On the front page of DailyKos, Hunter wrote yesterday the following paragraph, which in my view underlines (and, sadly, embraces) one of the most fundamental mistakes made after 9/11:
Like most Americans, I considered American actions in Afghanistan to be a dismal but necessary act. An attack on United States soil requires, unequivocally, a disproportionate response (...) demonstrating that terrorism against the United States would both fail in its purpose, and would result in disproportionate damage to the terrorists and hostile nations responsible. That's how you prevent terrorism: you make the consequences worse than the possible upside.
Really? Does he really believe that? Kill one of mine and I'll kill a hundred of yours? That's how colonial powers reacted to "terrorism" (resistance). That's how dictators and despots throughout responded to opposition. This is the "might makes right" mentality. It is evil and it does not work.
Note - title updated from "How DailyKos also helps Al-Qaida"
And that's precisely what creates terrorism, because terrorism (or any other form of assymetric warfare) is the only successful way to fight an superior military power. Hit it in ways that cannot be prevented (whether they are cowardly or not is another issue - but they hurt), and provoke the overwhelming reaction that causes even more destruction and turns minds against those exercising power so mindlessly (thus providing more fuel - bodies - for desperate "terrorist" acts).
Terrorists are either activists motivated by more or less legitimate political goals which cannot be expressed in any other way, or are nasty opportunists trying to blackmail their way into power. Freedom fighters or gangsters.
The limit between the two is sometimes hard to identify, but either way, bombing the shit out of population groups or countries will get you nowhere.
In both cases, crimes have been committed, and these require police action. Following the rule of law should be a prerequisite, but is especially important if there is any kind of claim to a political motivation to the terrorist acts. Justice must be fair, and must be seen to be fair (which does not mean that it cannot be harsh) in order for the punishment not to generate the same kind of negative impact as an all-out exercise of force.
And if there are real political grievances to the terrorist acts, military action will never solve them (as Israel has finding out to its detriment in the past 10 years). Solutions can only be political. Military action can be a political tool, and is not to be excluded altogether, but it should be used only with a keen understanding of the political context (thus, I think that what the Israelis do is ineffective and ultimately doomed to fail, but at least it is based on rational analysis of their particular circumstances).
Ignoring the underlying facts by waging indiscriminate and disproportionate violence is unlikely to eliminate the existing grievances if they exist and will give legitimacy and substance to those terrorists that initially had no public support and no claim beyond their criminal intent or what was in their deluded minds. Violence begets violence.
Put criminals to jail. Put political activists that commit crimes to jail. (In either case, use the police and the justice system, not the military). And start thinking about those political grievances.
In the case of Al Qaida, think about how support for corrupt and authoritarian regimes has pushed their populations to embrace the only existing form of opposition, that embodied by religious leaders. Think about how that shameful support for corrupt and authoritarian regimes had been justified by our apparent need to control oil supplies (never mind that Soviet Russia and Iran have alwyas been reliable suppliers). Think about how our overriding need to drive and to promote the interests of our largest corporations has driven these policies. Think about how colonial rule, Western interventionism and military action in the past has created untractable grievances and conflict. Think about how racist and populist politicians have created bogeymen out of certain categories of population, usually identifiable by physical traits.
Thus, by embracing a "disproportionate response", and believing that superior violence will deter terrorists, Hunter is, on a fundamental level, on the same side as Dick Cheney. He is pouring gas on the existing fire.
You cannot deter terrorists. You cannot win the war on terror. Violence only makes terror win. You have to forget about the "war" mindset altogether.
Yes, terrorism requires law enforcement, not violence (overwhelming or otherwise), not revenge, not punition. Justice, nor war.
It's a shame to read the words above on the front page of Dailykos.