Reply #12: Well, the "kill 'em all" strategy didn't work so good

[gratuitous]

In fact, it seems to have worked out every bit as well as the Soviet Union's assay.

This is, of course, the correct strategy, and if it had been tried in 2001 instead of the insane power grab and fearmongering of the Bush administration, George W. Bush might indeed be measuring Mt. Rushmore for an addition. But Bush was wholly incapable of any subtlety of thought as regards foreign policy.

To explain: The Sept. 11 attacks were criminal acts, but not acts of war. By treating them as acts of war, the Bush administration guaranteed failure, because war is a notoriously poor tool. Violence does not drive out violence. However, treating a violent act as a crime, and working with the international community to bring the perpetrators to justice, is far less morally ambiguous, and will peel off the outer layers of support that criminals might enjoy.

Surely there were a number of people all over the world who, while not approving of the attacks, nevertheless felt that the United States had been paid back a little bit for its oppressive ways. When the Bush administration went insane in response to the attacks, that nascent feeling of "they got what they deserved" hardened and was reinforced. As Bush began his slow-motion invasion of Iraq, more people were convinced that the United States was a dangerous force for evil and oppression. Rightly ignoring the self-serving justifications of "weapons of mass destruction" by the Bush administration (and no doubt harking back to the television series Babylon 5 while doing so), many people around the world watched in horrified fascination as all their darkest impressions of the United States were confirmed. The mass reprisals, civilian massacres, detainment without charges, and torture just gave features to a heretofore formless dread, and played into the fears stoked by the likes of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

However, had the Sept. 11 attacks been treated as a crime, and had the Bush administration invited the rest of the world to assist in the capture and trial of the masterminds (the perpetrators being dead), they could have peeled off some of that support enjoyed by the terrorists. Moving in a deliberate and above-board fashion to identify the perpetrators, develop the evidence against them, and enlist the assistance of other governments to isolate and capture the masterminds, the Bush administration would have settled the matter far less expensively.

Would there be people who thought that the masterminds were being railroaded? Almost certainly. There is a hard nut of resentment against the United States that is irreducible. If you're a baseball fan, think of the Yankees and the hostility they engender, even when they fall on hard times. The Taliban has had eight years to solidify its support in Afghanistan and in other places. Some of that support is politically driven (it's useful for any number of leaders to appear to be anti-Western), but the antics of the Bush administration have served to alienate a lot of people horrified by the Sept. 11 attacks, but who see the American response as further proof that we had it coming to us.

But moving toward justice rather than revenge, observing the rules of procedure and developing a criminal case would have sapped any sympathy toward the surviving terrorists, and turned world opinion against whoever put this heinous crime together. Following up a successful prosecution, if we had had a little of that "humility" in foreign relations that candidate George W. Bush espoused, the United States would be in a far superior position to negotiate and deal with "moderate" elements of hostile organizations and governments.

Is it too late to choose that path even now? Perhaps. But we will never know unless we try it.