c. hall
First, I think we need to clarify our terms.
"Preemption" is both acceptable and perfectly legal under international law to thwart an imminent threat. Every state may act unilaterally in this regard and indeed, it is a moral right as well. Naturally, *after* having been attacked, a military response by a state cannot even be considered to be "preemptive" but simple self-defense.
"Prevention" on the other hand,is not legal and is generally considered to be "aggression" and immoral.
As the United States was attacked repeatedly by al Qaida (Embassy, USS Cole, 9/11)and is in a formally declared state of armed conflict with that organization, our military attacks on al Qaida collectively or against individuals are not "preemptive" or "preventative". We are acting as a lawful belligent so long as we are targeting combatants.
Whether it is "worth it" in terms of political or diplomatic costs to the United States for acting unilaterally in making specific attacks is a normative question.
It is a reasonable argument- one I agree with, incidentally- that the United States would have greater strategic advantages if we used unilateral force with more restraint and discretion in a manner timed for maximum positive impact on global opinion, when threat assessments make that feasible. And that the U.S. would gain more from building cooperative relationships with other centers of power. That's a useful criticism of current policy.
Then on the other hand, there are many ppl in the world for whom, ideologically, the U.S. is wrong in every circumstance and de facto they would never agree that any American use of force is ever justified, no matter what the provocation. As they are passively or actively hostile to our security and interests, being our enemies really, crafting policy nuances to suit them is a waste of time. Concessions are for bargaining support from the neutral middle or reluctant allies if they're offering something in return.
A longwonded way of saying,"no apologies for killing terrorists".
Zen-
I had a comment all ready to go, only to hit the close winder key combo by accident. So instead you get an abbreviated version.
I feel Afghanistan was a questionably legal war. I have never seen evidence that the Taliban in anyway directly contributed to the planning or gave material support to Al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. Certainly, there has never been any evidence of an imminent attack from the Afghan government.
Instead, the U.S. was attacked by non-State actors. The historical response to such attacks is to negotiate an surgical operation with the host country, and, baring that, to take unilateral action, but only against the immediate perpetrators. I am unaware (and maybe our hosts can fill us in) of strong international laws dealing with such situation and so-called "unlawful combatants" (as if the state has some monopoly on violent coercion). As such, the U.S. has tried to carefully balance previous reactions. The full-scale invasion of Afghanistan, using what many would also describe as thugs at best, and terrorists at worst (the Northern Alliance), was not such balance.
Second, Al-Qaeda was not a large organization at the time, with it's subsequence exponential growth via the grass-roots largely a product of the U.S. invasion. I do not care what the "normative" definition of "worth it" is; the (semi-)objective truth is that the invasion has lead to a growth in terrorist recruitment, training, and attacks. Be it lawful or not, I do not call that worth it.
Iraq has even less of a case, so I will not even address it beyond saying that the Bush administration should have faced international sanctions for it's actions. No doubt, had most any other country acted similarly, they would have felt the sting of the international community. If you find that "anti-American," I'm sorry, but sometimes the truth sucks.
All this is not an argument for non-action. Rather, it's an argument for rational and well thought-out action, action that follows the norms of the Western world, and can therefore be of a multilateral nature. And most importantly, action that will not continue to alienate vulnerable sections of the Muslim world, and inflaming the very problem it seeks to dampen.
"No apologies for killing terrorists," indeed, but killing should stop being the first plan. It's not a winning strategy, and often it leads to amoral and immoral situations. Afghanistan has been yet another lesson in this truth. We must not base our national foreign policy on revenge, but on international stability and justice. That will occasionally involve military action, but not the style of the last eight years.
Cheers,
And, quickly, on "preemption" vs. "prevention," I must say that the common usage of "preemption" has largely lost connotation of "imminent threat". I'll try and stick to the more formal definitions in the future.
Cheers,
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