Last Sunday, our military launched a raid from inside Iraqi borders into Syria. The operation’s goal was to eliminate a former lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq until he was killed back in 2006, according to BBC News. The U.S. said that it had asked Syria to hand over the lieutenant for quite some time, but Syria refused to comply.
A U.S. official said, “It was a successful operation. This undoubtedly will have a debilitating effect on this foreign fighter smuggling network.”
Our good ol’ friend and lame-duck president George W. Bush said, “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.”
Defending the American people, is, of course, a good thing. Except for one annoying little detail: Most of this defense is taking place on foreign soil. It uses security as a code word for war.
I get the impression our military leaders have somehow forgotten that many of our enemies’ leaders have second-in-commands, and the second-in-commands have second-in-commands. Simply killing a single leader who will immediately be replaced won’t sole anything.
Every time you hear on the news that the U.S. has eliminated another terrorist leader, it’s supposed to be debilitating — but our soldiers are still falling victims to roadside bombings and other acts of terrorism. Seems like the debilitating effect isn’t as devastating as we’re being told. This case is no different. There has been little effect before, and there will be little effect again — except this time we may have gotten ourselves into another war.
First, one should wonder whether the U.S. has finally bitten off more than it can chew. Next, should follow the question, but usually doesn’t: whether we’re resorting to the same ruthless acts usually attributed to our enemies. The answer is something no one wants to admit out loud, but that doesn’t make it less true.
We can’t continue to ignore the ongoing war in Iraq...I mean Afghanistan. Wait, no — Pakistan. Next on the list: Syria and Iran. It’s getting hard to keep track of all the attack campaigns and wars that our country is supposedly winning.
The underlying theme, which also seems to get fuzzier as time goes on, is to protect those vastly broad concepts of freedom and democracy. But this time, our efforts may have gone too far, our resources stretched too thin.
Syria is laying the foundation for a declaration of war. The unspoken theory of what qualifies as a “just” war is a response to an act of aggression. Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallem called the attack a “war crime attempt” and an act of aggression, as it cost the lives of eight noncombatant civilians according to Syria, as reported by BBC.com.
But the deaths of civilians, while tragic, is not the biggest issue here. Fatalities aren’t the only measure of injustice. The issue is that there was an attack on Syrian soil, regardless of who was killed or how many were killed.
Middle Eastern countries are, quite understandably, very sensitive about aggression from the United States. Attacking another country is more than enough reason to say the U.S. has just gotten itself into another war. Think about it: If one of the people you hated the most decided to come push you or bump into you, if you were that bitter and angry toward them, you would feel entitled to take action. This is the same thing, just on a grander scale.
And these acts aren’t the end. The Bush administration is trying to apply this expanded self-defense idea to militant targets located in camps in Iran. This should strike fear into everybody’s hearts. Launching an attack inside Iran will undoubtedly provoke retaliation and consequences no one can imagine at the moment … but none of them are good.
George W. Bush and his administration are on the out. There are only so many more days that they can direct the action. But what goes on in the next three months will determine the future of this country for some time. None of us can honestly say that we saw this attack coming in advance, so there’s a limit to how much say we can possibly have in his last days in office. I’m not the only person who can’t remember what this “war on terror” was even supposedly about. But based on its actions, it seems that the U.S. is becoming the very thing that it claims to be fighting against: terrorists.
—T.J. Bronson is a journalism and finance junior.
—This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com. Anonymous letters will not be printed — include your full name, major and year in school.
The Daily Aztec > State of Mind
A GUEST'S PERSPECTIVE: America's terrorism
Published: Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Updated: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
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