On War - And Idiots

You know, sometimes it's scary who we elect to be our leaders in this country. Sometimes it's a guy like Strom Thurmond, who's dead 20 years before he gets out of office, other times it's a guy like John Edwards, who's a conniving, closeted socialist, and other times it's a guy like Chris Dodd, who's just plain stupid. With Dodd, however, the most frightening aspect of his stupidity is not that it got him elected to the U.S Senate, but that it's deluded him into thinking that he deserves more. That's why he is running (quite unsuccessfully, I might add) for the Democrats' Presidential Nomination. This quote, from a speech he made earlier today, is why he shouldn't be running for the Democrats' Presidential Nomination:

"....In fact, [the trial of the al-Qaeda terrorist Zaccarias] Moussaoui is the perfect victory. Our system is shown to be fair. The court struck a balance that protects both our values and our security. We didn't lose anything. Moussaoui ultimately showed himself to be a fool--deranged, a joke, hardly someone that we'd think of as a great Middle East martyr. Ultimately he's imprisoned in a place where his name will be forgotten forever. How is that not a great victory?"

Compare that case to the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who organized the attacks of 9/11. He was held in a secret prison, where he claims he was tortured severely. Whether he is lying or not, by our actions we have allowed Khalid Mohammed to claim the moral high ground. Khalid Mohammed plays martyr to a world that is inclined to believe it.

Torture does not work....."

Yes folks, you read that right, Senator Dodd, a man who wants to be President, believes that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11, has the "moral high-ground" against us. And why does he have the moral high ground? Because he was 'waterboarded' while in U.S custody.

Since there is clearly such moral parity between making an admitted terrorist endure a painful drowning simulation and masterminding the death of 3,000 innocent civilians.

Seriously, what planet is Dodd from? It would be a stretch to call Khalid Sheikh Muhammad a human being, much less one who could hold any kind of moral ground - even at the below-ground level. I think he'll find that many people, myself included, are somewhat sympathetic to his position on the issue of 'torture' - but telling all those people that they are the moral equals of terrorist masterminds doesn't strike me as a great way to win converts to your cause.

Ultimately, however, for all the problems with his style and presentation, there is one thing which the Senator's words make abundantly clear, and it is the thing that makes his status as an elected official so damned frightening - and that is how the Senator completely and utterly misunderstands our enemies. Read that first paragraph in the above quote again - you'll see an underlying sentiment there that, somehow, these Islamic fascists we're fighting actually care how we treat our prisoners of war.

Really? Does the Senator think that giving Zaccarias Moussaoui a fair trail makes it any less likely that an American Soldier captured by al-Qaeda will be beheaded? Does he think that potential jihad recruits in the Middle East will look at the U.S's fair trial of Moussaoui and go, 'geez, since they convicted him at a jury trial, the Americans must be the good guys'? Surely he's observant enough to realize that they'd be more likely to call the whole thing a pre-arranged Zionist scam than to credit America for having done the right thing.

And remember, just because it's the right thing to do, doesn't mean they think it's the right thing to do.

Indeed, Al-Qaeda doesn't care what we do when we catch their little terrorists; they just care about whether or not we catch them. The only time Islamic Radicals find our trials useful and 'convincing' is when they can use them for their own propaganda purposes - which is why Al-Qaeda explicitly directs jihadists, once they get to court, to claim they were tortured and abused while in prison. No really, it's in their freakin' training manual.

And that's what's scary about Chris Dodd - he really thinks they care about what we do, and, more importantly, he thinks that they will respond to it in a rational, Western way. Just look at what he said about Moussaoui; he claimed that, as a result of the damage done to him by the trial, he was "hardly someone that we'd think of as a great Middle East martyr."

Well, whoop-de-doo-da Senator, of course WE don't think he'd make a great martyr, but, again, it doesn't matter what we think - it matters what THEY think; and we don't have much of a say-so in who they think will make a great martyr. Indeed, this is one of those times when multi-culturalism is actually quite useful; because in order to defeat someone in a war, you have to understand where they're coming from and be able to think about things from their perspective - irrespective of how flipping crazy they are.

You know, come to think of it, for an open-minded, multi-cultural, liberal, Mr. Dodd sure has one hell of an arrogant, western perspective on the situation.

And herein lies the problem with many on Mr. Dodd's side: their Eurocentrism. They still seem to be operating, as most Europeans are, with the built in assumption that war and politics fall within the realm of the Nation-State and the rational actor. It is, if you will, a Clausewitzian perspective on a decidedly non-Clausewitzian world; and thus, it is a perspective which has fostered a fundamental misunderstanding of our enemy and his goals on the part of many of our leaders.

This is not the 18th or 19th Century, and the battle against Islamic radicalism is a far cry from the Napoleonic Wars in which Carl von Clausewitz learned the lessons that shaped his famous theories, including those in On War. But times change, and war does too - it, of all things, certainly hasn't remained stuck in the past.

It would be helpful if our leaders might somehow figure that out too.