Déjà vu

According to "dozens of interviews with intelligence and law enforcement officials and outside experts," the Los Angeles Times reported on September 26, "authorities have made little progress worldwide in defeating Islamic extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda" because of a "strategic failure to understand and combat Al Qaeda's evolution." It goes on to say that

[e]ven before the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda was a loosely organized network, but core leaders exercised considerable control over its operations. Since the loss of its base in Afghanistan and many of those leaders, the organization has dispersed its operatives and reemerged as a lethal ideological movement.

Osama bin Laden may now serve more as an inspirational figure than a CEO, and the war in Iraq is helping focus militants' anger....

That's bad enough, but dammit, haven't we been here before?

"Al Qaeda as an ideology is now stronger than Al Qaeda as an organization," said Mustafa Alani of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London. ...

The very name Al Qaeda, some experts say, has become shorthand for a larger jihad fed by the Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That's from another LA Times article about which I posted last November 21!

Nearly a year later and that still hasn't sunk in. A year later and still Bush and Kerry are both talking about al-Qaeda as if it were a static, hierarchical organization that can be "defeated" by capturing or killing a relative handful of specific individuals. A year later and it seems too many of us are still buying into that idea.

By that I mean that it seems that everybody, including many of us on the left, are eagerly awaiting, anticipating, the capture of Osama bin Laden as if that would be the end of terrorism.

Well, I hate to spoil the party, but not only would it not spell the end of terrorism, at this point I don't think it would even be a particularly heavy blow. Islamic fundamentalist terrorism - which is hardly the only kind but it is what is at issue with regard to al-Qaeda - has clearly outgrown the need for any kind of dominating father figure telling it what to do. The increasing frequency, sophistication, and coordination of attacks in Iraq are sufficient proof of that. Indeed, bin Laden's capture would most likely just serve as a rallying point for more attacks and his death would simply create a significant martyr.

The fact is, you can't "defeat" terrorism. As long as there are people there will be those - both groups and governments (in comparison to who, such as al-Qaeda are pikers in the terrorism department) - prepared to commit heinous violence against innocents for political gain.

However, you can minimize terrorism, but to do that you must understand its roots, what drives it, what motivates those involved. You can't do that by slinging around slogans and bumperstickers about how "they hate freedom." (Especially since many of our home-grown terrorists complain about "big government" - that is, they say they don't have enough freedom, although A. S. Neill would call what they want "license.") And you especially can't do that by equating an entire sociopolitical-religious mindset with a few particular individuals.