Al-Qaeda redux?

The NYT’s Mark Mazetti and David Rohde had an extremely important article in the June 30 edition of the paper, on the bureaucratic chaos and operational failure that have marked the Bush administration’s campaign against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and (mostly) Pakistan.
They write:

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.
… The story of how Al Qaeda, whose name is Arabic for “the base,” has gained a new haven is in part a story of American accommodation to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, whose advisers played down the terrorist threat. It is also a story of how the White House shifted its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.
Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States. Officials say the new camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001. However, despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one retired C.I.A. officer estimated that the makeshift training compounds now have as many as 2,000 local and foreign militants, up from several hundred three years ago.

Mazetti and Rohde base their story on “more than four dozen interviews in Washington and Pakistan.” It reveals how very unsuccessful that core portion of Bush’s so-called “Global War on Terror” has been. However, I don’t think they go nearly far enough in challenging the essential premise of the GWOT, namely, the idea that “terrorism” as such is something that can effectively be dealt with through a massive military campaign.
Instead, as I have argued consistently since 9/11, terrorism is a challenge that requires primarily a massive and determinedly multilnational police response. In the Afghanistan/Pakistan context– as most others– it also requires a huge, dedicated effort to address the horrendous social and economic crises in which these beleaguered populations are mired. This latter campaign is needed not only because it’s the right thing to do (which it is), but because stabilizing the lives and livelihoods of these communities will dry up the vast pool of terror condoners that they would otherwise continue to incubate.
I quite agree with the analysis of those who argue that Osama Bin Laden himself (like many of his immediate lieutenants) is not someone acting out of personal economic deprivation and the anger associated with that. However, even though Bin Laden himself would not make a credible leader for any “Movement of the Dispossessed”, he and his immediate cohort have found a way to strike a chord with many Muslims in extremely deprived and chaotic communities– primarily, those still reeling from the effects of lengthy armed conflict, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, or Lebanon. And it is in those communities that organizers and activists for the widely distributed Al-Qaeda networks are able to move around without any of their neighbors or friends turning them into the authorities.
That’s why I have long argued that dealing with the often very real social and economic grievances of the communities of potential condoners, and stabilizing the lives and prospects of the members of those communities, is the best way to supplement the police-based approach to dealing with Al Qaeda…
So Mazetti and Rohde do not, in their article, take on the whole conceptual framework of the GWOT in the way it needs to be taken on. But even working solely within the dominant paradigm of the GWOT, they show just how chaotic and unsuccessful the effort has been so far. They also demonstrate (yet again) the extent to which Bush’s misguided decision to invade Iraq in 2003 distracted attention and resources from addressing the real heart of the world terrorism challenge. JWN readers won’t need reminding that before March 2003, there was no such thing as “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” After March 2003, it became a huge presence, growing continuously for several years.
Anyway, there are many noteworthy pieces of information in this article, which is definitely worth a close reading. However, I’m on the road, and I left my annotated version of it at home. Bother!