If Anti-Terror Fight Isn't Law Enforcement, Should We Listen to NYPD? Posted by David Shorr

If there's one thing that hard liners have been very clear about, it's that fighting terrorists with law enforcement is Very Unserious. The crucial thing, supposedly, is to understand that THESE PEOPLE MEAN TO DO US HARM. We're at war, you people, got that? So what should we do with Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, the new report today from the New York Police Department? From my initial read of the executive summary, Ray Kelly and his colleagues have made an empirical study of the process by which people become terrorists.

But what does NYPD know about terrorists? In a word, a lot. Arguably, according to this July 2005 New Yorker article by William Finnegan, more than the United States Govenment combined. And how did they come to know all this? By doing law enforcement! Yes, methodical, gumshoe, community policing.

Progressives often argue against the War on Terror approach by highlighting what a blunt instrument military force is. That's the negative argument, and it has the added virtue of being true. But I think the positive argument is much more powerful. You stop terrorists by picking up their trail and following it. Not military cordon-and-search by our infantry (God bless 'em), but law enforcement!!!

I think we've got a pretty strong argument, what do you think?

Comments

[SteveB]

So if fighting terrorism is a job for the cops, what did you think of Afghanistan? I'm actually in agreement with you that we'd be better off using police methods (with all due constitutional safeguards), but it seems to me that the fundamental mistake of treating terrorism as a military problem and not a police problem was first made with Afghanistan, an invasion heartily endorsed by most liberal Democrats.

[David Shorr]

Not going to renounce the Afghanistan invasion - exception proving the rule. That was an extraordinary concentration of terrorists in a sanctuary. Moreover, the international community endorsed the American retaliation as an act of self-defense. But as I say, that's the exception; the rule is all these cells that have been discovered and dismantled.

[SteveB]

David:
Sorry for the pedantry, but the phrase "the exception that proves the rule" is either based on an seldom-used definition of the word "prove", meaning "to test", as in: "the exception tests the rule", or it's a mistranslation of the original Latin. Cecil Adams has more, if you're interested. The sense in which you're using it, which is: "Yes, there's an exception, but I'm sticking with my damn rule anyway" is the most common usage. It is also bullshit.

Now, to Afghanistan: I don't get the "terrorist sanctuary" thing, to be honest. Sure, I've seen the file footage of keffiyeh-clad men running through obstacle courses. Scary stuff, indeed. But to harm us those guys have to leave Afghanistan, affording us an opportunity to catch and interrogate them. Blowing up the camp where they're "training" doesn't do much except scatter the terrorists you're trying to collect (that, and seriously diminish their ability to work their way through a jungle gym).

And exactly what kind of "terrorist infrastructure" did they have in Afghanistan? Such an impressive "infrastructure" that they had to send guys to the United States to learn to fly a freakin' airplane. Think about that for a second.

I suggest that if you find an "extraordinary concentration" of terrorists, you should watch that place very closely, send in infiltrators and capture and interrogate guys who leave. Practically speaking, do you want your terrorists concentrated, or spread out to hell and back?

As for the larger picture, the real mistake many liberals made was evaluating the merits of the Afghan invasion as if it existed in isolation, as if Bush and Cheny & Co. weren't obviously thinking of it as simply step #1 in an endless war. I think if there had been more opposition to Afghanistan, Iraq might not have happened. The failure was not looking a few steps down the road to see where the Afghan invasion would lead us, despite all the warning signs. And the framing you oppose, the "war" on terror rather than patient and disciplined police action against terror, all that began in Afghanistan.

[Zathras]

Politically, this line doesn't work. It's too vulnerable to the response that "anti-terrorism as law enforcement" is what the Clinton administration did, and all it gave us was more terrorism. With respect to the NYPD analysis, which is explicitly directed at "homegrown" or domestic terrorism, the critique that the Bush administration is not emphasizing law enforcement is rebutted by pointing to the things it is doing already -- including the things that helped thwart the terrorist plots discussed by the NYPD report.

The line also steps on the Democrats' critique of the Iraq adventure, which is that it is a diversion from the fight against terrorism of the kind that attacked America on 9/11. The problem with Iraq isn't that we're fighting terrorism there with the wrong tools, it's that we're in Iraq and mostly fighting terrorism by Iraqis against other Iraqis.

