Terrorism thrives because many leaders make excuses for not fighting it, rather than making policies for defeating it. Here are some of the most malignant excuses:
Excuse No. 1: The terror problem is exaggerated.
“Osama bin Laden is dead, and al Qaeda is on the run,” President Obama said a few months before calling the terror group that now controls much of Iraq and Syria a “JV” outfit — junior varsity.
We saw the same kind of analysis before 9/11. “Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism,” ex-CIA official Larry Johnson wrote in The New York Times a few weeks before the planes hit the Twin Towers.
“Fewer Americans die from [terror] than drown in bathtubs or are struck by lightning,” declared Paul Pillar, a top CIA Mideast expert, in a book published just before 9/11.
In short, don’t trust the “experts.” Keep open eyes and an open mind — and don’t let yourself forget.
In short, don’t trust the “experts.” Keep open eyes and an open mind — and don’t let yourself forget.
Excuse No. 2: There’s no military solution to terror; only talking works.
History shows otherwise.
Israel used armed force beautifully to end a plague of suicide bombings in 2001 and 2002 by both Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group and the Islamist Hamas.
In Operation Defensive Shield, it attacked terror leaders and seized their headquarters. It also put up barriers to infiltration and smuggling, but didn’t merely observe from behind a fence or wall, as it re-established intelligence assets (human and high-tech ) in the West Bank.
Israel also used targeted killings to cripple Hamas in the 1990s. (Temporarily, anyway: Hamas recovered after Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.)
US officials condemned the policy — yet many later studied Israeli techniques for US drone attacks.
Other countries have successfully employed force against terror — Britain did it in Malaysia and Kenya in the 1950s.
America did it as far back as President Thomas Jefferson, when the US Marines crushed the Barbary Pirates. For that matter, it worked against al Qaeda in Iraq under George Bush in 2006-7.
Excuse 2-B: When you kill terrorists or destroy a terror group, you only make them martyrs.
Excuse 2-C: Kill a terrorist, and you just create even more terrorists.
No: History teaches that destroying a terror outfit shows that terrorism is futile, ending the “halo effect” of martyrdom.
Killing or jailing terrorists has worked just fine in many countries such as Turkey, where the country’s democratic leaders defeated the Kurdish terrorists of the PKK.
Excuse No. 3: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
This classic excuse was first offered by Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney general who became a defense lawyer for terrorists and extremists. You’ll sometimes hear a version from the likes of MIT’s Noam Chomsky or “educator” Bill Ayers, who call America a terror state.
The “argument” is either obtuse or ignorant. It’s like telling a woman who’s been raped that “one woman’s rape is another woman’s great sex.”
Terrorism expert Paul Wilkinson observed that people making this claims display “invincible ignorance about terrorism; they hold that the word [terror] has no meaning but is simply a pejorative.”
Terrorists obey no rules; they pose as civilians and hide behind them — and also target them.
They behead noncombatants and broadcast their butchery to instill fear and undermine morale. They aim to seize our minds, not just our land.
They wage war on entire societies, not individuals. They target not just aircraft, ships and trains but entire transportation systems and water supplies.
Terrorism attacks the very idea of democratic society. It is the illegal use of power to extort or overturn a whole society, and society must fight back — hard.
Excuse No. 4: It’s hard to identify terrorists or to come up with a legal formula that fits all terrorists. We can’t really pursue terrorists or even use the word “terror” until we have a clear idea of what or whom we are fighting.
This excuse is loved by bureaucrats, politicians and lawyers who prefer delay to action. It doesn’t hold up to common sense.
Terrorists define themselves by their goal and methods. When someone beheads a policeman in London or a journalist in Syria, that is terror. When someone blows up a bus or a subway, it’s terror.
When we blow up a terrorist, that’s freedom fighting.
Michael Widlanski is the author of “Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat.” He teaches at Bar-Ilan University.