"The "Global War on Terror": What Has Been Learned? - Print Version"
Unedited Transcript
Fifty-fourth in the Capitol Hill Conference Series on U.S. Middle East Policy
The "Global War on Terror": What Has Been Learned?
Speakers:
Douglas Macgregor,
Lead partner, Potomac League, LLC
Marvin Weinbaum,
Scholar in residence, Middle East Institute
Abdullah Ansary,
Senior fellow, Homeland Security Policy Institute, George Washington University
Robert Pape,
Professor of political science, University of Chicago
Moderator/Discussant
Chas W. Freeman, Jr.,
President, Middle East Policy Council
Caucus Room, Cannon Office Building
Washington, D.C.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, DC
CHAS. W. FREEMAN, JR.: Perhaps we will get going. We have been waiting among other things for a projector from Congressman Moran's office, which is apparently en route. As a result of not having that, we are going to alter the order of the speakers.
Let me begin by welcoming you. I am Chas Freeman. It is my honor and occasional pleasure to be president of the Middle East Policy Council. There are quite a number of new faces in the room. And therefore, I will explain that we are an organization of nearly 30 years standing that basically does three things. We come up here to Capitol Hill, which some regard as the heart of darkness, and we try to light a candle of enlightenment on issues that are either politically incorrect, or too awkward to be discussed in normal company, or simply neglected, but important.
This is the 54th such conference. We have a record, I am proud to say, of anticipating both problems and opportunities and establishing a literate knowledge base with respect to these, often some years before others discover them. Whether that is the case today or not, we will find out. Second, we take the transcripts of these sessions - the unedited transcripts should be up on our website, mepc.org, in about a week. But the edited transcript becomes the first item in our quarterly, Middle East Policy, which, I am proud to say, is the most often cited journal in the field. The most recent journal, in particular, has got some very exciting and novel articles in it. And I commend it to your attention.
Third, invisibly outside the Beltway, and therefore utterly irrelevant in terms of where we now stand, we conduct teacher training programs for high school teachers on Islam and Arab culture and civilization. We have trained some 18,000 teachers throughout the country. We reach about 1.4 million kids a year in high school and confuse them with a fact or two, which they otherwise would not encounter in the course of the standard American public school education. In many ways, I think this program is the most important that we conduct, although I am proud of the other two, as well.
We are dependent on donations. Anyone who is moved to donate will receive something - maybe a gold star.
Yesterday was, of course, the seventh anniversary of the maiming of America in the 9/11 attacks of 2001. In some respects, we seem to have suffered a national nervous breakdown as a result. Certainly, we have been transformed as anyone who tries to navigate an airport will quickly discover. In many respects, our relationships with the outside world have been transformed, as we have reorganized much of our foreign policy around the issue of the so-called global war on terror.
And yet, there is no consensus and no clear answer to quite a variety of questions. What is terrorism? Who are the terrorists of concern to us? Are there terrorists who are not of concern to us? Why are these people terrorists? How did they become terrorists? What is the right package of measures to deal with these terrorists? And seven years into it, what, if anything, have we learned about what works and what doesn't in that regard?
The public remains quite confused. Many people, including apparently candidates for high office, seem to believe that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis are guilty of 9/11's atrocities. Very large groups believe that the global war on terror is largely a failure. But there have been successes in it, if not as many as we would like. What are these successes and what do they tell us?
I think it is remarkable that we don't know the answers to these questions after seven years. But we are going to make an effort today to address all of these issues. This is timely. We are in the midst of an election in which there is no intelligent debate on any of these questions. But we anticipate an inauguration next January 20 of a new president. And whoever that is will have an opportunity to pause and reflect on these issues and to press the reset button before charging into the future.
So today's session is, in a sense - anticipating publication of the edited transcript a few months from now - in anticipation of such a moment of national reflection and refashioning of policies to be more effective.
With these few words, which I hope have not taken too much time, I would like to explain to those who are new some of the Council's ground rules, and then I will explain how I am going to authorize their violation.
We have a very distinguished panel today, unusually competent, I think, although we set a very high standard in that regard. Typically, panelists are allowed to speak for no more than 10 to 12 minutes. When they get over the 12-minute mark, I use the large bulk that I have spent 65 years accumulating to throw them physically off the podium, preferably without physical injury to them. (But in the end, I don't care. I am just trying to get them off the podium.)
We then proceed to a lengthy - and I think the most interesting part of the program is the interaction - questions, comments, and answers. I would ask those of you who wish to make a comment to keep it succinct. If you want to make a speech, please go do it someplace else. But if you have a question that is germane and you can direct it to a panelist, that is helpful. Tell us who you are, use the microphone to put the question forward. All you have to do is signal me. If you make eye contact and you see me make a note, then I have got you done in sequence, and I will signal you when you should go to the microphone. You don't have to queue up there.
Now, as the Stalinist chairman of this event, let me proclaim the authorized violations of the rules I have just explained. First of all, as I said, we are going to change the order of the speakers. That is all right. I am going to allow two of the speakers to exceed 12 minutes, but not by much. And they will see me move menacingly in their direction as the time closes. Let me introduce the speakers, and then I will tell you who is going to speak a little longer.
First of all, leading off today will be Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who probably many of you have seen on television. He is a frequent, very articulate commentator primarily on the developing mess in Iraq. He is the author of a forthcoming book on the world's largest tank battle, which even when I was ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War passed virtually unnoticed by me. And General Tom Rhame, who conducted it, told me quite a bit about it when he later came to work for me - first in Riyadh and then at the Pentagon. So I am looking forward to the book. It was a signal event.
Doug Macgregor will lead off. He will be talking about the impact of our intervention in Iraq and elsewhere and on the issues I mentioned. We will then turn to Marvin Weinbaum, who in addition to being a distinguished professor emeritus, as you can see in his biography, is also a scholar - currently a scholar in residence at the Middle East Institute following a tour at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department in charge of Afghanistan and Pakistan affairs. I don't think it is possible to talk about these topics without talking about Afghanistan and Pakistan. And therefore, we are particularly happy that you were able to join us, Dr. Weinbaum.
We will then move to Abdullah Ansary, who has a degree in Sharia law from Umm al Qura University in Mecca, as well as an LL.M. and I forget - what is the Ph.D. called in law? S.J.D., I should remember that.
ABDULLAH ANSARY: (Off mike, inaudible.)
MR. FREEMAN: Super J.D. from the University of Virginia. And Dr. Ansary is an expert on homeland security issues and a consultant on those, as well as a scholar in the academic context. And he is one of the few who really seems to understand the incredible success that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has registered against terrorists. That is one of the very few success stories. I hope, Dr. Ansary, that you will explain why that success has occurred by contrast with the situation elsewhere. Dr. Ansary is a little under the weather, and therefore, I am going to let him - in the interest of making sure that we have his company for as long as possible, go for 15 or 16 minutes before I pitch him off the podium.
And finally, we are very pleased today that coming all the way from Chicago -- really just out of the goodness of his heart is Robert Pape, who I think anyone who has looked at the issue of terrorism venerates for his long work on asymmetric warfare, and more particularly recently on the logic of suicide terrorism. He is one of the few people in the country who has established a solid reputation for expertise on this particular nasty new subject area. We are very pleased that he is here. And we are going to have some slides as part of his presentation, so I am going to let him go a little longer, too, at the tail end -- just so that you can all be awakened by an audiovisual presentation before we get to the Q&A.
So with these few words, I would like to welcome this very distinguished panel and to start by inviting Colonel Macgregor to come up here. We - or if you want, you can sit there, but probably better here. And you have 10 or 12 minutes to explain why we have triumphed in Iraq. Thanks.
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: When I was switched to the number-one position, Chas said, you don't mind being number one, do you? And I said, no. Twenty years ago, when I was teaching at the military academy, unfortunately, for those of us who had to teach the basic course in political science during the first two, three semesters , our course was at 7:30 in the morning. And if you talk about a hard audience, look at a room full of West Point cadets at 7:30 in the morning, all of whom are looking at you as though you owe them money. (Laughter.)
We used to refer to it as the coma hour because you could have filmed the movie "Coma" in that class. I was always amazed that anybody learned anything at 7:30 in the morning. So you are a tough audience, but you are not as tough as the West Point audience I used to see every other day at 7:30 in the morning.
I am going to try and stay at the strategic level and trip the lights fantastic, if you will, as opposed to going down into the weeds. And perhaps I will also offer you a somewhat different snapshot of what I think we have managed to achieve strategically since 2001 - certainly a little different interpretation from the one you are accustomed to hearing.
I would argue that, first of all, our experience since 2001 really demonstrates that the use of American military power - even against exceptionally weak adversaries - adversaries that have no effective armies, no air defenses, no navies, no air forces, no significant military technology can be extremely costly and damaging. I don't think that comes up very much. And we hear a lot about the war on terror. And we talk about the use of our armed forces and the damage that is being done to our armed forces. Nobody ever bothers to bring up the fact that these are probably the weakest enemies we have faced certainly since we have fought the Mexicans in the early part of the 19th century.
