Defeat Terrorism???

The notion of defeating terrorism has always left me somewhat baffled. This past weekend, the discussion once again came to the surface in the US Presidential campaign. On CNN, this article quotes Kerry as wanting to "reduce terrorism to the level of prostitution" - essentially a nuisance. Of course, Bush has to come along and insist that terrorism must be "defeated".

Terrorism is like body odor - you can't quite eliminate it, but you can control to some degree. In other words, you make it very difficult for terrorists to carry out their business, but you don't necessarily speak in terms of win/lose - the picture is far too vague for that. (The British experience in Northern Ireland, or the Spanish experience with the Basque separatists makes this pretty clear to me) The reality is that terrorist organizations are not monolithic in nature, but instead are highly organic, and integrate into the background of the societies in which they operate.

We know from experience that totalitarian regimes which try to control every movement of their citizens tend to ultimately fail, so you can strike the notion of making a police state as being terribly workable. Second, conventional wartime strategy and tactics (invading other countries) don't work when the enemy is not geographically cohesive. Third, we can't get away with sending mixed signals around the world - letting one country actively engage in "anti-social" behaviour while clobbering another for the same behaviour makes it abundantly clear that the motives expressed should never be trusted.

So...my point? The so-called "War on Terror" cannot be won per se. There will be no day of armistice to look forward to. The Terrorists don't care about such things - they have their political agenda in mind, and aren't interested in the politics of win/loss in war. In this regard, I believe that Kerry has the right of the picture. The goal is realistically to reduce terrorism to the level of background noise. If you can disrupt the power structures of these organizations, then all you have is a few crackpots making pipe-bombs in their basements. They become "common criminals" and are relatively easily dealt with. (If they survive their own stupidity)

For Bush to stand up and claim that terrorism can be defeated is disengenuous at best. What are the conditions of victory, Mr. Bush? How will you know you've won? Will it be after 5 years where nobody bombs a building or nightclub? Or will it be because your forces have caught up to Osama bin Laden? (By now, I dare say that capturing him would be symbolic at best, there's probably a goodly number of people lined up to fill his shoes anyhow.) The fact is that Bush and Cheney couldn't define the victory conditions if they wanted to (and I don't think they do).