Was al Qaeda Overrated?
That's the polite, more interesting version of the question Fareed Zakaria has raised in controversy-baiting Newsweek -- did we overreact to 9/11? Spoiler alert: "It’s clear we overreacted to 9/11.” With that, Zakaria has chosen a poor way of arguing that, in hindsight, al Qaeda wasn't the dire, existential threat we took it to be. But, as James Joyner points out, his argument's not so hot either:
surely, part of the reason al Qaeda went from being able to pull off a string of epic terror attacks to a shell of its former self precisely because of our actions after the 9/11 attacks? We’ve killed or captured hundreds of their leaders and killed thousands of their operatives. We’ve made obtaining materiel and financing much more difficult. We’ve driven their planners underground, making it much harder for them to coordinate.
Joyner goes on to agree with Zakaria that the "expansion of the national security state has cost us some precious freedom."
And quite likely the trade-off has been too dear. But let’s not pretend that we got nothing in return. The fact that al Qaeda is in the sorry state Zakaria describes in his opening paragraph is testament to that.
It's almost as if some commentators simply cannot believe that, in the midst of a struggle this long, this expensive, and this uncertain, we're actually getting closer to victory.
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Aug '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Fareed Zkaria is a thoroughly unreliable authority if not a de facto agent for radical Islam. For many years he's chosen the path of harsh criticism and suspicion of American intentions, reinforcing Bush Derangement Syndrome. Clearly he's playing to a hometown crowd, the same one that gets all its information from Al Jezeera television. I'd love to see a highlight clip of all his absurd statements since the Iraq War began.
I've met many veterans of the worst years of the Iraq War and the surge, and there's no way anyone can say Al Qaeda was overrated there. That's like saying cancer is overrated because the cells are small.
It's hard to quantify Al Qaeda for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's part of a much larger whole which includes the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other savage and virulently anti-western mobs.
Secondly, it's funded in secret. But the quantity of weapons and manpower they were able to deliver to the battlefield - including whole cities like Fallujah - was frightening. Most of the time American forces were outnumbered. But superior training, organization, and courage won us an extraordinary victory; devastating to them.
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
A classic example of "begging the question," or assuming as true that which has yet to be proven: in this case Zakaria assumes our "overreaction" is not, in fact, the very thing that has kept us safe. It's tantamount to someone arguing against seatbelt laws by pointing out that, hey, traffic deaths are actually quite low these days, when, in fact, the reason they are quite low is because of seatbelt laws. Ugh.
Jun '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Al-Qaeda is just one small part of the whole. You could call them the "star player" on the radical Islamist team. In general, are the star players on famous teams overrated? Yes. They're overrated when they succeed, and underrated when they fail. The danger is in underestimating their perseverance. Even if it takes them a few generations, they're not giving up.
Edited on Sep 5, 2010 at 7:35amMay '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Mr. Zakaria writes for a magazine that no one reads and is a "star" on a cable network nobody watches. When you work hard just to get noticed you're liable to say anything.
Jun '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Totally agree with Scott. How would we feel today if the Times Square bomb had gone off with, say, 100 dead and 200 maimed or on Christmas Day the attempted bombing brought down another airplane?
I would agree in area: some of the ridiculous TSA rules: can't have a bottle of apple sauce for a toddler.
At one point I thought Zakaria was a fairly clear thinker. No more.
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Perhaps if we had "overreacted" after Khobar Towers, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole, etc., there might not have been any attack on 9/11. I suppose we may have "overreacted" after Pearl Harbor, but there's no mistaking that after we went nuclear, Japan had a Rodney King epiphany and asked if we could all just get along. Churchill observed that if action had been taken sooner, WWII itself could have been avoided. To our allies, there should be no better friend than the US. And to our adversaries, no worse enemy.
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
I heard Zakaria arguing a few weeks back that nuclear Iran can be deterred. Now Al Qaeda is not a threat. This is a strange pattern that seems to fit into the administrations mind set that there is no such thing as radical Islam. They might not have posed an imminent threat, but the long term threat is incalculable and very hard to "rate." Preemption seemed to me the best course of action for our security.
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Yep. Put me down for over-reaction. I'm looking forward to it. As for the loss of freedom under the feckless "national security state," there ain't none. Even Muslims are free to join the United States Army, have the government put them thru medical and psychiatry school, drop myriad hints that they are playing for the other team, and still walk onto a Texas base with a sidearm and murderous intentions.
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Agree with Scott and Dave, and with River. I too have met many vets of the WOT. There is nothing weak about our opponents. They are tough and committed to their cause. I fear though that we have taken our eye off the ball. Al Queda and the other transnational terrorist groups cannot exist without their state sponsors. Yet we are building a rapprochement with Syria and have failed through 4 administrations to deal seriously with Iran. We have set the stage for another round - where a nuclear armed Iran provides a protective umbrella for Hezbollah and Hamas and the other Islamist groups
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
It's less a matter of discrimination that I'm thinking of, mesquito, than of a huge, unaccountable surveillance bureaucracy. DHS, TSA, emergency measures woven permanently into the law (PATRIOT Act)...we can, and should, do better. Right?
Jul '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Agreed.
And I turned to his article, expecting to simply scoff and roll my eyes.
But I must say, I found his argument that the Federal government has gone on an unbridled orgy of spending and bureaucratic expansion in the name of national security to be valid. Hundreds of thousands of new Federal employees, ensconced in millions of new square feet of construction, grinding out billions of pages of "analysis" nobody reads.
James Madison - and, oddly enough, Fareed Zakaria - are right - nothing feeds the gaping maw of Leviathan so copiously as war.
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
James Poulos, Ed.
