US vs. Europe: two views of terror

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0318/p01s01-usfp.html

WASHINGTON – Ever since George W. Bush's first reaction to Sept. 11 was that this is "war," debate has simmered over whether fighting terrorism is best handled as a military operation or as law-enforcement, using intelligence cooperation, police work, and the courts.

Now that controversy is flaring again, both in the US in the context of the presidential election and among America's allies in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings.

With President Bush set to emphasize in a speech Friday that the war in Iraq is a cornerstone of his war on terrorism, the White House is leaving no doubt about its view that the battle against terror, as practiced in this century, is indeed a war. But that view has not caught on with America's European allies - and has only met with more vehement rejection as the Bush administration has equated the terror war with the Iraq war.

After decades of battling terrorism on their own soil, Europeans continue to believe that the best counterterrorism work is done through police intelligence and cooperation. And they believe that characterizing the fight as a "war" only antagonizes the populations that have produced terrorist groups and makes it harder to address the root causes of terrorism.

more

[TreasonousBastard]

1. That, unfortunately, is a minority view here...

or so it seems.

From day one after the WTC went down, I have said to handle it as a criminal matter, and work with the locals around the world who have the connections and interest in closing down these operations. Obviously, nobody imnportant listened.

How quickly we forget that Clinton and Reno managed to catch the first World trade Center bombers and put them in the slam without so much as a whisper of new laws, mass roundups, military tribunals, regime change or stealth bombers being needed.

These guys have not had one conviction, and precious few arrests. One trial, which they have managed to screw up.

They have, however, managed to get apparently guilty parties off the hook in Germany by being assholes and not cooperating with German authorities who begged them to simply follow normal legal procedures.

"War" does sound so much more appealing to some than criminal procedure does. Even if it doesn't work.

[izzie]

2. Well I believe like Europe. It is not a war.

It would mean , if it was a war. we would have to go after people who did the Murrah building, Montana Militia as if we were in a war and these people are just thugs and the police should take care of it. We have had them in this country a long time and not always called terrorist but they have been here. There have always been people out side the main stream that had no power and figure they can get power by terror. In the 60's we had them also. Now it is so easy to travel the world we get them from far away also. You do not bankrupt a country, use 1 and half million men to pick up 10,000 screw balls, that only 10% would do anything any way. It is a power grab from the govt to keep who is in power in power. WAR crazy.You can not even stop them with an army, Germany could not the whole of WW2. Partisans also killed women and children to get to the Germans. The results are what counted to them, also.Well right or wrong that is how I reason it out.I frankly thought the partisans were fighting for the right side, but it was iffy thinking even then. Tito was one that got power but he did kill alot of people to get there.

[BonjourUSA]

3. But in the Bush's little brain the USA have a messianic mission

And this new-colonial mission needs the sword and the missionary : the army and the Samaritan's Purse or else

[Nancy Waterman]

4. How we define it is very important

If we see it as primarily a job for police and intelligence agents, it is more doable and containable. If it is defined as a war, it is never ending and justifies massive defense spending and mobilization as well as curtailment of liberties. It empowers the administration to name it a war, and and a neverending one at that.

[Melsky]

5. It reminds me of another "war"

the ever so successful "war on drugs". Why have police investigation when you can have the fun of a war?

[cliss]

6. After much discussion in Washington,

Bush and his coterie of clowns decided to use the term 'war' for the obbvious images it brings up. They felt that a 'wartime president' would hopefully pull together the people in this country and convince everyone to set aside their differences and unite for the sake of this one cause. This country did a very good job of uniting during WW2.

I've posted on a number of occasions that this administration has stolen every image, every psychic asset and every good deed that this country has had. They stole the Americans' sense of duty, their desire to protect their country and used it to their advantage.

They've created some of their own images, too. Like Homeland Security and the Patriot Act. The President himself is nothing more than an image, a hologram. In front of the cameras, he pretends to be what we all think he is. When the microphone is turned off, though, he's hot on the phone with his corporate buddies, talking to them about the next 'deal'.

Watch out when they talk about abstract concepts like 'The War on Terror'.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. The use of the word "war" implies

that there's some monolithic army called "the terrorists" who can be defeated once and for all, never to rise again.

Terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology, a tactic used by forces of all different political ideologies.

You might as well have "a war on ambushes."

You can catch and punish individual terrorists, but that doesn't mean that someone else of a different ideology won't blow something up at some other time.

[moondust]

8. JK is much closer to the Euro view.

And rightly so.

The macho cowboy saber rattling is for junior high school boys who can't get enough attention.