A Mood Is Not a Strategy

The fear of terror shouldn’t blind us. Only a tiny fraction of terror victims live in the western hemisphere. It’s time for cooler heads to prevail.

A columnist is supposed to clear your mind a little, make your life a bit easier and give it a little charm. But the times don’t want to allow us that luxury. The tone gets more shrill by the hour. The noise of war is everywhere, banners aflutter and populist alliances conjured up once again. “Strong” leaders exploit the opportunity. They crave strong feelings – they live off fear and hatred – Putin, Orbán and a host of others. In the United States, only Donald Trump wallows in such things. Doubters betray their nation as well as the entire Western world.

I can empathize with that feeling, that we should respond to the terror with our own violence. Take revenge, strike back! With fire and sword, with your Glock, with grenades, Tomahawks, Boeing smart bombs. Boom! So that “they” (accompanied by a sweeping hand gesture that includes half the world) finally get the message. That’s all, folks! And have yourselves a merry little Christmas! I understand the fear. I can commiserate. I don’t believe we can completely stop terrorism without spilling some blood. But a mood, a feeling, isn’t a strategy. It’s time to take an honest look at the scoreboard so far.

The Major Powers Built This World

Look at how the rich and powerful nations shaped this world historically as colonial masters, invaders and with their economic strength and note how they’re dealing with their responsibilities. Not to mention how they’re managing their own societies. They also need to take a look at a few facts about their “global war on terror.” Since 9/11 it’s been blasting full speed ahead for 14 terrible years. It’s a failure and a catastrophe. Eight thousand male and female Western alliance soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of civilian victims is at least 350,000 and other sources estimate it to be in excess of one million. Add to that hundreds of thousands of victims in Libya and Syria. Both countries have been playing Western dictators’ domino with arms sales and an air war. Gadhafi is dead, Assad is still in power. Both nations have been turned into gigantic slaughter fields and the future prospects don’t look good.

There is more terror in the world today than there was prior to this campaign. The Institute for Economics and Peace recently published a new Global Terrorism Index. In 2014 alone, the number of terrorism victims worldwide rose some 80 percent. In 2000 there were 3,329 terrorism deaths compared to last year’s 32,685. The yellow jersey of murder doesn’t belong to the “Islamic State group” but rather to Boko Haram in Nigeria with 6,644 victims. The report also illustrates how narrow our overall view still is as shown by the list of those countries that exceeded 500 terrorist deaths — arbitrarily defined — per year: Somalia, Ukraine, Yemen, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Cameroon. Unfortunately, there is no German media presence in any of them with the possible exception of the Ukraine.

And finally comes the question: With whom are we fighting and for what? In Syria, we’re presently in a coalition with the rulers of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Now please read that last sentence three times. After that, you should need a stiff drink.