It's less a matter of discrimination that I'm thinking of, mesquito, than of a huge, unaccountable surveillance bureaucracy. DHS, TSA, emergency measures woven permanently into the law (PATRIOT Act)...we can, and should, do better. Right? · Sep 5 at 8:40am
Which, is why we have to be careful about too much triumphalism. I think we should definitely pay heed to Joyner's argument. As with Iraq, it's great that we've had success here, but there's something to be said for the consequences; the part of our soul, so-to-speak, that we abandoned for it. These infringements might have been necessary, but what happens 50 years down the line when the war on terror is likely a distant memory but all of this stuff is still around?
Instead of poking a stick at Zakaria, our objective as conservatives should now be on getting the national security state down to appropriate levels. Our success has allowed it. Let's not screw it up, otherwise it will become something of a pyrrhic victory in our lost liberty.
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Perfect.
Also, to James's point about the permanent surveillance bureaucracy, it is reasonable to fear such a Leviathon as a long-term threat, which is why a more stream-lined, efficient profiling regime would make more sense, no? Let's examine potential plotters more deeply (we know what to look for, afterall), not dragnet the entire population for plots or bombs (or liquids or suspicious tennis shoes).
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
James Poulos, Ed.
It's less a matter of discrimination that I'm thinking of, mesquito, than of a huge, unaccountable surveillance bureaucracy. DHS, TSA, emergency measures woven permanently into the law (PATRIOT Act)...we can, and should, do better. Right? · Sep 5 at 8:40am
The bureaucracy is what bugs me. We didn't need a new agency to overlap the FBI and CIA. We needed those agencies to communicate. We didn't need a new agency to make airline passengers take off their shoes. We needed airlines to want their customers to feel safe, take some profiling classes from the Israelis and work with existing agencies.
Jul '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Scott Reusser
Perfect.
Also, to James's point about the permanent surveillance bureaucracy, it is reasonable to fear such a Leviathon as a long-term threat, which is why a more stream-lined, efficient profiling regime would make more sense, no? Let's examine potential plotters more deeply (we know what to look for, afterall), not dragnet the entire population for plots or bombs (or liquids or suspicious tennis shoes). · Sep 5 at 9:29am
Can anyone explain to me why we continue, 9 years down the road, to give out visas to young men from Muslim countries as though they were mere tickets to Six Flags?
The Underpants Bomber is a prime example. Raised in a majority-Muslim country, recently traveled to Pakistan and Yemen - and stated reason for his sojourn here was to attend an educational seminar on Islam.
"Uh, gee, Mr. Abdulmuttalab, you couldn't find an educational Islamic conference in Lagos, London, Islamabad or Aden?"
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
If anything we under-reacted. Machiavelli advocated going in very hard right at the beginning, then lightening up after fear was instilled. We should have gone after AlQuaeda and any other bad actors whose disappearance would have been majorly beneficial to us as quickly and as ferociously as possible.
Quickly would have been the watchword. By the time elite opinion in the salons of Manhattan, Paris, and wherever had stirred themselves to the faux outrage in which they specialize, we would be finished, or at least well begun.
The Europeans, Islamofascists, and Islamic "street" are not going to hate or dislike us any more intensely. That being the case, we need to be the "strong horse."
"Better to be feared than loved"
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
So true. The TSA guy who sat, slack-jawed and vacant, on Thursday when I was at the airport didn't seem like evidence of a country on sharp alert.
Haven't read Fareed's piece, although to be honest, he's an old friend of mine. Ironically, he was the very person who convinced a skeptical me to support the invasion of Iraq.
Did we overreact? Yes. The federal government gobbled up new powers, created new cabinet posts, re-arranged (and enlarged) its federal org chart. In the private sector, when a disastrous failure occurs, the first thing they do isn't hire more people. The first thing they do is fire people.
But using the decline of al Qaeda as evidence that al Qaeda wasn't a threat is sort of like saying we shouldn't have bothered with the Normandy Invasion, because Hitler was going to kill himself in a bunker anyway.
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Rob Long
So true. The TSA guy who sat, slack-jawed and vacant, on Thursday when I was at the airport didn't seem like evidence of a country on sharp alert.
Haven't read Fareed's piece, although to be honest, he's an old friend of mine. Ironically, he was the very person who convinced a skeptical me to support the invasion of Iraq.
At least that TSA guy wasn't jabberjawing enthusiastically, across the aisles and over the heads of the shoeless, with his fellow sentinels. I've read Zakaria for a long time, and until recently I haven't had reason to single him out for criticism. The trouble seems mostly to involve frustration leading to ill-fitting rhetoric. The media milieu that he's in probably doesn't help matters. As Claire suggests, there's a reason why relatively more nuanced work gets put in relatively more sensationalistic packaging.
May '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
The whole idea of overreaction to 9/11 is so ridiculous that it doesn't even justify discussion. Now, Kenneth's and Rob's points about the TSA and other bureaucratic lard are a different matter: The question isn't so much about overreaction, but whether we reacted well in certain areas. The somnolent TSA is an easy target, and so is the strict limitation on H-1B visas for skilled foreign labor. We may need to give some credit in other areas, though. After all, we haven't suffered any major domestic attacks since 9/11 and I'm not willing simply to chalk that up to dumb luck or accident. I'd suggest kudos to the air marshals and perhaps even the intelligence community in some respect.
Aug '10
Re: Was al Qaeda Overrated?
Government should always do better; the question is, given the nature of government, can it actually do better? (Cue the libertarians' resounding "NO!" which fails as usual to convince anyone responsible for actual policy.)
Naturally, citizens should always hound government to do better. But if they demand a political solution for something--the usual post-crisis "DO SOMETHING!" demand--they should expect a "good enough for government work" implementation. See also: federal response to the 2008 financial crisis.