Once again I'm forced to read a blurb about how Rumsfeld (it could be
any Bush Administration official, really) is
comparing the war on terror to World War II.
It's time once and for all to spell out, in clear terms, why these kinds of comparisons are so stupid - not just rhetorically silly, but flat out stupid.
Let's start with Rumsfeld's stupidity and move from there, shall we?
Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failure to confront Hitler. He quoted Winston Churchill as observing that trying to accommodate Hitler was "a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last."
"Can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?" he asked.
I could write volumes on why "appeasement" is such a patently inaccurate word for the liberal strategy and why it's being used only as political rhetoric, but that's for another day. What I'm really focused on here is the incessant comparison between Al Qaeda and Nazi Germany. Let's look at four major themes, culled from Wikipedia this afternoon and brought to you free of charge, which differentiate the two:
1.Under Nazi rule, Germany was the leading industrial power in Europe for nearly a decade before WWII - even during the years of the great depression. It had a population of nearly 70million people, a legitimate (but suppressed) opposition political movement, and an organized standing army of 1.4 million soldiers (including army, air force, and naval personnel). It was a well-established state with a well-organized hierarchical military command structure which controlled a well-defined area of territory.
By contrast, Al Qaeda is an international, ad-hoc, non-governmental organization. It is not a political entity, controls no territory, and has no permanent base of operations. Al Qaeda maintains no standing army, although it does recruit and provide rudimentary training to people on an ad-hoc basis in temporary camps. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people have been trained at Al Qaeda camps, although the number who remain loyal to the group and are willing to carry out its requests is estimated to be, at the very highest, 20,000 (and most likely far fewer than that). These "members" are spread disparately across the globe in small cells of individuals who rarely, if ever, have contact with each other.
2. The Nazis came to power through popular election. Despite notable dissent from a minority of the population, the Nazi regime enjoyed popular backing throughout the 1930's, and even well into the early 1940's and WWII.
Al Qaeda represents no constituency and has never been elected to any office in any country. It enjoys moral and financial support from a small fraction of the Muslim world, but has no organized civil support and is not backed by any definitive civil entity.
3. The military of Nazi Germany, as noted before, was well organized and highly disciplined. They proceeded with specific orders and pursued specific, tangible goals. On command they would attack as a cohesive unit and were highly distinguishable from their civil supporters. Victory or defeat was measured primarily in terms of land conquered or the number/percentage of troops killed.
Al Qaeda is very loosely organized. The command apparatus consists of perhaps 200 individuals who travel or communicate regularly with Osama bin Laden and/or Ayman Al Zawahiri. All other members are part of a highly DISorganized network of cells. They do not communicate with each other. They do not follow the same orders. They rarely, if ever, receive specific orders from their commanders. They are autonomous in their day-to-day operations. They attack specific targets not for their strategic value in pursuing tangible goals, but for their symbolic value. They are nearly impossible to distinguish from civilians and their numbers fluctuate greatly - they do not measure success/defeat in territory or in lives lost.
4. To defeat Nazi Germany was to defeat the German army. If the army lost a battle, it would retreat. Victory/defeat could be measured in very concrete terms, and the war was definitively OVER when the army, as an organization, surrendered.
Winning or losing against Al Qaeda is not measurable. Because there is no hierarchical command structure, and no standing army for that matter, they cannot surrender to mark the end of the war. When they achieve victory, nothing tangible changes hands. The same is true for when they lose.
:
Hopefully is is becoming more clear that Al Qaeda is a fundamentally different enemy in every way, shape, and form from Nazi Germany. Any comparison between the two, or any comparison between methods that might be used to defeat or enable the two, is fundamentally flawed.
You cannot destroy Al Qaeda's infrastructure because they maintain no factories, railroads, power plants, airstrips, or anything else of the sort. You can't starve or break the will of their people because there is no unified, definitive and organized group of people backing them. You cannot defeat Al Qaeda in battle because there is no army flying the Al Qaeda banner. Al Qaeda cannot surrender to you because there is no one who has control over the organization either to sign that surrender or compel the others to obey it! You cannot make tangible military progress against an enemy who controls no territory, fights no battles, and has no army!!
Most importantly, you cannot appease Al Qaeda because there is no entity to negotiate with and no concession to make in order to fulfill the conditions of appeasement!!! By definition, it is impossible to appease Al Qaeda!
Al Qaeda is fundamentally different from Nazi Germany in all of the ways that are critical for making a comparison between the two as enemies.
Not only that, but they are also different in the intangible factors as well. Their ideologies and ultimate goals are worlds apart.
Nazi Germany pursued global territorial acquisition, organized around principles of racial hegemony and fascist nationalism, and enforced their will through physical coercion via political/military control of local institutions and organizations.
Al Qaeda has no ultimate objective - theirs are neither territorial or political aspirations. They are inspired by religious fundamentalism and seek to enforce a perceived collective will, vaguely communicated as it may be, by indirectly inspiring a grassroots rejection of modern western influence (only those aspects that seem to bother them at any given time, though, as technology seems ok!).
Is it not plain to see that the two can never be properly equated? Is it not obvious that the two are so fundamentally different as to eternally defy comparison?!
:
Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your co-workers. Every time you hear the positively asinine suggestion that the war on terror is even remotely like World War II, or that Al Qaeda is even remotely like Nazi Germany, smack it down with righteous fury because history is on your side. Destroy the very notion that the two should ever be compared.
Not only is this necessary from a political standpoint, but more importantly, it is critical if we are ever going to effectively combat terrorist networks and the desire to join them.