Not Another Terror Decade

from : http://www.forbes.com

Michael Maiello, 12.28.09, 12:01 AM EST

The U.S. needs to let go of that war.

The United States spent the first decade of the 20th century at war. To sum up our opponents or motives at this point is unnecessary. We all know. But I can't help but wonder if it's not a coincidence that those years the U.S. devoted to military conflicts and existential security threats came to nothing economically.

On Christmas day, early reports say, a 23-year-old Nigerian named Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to bring down a flight from Holland to Detroit by igniting some sort of incendiary chemical agents that he had concealed in his pants. Fellow passengers and the flight crew neutralized his weapon and subdued him. He reportedly claimed to have been acting under orders from al-Qaida. Abdulmutallab may well be telling the truth. A Christmas day attack at the end of the decade certainly fits the theatrical needs of an international terror syndicate. Or maybe he's deluded about the extent of his own connections and importance to his cause. It doesn't matter, even a failed attack serves to remind the Western world that, al-Qaida affiliation or not, there are some people out there who are ideologically convinced that murdering civilians is both justified and necessary. I'm more concerned about what this means for the United States and whether it will spend the next decade in a massive, distracting war that will sacrifice the ambitions and needs of yet another generation.


Since I became truly aware of politics, history and economics in the 1990s, it's only natural for me to compare this decade to that one. As I graduated from high school, went to college and entered the job market, two U.S. presidents used the military for finite causes. U.S. forces expelled Iraq from Kuwait. They captured the president of Panama. They helped force a ceasefire in what was Yugoslavia on my childhood globe. When it looked like a military action could get out of hand and that victory couldn't even be defined much less achieved (Somalia), the President brought American soldiers home. Though it is said that the first Iraq war cured America of "Vietnam Syndrome," George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton still approached military matters with an abundance of caution. For that, Clinton is still criticized for failing to intervene in the Rwandan genocide, and for putting too much faith in the idea that Osama bin Laden could be picked off from afar by launching a few cruise missiles.

The first President Bush got high marks for his foreign policy (he knew how to bring other countries together despite the chaos of the Soviet Union's dissolution) and his handling of the first Iraq war (he knew how to define and accomplish his mission), but was seen as out of touch on domestic issues (he didn't know about supermarket bar code scanners). A major recession led by the financial sector, along with the beginning of the outsourcing of American manufacturing, meant that voters, after spending decades as Cold Warriors on high alert, wanted to see some problems fixed at home first. That Bush presided over the L.A. riots in 1992 hurt his credibility as the keeper of domestic order and prosperity.

Yes, there were major foreign policy issues during the nineties, but the fact that a computer network developed for the military came to dominate civilian life and commerce illustrates the post-Cold War change in focus. "Make dot-coms, not bombs" would have been an apt way for those ex-hippies with venture capital funds to put it. ( Uh ... no one ever put it that way.)

For Americans, most of the major problems of the 1990s were domestic. The U.S. had its first health care debates, while affirmative action, political correctness and civil rights for homosexuals were the hot-button social issues. The largest threats to U.S. security seemed to be domestic. Al-Qaida's first attack on the World Trade Center was eclipsed two years later by Timothy McVeigh's attack on the Oklahoma City Federal building. For the U.S. the '90s really were a domestic decade, and in 2000 George W. Bush and Al Gore ran neck in neck for the presidency while arguing about taxes, free trade and the environment, with both agreeing that they would walk into the White House looking for a fight.
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When the fight happened, I, like pretty much everyone I knew, supported Bush's decision to send troops to Afghanistan. Now take this for what it's worth because I don't know anything about fighting wars, but given my limited knowledge of U.S. military engagements until that point, I never would have taken seriously, even for a moment, the notion that I would find myself writing at the end of 2009 about our ongoing involvement in a war there. Yes, I knew that the Soviet Union had become entangled in Afghanistan in the same way that the U.S. found itself mired in Vietnam, but to me it seemed that U.S. aims were quite simple compared to what the Soviets wanted. The U.S. mission was to destroy al-Qaida and, along the way, the dictatorship that was harboring the people who attacked the U.S.

Eight years later we're dealing with a would-be terrorist who claims al-Qaida membership, and oh by the way, all the big decision makers in that organization may be in Yemen. People should take this to mean that the threat is still out there (it will always be out there), but I hope that President Obama doesn't take this to mean that another decade of war is acceptable even if it's undesirable.

The rise of China as a major U.S. creditor coincides with the cost of two off-balance-sheet foreign occupations being added to the U.S. budget. While the U.S. tried to eliminate al-Qaida by engaging in costly efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East, other threats emerged. al-Qaida, or people who claim to be members, or just claim some allegiance, or are just branding themselves, have moved into Africa, Southeast Asia and beyond. Meanwhile, China, Iran, India, North Korea and Pakistan have all threatened American hegemony by either being or going nuclear. Enough. In the teenage years of the 21st century, the U.S. had better figure out that attention must be paid--not so much to al-Qaida but rather to our real political and economic rivals. Let's not remain consumed with nut jobs and their shoe bombs while China trades AK-47s for rights to resources throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

I don't know what happened on that plane on Christmas day, but whatever is finally revealed, I fear that it will once again inflate the importance of al-Qaida and blind the U.S. to the truly important rivals and challenges of a new era.
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Michael Maiello is editor of markets and Intelligent Investing at Forbes. An Equal Shot, his weekly column, runs Mondays. He also co-hosts the video program "Open Mike." Follow him on Twitter.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

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