So what are the results of all of this? Well, I would argue that in both Iraq and Afghanistan, American military action has produced very serious and negative consequences for American national security interests. And what are these consequences? First, we have facilitated the expansion of Iranian regional strategic influence and power - not simply in Iraq, but across the Middle East.
Secondly, Turkey is deeply alienated from the United States and increasingly from the West with interesting strategic implications. I would also argue that Turkey that has the most powerful military establishment in the entire region - the one state that can actually project military power over its borders where it wants to - is actually moving quite close right now to Russia. And if you watched carefully during the Georgian-Russian crisis, the Turks were extremely quiet, though; they are in theory NATO members and allied with the United States.
I would also argue that Pakistan's always fragile cohesion has been seriously weakened. Discussions now about plunging U.S. forces into Pakistan are certainly not going to help that matter. But Pakistan is truly the source of serious regional crisis and instability. And it has gotten much, much worse since we began operations in Afghanistan. So what do we learn from these various conditions and insights?
Well, I think - by the way, before I forget, I might also point out something that is rarely mentioned, and I don't know why we don't mention it. I don't see much evidence that Israel's security has been improved or enhanced by anything that we have undertaken. That certainly is the view of my friends in the Israeli Defense Force. And I think we ought to keep that in mind.
The Muslim world does not want the United States to be its savior. That is lesson number one. They simply don't. They certainly do not want to be forcibly westernized through U.S. military occupation. Flooding Muslim countries with thousands of U.S. and British troops, who in the view of most Muslim Arabs are simply Christian Europeans in U.S. or British uniform, is not a good idea. It is a very bad idea. And it has cost us not simply thousands of lives and damage to our force, but hundreds of billions of dollars.
The American military occupation in Iraq, in particular, and increasingly in Afghanistan also did something else for the enemies of not simply the United States, but the West in the Middle East, it presented them with an opportunity they would have otherwise never had, which is to directly attack American military power, to damage American military prestige, to exhaust American military and economic resources. And they have done a superb job in my estimation.
And keep in mind that our enemies in the Middle East have essentially paid for this kind of damage at very little cost for themselves - pennies compared with the hundreds of billions it has cost us to defend ourselves and to try and suppress this violence. And by the way, now that we are spending $12 billion a month to maintain a government in Baghdad - a Shiite-dominated government that is effectively tied to, if not outrightly allied with Tehran, we are also paying hundreds of millions of dollars to our former adversaries, the Sunni Muslim Arab insurgents, whom we were recently killing not to shoot at us.
And for those of you who may be wondering about the so-called success of the surge, I would argue that the troop surge had little, if anything marginal impact - the real impact - what has really changed the equation with the Sunni population that we have been waging war against for the last five years is the cash. We have simply paid more cash to them than al Qaeda could afford. We bought their cooperation. And they now see us as a useful co-belligerent in their internal struggle for power against their enemies in the Baghdad government and the Kurds.
So in theory, you know, winning is not really a very useful construct right now in the region. I am not sure that winning - at least in terms of talking about establishing Western-style democracy and governance ever made any sense to begin with. But I think damage control or damage limitation is about the best that you can hope for under the circumstances. I certainly am not here to advocate fighting a new war to reverse the strategic outcome in Iraq. And I am also not here to advocate adding more U.S. combat troops or British troops or anybody else's troops to Afghanistan because the government in Afghanistan in contrast to the one in Baghdad, which is strongly backed by Tehran - the government in Kabul is really only backed by us.
And it is seen widely as our puppet. It is hopelessly corrupt. It is ineffective. There is no effective governance. And, quite frankly, it is not worthy of our military support. And it is one of the reasons that there is so much opposition inside Afghanistan. So I would argue that the problem in Afghanistan has less to do with the Taliban's resurgence - the Taliban's resurgence is symptomatic of problems in Kabul.
Finally, in theory, we talk about national policy goals, particularly as far as foreign policy is concerned is shaping military strategy. And I think the real lesson from all of this in a strategic military sense is that strategic concerns, strategic goals don't really shape our military strategy at all. Our military strategy is shaped by the capability we have got. If you have got certain capabilities - and in our case, a huge surplus of military power that we have had since 1991, you tend to use what you have.
You use what you have. And then you assume that your military establishment will ultimately muddle through and prevail. And in that process, you graft onto this ideology - an ideology that encourages people to believe that we are facing some sort of monolithic Islamo-Fascist enemy, that there are Islamo-Fascist Wehrmacht and Red Armies springing up all across the Middle East ready to pounce. And you end up in Baghdad asking what next because ideology is not strategy.
And until we can set aside ideology and begin to look at concrete interests, until we understand the interests of the people that live in the region, what they do and they do not want, we are going to continue to struggle and muddle, and we are not going to have a great deal of success against the real enemy that we said we wanted to defeat in 2001. And that was this Islamist fundamentalism as expressed by our friend, bin Laden, and his cohorts.
Thanks.
(Applause.)
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you. Admirably succinct and well-stated. I take from that the view that military means per se are not necessarily an appropriate and certainly not an adequate answer to the problems we confront. That the pacification of Iraq to the extent it has been pacified, as opposed to stabilized, is more a function of a splurge than a surge. And that capabilities rather than strategy are driving our campaigns or - you didn't use this phrase -- to the man who has a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And finally that ideology, whatever its merits, does not equate to strategy.
And as Sun Tzu advised, to succeed in warfare, one must know one's enemy and know one's self - "zhi ji zhi bi, bai zhan bai sheng."
We now move to the place that one candidate in our election says is the central front in the war on terror while another disputes this. Whatever it is, it is a mess. And Dr. Weinbaum is going to come clarify for us the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
MARVIN WEINBAUM: Well, you almost took away my first - (chuckles) - rook, yeah, because it was former - under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who - before he left is quoted as saying, "It is South Asia where the struggle against global terrorism will be decided." Afghanistan and Pakistan, of course, are what he had in mind. There's, I think, general agreement whether your - whatever your views are in Iraq or in - that we got distracted. It - certainly, if the enemy was the one that we went after, presumably, we were fighting in the wrong place. We, undoubtedly - it strikes me - underestimated the nature of the threat and the complexity of the challenge and what would it take, in terms of resources, to prevail - whatever that is.
I think what we have to see, though very importantly now, is that Afghanistan and Pakistan constitute one theater and that anything we say about Afghanistan necessarily involves Pakistan and I think that's becoming more and more apparent everyday in just reading the newspapers. And, therefore, where we have, in a way failed, is that we never really have had a comprehensive strategy for the two countries and, indeed, for the region. I think we're suffering from this quite greatly. We have also seen, as far as Pakistan is concerned, that we had a false choice to make and that was that we had to choose between democracy and security.
What we failed to realize is that a change in the political system there was going to be necessary for us to realize a more change in a democratic direction; is going to be necessary to change a situation where we would be able to arrive at better security for both countries. So this is a topic in and of itself but I want to talk here because I was told to that talk somewhat about the bad guys. Who are they?
First of all, I think what we're looking at here is the group that we usually focus on is the Afghan Taliban and under, presumably, the leadership of Mullah Omar, who has been the leader ever since 1994. Actually, what we're talking about is a group of perhaps no more than 5,000. It's expandable. It's contractible, depending, in Baluchistan. That's not really in the areas that - the tribal areas - that we generally hear so much of on the news.
But, actually, the Taliban - the Afghan Taliban - are a conglomeration of forces operating somewhat independently of one another, not strictly speaking, taking instructions from Mullah Omar. Essentially, this is why the Afghan conflict has become so difficult. Essentially, what Kabul government and the international community is fighting in Afghanistan is a spectrum of forces who are anti-government for somewhat different reasons. Some of them just have grievances against the government. Some are local militias, commanders who profit - and often that's tied in with the drug trade - who profit from keeping the government and the international forces at bay. So that's more of an amorphous group than we usually make it out to be.
In addition to the Afghan Taliban, the insurgency in Afghanistan also relates to Mujahedeen groups that fought against the Soviets and now are aligned against the Kabul government and ISAF international forces under NATO command. And names like Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, the Haqqani family are names that you should know because, in fact, they are - in fact they are the most effective fighting forces. Very likely, they were responsible for the act - for the bombing at the Indian embassy that took place several weeks ago but we tend to lump them together with the Mullah Omar's Taliban.
What about al Qaeda? You have to - don't see them as a fighting unit. They're not. They're not that. They are a force multiplier. One has to see them as serving to provide training, technical expertise, some planning, certainly motivation and ideological rigor, and also to some degree, finances. And who is al Qaeda? Perhaps no more than a few hundred Arabs from various nationalities but also lumped in with them are Chechens and Uzbeks. So even that is not very clearly one where we an demarcate the membership.
