At one point in the film “Thirteen Days,” the character of Kenny O’Donnell — Kevin Costner trying in vain not to mangle a Boston accent — throws his hands up in exasperation and tells President Kennedy, “Well, let’s bomb the s— out of ‘em. Everybody wants to. I mean, even you, even me, right? It sure would feel good.”
For those unfamiliar, the movie explores decisions made and sidestepped during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The scene in question follows a meeting during which Kennedy’s advisors urge him to clobber the missile sites before they become active, supporting their proposal with such assumptions as ‘the Soviets only respect force’ and ‘they will do nothing in response.’
The commentary unmasks a troubling streak of human nature that can manifest itself as national policy. In moments of great anger, it certainly feels good to lash out. And so, following the terrorist attacks on innocent people enjoying a Friday evening in Paris, the French responded with an aerial assault on known ISIS targets.
More, they promise, is to come.
Of course, the French are right to retaliate and to pummel recognized targets. The are treating the attack as an act of war. Politicians and pundits on this side of the Atlantic are ramping up the outrage, calling for a stronger American response.
Certainly such violence attacks on innocent people must be stopped. Clearly a brutal return to World War Two-style total war is an option. But listening to President Barack Obama’s press conference on Monday morning — an excruciating exercise, given the halting measure and long pauses — I was struck by a couple of points he tried to relate.
Terrorists know they are too weak to engage a large, conventional army in set piece battle. They would lose, and lose badly. Terrorists now, guerrillas in the past, prefer to strike where they can deal the greatest blow — physical or moral — with the least exposure to defeat.
We call it cowardice. They would point out that it’s their only chance at victory.
So for us the targets are small and scattered. Blasting an entire city or sending armies toward a strategic objective only yields so much.
Obama also pointed out that ISIS (and the others) are spurred on by an idea. Firmly held, almost unshakable, it causes them to willingly done suicide vests and perform inhuman acts. In other words, our ultimate goal — once we have disrupted cells and battered whatever forces we find — is to reshape an idea, drawn from a holy book central to the culture, in such a manner that it will no longer attract extremists.
And, as Vietnam proved, we are not always adept at the “hearts and minds” approach.
That is the problem facing the powers lining up against terror. If it were as “simple” as launching massive forces from the air, land and sea at an entire nation — the World War Two model — we might have figured this out during the previous administration. If we just want to feel good in our response, we could just bomb stuff.
I guess we could also adopt the juvenile approach, the one offered by Ben Carson. You know, call them “losers” and then take their territory. Better yet, let’s just have Justin Bieber sing about jihad and be done with it. No one would want to join a cell after that.
There’s a degree of difficulty here far, far greater than swaying Americans to agree on abortion or the removal of Christmas messages from coffee cups. The goal is to physically defeat terror cells in such a manner that an entire religion, existing across different nations, claimed by rival traditions, rids itself of extreme interpretations of, say, jihad. And to accomplish this without attacking the belief system itself, without appearing to land on one side of an ancient schism or another, without toppling stability to create chaos and — most importantly — without causing those nations to unite against our effort.
Either that, or come to the conclusion that a long and costly retaliation offers no real reward. We could disengage entirely — in theory, anyway — and spend the billions in toil and treasure elsewhere. After all, foreign policy must be forged with an outcome in mind that is attainable and beneficial.
It’s boggling. No wonder so many just shout “bomb” or “kill” instead.
