Terrorism as an abstract concept can be defined in many ways.
The first step is to separate out those who participate —
terrorists — from what is done — terrorist acts. The problem is
that terrorism in the abstract is quite benign; it doesn’t do
anything. As in war, there has to be destruction or intimidation of
some sort before the concept of war attains reality. The need,
therefore, is to attack effectively the reality of terrorism.
The terrorists using terrorist acts as their war mechanism don’t
fight “democracy” or any other political abstraction. They attack
physical structures and humans in hopes such an effort diminishes
the psychological strength of their opponent. That which they
destroy physically — unless it’s an anti-terror military facility
— is simply a step in their ambition to gain a psychological, and
thus political, advantage. (Even in the case of the destruction of
an anti-terror facility, there is a strong psychological as well as
physical component.)
As is well known, the real objective of terrorism is the will of
the target. Luring the target into a full scale conventional war is
to the advantage of the terrorist. The latter, after all, is
interested in inflicting psychological damage for political purpose
through physical destruction of its enemy’s men and materiel. The
presence of a large-scale conventional force provides a plentiful
target array.
Tying up large numbers of the opponent’s regular forces while
using a minimal number of their own alone automatically provides a
psychological victory. The interesting thing is that the regular
forces usually celebrate wiping out small numbers of terrorists
with as much enthusiasm as the small cadre of terrorists celebrate
killing far larger numbers of the regulars and the civilians they
are seeking to protect. Now, there is a real psychological
contradiction.
Americans have fought well in the past as “terrorists.” Our
first experience was with the British Army returning from their
lopsided victory over American militia at Lexington and Concord. As
the British professionals (“the finest army in Europe”) marched
back to Boston, American minutemen (the Brits would have called
them terrorists) hid behind stonewalls and picked off the redcoats
one by one. The British were more than a little distraught and in
later reports referred to such action as “banditry.”
Mosby’s Partisan Rangers during the Civil War created havoc
behind the main Union lines in Northern Virginia. These motley
clothed cavalrymen terrorized the regular Union army and its
civilian supply lines. Some of the few Confederates who were caught
were treated as spies and executed on the spot. But these southern
Americans knew what they were doing and drove the northern
“invaders” crazy while being aided and abetted by the subjugated
rebel population. They certainly would have used IED’s if they’d
had them.
There are many other instances of American “terrorist” actions,
of course: Our guerrillas in the Philippines operating against the
Japanese in World War II is only one of them. They held nothing
back in attempts to harass the Japanese army of occupation. In
Vietnam our Special Forces with their Montagnard allies moved
stealthily through NVN positions to strike behind the lines, while
Army and Marine snipers went high-ranking officer hunting.
The point here is that terrorism has many forms and has long
been an integral part of warfare. To counter it, however, requires
tactics that today might be characterized as terroristic. The
terrorist must be denied the psychological advantage, and to do
that sometimes requires what some would term terrorist tactics and
terrorist acts. Others would say, “Whatever it takes…”
Unfortunately Americans, much like most everyone else, don’t
like being called terrorists. It tends to be more acceptable to
drop bombs from on high that collaterally kill and wound civilians
rather than selectively coercing and killing non-cooperative local
leaders assisting terrorists.
The point of all this is to show the way to withdraw our troops
from Iraq yet carry on the war against terror. We should be able to
fight this war on terror with the effective implements of
terrorism. We can remove our regular forces and thus remove the
principal high value target of the terrorists, while we remain in
Iraq fighting strictly an unconventional ground and air war of
counter-terrorism — with our own innovative “terrorist”
capability.
The terrorists don’t think we can do it. Politically they might
be right. But there is nothing in the American psyche or history
that says we can’t do it. America in a given situation just has to
get mad enough. The difficulty is we don’t want to be terrorists.
At least we as a nation don’t like to think of ourselves as capable
of being terrorists — of using terrorism or terrorist acts. The
alternative is to continue to use conventional forces to fight
terrorists — which is exactly what the terrorists want us to do —
or pull out all together. Neither is wise.
President Bush still has it in his power to shift the focus of
our Iraqi military operations to the smaller scale, yet arguably
more effective, if brutal, methods of warfare used by the
terrorists, themselves. One can call it…special operations. We
have always been extremely good at that.
George H. Wittman, a member of the Committee on the
Present Danger, was the founding chairman of the National Institute
for Public Policy.