We have a tendency here to throw any foreigners in as al Qaeda. But we are - I have noticed here is the, very importantly, the greater sophistication of the insurgency. And for this, we do have to credit al Qaeda and, particularly, as you are probably aware, the fact that it's unmistakenable the fact that many of the means that are used have been imported from Iraq. I'm talking about the IEDs, suicide bombing. There has been a basic change in the Pakistan's tribal areas, where now we have people emerging from that because the some of the infiltration is from Pakistanis who do not represent the traditional tribal units that we generally have associated with it and many people still think, well, you just have to rein in the tribes.
What has happened in Pakistan is that the tribal belt has been transformed from what it was to a radicalized force, which is essentially under the command of mullahs, who at one time used to be - who really were honorific figures who were responsible for officiating at various events and we have seen them become now political leaders and they have pushed aside the tradition leaders. Even to some extent, we know of at least 200 of those leaders who have been killed and the main force then represented here is essentially unemployed, uneducated young men, who engage in such activities such as beheading, which was certainly unknown in the past in this tribal society.
Well, in the few minutes that - (chuckles) - I have, the - I want to say a word here about the motivations because I know that Robert is probably going to go into this. What makes, in a way, this area different is that - although it's been recognized that suicide bombing, for example, has elsewhere, not necessarily come from the bottom ranks by economic ladders of society but has been associated with people who are experiencing what is often called relative deprivation. That is, they have an education but they cannot fulfill their ambitions.
Our understanding here of what's going on is that what is driving this in the tribal area is underdevelopment, poverty, and that - to the extent that we know on both the Afghan and the Pakistan side, most of those who have been engaged in terrorist activities have come from the very poor in society and this, indeed, is a poor area. Sixty percent of the population there is below the poverty line. Seventeen percent are literate of which - probably no more than 3 percent are women are literate.
In Pakistan's development budget between '02 and '07, these areas got, perhaps, 1 percent of the development funds. How do they justify their actions? Well, as I say, strong motivation here is simply the fact that they are paid. The Taliban are paid more - the Afghan Taliban are paid more than the policemen and the soldiers who are fighting. There is a sense here, though - and I think this important and I know Robert stresses this in his presentations - that there is a sense here that they are fighting against outsiders, against occupation, that it's Islam which is under attack.
There is sense of grievance and that their honor and in a tribal area - tribal society - honor is the most important quality; an affront to themselves, their family, and even their nations. And they justify their violence here as representing their only option and they are able to live with this even though it is explained to them that this is not Islamic when innocents are killed in the process but rather, they say, there are no innocents, that anyone who accepts the occupier is, therefore, the enemy.
Well, I want to stress here that what's especially important is that insurgency has a different time horizon. Initially the Taliban were just intent upon in staying in the game. They really did not expect to be able to have very many successes for some time. The idea was to wear down international forces. The idea was to outlast them because of the strong belief in the region that, in fact, international forces are only there to serve their own interests and when those are satisfied, they'll be leaving. And we have been really struggling with this because it undermines much of our appeal in this area.
What has happened in the last, especially two or three years, where we see now the growth of a far greater violence, is that they have accelerated this process. They've accelerated this process because we failed to deliver a peace dividend. We failed to hold the faith of the Afghans. We had that. They welcomed us but it took a year-and-a-half before we built the first road in Afghanistan of any consequence. Well, my time is up. (Chuckles.)
Let me just conclude by saying that I don't believe the extremists, the Taliban, are seen positively by the people of Afghanistan or, for that matter, Pakistan. But the way in which we have conducted much of our campaign has, over this time, in our failure to deliver more than military campaigns and the failure to convince them that the war in Afghanistan and the war in the frontier was their war, it was in their interest; we conflated that with the larger war on Islam and we're paying for that.
And finally then, let me say that I agree with much of what has been said here from Douglas Macgregor and I would only take exception, in fact, that we are in it now and I, for one, don't think that we can afford to walk away from this. How we stay and how we ultimately are able to at least deal with these problems is another question but I don't see another opportunity because of where we are right now. I'm feeling your weight. (Chuckles.) Thank you very much. (Applause.)
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you. Thank very much. I'm left with a couple of questions and some tentative, if not conclusions, at least hypotheses following that very thoughtful and, thank you, very informative presentation.
Could it be the case that all terrorism, like all politics, is local? And that it arises from factors that are peculiar to its place of origin but are generally related to military occupation? One could look at the example of Israel in the Palestinian territories: West Bank and Gaza or Lebanon or the Soviets in Afghanistan, followed by us in Afghanistan or we, in Iraq, and at least hypothesize that there may be something to that.
Second. To pose a question perhaps related to something you said, Marvin, that I thought was very intriguing: Is religion just a rationale rather than a cause of the difficulties we face? If so, our analysis needs to be redone, I suspect and we'll get to these issues later but I wanted to pose them in this way now because I think they do deserve further discussion.
Questions: How is it that the Taliban, who were the innkeepers, the people who ran the revolutionary flophouse from al Qaeda staged its attack on the United States but not themselves directly, in any respect, involved - no Afghan did anything to the United States - how is it that they have somehow become the enemy as opposed to an appropriate target for punishment, which we accomplished by throwing them from power? Why is it that we are now engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Taliban? How did that happen? I don't know that there's a clear explanation for that.
Moreover - you as well as Colonel Macgregor mentioned this and it is important - even if all terrorism is local and caused by local factors, it has transnational characteristics. That is, a technique for developing an improvised explosive device devised in Iraq rather quickly finds its way to Afghanistan and even conceivably to Gaza. So what begins as a local phenomenon gets linked to other local phenomena, even as we seem to link all these different areas ourselves in another way and thereby appear to many Muslims as conducting a crusade against Islam rather than a series of struggles against violent anti-American activities.
Finally, if these thoughts have any validity, wouldn't it be conceivable to think analytically about al Qaeda, for example, as representing a kind of parasite on foreign intervention, the struggle between great powers that arose, after all, in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the American-, Saudi-, Chinese-, Egyptian, Pakistani-managed counterattack on that Soviet struggle?
We've seen al Qaeda arise from nowhere in Iraq - it didn't exist before we essentially created it. So wouldn't it be fair to say that this phenomena is, in a sense, a parasite that depends on underlying violence of a different kind?
These are hypotheses to be tested and I can't think of anyone better to get us into a different perspective on these than Dr. Ansary, who is, as I said, has a unique understanding and has written in Middle East policy, by the way, a wonderful article, which I command to your attention, on the struggle against terrorists in Saudi Arabia.
MR. ANSARY: Good morning. Thank you for having me today. I am truly honored to be a member - (inaudible). The global war on terror - what have we learned?
Obviously we have learned that countering terrorism requires coordinated multilateral efforts that go well beyond operations to capture or kill terrorist leaders. Fighting terrorists has become a "war of ideas." Terrorists have crafted and disseminated a compelling narrative that resonates with audiences around the world, expanding and energizing their ranks. Their "center of gravity" - their source of strength - are these ideas and their ability to spread them.
Al-Qa'ida propagates a message that combines dubious religious justifications with tales of an imaginary "Clash of Civilizations". Muslims around the world are told, by an impressive media infrastructure run by the terrorists that it is their individual religious duty to join the terrorists and take up arms in defense of Islam against the West. Military force alone will never beat this narrative and, in some cases, simply makes the problem worse. As long as this narrative can be effectively propagated, it will draw in new converts to the terrorists' radical ideology. Going on the offensive against terrorists requires attacking their center of gravity, their narrative.
Policies that make use of all instruments, not just military, are therefore in high demand; and best practices and lessons learned must be identified and adopted. Governments are searching for ways to fight extremism and radicalization in innovative ways. To generate a sense of context, Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries where the fight against terrorism and extremism has yielded real success. This success cannot be explained only by the effectiveness of its security measures, but also by its softer approach in tackling radical ideologies. After September 11, Saudi Arabia embarked on a very aggressive counter-terrorism campaign: arresting and questioning thousands of suspects, dismantling Al-Qaeda cells and killing or capturing their leaders, seizing large quantities of arms and money. However The Saudi Government realized that focusing on the elimination of terrorists, rather than their radical ideology in general, was misguided and counterproductive. The Saudi government re-crafted its strategy to take on the radical ideologies that foster violent extremism. The primary Saudi strategy is to confront thoughts with thoughts, and to confront the appeal of extremist Takfir ideology in the Kingdom by presenting the true interpretation of Shari'ah principles, and by promoting the true values of the Islamic faith and the importance of tolerance.
In order to combat radical ideology, the Kingdom adopted a series of "soft" counter-terrorism measures aimed at undermining extremists' views, and disrupting the activities of those who promote violent extremism. In addition to the "Security Strategy," an "Advocacy and Advisory Strategy," was implemented through advisory programs such as the Counseling Program and the Tranquility Campaign. The "Advisory Strategy" is defined by two approaches: a "Preventive Approach" designed to limit the spread of radical ideology by draining the sources of extremism, and a "Treatment Approach" designed to encourage those who sympathize with terrorists and their radical ideology to recant through frank dialogue, bridge-building, and confrontation.
