Carter NSA Chief: We Should Fight Terrorism, Not Islamism
The Washington Post has an truly astounding article by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser. If the article is at all indicative of the conventional wisdom among foreign policy and intelligence elites we are in trouble:
Its power is circumscribed, too. It still relies largely on familiar tools of violence. Unlike communist totalitarian regimes, al Qaeda does not use terror as an organizing tool but rather, because of its own organizational weakness, as a disruptive tactic. Its members are bound together by this tactic, not by an ideology. Ultimately, al Qaeda or some related terrorist group may acquire truly destructive power, but one should not confuse potentiality with actuality.
This is exactly the inverse of the good argument against the Bush Administration's approach to the War on Terror. Where people on both sides of the political spectrum have pointed out that 'you can't wage war against a tactic', Brzezinsky is asserting the opposite - that it is terrorism, rather than an openly repeated desire and a very specific plan for imposing Islamic law on the world, that unites disparate groups under Al Qaeda's banner. Prof. Dauber does the work to direct Brzezinski toward some productive holiday reading.
Its power is circumscribed, too. It still relies largely on familiar tools of violence. Unlike communist totalitarian regimes, al Qaeda does not use terror as an organizing tool but rather, because of its own organizational weakness, as a disruptive tactic. Its members are bound together by this tactic, not by an ideology. Ultimately, al Qaeda or some related terrorist group may acquire truly destructive power, but one should not confuse potentiality with actuality.
This is exactly the inverse of the good argument against the Bush Administration's approach to the War on Terror. Where people on both sides of the political spectrum have pointed out that 'you can't wage war against a tactic', Brzezinsky is asserting the opposite - that it is terrorism, rather than an openly repeated desire and a very specific plan for imposing Islamic law on the world, that unites disparate groups under Al Qaeda's banner. Prof. Dauber does the work to direct Brzezinski toward some productive holiday reading.
