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re: What would end terrorism?
Robert — (archived)

You seem to be saying that military force isn't the most effective way to deal with terrorism. But let me play Devil's Advocate and ask, How can local and national police agencies deal with a global threat?

Sure, there's Interpol, but it's several orders of magnitude too small to deal with the problem (and some narrow areas where military force really is the only option, like bombing training camps and fortified enclaves, are outside its scope). Talking about expanding it and giving it the power to manage and execute a "Global Police Campaign Against Terrorism" would run smack into the hostility of American conservatives toward any international organization with teeth. They fear loss of national sovereignty even more, it seems, than they fear international terrorism.

And thus, it's fair to say, the possible strategies that the conservative Bush Administration can consider are constrained by nationalism. They (and their conservative cheerleaders here) point to the present toothless UN and claim that it's not up to the job; and of course it isn't, not without strengthening it to a degree that would threaten the conservatives. And since that's inconceivable to them, they find it inconceivable that organized international efforts against terrorism will ever be effective. That's a circular logic that forms a closed intellectual system.

So maybe a partial answer to the question I posed is that military force is the only effective option as long as it's the only option the Bush Administration is willing to consider...that is, it's better than nothing.

But if we change the parameters of the problem--posit regime change in America--will the answer be different? Not necessarily a Democratic regime, but let's be abstract and posit an Administration open to considering anything.

[I can hear the shrieking already!]

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