IN ERROL Morris' documentary, "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara," the first and perhaps most important lesson was to empathize with your enemy. Since 9/11, however, empathy for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations has been replaced with both partisan rhetoric and inflamed patriotism. While understandable and at times inspiring, the lack of empathy in our foreign policy costs the United States dearly, both strategically and financially.
The gut reaction of many readers will be: Why empathize with evil? My response: exactly. Our consistent failure to replace intuitive (almost programmed) rhetoric with well-thought out strategy has played right into the hands of Bin Laden, et al. The problem is not that the nation believes the enemy is evil -- this, in fact, is a prerequisite to comfortably targeting and eliminating terrorists on a daily basis. The problem is that those making strategic decisions seem to believe the enemy is nothing but evil. This creates a disastrous effect: By assuming that our enemies are evil (and therefore not really "people"), we render ourselves incapable of understanding them. A few specifics will illuminate this general principle.
Take, for example, the language we use in describing terrorists. Politicians and strategists have exhausted the terms "jihadists" and "mujahideen." These terms have strong implications of righteousness and holiness. In other words, the translation of how we speak about our enemies goes something like this: "We as Americans must defeat these very righteous, good holy warriors." We're using exactly the terms al-Qaeda wants us to use. This strategic blunder extends to the war in Iraq. The American media often referrs to paramilitary force of Muqtada al-Sadr as the "Mahdi Army." According to the September 2006 Atlantic Monthly, Al-Sadr named his army the Mahdi Army because to "Sunnis and Shiites alike, the Mahdi is the ultimate savior of mankind, equivalent to the Messiah." In essence, we are using their propaganda against us, saying that we are fighting against the saviors of mankind.
The sad part is not only do we have an alternative lexicon, but those voicing this alternative have been largely ignored. Jim Guirard, former Senate staffer, has, with the help of Islamic scholars, asserted a more apt lexicon; the Atlantic Monthly mentioned these, which include hirabah ("unholy war") in place of jihad, irhabists ("terrorists") instead of jihadists, mufsidoon ("evildoers") instead of mujahideen, and so on. That politicians ignore the appropriate terminology signifies their unwillingness to understand the culture of our enemies thus creating a strategically indefensible bias. No one can expect the American public to know the difference between jihad and hirabah, but strategists in the government should have been on top of this long ago. When the government assumes its enemy is evil, it implies that the enemy has no culture or motivation to understand, but should simply be destroyed. This assumption is a strategic blunder that is, for almost no benefit, costing us moderate allies in the Middle East and validating claims that we don't care about the nations we claim to be helping.
Our strategy since 9/11 can be summed up as follows: There is evil out there, it attacked us, we must find it at any cost or risk and destroy it. This simple-minded approach has implications that violate a basic law of war strategy: Know thine enemy. Because we think of terrorists in such a simple manner, we have largely ignored the possibility that they could be strategically superior if inferior in every other way.
According to the same Atlantic Monthly article, documents after 9/11 have indicated the focus of Bin Laden et al. has been economic warfare. Take, for example, the shocking documents that indicate Bin Laden's goal in 9/11 was to "provoke the United States into an invasion and occupation" that would have no end in sight. Bin Laden thought that this would happen in Afghanistan, but we surpassed his wildest dreams by also attacking Iraq -- no doubt he rejoiced this strategic blunder repeatedly, even publicly citing a Royal Institute of International Affairs finding that the total cost, direct and indirect, to America of the 9/11 attacks was at least $500 billion. He mentioned that the cost to al-Qaeda was about $500,000 -- a million-to-one payoff ratio for al-Qaeda.
This payoff ratio has not been rare in American responses to "evil." John Mueller's "In Devils and Duct Tape" indicates that the U.S. Postal Service "will eventually spend about $5 billion on protective screening equipment and other measures in responses to the anthrax threat," which comes out to $1 billion per anthrax fatality.
Because we refuse to understand our enemies as people, we have failed to understand how they are fighting us. Many strategists have pointed out what al-Qaeda realized long ago: The greatest threat to America is America. We continue to allow our irrational fears, deep partisan divide and political inability to say "no" to anything labeled "defense spending" to play into the hands of a mostly defeated enemy (all the evidence indicates that al-Qaeda is significantly disrupted, not because of extravagant spending, but because simple awareness of their operations have shut down their ability to communicate, transfer funds, etc). David Kilcullen, a proponent for a new strategy against terrorists, made the point that 19th century European anarchists were relatively harmless, until one killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and then "the unthinking response of European governments in effect started World War I." Similarly, without empathy, our inevitably unthinking response continues to be the greatest weapon the terrorists have in their arsenal.
Sina Kian is a Cavalier Daily Opinion columnist. He can be reached at skian@cavalierdaily.com.
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