"When dealing with undeterrables (sic) (like al Qaeda) or undetectables (sic) (like an Iraq or an Iran passing WMDs to terrorists) there is no such thing as containment. There is no deterrence, no address for the retaliation. There are two options: do nothing and wait for the next attack, or get them before they acquire the capacity to get you. That is called preemption." Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
I know the "sic" is rude, but I can't help it if the Washington Post decides that their columnists can just make up new words nowadays.
When you can't catch the burglar, simply arrest the paper-boy, so at least you can tell people you've done something about crime.
Charles Krauthammer, in the Washington Post, is a little more transparent than most official government spokesmen when he declares that the U.S. would be foolish to wait for terrorists to actually commit any crimes before going after them.
It would be foolish to wait for a crime to be committed before punishing the offender.
The fact that he actually wrote such a statement is baffling to me, but it must be supposed that he knows or thinks he knows that such a statement would actually make sense to some people, if not the Bush Administration.
I note that he only offers two options: do nothing, or pre-emptive attacks. Among other things, it's a dishonest statement. There is a large constituency out there for the idea of addressing the root causes of terrorism, like the disenfranchisement of entire ethnic groups, or economic oppression, or neo-colonialism. That would be a third option: address the root causes of terrorists. Krauthammer would probably scoff at such an idea. For one thing, it would require you to be empathetic to the needs of others. Real men don't do that..
At the most obvious level, of course, the statement makes no sense at all. I feel silly doing this, but if Krauthammer is right that his statement will make sense to a lot of people, then I guess I need to convince myself as well, that I'm not crazy.
1. We don't know who is going to actually commit a crime (a terrorist act) until the crime is committed. So if we decide that we will go out and arrest people who haven't committed crimes yet because only a fool would wait until the crime was actually committed, we have indeed entered a brave new world of criminal justice. We are going to start busting people who we think might think about committing crimes in the future.
2. It does indeed sound foolish to wait until someone robs you or assaults you before you assault them. So go out and find the person who is going to do that awful thing to you and assault them first, to deter them. Does that make sense to you? If it does, the Bush administration may have a job for you in the State Department.
3. Okay, so that sounds absurd. What do we do? What we have always done. You try to ensure that people who commit crimes or acts of terrorism are punished. You try to root out the causes of crime and terrorism. Great Britain fought terrorism in Ireland with pretty well nothing but brute force for about 100 years. It was not until they made progress in negotiations with the IRA that the possibility of peace in Northern Ireland became a reality. They're not there yet. It's not smooth sailing. It's hard work. You understand the temptation to just lock them all up. But brutality has been tried and it has failed to stop the terror. If the Catholics in Northern Ireland feel that they are exploited and oppressed by the Protestant majority, there will be two, maybe three replacements for every terrorist you lock up or kill.
You can never bring an end to terrorism with brute force alone, unless you are willing to countenance genocide. And even then, you'll never get them all. The state of Israel is testimony to that.
4. You can't possibly know for sure what anyone is going to do in the future, no matter what you think they are thinking or even planning today. For every murder committed, there must be hundreds of murders contemplated. For every member of Al Qaeda, there are dozens of young Moslems who decide that part of their passage into manhood is the experience of a few months at a military training camp in Afghanistan. Most of these men will never become terrorists, but we are now arresting and imprisoning young Moslem men who went to these camps before an act of Congress made them illegal. They are charged with being a member of a terrorist organization.
This is a hideous perversion of justice, but it is countenanced by most people today because of frenzied government warnings about imminent terrorist threats. We are frightened into acquiescence when most of us should know better.
5. This is a self-perpetuating contrivance to justify increasing government authoritarianism and militarism. By labeling Iran as part of the "Axis of Evil", we strengthen the hand of the hard-line reactionaries within Iran and weaken the reform movement. We give credence to the mullahs' belief that the West is out to get them, like we were in 1953 when we installed the Shah.
6. What is the difference between defending your country and terrorism? Who were the terrorists in Viet Nam? The Viet Cong, who were defending the results of the elections that brought socialists to power in the former French colony? Or the foreigners who entered their country with bombs and grenades and napalm and attempted to prop up a failing, corrupt government? Who were the terrorists in Nicaragua? The Sandinistas who eventually won the first free elections held after the fall of Somoza, or the Contras? Who had legitimacy? Who represented the will of the people?
7. Does Krauthammer sound familiar? A little like Henry Kissinger discussing the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile? Thousands were tortured or murdered because of the CIA's pre-emptive support of pro-American forces in the Chilean military. Would Krauthammer be in favor of renewed interventionism in Latin America? Do we need some more dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina to preemptively suppress terrorist movements?
Or would we, perchance, be better off supporting democracies in those countries-- and preemptively preventing the kind of oppression that gives rise to terrorist movements in the first place.