The Saudi government has been implementing an intense religious reeducation and counseling program, called Al-Munasah'ah, for security prisoners who sympathize with or provide support to extremists. The goal of the program is to encourage security prisoners to renounce their radical ideology by providing them with psychological and sociological counseling, and by engaging them in comprehensive and intensive religious dialogue.
A Psychological and Social Subcommittee evaluate the prisoner's psychological, social, and financial status in order to determine what kind of support him and his family may need. After the assessments, counselors of the Religious Subcommittee engage the prisoners in conversations about their views on several concepts, such as the Takfir doctrine, Jihad in Iraq, suicide operations and martyrs, the excommunication of governments and societies (and its gravity), the right approach in dealing with contemporary Islamic issues, repentance and return to the truth, and the sanctity of human blood in Islam.
The most prominent and positive effects of the program for the security prisoners are helping them correct their flawed understanding of Shari'ah; responding to their dubious thoughts; reminding them of the advantage of repentance and recanting errors; helping them realizing the importance of unity among the community and the danger of dissent; helping them understand the importance of preserving the country's values; helping them realizing the necessity of consulting people of knowledge, helping them realize the role youth are expected to play in their nation and their homeland, and raising the level of dialogue and the acceptance of other's opinions.
Release is granted to those who responded effectively to the program, realized their previous errors, denounced their previous radical ideology, is no longer considered security threats, and who are proven to have the religious, spiritual, ethical means to protect themselves from backsliding into deviant ideology.
In recent years, program experts and prisoners' families noted the positive influence of the program as evidenced by prisoners' changing behaviors - their recognition of their mistakes and violations of Islamic principles. Half of the 3,200 prisoners who have gone through the program have left prison. Those who have backslid into militancy are very few and less than 1 percent.
Another Program is the Tranquility Campaign
"Savvy use of the Internet has terrorist groups' networks to expand their reach beyond national borders by enabling wide distribution of a compelling message and social connectivity with new audiences. Cyberspace has become the combat zone and the war is one of ideas. Internet chat rooms and forums are now used as venues for radicalization and recruitment by terrorist groups like al-Qaeda."
For these reasons, The Saudi Government endorsed an independent project called Al-Sakin'ah (Tranquility) Campaign, composed of religious and academic scholars, psychiatrists, sociologists, and propagators equipped with Internet skills. The volunteers visit extremists' websites, chat rooms, and forums to engage in online dialogue with extremists focused on controversial questions about the Shari'ah position, in order to correct the participants' understanding of these main Shari'ah concepts, and cause them to question the extremist beliefs that they held so deeply in order to curb the spread of radicalization and recruitment over the Internet.
In January 2008, the Tranquility Campaign announced that the campaign was able to convince some 877, who reported their rejection of their radical ideology. These include a number of high-ranking Al-Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia. The Tranquility Campaign female volunteers conducted dialogues with more than 200 women who hold extremist ideology, and have already succeeded in persuading 150 of them to renounce their extremist convictions.
Al-Qaeda issued several statements over the Internet cautioning their followers not to engage in dialogues with members of the Tranquility Campaign, an indication that the Campaign is having a positive impact on the members of this group. In addition, the Tranquility Campaign established a global Arabic-English website aimed at fighting extremist and deviant ideology; explaining the Shari'ah position on controversial questions; and spreading the correct views regarding Islam. The Campaign is preparing for publication; concise and accurate responses to controversial questions raised by extremists. These responses are based on a long series of dialogues with extremists.
These efforts are assisted by other initiatives. For example, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs established a confidential counseling hotline, which receives hundreds of calls from families who discuss suspected behaviors and share their concerns about their loved ones who are affected by religious extremism. Other hotlines are used to engage in a direct dialogue and consultation with those who carry deviant ideology throughout the day.
In addition, Saudi Arabia's religious establishment is a critical asset in the Kingdom's war against radical ideology. Senior religious and legal figures have issued public condemnations of terrorism in both moral and religious terms and prohibited Saudi youth from traveling abroad to engage in Jihad. The Council of Senior Ulama has launched an official website for Fatwas. The site will act as a guide to Muslims and against the Fatwas issued by terrorist groups. The move is also an attempt to ensure that Fatwas issued by authorized scholars are given prominence and to avoid confusion and Fatwa chaos by Muslim scholars or by unqualified scholars issuing Fatwas that clash with the true interpretation of Islamic Shari'ah.
Moreover, the Saudi Public TV broadcasted a five-part series titled "Jihad Experiences, the deceit" which featured terrorists' confessions; and repentant terrorists' testimonies of how Al-Qaeda organizes, trains, and recruits. The series also featured Muslim scholars rebutting Al-Qaeda's propaganda from Islamic perspective; and interviews with well-known Saudi scholars who recanted their earlier Fatwas that supported terrorist attacks and urged terrorists' suspects to surrender.
Furthermore in 2007, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs launched a campaign called "Al-Tahseen Campaign" or (The Shielding Campaign) against terrorism. While previous efforts focused on dealing with a problem after it occurred, the current campaign aims at shielding and safeguarding the youth against radical ideology and deviant thoughts by using and taking advantage of every source available. Also in an effort to educate Imams and monitor mosques, the Ministry is sponsoring a multi-year enlightenment program for Imams in Mosques to promote religious and cultural tolerance and to counter the spread of extremist ideology
From its part, the Ministry of Education is conducting an audit of school textbooks and curricula to ensure that textbooks and teachers do not espouse intolerance and extremist views. The Ministry is also providing special training programs to promote religious tolerance for male and female Islamic Studies teachers to increase awareness and religious tolerance among teachers.
In addition to the previous soft approaches, the Kingdom took several legal measures to tackle the spread of radical ideology, especially over the Internet. To tackle the use of the Internet as a base for radicalization, training, and recruiting, the Saudi government approved the Law to Fight Cyber-Crime in April 2007. Under the new law, it is a punishable offence (up to ten years in prison and/or a fine of up to $1.3 million dollars) to create a website for a terrorist organization, facilitate communication with the leaders of these organizations; promote the organization's radical views, or propagate information on how to make explosives. Last week the Saudi authorities have arrested five people accused of encouraging youths to fight in conflict zones and spreading propaganda and radical ideology on the Internet.
In conclusion, we cannot defeat terrorism by force alone, it is important to realize the need for measures to maximize the effort to combat the ideology of radical extremism. A key task will be to identify those instruments already working successfully against radicalization, and coordinate their activities in a comprehensive strategy. The key to success on this war of ideas is to deliver the right message using authentic sources. Therefore, greater civic engagement of Muslim scholars and communities will further any state's effort in this regard. Finally, it is important to realize that we will have great difficulties curbing the ideological appeal of Al-Qaeda and other extremists without finding a just solution to major regional conflicts.
(Applause.)
MR. FREEMAN: Wow! Contrast the sophistication, if you will, of the approach that Dr. Ansary has just described with the approach that we have, which basically consists of "send troops." I think all three speakers have in different ways made the point that this issue cannot be dealt with by the military alone. And indeed, perhaps, the military should not be in the lead at all.
The notion of a war in cyberspace nicely illustrates that. And the notion that the center of gravity of those we are concerned to defeat is their ideas is very instructive. What we heard was a strategy, which includes refutation of deviant notions. Yet that is not the element we tend to focus on when we speak of the success of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, who heads the Saudi counterterrorism campaign in the Ministry of Interior. We commend him for implementing our agenda of law enforcement, and intelligence collection, and ignore the broader context, which has brought the success over which he has presided.
So I think in some sense, the conclusion in this context, is therefore that Islam is the answer, and that the United States, to succeed, must ally with, not attack, Islam and its centrist adherents.
We now turn - I think we had three fantastic presentations. And I am sure the last - is going to be on an equal standard. And Robert, it is over to you. Do you want to sit?
MR. : (Off mike, inaudible.)
MR. FREEMAN: Oh, we don't have you yet. What do we need here? Okay.
Do we need not to - everybody can stand up and stretch.
Yes, nice to see you.
It used to be death by viewgraph; now it is murder by PowerPoint, I suppose - or terrorism by PowerPoint.
I just spent three weeks with the U.S. Army and the Republic of Korea army, and I began to dream in PowerPoint at the end of that. So this is a very familiar experience while we wait.
I am declaring a five-minute break. How about that? And so we will be back here - worth waiting. And, basically, what he has in his presentation is video of the actual 9/11 hijackers explaining why they did what they did, which is something that is probably worth listening to. And so that is why we are delaying in the hope that we can get this technological problem resolved. And perhaps you want to add to that -
MR. PAPE: Let me just say, folks, that I really appreciate your patience. And what I would like to do is I would like to go ahead and start to give you some of the presentation just simply to give you a sense of where we are going. But as the ambassador said, there is a reason why we are - (chuckles) - we are fighting so hard to do this.
