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January/February 2007 -- Will Robert Gates change anti-terrorism tactics? The Sentinel is informed by associates of incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates that in the ongoing war against Islamist terrorism, he will depart from past policy of drawing clear moral lines of “good” versus “evil,” and instead approach the war with crafty pragmatism—perhaps even blurring clear lines between ally and enemy.
Such tactics, according to those associates, could include a more sympathetic approach to the plight of Palestinians, in hopes of facilitating better relations with Arab Muslims and thus picking up additional allies. Gates hinted at this approach in 2004 when he co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Iran. The task force report called for “selective engagement with Iranian leaders and dropping the rhetoric of regime change.” However, the new approach may well play into the hands of the global Islamic movement, which has long held that U.S. impatience and financial interests would eventually drive a wedge between America and Israel. This would align America, in effect, with disparate Islamic movements seeking legitimacy through U.S. recognition and validation of their grievances.
Terrorists, irony, and the New York Times. A November 1, 2006 New York Times op-ed by Ahmed Yousef, a senior adviser to the Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, called for a “long-term truce” between Hamas and Israel. This caught the attention of terrorism expert Steven Emerson. “Yousef is actually ideally situated to be Haniya’s senior advisor,” writes Emerson, “specifically to attempt to bring Hamas’s message to a Western audience, as Yousef himself spent many years in America as the head of a Hamas front group,” the United Association for Studies and Research. The founder of that front group and many of its associates have been indicted for multiple terrorist activities connected to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Indeed, evidence obtained by this reporter suggests that Yousef, who had at least one other alias while living in the U.S., fled the country to avoid a possible indictment himself.
The melancholy tenor of Yousef’s article, pleading for Israel to grant Palestinians a morsel of peace, sounded conciliatory enough. But this reporter has obtained other writings by Yousef, perhaps not intended for a Western audience. “Once Israel has dominated the Middle East and Africa, it will begin its final triumph and that will be to announce in clear terms its domination of the United States,” he wrote in a seemingly clandestine document circa 1998. The document emphasizes the reach and power of the global Islamic movement, and boasts: “Hamas, a movement that is firmly rooted in the tradition of Islamic revival, is the vanguard of Islamic activism internationally.” This contradicts Hamas’s public image as an organization existing solely to seek “justice” for the Palestinians. Ironically, in the same document, Yousef accuses the New York Times of being controlled by “pro-Israeli propagandists.”
Should the U.S. brace for “tough lessons?” After errant Israeli artillery rounds hit a civilian compound in Gaza, the military wing of Hamas once again accused the U.S. of collaborating with Israel—and then issued a veiled warning. “Therefore, the people and the nation all over the globe are required to teach the American enemy tough lessons.”
Thus far, Hamas activities in the West have focused mostly on fundraising and propaganda. However, internal Hamas documents obtained by The Sentinel state that it can “keep up Islamists momentum inside Israel while also mobilizing Islamists internationally,” suggesting preparations for a change in tactics. While most media report that Hamas aims only at Israeli targets, The Sentinel recalls that in 2003 Israeli officials reported arresting Jamal Akal, a Gaza-born Canadian citizen who admitted to the Israelis that Hamas had trained him to “conduct terrorist attacks in Canada and New York City.”
Barbed wit, followed by explosions of laughter. Looking for new weapons to add to our arsenal, foreign policy advisors to the State Department and the Department of Defenseare debating the efficacy of ridicule to undermine the rulers of political systems hostile to freedom. Proponents of satire say that if the North Korean people saw Kim Jong Il being mocked as he was in the movie Team America: World Police, they would be less intimidated and more likely to revolt against the heavy-fisted tactics employed by the Stalinist leader. The same approach could be used to marginalize radical Islamists—perhaps even more effectively, since they rely on fundraising in many Western nations where they don’t have control of the media. “Ridicule can tear down faster than the other side can rebuild,” observes national defense writer J. Michael Waller. But Waller warns that the weapon of ridicule must be employed cautiously: “Used carelessly or indiscriminately, ridicule can create enemies where there were none, and deepen hostilities among the very peoples whom the user seeks to win over.”
Commentary: Can a democracy fight an asymmetric war? The November elections returned two victories for the terrorists in Iraq and around the world. First, it gave them a victory over President Bush. The following day, the president himself handed them the second victory by succumbing to demands for Donald Rumsfeld’s removal as Defense Secretary.
The Democrats’ incessant attacks on the Rumsfeld and the war in Iraq helped them win back the House and the Senate—but at what cost?
Gates will adopt a pragmatic policy, perhaps even blurring clear lines between ally and enemy.The terrorists viewed the U.S. elections as a barometer measuring the effectiveness of their campaigns of carnage. On one front, bloody images of American soldiers dominating the news cycle caused Americans to recoil from the war in Iraq. On another front, the media ran with horrific stories of events such as Iraqi children being killed in the crossfire of U.S. forces battling insurgents at Haditha. The insurgents claimed it was a massacre and the media obligingly reported it that way, thereby giving Americans another reason to oppose the war. The political pressure arising from the media’s reporting of Haditha not only undermined U.S. morale; it also was the catalyst for changing the rules of engagement, which left our soldiers more vulnerable and frustrated that they can’t defend themselves as effectively. This type of “asymmetric warfare” is better fought with decentralized control over unit tactics that allow troops to respond immediately to local threats rather than await permission from Central Command to return fire.
For his part, President Bush failed to explain to the American people that propaganda is the central weapon of the terrorists. While U.S. forces attempt to win the “hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people, the insurgents’ counter-objective is to destroy the will of the American people to back the war effort. This lack of a clear, aggressive message from government officials explaining the realities of asymmetric warfare allowed the terrorists to control what Americans based their votes upon. They effectively made the recent elections a referendum on the global war against them by stage-managing bloody images deliberately calculated to influence the way the American people voted.
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