Finally, preventive steps against terrorism around the world -- including activities often described as part of "nation-building" -- are often not only far removed from law enforcement but can only be undertaken by the American military. Partly that's because of the kind of activities involved; you can't train West African military units without American soldiers. But it's also partly because the military is the tool we have, a situation created by the last Democratic administration. It is nice to think of America leaping into the fight against terrorism with armies of civilian aid workers and public diplomats, but we don't have them. The institutions of American foreign policy outside the Pentagon and intelligence services were dismantled or allowed to atrophy following the Soviet collapse, and will have to be rebuilt for any of the fine campaign rhetoric about increasing our reliance on diplomacy and other non-military instruments can be given substance. So in addition to being useless politically, the tactic of emphasizing law enforcement rather than the military as our primary weapon against terrorism is irrelevant to many of the things the next President will need to do to make terrorism against this country less likely in the years to come.

[Don Bacon]

I agree with SteveB, and so does this guy:

"People talk about, 'Are you winning?' First, you have to define: What is winning? And I don't mean to be glib about that. Winning in this war on terrorism is having security in the countries we're trying to help that allows for those governments to function and for their people to function.

"Example. Washington, D.C., has crime, but it has a police force that is able to keep that crime below a level at which the normal citizens can go about their daily jobs and the government can function. That's what you're looking for on the war on terrorism, whether it be Iraq, Afghanistan, or anyplace else."--General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3765

[Dan Kervick]

It is nice to think of America leaping into the fight against terrorism with armies of civilian aid workers and public diplomats, but we don't have them.

There is still a strange tendency by some on the Democratic side to argue that the "root causes" of terrorism mainly lie in destitute or economically underperforming societies, or in some sort of lack of information about America or the West. But as we all know and have been reminded many times, terrorists tend to be reasonably well educated and from the middle class, and 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi, and thus hail from a country that has been on a consistent petrodollar-funded modernizing trajectory for decades. You can say a lot of bad things about Saudi Arabia, but it is just daft to think the Kingdom is deeply in need of a "Marshall Plan."

Islamist terrorism is not primarily some sort of social disease or psychological pathology. It is a deliberate fighting tactic chosen by people who regard themselves as engaged in a war against the people they attack. They regard their region as the victim of several rounds of Western economic, political, cultural and military imperialism and colonialism, which has been occurring since at least the time of Napoleon. They view several of their leaders as puppets of that imperialism. They seek to end that imperialism by raising the costs of Western involvement in their region, for both Western governments and Western publics.

It is already the case that law enforcement or law enforcement-like techniques are the primary tool in the WOT, although military and covert paramilitary techniques are part of it as well. The main change that needs to occur in the political rhetoric really isn't so much related to the techniques used as to the size and scope of the problem. Politicians are still getting a lot of mileage out of exaggerating the terrorist threat as a monstrous and spreading global Islamofascist scourge of world historic proportions, when it is simply nowhere near so grand. It's mainly right wingers who fret about the rise of the Evil Caliphate, Eurabia, etc. But Democrats play into this as well when they sometimes suggest that the main reason for getting out of Iraq is so we can re-deploy to the "real battlefield."

[David Shorr]

So many great questions, and not much I disagree with. One exception, so to speak (BTW, we can find alternative syntax: norm/deviation, outlier...).

If it were merely a matter of getting onto the airplane, it wouldn't take such meticulous and methodical planning, which it does. And I just can't accept the association of the Afghanistan invasion with Iraq and the GWOT. Valid critiques are made of Congress and think tankers not opposing the Iraq invasion or doing so more vocally, but Afghanistan and the Cheney agenda are absolutely distinguishable. A Gore Administration would have invaded Afghanistan and not Iraq.

As I say, I really like a lot of the other questions. I might have gotten a bit worked up and pushed the law enforcement frame a bit too hard. Here's my tactical retreat (quoting from my earlier post on the subject: "I'm interested in stopping terrorists. I want to find them, stop them, dry up their support, and keep from boosting their recruiting efforts. Whatever works to do that, that's what I want to do." I guess my larger point is the need to connect the policy debate to the practicalities. NYPD are showing us the 'reality-based' way. And yes, the problem absolutely is the politics, just as Dan K says.

