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October 22, 2004

Decapitating the hydra...

....or the fundamental misunderstandings of terrorism by the Bush Administration.

From today's Washington Post:

Published and classified documents and interviews with officials at many levels portray a war plan that scored major victories in its first months. Notable among them were the destruction of al Qaeda's Afghan sanctuary, the death or capture of leading jihadists, and effective U.S. demands for action by reluctant foreign governments.

But at least a dozen current and former officials who have held key positions in conducting the war now say they see diminishing returns in Bush's decapitation strategy. Current and former leaders of that effort, three of whom departed in frustration from the top White House terrorism post, said the manhunt is important but cannot defeat the threat of jihadist terrorism. Classified government tallies, moreover, suggest that Bush and Vice President Cheney have inflated the manhunt's success in their reelection bid.

Bush's focus on the instruments of force, the officials said, has been slow to adapt to a swiftly changing enemy. Al Qaeda, they said, no longer exerts centralized control over a network of operational cells. It has rather become the inspirational hub of a global movement, fomenting terrorism that it neither funds nor directs. Internal government assessments describe this change with a disquieting metaphor: They say jihadist terrorism is "metastasizing."

Few would be surprised that BC04 are trying to inflate their successes against capturing terrorists in order to prop up their flagging reelection bid.

What's troubling is Bush's continual "decapitate the beast" strategy that isn't yielding appropriate results, yet he continues to follow it like a moth to a porchlight. This strategy along with the rest of Bush's foreign policy of arrogance is yielding something else even more dangerous: a sharp spike of anti-American sentiment throughout SE Asia, the Middle East and Europe:

Bush emphasizes force of will -- determination to prosecute the enemy, and equally to stand up to allies who disapprove. Bush and his aides most often deflect questions about recent global polls that have found sharply rising anti-U.S. sentiment in Arab and Muslim countries and in Europe, but one of them addressed it in a recent interview. Speaking for the president by White House arrangement, but declining to be identified, a high-ranking national security official said of the hostility detected in surveys: "I don't think it matters. It's about keeping the country safe, and I don't think that matters."

That view is at odds with the view of many career military and intelligence officials, who spoke with increasing alarm about al Qaeda's success in winning recruits to its cause and defining its struggle with the United States.

Retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who was summoned to lead the White House Office for Combating Terrorism a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, said the war has been least successful where it has the highest stakes: slowing the growth of jihadist sympathies in populations that can provide the terrorists with money, concealment and recruits. Bin Laden has worked effectively to "convince the Islamic world the U.S. is the common enemy," Downing said. He added, "We have done little or nothing. That is the big failure."

Bush is going after the symptoms of terrorism with great gusto. But he refuses to go after the causes of terrorism with even a grain of that same zeal. It's creating a tidal wave of anti-American sentiment.

Americans haven't been attacked again as we were on 9/11. Certainly that can be considered a success in the short term. But the Bush Administration is, by all accounts, feeding the hydra of terrorism. And you can't kill a hydra by cutting off it's head.

Posted by Carla at October 22, 2004 09:04 AM