The Us Military Cannot Defeat the Terrorists

            One of the consequences of the horrendous terrorist attacks of September 11 is that the United States is marching off to war in numerous countries around the globe.   Given the terrible damage and large numbers of casualties, it is hardly surprising that most Americans want to destroy the terrorist organization(s) that launched the attacks and the government(s) that aided and abetted the terrorists.   Unfortunately, there has been remarkably little public discussion as to why people from the Middle East chose to become suicide bombers intent on piloting air lines into enormous office buildings filled with people.   Nor has there been much deliberation regarding the probable consequences of using military force to punish terrorists and the governments that harbor them.

     

President George W. Bush struck a popular chord when he charged that terrorists "have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender."   In his analysis, Americans are innocent victims of barbaric "people that hate freedom and hate what we stand for." The victims on the four high jacked planes and in the buildings were innocent victims, but President Bush is voicing a widely held myth whenever he argues that the terrorist attacks were designed to destroy freedom and democracy in the United States, or that the United States was attacked because it is the defender of freedom and democracy abroad.   In fact, the United States was attacked, not because of its political ideals, but rather because of its government's foreign policy in the Middle East.  





            During World War II and in the years after, U.S. power flowed into the region.   There the U.S. government sought allies in the fight against fascism, then communism, and lastly against an expansionist Iraq.   In these conflicts American policy makers were not particular about who the help they recruited.   Brutal dictatorships, repressive military governments, and absolute monarchies...