Over the last few months, our team has collected probably the largest collection of martyr videos in the world. And we have not just collected them, but we have translated them, we have subtitled them. They are not yet available. They will be soon available on the Web and so forth. So I don't want everybody to inundate with this - but they include a number of al Qaeda's attackers, including the 7/7 bombers, the 9/11 hijackers. And since there is a big question about what is actually driving al Qaeda, I surely want to tell you what I think, and I want to tell you what the data says.
But what we are fighting for here is to show you - or to allow the 9/11 hijackers to tell you in their own words why they hit the towers. And so that is something that I don't think you have probably seen before. You know, in my experience here, almost nobody has seen that. And so that is what we are really trying to do. And we might not be able to do it. And I certainly understand that. What I would like to do if it is okay is just go ahead - (off mike).
MR. FREEMAN: Let me ask Robert, if you are unable to do that day, whether we couldn't find some way to put that on our website along with the transcript.
ROBERT PAPE: It is going to be available on the very first time - oh, perfect. Actually - perfect!
(Applause.)
MR. FREEMAN: This is an awesome -
Okay. Once we get it up, Robert, if you want to come here so we can hear you.
MR. FREEMAN: The category martyr video is a new one to me, but - (chuckles).
MR. PAPE: I am just going to go right into it. You have been so patient. Suicide terrorism has been raging around the world, but there is great confusion about why. Since many of the attacks, including 9/11, have been perpetrated by Muslim suicide terrorists, many have presumed that Islamic fundamentalism must be the obvious central cause. This presumption has fueled the belief that future 9/11s can be avoided only by wholesale transformation of Muslim societies, which was a core reason for broad public support for our invasion of Iraq.
However, this presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is misleading and is encouraging domestic and foreign policies likely to worsen our situation.
Next slide, please.
Over the last few years, I have compiled the first complete database of every suicide terrorist attack around the world since 1980. And this is the database that wasn't - until we put it together - available to any government. Yes, it is true; the Israelis had databases of who was attacking them. But our government and the British government and any other government did not begin to track suicide terrorism until after 9/11. And as a result, they were very interested in getting the data. And DITRA, as many of you will recognize as the Defense Department, has been one of the major funders of this effort, which, as you will see the conclusions, is actually quite surprising and will become even more surprising.
It was actually funded twice under Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, which you will see is a quite a thing. (Chuckles.) I also want to thank the Carnegie Corporation in New York, Argonne National Laboratory, and the University of Chicago itself because this generous funding has made it possible for me to become the director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, which collects information about suicide terrorist attacks all around the world - not just in English, but in the key native languages associated with the phenomenon. And essentially, I have a big research team of folks who are helping me.
Next slide, please.
This survey examines all the available open-source information from the suicide terrorist groups themselves, target countries under fire from the media. We use computerized databases, Lexis and FIBIS. We also go to hard copies when we can. There is - one of the - oh, I don't see him - ah, there is he. Somebody from many moons ago actually - (chuckles) - used to help collect some of this data, and so he might be able to tell you just how hard some of this work is. But I want to emphasize today that this is not simply a list of lists, but represents a rather large amount of new information about suicide terrorism. And you are going to see some of that today.
First, I just would like to tell you that it may come as a bit of a surprise, but suicide terrorist groups are often quite proud of their activities in their local community. This glossy yearbook-like album is from the Tamil Tigers. They are a suicide terrorist group. This is published in Jaffna. They are from Sri Lanka. And this is dedicated to their Black Tigers, their suicide attackers. And this is not glorification of body parts. I hope many of you can see even from where you are sitting. These are the pictures, the names, the ages, the birthplaces, and other socioeconomic data about the actual suicide attackers.
And now, it is just really helpful if you are trying to find out who is doing it and why to be able to penetrate the language barrier and actually to sometimes even go to the local communities to get this sort of information because they are, of course, not publishing this in Jaffna and then sending a copy to Langley. (Chuckles.) It is just terribly important that we have been able to - and we have this, of course, for Islamic groups - many of these for Islamic groups, as well.
So what does the data show?
Next slide, please.
Well, perhaps most importantly - and what I am going to do is talk about this data in two parts. First, I am going to talk about it in the first 24 years - 1980 to the end of 2003 - think it as the pre-Iraq period. And then I am going to tell you what the data - the world of suicide terrorism looks like after Iraq. That is, in the four-and-a-half years since we have got into Iraq - 2004 to the summer of 2008 - virtually to the present.
And let me first talk about the first period - the first 24 years. Well, the data shows that suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism are not as closely associated as many people think. Overall, during the period 1980 to the end of 2003, there were 315 completed suicide terrorist attacks around the world. The world leader during this period was not an Islamic group at all. They were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. There are a Marxist group, a secular group, a Hindu group. The Tamil Tigers have done more suicide attacks than Hamas or Islamic jihad. And that is true to this day.
Further, at least 30 percent of all Muslim suicide attacks were carried out by purely secular groups such as the PKK in Turkey, which is a Kurdish terrorist group that is Marxist anti-religious suicide terrorist group. Overall, at least 50 percent of all suicide attacks during this period were not associated with Islamic fundamentalism.
Next slide, please.
What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is not religion, but a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces that terrorists consider to be their homeland or prize greatly. From Lebanon, to Israel, to Sri Lanka, to Kashmir, to Chechnya, every suicide terrorist campaign since 1980 has been waged by terrorists groups whose main goal has been to establish or maintain self-determination for territory the terrorist prize. Religion is rarely the root cause, although religion is often used as a tool to mobilize for the cause and in other ways to support the broader strategic objective.
Three general patterns in the data support my conclusion.
Next slide, please.
The first concerns the timing of suicide terrorist attacks. If suicide terrorism rarely occurs as an isolated, random, or scattered phenomenon, as it would if it were merely the product of religious fanaticism or any other ideology independent of circumstance. Instead, the attacks tend to occur in clusters. And specifically, 301 of the 315 attacks occur in coherent, organized clusters that look very much like campaigns. Only 5 percent are random or isolated events. Now to be clear, I am not claiming that the patterns I am describing today account for every suicide attack that has occurred since 1980. I am claiming that they account for 95 percent of all the suicide terrorism around the world that we have experienced in the last three decades.
This table shows all the campaigns that occurred during that period. Five are ongoing as of now. And I will get to those later.
Next slide, please.
This slide reorganizes the campaign by the disputes that produce them. And as you can see, suicide terrorist campaigns are directed at gaining control of territory that the terrorists prize. This has been the central objective of every suicide terrorist campaign. Now, I will give you an example. Hezbollah, the famous suicide terrorist group in Lebanon - June, 1982, Hezbollah did not exist. In June 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon with 78,000 combat soldiers, 3,000 tanks and armored vehicles. One month later, Hezbollah was born.
Hezbollah then began to do suicide attacks against the foreign forces that were there - the Israelis, then the Americans, and the French. And as I am sure many Americans will certainly remember from the famous Beirut bombings, the key point is the Americans when they left, the French when they left, and even the Israelis when they left, Hezbollah did not continue their attacks. There has not been a single Hezbollah suicide attack since 2000, when Israel left southern Lebanon - not even in the summer of 2006, during that dustup between Israel and Hezbollah. That is not a pattern that Islamic fundamentalism can explain - (chuckles) - neither the onset, nor the ending of suicide terrorism by Hezbollah. After all, nobody thinks that Hezbollah is not an Islamic fundamentalist group anymore.
So the bottom line is that the timing, the goals, and the societies targeted by suicide terrorism suggests that it is a coherent strategy designed to cause democratic states to abandon control of territory the terrorists prize.
Next slide, please.
Al Qaeda fits the pattern. Since al Qaeda's suicide attacks began in the mid-1990s, al Qaeda's core strategic logic has been to compel American and Western combat forces to leave the Arabian Peninsula, a logic that al Qaeda has been pursuing with increasing vigor since 9/11. This chart shows you all the suicide attacks by al Qaeda since they began. And if you would just mentally - you will see I am running out of room to put them all one slide, for sure. If you would just mentally add London to the bottom, you can easily see that since 9/11, al Qaeda has carried out well over 17 suicide and other terrorist attacks killing well over 700 people. That is more attacks and more victims than all the years before 9/11 combined.
Although many of us would have hoped that al Qaeda would be dead - that it would be thrown off kilter by the measure that counts, the ability of al Qaeda to carry out attacks, al Qaeda is stronger today than before 9/11. Now, there are multiple causes behind the threat. But the driving force behind the threat is the presence of American and Western combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula - and not merely Islamic fundamentalism or any other ideology independent of circumstance.
Next slide, please.
