The War on International Terrorism
Where Do We Go From Here?
*Special Message*
September 13, 2001
The country is united in its determination not only to seek
reprisals for the unforgivable acts of September 11, 2001, but also
to take whatever actions necessary to minimize the probability of a
future recurrence. President Bush himself has been purposely vague
as to what form such reprisals will take, stating in his national
address that we will "find those responsible and bring them to
justice," but then later calling the attacks an "act of war." These
two statements straddle the years-long debate as to whether
"justice" against organized terrorists should be legal, in the
context of criminal trials, or military.
Our recent tendency to consider terrorists "mere criminals" has been
a grave mistake, particularly given the ideological linkage of so
many acts, and also given the willingness of the perpetrators to die
for the cause that they espouse. For after all, what do they care
if charges are brought against them or their handlers after they
have died?
A simple rule seems evident. If a person is willing and desirous of
dying for the cause of his choice, you are not going to stop him.
And the best way to accommodate him is to kill him quickly, on your
terms, rather than allowing him the luxury of dying at the time and
place of his choosing.
The enormity of these recent attacks, and the seriousness of purpose
that will be required to prevent them in the future, demands that we
consider ourselves to be in a state of war with those who are
planning and perpetrating them. In their home communities, these
terrorists proudly call themselves soldiers. We should accept their
definition of this new battlefield, and meet them on it. As such,
it is no longer either logical or justifiable to sit by idly while
such soldiers are educated, trained, and prepared for further
violence simply because their bases lie within the boundaries of
nations that sponsor them while officially denying responsibility
for their acts.
It should be our strongest national purpose to find these terrorist
soldiers, wherever they may be, and to kill them before they can be
set again into motion. We should begin doing this immediately, with
all the passion and vengeance that is appropriate to the war that
they have chosen to bring to our shores. And we should continue
relentlessly until all of them are either dead or immobilized.
Our approach on this new battlefield should follow a few basic
principles:
Implement a relentless and thorough program of home defense.
We are a people who fiercely love our independence and our
liberties, and it is difficult to imagine living under long-term
restrictions. But a virus has been set loose inside our borders,
and we must accept that it demands a cure. Terrorist cells must be
identified, penetrated, and eliminated. Further acts - some on a
horrific scale - must be anticipated, and precautions taken to
minimize their effect. Impositions on our usual way of travel and
recreation must be accepted. Better to slow down and defeat this
movement than to ignore it and die.
Define and control the battlefield.
By not directly associating itself with any one nation, the Islamic
terrorist movement has consciously worked a "seam" in international
policy, relying on traditional definitions of the nation-state to
preclude attacks inside countries where it is conducting its
training. While it may be difficult to hold any one nation
accountable using the old lexicon of "state-sponsored terrorism," it
is time to set this meaningless distinction aside. The United
States must announce to the world that we will cross any border, and
introduce whatever force is necessary, in order to prevent such
attacks in the future. We have known for a long time the different
places where terrorists are being trained. With the superb
technological and special operations capabilities of our military,
these extremists and their handlers are reachable. They can be
defeated if they are killed, again and again, before they put their
plans into motion.
Cut the terrorists away from their support base by using force
brutally but wisely.
We can learn a lot from the Vietnamese communists on this point.
Although they themselves used terrorism as a key tool, they were
very specific in their objectives. Viet Cong assassination squads
were a key element from the very inception of the war. By the early
1960's the Viet Cong were killing an average of 11 government
officials a day. Their approach was brutally simple. Those who
showed allegiance to the South Vietnamese government would be
killed, and those who stayed away would be left alone. By contrast,
the United States used firepower massively and randomly, considering
it to be purely a military, rather than a political, tool. In the
process, we drove a lot of people into the arms of the Viet Cong.
We should not make this mistake again. Those who are aligned with
the terrorist movement, whether logistically, or in a training
environment, or operationally, should be considered legitimate
targets and should not be spared. But random bombings and the
deliberate destruction of populated areas without such a connection
should be avoided. Over the long term this approach would deny
terrorist armies not only their support base, but also their present
justification that the United States and its allies are conducting a
broad war against the Muslim people.
Do not occupy territory.
The terrorist armies make no claim to be members of any
nation-state. Similarly, it would be militarily and politically
dangerous for our military to operate from permanent or
semi-permanent bases, or to declare that we are defending specific
pieces of terrain in the regions where the terrorist armies live and
train. We already have terrain to defend - the United States and
our outposts overseas - and we cannot afford to expand this
territory in a manner that would simply give the enemy more targets.
Prepare for a long war.
The terrorist armies have considered themselves to be at war with us
for more than twenty years, at least since the rise of the
fundamentalist leadership of Iran in the late 1970s. They have no
intention of stopping on their own. This war will not be over until
they are thoroughly defeated, or the governments that have favored
them take measures into their own hands and halt their activities,
or those governments themselves have fallen from within. Only a
consistency of purpose, and the willingness to bring the fight to
them, will bring about any of these results.
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS