Calling the anti-Al Qaeda struggle a war is also a disaster for civil liberties. From military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay to warrantless wiretapping, Bush and Cheney repeatedly used the claim that America was at war against terror to justify their claims of unfettered executive power. The linguistic struggle over whether the U.S. is really at war is inevitably a legal struggle over the degree to which government can infringe on individual freedom. If the Obama administration is serious about challenging the “imperial presidency” reestablished after 9/11, it has to challenge the concept of a “war” on terror as well.
The underwear bomber attack underscores all this rather well. We can’t defeat men like Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab by invading Yemen or Nigeria. Nor can we defeat them by sending drones to kill dozens of terrorists and thousands of civilians, thus producing more terrorists than we destroy. While military action may sometimes be unavoidable, we can no more militarily defeat jihadist terrorism than we could militarily defeat Soviet communism. The way to win is by using military force sparingly, and massively leveraging America’s greatest assets, which are economic, diplomatic and ideological. When people in countries like Yemen and Nigeria see America and its allies as a force for progress and dignity and Al Qaeda as a force for misery and oppression, America will win the struggle against Al Qaeda where it won the struggle against the USSR, on the battlefield of hearts and minds. Winning the “war on terror,” like winning the cold war, starts by recognizing that what we’re fighting isn’t really a war at all.
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