It's Not a Basketball Game
Oct. 29th, 2004 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saavedra77Talking to the handful of pro-Bush voters I know, and those I hear on call-in shows, I've been struck by how passionately so many of them believe in the so-called "Bush Doctrine"--the idea that the post-9/11 U.S. must go "on the offense," attacking potential enemies "over there" before we have to "fight them over here" (i.e., "play "defense").
The thing is, I keep wondering: why does anyone assume that "fighting them over there" and "fighting them over here" are mutually exclusive? How does fighting against Islamist militants in Iraq ensure that bin Laden or others with the same ideology won't at the same time "go on the offensive" "over here"? Terrorist networks are not like football or basketball teams, on the "offense" when they control the ball or forced onto the "defense" when they don't. Nor are they like 19th-century nation-states, on the offensive when making inroads into an enemy's territory, on the defensive when the enemy impinges on theirs.
Bush Doctrine advocates frequently ascribe a "September 10th" mindset to their critics. But the "offense"/"defense" formula seems less appropriate to fighting against international terrorist networks than to playing basketball or invading Prussia. What could be more "September 10th" than expecting a loose, international network of militants to behave like the Lakers or a Napoleonic army?
The thing is, I keep wondering: why does anyone assume that "fighting them over there" and "fighting them over here" are mutually exclusive? How does fighting against Islamist militants in Iraq ensure that bin Laden or others with the same ideology won't at the same time "go on the offensive" "over here"? Terrorist networks are not like football or basketball teams, on the "offense" when they control the ball or forced onto the "defense" when they don't. Nor are they like 19th-century nation-states, on the offensive when making inroads into an enemy's territory, on the defensive when the enemy impinges on theirs.
Bush Doctrine advocates frequently ascribe a "September 10th" mindset to their critics. But the "offense"/"defense" formula seems less appropriate to fighting against international terrorist networks than to playing basketball or invading Prussia. What could be more "September 10th" than expecting a loose, international network of militants to behave like the Lakers or a Napoleonic army?