Perhaps the most important thing to show you is who becomes an al Qaeda suicide attacker - that is, where they come from. This research is the first to collect a complete set of the 71 individuals who actually killed themselves to carry out attacks for Osama from 1995 to 2004. And as you can see, the largest number - 34 - come from Saudi Arabia. The majority - that is the overwhelming large - from the Arabian Peninsula, where the United States first began to station combat forces in 1990. It is important to underscore that 1990 was a watershed year in our military deployment to the Arabian Peninsula. Yes, before 1990, we had a few hundred advisors with sidearms on the Arabian Peninsula - mostly Marines standing guard in front of some embassies, but no tanks, fighter aircraft, or armor units going all the way back to World War II. Nineteen ninety was a fundamental shift in our deployment, and al Qaeda attacks start shortly thereafter.
Next slide, please.
Since we have the complete set of al Qaeda suicide attackers during this period, we can go further to assess the effect of American military policies with only one exception - al Qaeda suicide terrorists from 1995 to 2004 were all nationals of various Sunni majority countries. Hence, we can compare the rate at which a Sunni country produces an al Qaeda suicide terrorist - a country with and without American combat forces. And as you can see, once we control for population size, American combat forces increase the rate 10 times.
Now, I am not saying that Americans should blame themselves for the deaths of our civilians on 9/11. Suicide terrorism is murder, and there is nothing our combat forces did in the 1990s that would justify the murder of our civilians. But that should not cause us to overlook that what recruits suicide attackers for Osama better than anything else - his best mobilization appeal is the presence of American and Western combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula. Moreover - I am not trying to tell you all al Qaeda suicide attackers have come from Sunni countries where we station forces. Two-thirds do, one-third do not. But if we look at the transnational al Qaeda suicide attackers, they, too, are powerfully motivated by the presence of American and Western combat forces in Muslim countries.
Rather than have me tell you about it, this is where I would like to show you a video. I would like to hope we get to two videos today, but the first video I want to show you will have six of al Qaeda's suicide attackers. These are martyr videos that al Qaeda has released since their attacks. Two of them are from the 7/7 bombers - that is, the London bombers. They will be in English. You will be able to hear those pretty clearly. Four of them are four of the 9//11 hijackers. Those we have had to translate in subtitles. And we have put this video together, and so just give me a minute to bring it up. And hopefully - (off mike).
(Begin video segment.)
MR. : This is how our ethical stances are dictated. Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world - directly responsible just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security, you will be our targets. Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment, and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier.
MR. : (In foreign language.)
MR. : (In foreign language.)
MR. : (In foreign language.)
MR. : (In foreign language.)
MR. : What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a series of attacks, which, inshallah, will intensify and continue until you pull all your troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, until you stop all financial and military support to the U.S. and Israel, and until you release all Muslim prisoners from Belmarsh and your other concentration camps. And know that if you fail to comply with this, then know that this war will never stop and that we are ready to give our lives 100 times over for the cause of Islam. You will never experience peace until our children in Palestine, our mothers and sisters in Kashmir, our brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq feel peace.
MR. : (Off mike, inaudible.)
ADAM YAHIYE GADAHN: It is crucial for Muslims to keep in mind that the Americans, the British, and the other members of the coalition of terror have intentionally targeted Muslim civilians and civilian targets both before, as well as after September 11th, in both the first and second Iraq wars, as well as in the forays into Somalia and the Sudan and Afghanistan, just to give you a few examples.
And they have done this with this point in backing of their populations and electorates. I mean, even if there have been some feeble protests scattered here and there in the West, chiefly against the latest war in Iraq, all the same - the governments that have started these wars have been reelected by a majority of the popular vote. And their aggression against Afghanistan, which for Westerners and their mercenary sympathizers is the least controversial of Bush and Blair's terrorist wars.
They have targeted civilians for assassination and kidnapping. The kidnapped any non-Afghans they found and shipped them off to Guantanamo or worse. Many were handed over to the American- and British-backed despotic regimes of the Islamic world to be brutally interrogated. And with the blessing and support of that notorious Afghan killer, Hamad Karzai, they have murdered thousands of Afghan civilians as they slept in their beds, traveled on the roads, attended weddings, and prayed at the mosques.
I know they have killed and maimed civilians in the strikes because I have seen it with my own eyes. My brothers have seen it. I have carried the victims in my arms - women, children, toddlers, babies in their mothers' wombs. You name it, they have probably bombed it. I could go on and on. And that is just Afghanistan.
We haven't talked about American and British atrocities in the two Iraq wars. Let's take a look at the latest to be revealed. In Mahmudiyah, five American soldiers gang rape an Iraqi woman, and then to hide the evidence, murder her and three members of her family and burn her body. And then, when our muhajadeen take revenge on the unit which committed this outage and capture and execute two of its members, they are called terrorists. And Muslims are supposed to disown them or face the consequences.
And I am not saying that we should go and slaughter their women and children one by one like they did ours at Haditha and Dishapti (sp) and Mahmudiyah and God knows where else. Even if some of our legal experts have - (off mike) - I can't imagine that any compassionate person - (off mike) - pictures of what the crusaders did to those children and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines' housing facilities at Camp Pendleton. But what I am saying is that when we bomb their cities and civilians like they bomb ours, or destroy their infrastructure and means of transportation like they destroy ours, or kidnap their non-combatants like they kidnapped ours.
No sane Muslims should shed tears for them. And they should blame no one but themselves because they are the ones who started this dirty war and they are the ones that will end it by ending their aggression against Islam and Muslims, by pulling out of our region, and by keeping their hands out of our affairs. And until and unless they do that, neither Forest Gate's style police raids, nor Belmarsh or Guantanamo prison cells, nor the mosques and imams advisory council will be able to prevent the Muslims from exacting revenge on behalf of their persecuted brothers and sisters.
(End video segment.)
MR. PAPE: That is Gadahn's three-and-a-half minute recruitment video. Notice Gadahn is not going to 72 virgins. (Chuckles.) He is focusing on what he thinks is their best recruitment appeal, which is the plight of a kindred population under a foreign military occupation. It is terribly important if we are going to respond to this threat that we see what is actually driving the enemy, who the enemy actually is because otherwise, we could pursue policies that are irrelevant or simply make the problem worse.
I know I have begged your indulgence quite a bit. I would like to say a few more things before I stop if that is okay - (off mike, inaudible).
Let me just tell you a little bit about what has happened since the last four years - that is, 2004 to the present. We have recently completed an update of the database that is actually up through the end of June of this year. So this is as current as we can possibly make it. And if you notice, there are some striking patterns in what has happened to suicide terrorism in the last five years.
Before, by the way - well, first of all, it comes as no surprise that the biggest set of attacks are happening in Iraq. I am sure you all knew that coming in. You might be surprised to see just how many have already happened in Afghanistan. And I will tell you more about that in a moment. But the big pattern is even if we don't count - for the argument I am making, let's count all that happened in Pakistan against me, okay, against me. I think we should count three-quarters for it, but let's not. Let's count it all against. Even then, 89 percent of all the suicide terrorism around the world in the last five years is now anti-American suicide terrorism. The first 24 years - maybe 5 percent. This is a fundamental shift in the treat - (chuckles) - fundamental threat in the shift. If we counted Pakistan in, it would even be higher. And then we would get to the 95 percent. And I would be glad to talk to you a little bit about that in -
But just to sort of point out, for this pattern to be wrong, we now have 1500 suicide attacks in our database. These are all double confirmed, corroborated - I can tell you all about that later. But for this pattern to be wrong, we would have had to have missed not just five suicide attacks around the world, not just 50. There would have to be hundreds of suicide attacks around the world that are not happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, in those campaign - that are outside of that slide. That is probably unlikely. (Chuckles.) This is a very strong confirmation for the strategic logic of suicide terrorism.
Next slide, please.
I will just say a few words about Iraq. Suicide terrorism in Iraq is a prime example of the strategic logic of suicide terrorism. Before our invasion in March 2003, Iraq never experienced a suicide attack in its history. And as you all know, it has been raging since. What you might not know is that of course, there has been a great - in the last year - decline of civil violence in Iraq. The suicide attacks, however, are only down about 40 percent. We still had 95 completed suicide - minimum 95 because these are double sourced - minimum suicide, 95 suicide attacks in the first six months of 2008 in Iraq.
And what that means is that suicide terrorism in Iraq is raging on even as all the civil violence is declining. Well, why is that? It is because the causes of the suicide terrorism and the civil war - although they overlap a bit - are not the same thing. See, most of the public runs all that together. The civil war is a three-sided civil war. And yes, we pretty much precipitated that, as well. But that is a three-sided civil war, where Kurds are killing Shi'a and Sunnis. Sunnis are killing the other two and dot, dot, dot. It is a three-sided civil war.
