Measuring Victory In The War On Terror

With casualty reports indicating a recent decline in losses for American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, how will we now move into determining the success or failure of the "War on Terror" for those two countries? Will we measure it by the number of surviving Al Qaeda forces that we know about? Will we measure it by the stability of the Iraqi government? How long will it take to see if there has been real success on either front?

The answer to the question of our success or failure may not be known for decades. Considering that there are scores of unknown ramifications that could result from our efforts in the Middle East it will be nearly impossible to tell if we have had a positive or negative impact on the expansion of extremism globally. Some could argue that we will be able to track the movements of known terrorists through our intelligence networks worldwide. The counter to that argument is that nobody is born a terrorist and there is no way to know which personal tragedies will inspire what children to decide that they must destroy America or any other nation or group of people when they grow up.

When Yasser Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini in Egypt in 1929, Palestine was still a nation and he was nothing more than a newborn baby with no hatred or resentment towards anyone. He came to his beliefs about the fight for Palestinian causes through his experiences growing up in and out of Palestine and observing the unfolding of the dismantling of his mother’s homeland. Who can say what he would have become if he had not witnessed British forces abusing his uncle in Palestine or if the United Nations had not decreed that the land once called Palestine would be turned over to Jewish forces to facilitate the birth of the state of Israel? He might have become something wholly different than what he became and the PLO might never have existed.

The long-term impacts of the "War on Terror" may not be known in my lifetime. Children born today who grow up without a father or mother because of an American bomb could grow up to be the world leader that ultimately destroys the U.S. out of sheer hatred for us. We could also have a stolen nuclear warhead go off in an American city tomorrow with a claim of responsibility coming from a wholly new terrorist group born out of our actions against a nation that harbors our current enemies. On the other side we could have some child of war in one of these countries turn out to be the leader who unites the people of the world under one banner of humanity.

The truth of the matter is that measuring success in something like a war against an invisible enemy with unknown reach is a futile attempt to quantify the unknowable. We can claim victory or admit defeat and be equally accurate in our assessment of the situation. Politicians ride wars on this or that to the polls because a war on this or that is a decisive act that conveys the idea of leadership. The "War on Drugs" has neither been won nor lost despite over two decades of rhetoric about it and billions of dollars being spent to fight it. There are still illegal drugs flowing on the streets of America and there are still people dying of addiction related illness every day. Sure, some major dealers and suppliers have been put away but there has always been someone there to take their place when we put them away. It is a symbolic war with no definitive outcome possible. There will always be those who want to take something to escape their reality and there will always be someone willing to find them that high. Likewise in the "War on Terror" there will always be those who feel that violent acts of large scale will be the only way to bring about the changes they seek. No military force can destroy an idea. No bullet can stop a philosophy in the larger sense.

In light of the knowledge that these wars cannot be won no matter how long they are fought, perhaps the wisest thing to do is to reexamine the idea of launching "wars on" anything so nondescript as drugs or terrorism. Perhaps we need to think of new ways not involving guns and bombs to address societal ills whether local or international in scope.