The newly declared War On Terrorism

Do you think this will be as successful as The War On Drugs?

If properly implemented it should do far better than that. How much better remains to be seen.


The reason it HAS to do better than the war on drugs is because there is too much money being made by people in the drug trade who are doing business. Terrorism, on the other hand, costs money rather than makes money.

If we ended the "war on drugs" and diverted all its funds and resources to the war on terrorism, we will have at least succeeded in ending the disasterous "war on drugs."

I don't know, M. From what I'm hearing, fighting these terrorist networks may prove to be just as frustrating as fighting the drug networks. Though I certainly don't understand much about them (yet), they apparently consist of extensive webs of "cells" or other entities scattered throughout many countries, and function in ways that are probably foreign to most of us. For example, I heard some expert on NPR explain that they often function *without* central leadership, through some model he didn't really get into. It is difficult to monitor their communications in part because they are set up such that some cells are out of touch with others, or only one member of a cell may be in touch with others cells, etc., so the lines of communication are minimized in number. BTW, this was compared to, and sounded somewhat similar to, models used by drug networks.


I heard as well (can't recall the source) that these networks run through generations, so that killing existing active terrorists may mean only their replacement before long with younger counterparts.


I'm sure we could do some damage to terrorist organizations, but is it at all realistic to think we can come close to eliminating them? I have some doubt. I fear trying forcefully to wipe out these networks may only slow them down temporarily, while further fueling their hate, and ultimately leading to more deaths. I'm not sure this is true, but it seems like a real possibility.


Thus, with regard to minimizing the future loss of life, even putting aside any moral considerations, and looking at it purely as a strategic matter, I'm wondering if much more consideration should be given to nonviolent strategies. I don't know, but this is what I'm thinking about.


A counter-argument might be that a lack of forceful violent response will only make others comfortable with the idea of aiming their own terrorist activities at us in the future. So does this mean we're damned if we do, damned if we don't? I'm not sure, but I think what it may mean is that our immediate, relatively short term response to these events will have little to do with the long term elimination of terrorism. That will depend on diplomacy and open discussion of the kinds of policy issues Chris Alger and others are talking about. Such grappling with underlying social/political causes would seem to be the only thing with serious potential to minimize terrorism in the future.


Let me be clear that I have no commitment to being "right" on this. What I've said is just the way it looks to me today. I just want to see the full range of options and philosophies kept alive in public discussion for fear of jumping too quickly at one approach which may have very grim consequences. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure our leaders want the same thing.

Well, it is a very complex issue.


I'm not saying the war against terrorism will necessarily be successful in a major way, or that it will be easy. It will be at least quite difficult. However, the comparison I was trying to make is that the war on drugs is for all practical purposes IMPOSSIBLE to win because of the economic rewards involved. Terrorists may have many reasons for what they do, but they don't all get rich by being terrorists, whereas virtually all drug dealers do get rich (if they survive long enough). So there are economic forces fueling the drug trade, and I believe these forces are pretty much unstoppable. Also, there are far more drug dealers in the world than there are terrorists.


The Palestinian issue needs to be resolved; whether it can be, and how, is another question. It is one main source of terrorist pressure.


Another main source is the basic conflict between strict Islam, or strict interpretation of the Koran (I'm not sure which here), and the consumer society of the Western world. We aren't going to stop broadcasting TV shows, we aren't going to stop playing rock music, and we aren't going to force our women to dress to hide everything. As long as Muslim elements think this is evil and that we are thereby hurting their society as well as our own, we have an irreconcilable conflict (similar to what Mason pointed out in another post).


U.S. policy can be, and has been, a source of friction too, but except for the worst cases of the past, I don't think the U.S. is doing much now that could bring a great deal of legitimate criticism. It is also somewhat ironic that many of the countries who have large populations which don't like us for our ways of doing business or politics are themselves far from ideal in how they treat people. In fact many of them probably have pretty poor human rights records. What I'm saying here is that if they don't like us it doesn't necessarily mean its all our fault; some of it may be, but there will always be those who don't like so-and-so.


Finally, as in the irreconcilable conflict above (consumer society vs. strict Islam), there is just no answer other than to hope that the youth of these countries grows gradually more open-minded. Religious rule has historically been very inflexible so this may take a long time.


I think it is important to make a distinction between Islam, even strict Islam, and terrorism. The ratio of terrorists to Muslims is undoubtedly very low. We don't want to alienate those Muslims who are not terrorists yet we must stop terrorism. I don't think you can really negotiate much with terrorists or hope that appeasement will work. Once they cross the line to become terrorists they are no longer willing to reason the situation out with you, IMO.


I think a broader interchange and dialog and atmosphere of mutual respect with the Muslim world would be very helpful. However, the more reasonable amongst them will surely understand if we do not tolerate terrorism against us, any more than they would accept it against them.


I think the free world is large and strong, and the moderate Islamic world is sizable too; we may even get some support from the moderate Islamic world in the fight against terrorism. Surely as crazy as the world is, it isn't mostly crazy; most Muslims aren't terrorists, and most of the world will be glad to see a joint international stance against terrorism.


Some of our policies, or what seem to be our policies, may well have caused much resentment in parts of the world from time to time. It seems to me to be stretching it to jump from this to the conclusion that we have CAUSED terrorism, however.

I liked your post except for two minor points:


",..whereas virtually all drug dealers do get rich."


I really think this is an exaggeration, at least for the drug dealers at the bottom of the rung who actually distribute the drugs on the street to the users. When I was was a teen, the 7 or 8 drug dealers I knew of in or around my neighborhood were anything but rich. In between their time spent in jail, they seemed to just be getting by (some better than others, but nothing spectacular).


",..but they don't all get rich by being terrorists."


Monetarily rich no, but from what I hear their big payoff comes after they die(deferred gratification).

There are some good points above. But a major difference will be the desire to win the war. As a nation, we want drugs. But we don't want terrorism. So without draconian laws, there will be a market for drugs here.


We don't really want to win the "war on drugs." And that is OK, because to win it, we would have to do totally abhorrent things. Right now, we are willing to incarcerate people for long stretches and pay a lot of money to do it. But we are not willing to do what other places have done to actually win the "war." If we publically executed 12 year olds for smoking 1 joint, like Singapore does, I bet we would see less drug use. Seeing a few classmates executed in the schoolyard or public square would have a chilling effect on children who would use drugs. When we executed parents and left some orphans, those kids would probably not rush right out to buy drugs. But we will not do this of course. Nor should we. We are seeing the first signs of mainstream politicians questioning our drug policy. This will continue.


We may find at some point that winning the war on terrorism will require us to do horrible things. At that point we will have to decide. But we have barely started on the path where we will have to make that decision, so we'll see.

John Smith's article in today's Las Vegas Review Journal. All you poker players should have the Review Journal bookmarked anyway, but what he revealed is that we gave the Taliban $43 million recently because they did a good job crushing opium poppy production. D'oh. :-(


Maybe this war on terrorism will strip the funding from this kind of stuff.

The war on terrorism is consistent with the constitutionally authorized primary role of the federal government to protect American life, liberty, and property. In contrast, the war on drugs involves the unconstitutional abrogation of individual liberty by the government justified by the belief that adults should not be free to decide for themselves what to put into their bodies.