The suicide terrorism in Iraq is all Sunni. We don't have a single Shi'a suicide attacker in Iraq. Think about that for a moment. (Chuckles.) Shi'a are 60 percent of the public. There are plenty of Islamic fundamentalist Shi'a in Iraq. (Chuckles.) We don't have a single Shi'a suicide attacker in Iraq. It is all Sunni and it is basically being directed and driven by America's military presence or the presence of America's allies - that is those that we try to make our puppet.
I would like to just - if we could just go to the next slide.
I won't really spend time talking - we actually can tell you what the effects of the surge are in terms of domestic opinion inside of Iraq pretty cleanly. You can see that they don't love us anymore. I would be glad to tell you more about this, but the surge has not made anybody in Iraq love us, especially the Sunnis. They still hate us, want us out. They are only supporting us three, two, and 5 percent.
The next slide, please.
Although yes, it is true, there has been some decline among the Sunnis for its killing Americans - still 62 percent of all Sunnis would like to kill Americans.
Next slide, please.
The real change that has occurred here is not so much that they love our military forces anymore is that they now support the local Iraqi police and army, which is basically a way to think about what has happened with the Awakening Council. (Chuckles.) That is, as we have basically taken 100,000 Sunni terrorists and now made them part of the security apparatus here to defend the Sunnis, the Sunnis have a lot of confidence in the security - (chuckles) - more confidence, I don't say a lot - still only 43 percent. But that is the real shift that has occurred.
So almost surely what has happened here is really due to the awakening - that is, basically buying off as the colonel - as you correctly said. It is we bought off the terrorists. We made concessions to the terrorists. We appeased the terrorists and it worked. (Chuckles.)
If we could have the next slide, please.
Who are the Iraqi suicide attackers? Well, we could only confidently code - that is with two sources of corroborating data for each one - a small fraction. But those we can, you can see that they come from two main groups - Iraqi Sunnis and Saudis. The next largest, Syria. And the overwhelming majority from either Iraq or the immediately adjacent border countries, some of which have been on our hit list to go after next. That is - this is not a picture of a global jihad sloshing around the world. There are only 55 or 60 million of the 1.4 billion Muslims in the world who live on the Arabian Peninsula, okay?
Notice what is missing here. None from Indonesia, none from Pakistan, none from Bangladesh - I mean, just think of what is missing here. India is not represented here. This is not a global jihad sloshing around the world. This is regional opposition to America's and the West's military presence on the Arabian Peninsula.
Next slide, please.
I am going to just say a few words about Afghanistan because, as one of the speakers said, there is a real question about why suicide terrorism has suddenly spiked up in Afghanistan. And I think we can actually give something of an explanation for that. As you can see, Afghanistan actually is, again, a pretty good fit for the strategic logic. Before our invasion, there is no suicide terrorism in Afghanistan at all going all the way back in its history, even with Osama living there for all those years. And it starts to take off - not right away at first, right, 2004, a little bit - not really even then. In 2005, well, it is starting a little bit toward the later part of 2005. But my god, 2006, 2007, and 2008 - that is just the first half of the year. (Chuckles.) Look at the trajectory we are on. Why is that? What happened in 2005 or especially '06, '07?
Next slide, please.
Some of it has to do with escalation of force levels. That is, in the first few years, you can see we only had 15,000 total forces. That is American and NATO forces together. Over time, we have ratcheted that up to 43,000. That is where we are today. But the crucial thing is not simply building up forces -
The next slide, please.
But their deployment around the country. You see, until October 2003, the U.N. did not give us permission to go outside of Kabul. So until October 2003, the first two years of the occupation, we were basically occupying Kabul. (Chuckles.) Okay? Just holding onto Kabul. Then what happened is we had a plan - and this gives you the dates - to start occupying and controlling the other parts of the country. And as you can see, starting in late '05 and then into early '06, we start to go to the south, and then we start to go to the east. Well, that is the Pashtun areas, ladies and gentlemen. That is the Taliban areas. That is the heartland of the Pashtuns.
And what has happened is as we have swung our occupation and now are really sitting on top of the heartland of the Pashtuns. This is having a noticeable effect in the rise on suicide terrorism. It is also having an effect on Pakistan. We could talk about that because as I'm sure people have already figured out, the Pashtun areas bleed across the border pretty significantly. And we could talk about exactly what has happened there if you want in the Q&A.
But if we could just go back to the force levels for a moment, go back to the previous slide. Notice how we have 43,000 troops in Afghanistan. Right now both parties - McCain and Obama - I mean, both candidates are talking about increasing those force levels. Bush is talking about putting about oh, maybe 8,000 troops there. The highest number I think is by Obama. He wants about 20,000 more troops there. Well, ladies and gentlemen, 20,000 troops - (chuckles) - when we only have 43,000 - this is probably a token increase. We now are in the worst of both worlds in Afghanistan. We have put in a force that is large enough to trigger a significant amount of anti-American suicide terrorism, but not large enough to actually get bin Laden - to conquer the western part of Pakistan.
And so the bottom line - the bottom line is that this is unfortunately still not a very happy talk. (Chuckles.) I am telling you that the war on terrorism is heading south, and that a key reason is that we have been waging the war on terrorism according to a faulty premise - the premise that suicide terrorism is mainly a product of Islamic fundamentalism. And if that were true, then it would make sense to conquer Muslim countries and wring that Islamic fundamentalism out of it. But as you are seeing, there is pretty strong data that that is not the case and that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign military occupation. And that is something that we terribly need to appreciate if we are going to pursue policies that make us safer.
Thank you very much and thank you for your patience.
(Applause.)
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you very much. I also thank you for your patience. I think it was worth the wait. And we're in violation of our normal rules. Sir, you're first. I'll remind you please to identify yourselves and try to direct the question or comment directly at somebody.
Q: Is this working? Yes. Richard Bliss with Council for the National Interest. I have two questions. One is, there's been a Western presence in the Muslim world for hundreds of years, you know, under the colonial regimes, but I don't recall - and maybe I'm wrong - a whole lot of suicide attacks during that period. So what changed? And the other question is that we're talking about - the most spectacular events, of course, are the suicide - you know, why would somebody take their life and blow something up and all that, but how does that compare percentage-wise or damage-wise with non-suicide attacks like IEDs, the attacks in Spain on the subways, and so forth?
MR. FREEMAN: Push the button.
MR. PAPE: Let me just take them in reverse order. We have actually good comparative data for how suicide terrorism compares to all ordinary terrorism. If you look at all ordinary terrorism from the mid-1970s through, let's pick 2001, 9/11, you would see that ordinary terrorism - suicide terrorism kills, on a per attack basis, about 12 times as many as an ordinary terrorist attack, and that the tiny amount of suicide attacks during that period, about 3 percent just during that period compared to all the terrorist attacks account for 48 percent of all the deaths due to terrorism.
The relationship between suicide terrorism and all terrorism is a lot like the relationship between lung cancer and cancer. Yes, it's true that lung cancer is a small fraction of all the possible cancers that people get - all the cancers people get through their lives, but it is by far the deadliest form and it has a specific set of risk factors. So I'm not trying to tell you that other forms of terrorism don't kill anybody, but I am trying to tell you that suicide terrorism is the most deadly form, and without it 3,000 people wouldn't have died on 9/11. And, by the way, that 48 percent did not include the 9/11 numbers. If we did it would be at 73 percent.
The other point: Why? What happened? What changed? Well, as best we can tell, the 1980s had a profound effect. In the early 1980s Hezbollah, as I told you, began to do suicide attacks, first after about just a few months - they start in the fall of 1982. Well, they're just experimenting with suicide attacks. They don't appear to be, in the first year, really deeply committed to it. It seems to be just actually an experiment. And the very fourth suicide attack happened in October 1983 against the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and causing Ronald Reagan, no pacifist, to pull all American combat forces out.
That move by Reagan had a powerful effect on the future course of suicide terrorism because, you have to remember, these are groups that have no armies, no air force, very few means at their disposal to compel and coerce their opponents here and they got a major success. And if you look back over the course of al Qaeda's campaign just in the last few years - the Madrid bombing - directly related to pulling Spanish forces out of Iraq. If you look at the - the more the Brits have come to understand what's caused the 77 bombings and the future threat to them, this has had a big effect on causing the Brits to want to pull out. In fact, a big reason why our allies are abandoning us is fear that this - they're starting to see the martyr videos.
So the fundamental fact is something did change and it's that suicide terrorism has turned out to be a pretty potent weapon for otherwise incredibly feeble actors.
MR. FREEMAN: Ambassador.
Q: Mark Miceli, Embassy of Malta. One question and one observation. If Sunni insurgents are actually being bought out, is Western occupation the real cause for resentment?
MR. PAPE: Excellent, sir. Would you like to make your comment first and then I'll respond?
Q: And the second comment is - or the comment is, both political parties are agreed on withdrawal from Iraq, which, according to your argument, is obviously reassuring, but both political parties are dead-set on ferreting out Osama from Afghanistan, come what may. That sounds ominous. Thank you.