Zathras noted the atrophy of our civilian instruments. Not only do I completely agree, but I expect to be actively working this issue over the coming year [see Gordon Adams excellent piece on the subject (I was - disclosure - the editor: http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/pab07natsecbudget.pdf]

Root causes. At one level, Dan K is absolutely right that resort to terror is a choice made by individuuals. The religious studies major in me is impressed with the NYPD's description of this process at the individual level, e.g. the connection to identity. I also agree with Dan that many in the Middle East feel a dignity deficit, lacking a fundamental sense of agency, treated continually as objects rather than subjects.

I'm not sure Dan's position, but for me, this process is not unconnected to the wider dynamic of goodwill or hostility toward the United States. I think the counterinsurgency perspective on this ('the sea in which they swim') is valid. If the United States can recover some of its shine and help make globalization more equitable, a lot of problems will be helped, terrorism among them. Thanks again, everyone.

[Don Bacon]

A Gore Administration would have invaded Afghanistan and not Iraq.

1. There is the tacit assumption here that attacking Afghanistan was a good thing. This is old thinking. After the US installed its puppet Karzai, things looked good. But as time went on, as it always does, the situation worsened and is now quite bad.

2. There is no evidence that Gore would not have invaded Iraq. Quite the contrary. Gore, who supported the Gulf War, endorsed the Iraq invasion before it happened.

[SteveB]

A Gore Administration would have invaded Afghanistan and not Iraq.

But Al Gore wasn't President, was he? George Bush was President, and the way that liberals rushed to support his invasion of Afghanistan empowered him to go further, by invading Iraq.

My beef with many liberals, and liberal intellectuals especially, is that they tend to view these questions without taking the messy calculus of power into account. Some very ruthless men have hold of our government, and they have a plan for endless war. So the essential question to ask before about any specific course of action, whether it's invading Afghanistan, expanding wiretap authority, or whatever, is: will this help those ruthless men get what they want or will it impede them?

Instead, every foreign policy debate starts with a blank slate, often with the assumption that all the players are acting in good faith, and as if the particular proposal being debated must be judged, in isolation, on its own "merits."

I think we can all see where that approach has led us.

[Don Bacon]

SteveB,

I missed your point on Gore not being president. If I follow your logic, then even if he had favored an Iraq invasion before the election, then he should have opposed it when the "ruthless men" gained power. But instead Gore did his bow-and-scrape routine supporting Bush as the future liberator of Iraq in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in February 2002.

[Dan Kervick]

Root causes. At one level, Dan K is absolutely right that resort to terror is a choice made by individuuals. The religious studies major in me is impressed with the NYPD's description of this process at the individual level, e.g. the connection to identity. I also agree with Dan that many in the Middle East feel a dignity deficit, lacking a fundamental sense of agency, treated continually as objects rather than subjects.

I certainly don't discount the element of religious motivation, and also the social networking and group identity factors. I'm not nearly so convinced by the dignity deficit account. What I was trying to emphasize in my original post was the straightforward military component.

Why did American colonists fight British armies by using guerrilla tactics, shooting from behind trees and rocks, etc. Well, possibly because they wanted to win, and they judged those tactics as the most effective for achieving victory against a conventional imperial military.

Did the colonists fight that way because they were poor and destitute? Maybe in some cases. Was it because they wanted to be part of the group and solidify their social and psychic identification with local social networks. Sure. Were they motivated by religious zeal? In some cases, no doubt. Were they suffering from a lack of dignity? Frankly, American colonists, with their vibrant local governmental institutions, probably had much more control over their own lives than did their British counterparts.

But mainly they were trying to expel the British from territory that they had come to think of as theirs, and by doing so cause the British to forswear further attempts to exert governmental influence over their lives.

That's what I think global jihadism is mainly all about. It is a global insurgency with clear military and political aims: to re-establish full political control over Muslim lands by its native Muslim inhabitants; to expel foreign powers and their perceived agents, colonists and lackeys from those territories; to repatriate the resource wealth of those lands from the grip of foreign-dominated corporations and profiteers, etc.

There is still far too much of a tendency on the left-liberal side to psychologize the problem of terrorism, and look at it as some sort of syndrome, or evidence of social or psychological defects like a dearth of wealth, ego-strength or dignity. A lot of Americans still can't come to grips with the element of straightforward political-military conflict, because doing so compels them to face and address embarrassing questions they would prefer not to face and address. It compels them to ask of the long list of Islamist political aims, which are just and which are unjust, and to what degree. It compels them to ask which Western "interests" in the Muslim world they are willing to give up and which they are not willing to give up.