MR. PAPE: Yes, suicide terrorism - I've shown you one of the causes of suicide terrorism, which is a foreign military occupation, and I've shown you that that circumstance accounts - it's virtually a necessary condition; not quite an absolute -
MR. FREEMAN: Excuse me. I have people in order and this young man is next.
MR. : (Off mike, inaudible.)
MR. FREEMAN: Sorry. Go ahead.
MR. PAPE: There are additional enabling conditions - if you had a chance to look at my book you'd see that I also analyze the social logic of suicide terrorism and the individual logic of suicide terrorism to try to give you more information about the additional risk factors. One of the key factors for the social logic is in fact mass support among the social, among the local community, because after all, if these suicide attackers are essentially walk-in volunteers that are just operating freely in a local community, that requires a fair degree of local community support or otherwise they get turned in. Well, it is possible for us to try to undermine that local community support by buying off some of the actors. And what we've done in Iraq is we have armed the terrorists. So, in order to buy them off we're giving them money that they're using to arm themselves.
So since this is about security, what I'm saying is that they're driven - the local community is driven by their own security concerns. If what we do to end suicide terrorism is give the terrorists weapons, that can actually have some effect. I'm not so sure we want to go around giving Osama weapons, but still - and I'm also sure that you can see, as soon as I explain what's happened this way, that this is a pretty dangerous game that the Bush administration has engaged in, arming the Sunnis here. It creates a lot of problems down the road. But, yes, it is possible to try to undermine the social support by arming the terrorists.
In terms of leaving Iraq, yes, it's true there has been - there has been lots and lots of talk about leaving Iraq. I mean, this has been going on for quite some time now. The key point is, what does it mean to really leave? We take the most extreme plan, which is Obama's plan - he's still planning on leaving several divisions, not just offshore the way I would suggest we do, but he's planning on keeping several heavy divisions back as a hedge. That is, he's not - and this is a normal - you know, not just being a politician. This is a normal Washington way to proceed, which is of course no one in Washington really knows what the future is going to look like and so of course hedging strategies are part and parcel of the day. But you should know that leaving two divisions behind as a hedge is certainly enough force to retake Baghdad if we needed to; that is, to conquer and occupy the territory.
So in order to truly start to undermine the energy for suicide terrorism here, I'm afraid much more is going to be necessary.
MR. FREEMAN: Colonel Macgregor. Press your button.
MR. MACGREGOR: Just a real quick comment, to go back to the gentleman who asked about the colonial period, which I think is a very good question. Why did we not see suicide bombings earlier? And I know a little bit more about the British than the rest so I'm going to stick with the British example.
When the British left India, five years later there was a series of questionnaires that went out to almost 100,000 people in the subcontinent, and what they were surprised to discover was that about 40 percent of the people that were answering questions about what had happened since the British left India were unaware that the British had ever ruled India. So the answer to your question is the British got smart. They made lots of mistakes - let there be no question about it - but they got very smart. India was administered by Indians. You would have one British colonial officer, who was usually a double first from Oxford, highly educated, who lived for a decade in an area, who spoke all of the languages, knew all of the leading families, knew all of the personalities.
There was a regiment that was kept a great distance away from the population that lived in a little insular world. I know because I'm Scottish and half my family served in those things. They were completely remote from the population, kept away from the population because it might be required that the 5,000 British troops had to come in and eventually shoot some people who got out of line. But, generally speaking, that didn't happen. The local police, the local military establishment, which was Indian, did the job. This was essentially Gandhi's biggest challenge. It wasn't so much the British, that had lost their resolve long ago to stay in the country, it was the fact that there was this huge Indian administration that was keeping the British Raj in power. That had to be undone and disassembled.
So the answer to your question is, if you stay out of sight and you wear an indigenous face, in most of the world you can be successful. If you want to look at the success that Iran has had in Iraq, the Iranian influence wears an indigenous face. Our influence has worn a uniform and carried a rifle. Iran is successful. We are not.
MR. FREEMAN: Marvin?
MR. WEINBAUM: I'm going to take a different tack here. I can only really address Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When the United States moved forces - and the international community, I think, at a low level - in 2001, 2002, we were welcomed. There was extraordinary acceptance of the international community. They had been through 25 years of warfare. They resented the fact that we did not bring our forces across the entire country and provide security, and it was for that reason that warlords stepped into the vacuum. It was the failure to take up positions, and because we kept our forces in Kabul and did not allow them to provide the security, since that time there is no question that we have lost the confidence of many Afghans - if there was any doubt about it. We're most reminded of that today because of the fact that civilians are getting killed.
And so our welcome - and the Afghans are not xenophobic. They welcome international support. The collateral damage, so called, of the last - certainly in the last year or two is a function of the fact that we have taken the fight more to the Taliban, and this has cost us. The general view is that the reason for this is because having done that we are not able to support our troops, having too few troops, except through the use of indiscriminate air power, particularly when it is a non-plan operation. I personally say if you're going to - if we're going to continue there and we want to reduce collateral damage, we probably are going to have to put more troops on the ground.
Now, I take - there's a lot that's compelling about Robert's figures, and they apply to suicide bombers, but there's a lot more going on. My own view is that this is a tactic. I lived there in 2005 and we saw it changing. We said before that that Afghans, and Pakistanis for that matter, don't engage in suicide bombing; their values don't permit it. This suicide tactic - which we have every reason to believe was imported; imported from Iraq - this was not something which was tied in - in Pakistan now there is an explosion of suicide bombers. There's no occupation there now. There are other reasons why this is happening. So if we're looking at a simple relationship here between the number of forces on the ground and terrorism, I think we have to disaggregate this. We have to look a lot more closely, without at all disagreeing with - how can I? - with the relationship here, but it's far more than that.
And let me just conclude by saying that we're still welcome in Afghanistan by and large. The Taliban are not - they're not yearning to see the Taliban come back. And it is our failure to change the lives of the Afghan people, our failure to do that, and we ought to be held responsible for that, the fact that we put too much emphasis on finding bin Laden and clearing out the frontier area that we lost the confidence and the faith of the Afghan people. But I repeat what I said before: I think that if we're going to deal with terrorism in the future, we have to recognize the importance of a presence in that part of the world. We cannot walk away from it the way we did in the past and lost then the confidence of the people generally in the area.
MR. FREEMAN: Dr. Weinbaum has added an important dimension to this discussion.
Let me take still another tack at it from a different perspective because I think what you've said raises an issue or a set of issues which have been remarkably undebated in this country, and that is what is it that we are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?
We went into Afghanistan with apparently rather limited objectives, which were welcomed globally and understood and supported. They were two: first, to apprehend or kill those who had inspired and planned 9/11, the terrorists with global reach - President Bush's very apt phrase - and second, to punish those who had aided and abetted them in Afghanistan, given them shelter, namely the Taliban government, so that no one else would ever offer that kind of safe haven and support in the future. These were rather limited objectives and they were essentially accomplished, to the extent that they could be accomplished by our military, within a rather short period of time.
Those two objectives have very little to do with why we are now in Afghanistan, and that gets me to your statement that we have, quote, "done very little to change the lives of the Afghan people," and that sense of disappointment on their part is at the root of our current difficulties. My question is, was our purpose initially to change the lives of the Afghan people? If it wasn't, when did that become our purpose? And I go back to the question, do we have limited purposes in Afghanistan or do we have broad purposes of national development, and shouldn't we be discussing this - whatever the answer is, shouldn't we be discussing this before we proceed?
Sir?
Q: My name is - (inaudible). I'm a political counselor from the Turkish Embassy here.
MR. FREEMAN: Right.
Q: And I would like to offer two brief remarks to complement the informative remarks by Colonel Macgregor and Professor Pape.
From September 2003 to September 2006 I was - (inaudible) - of our embassy in Baghdad, and our embassy was placed outside the Green Zone, so I have some firsthand experience of suicide attacks.
MR. FREEMAN: You mean you were actually accredited to Iraq rather than the Green Zone?
Q: How Iraq also affected Turkish-U.S. relations, although of course as Turkish parliament, as you might imagine, with maybe a few exceptions, they're almost all the same, and first of all to keep Iraq as a single country - (inaudible) - by existential collapse, and secure within its borders. These are the same priorities with U.S. and Iraq. On the other hand, our embassy was targeted. Although we did not allow - our parliament did not allow the targeting of the U.S. ground forces in March 2003, while I was inside that building in October 2003 we were targets of a suicide bomber attack, and we lost more than 150 Turkish civilians in Iraq. And after October 2003, in November in Istanbul there were four suicide bombers - (inaudible) - Turkish in fact, as your statistics show, killing 50 innocent - more than 50 innocent lives in Istanbul.
So I think this proves that there is no direct connection between those suicide attacks and the Turkish position, as we do not have any military presence or anything. Although we never closed down our embassy in Baghdad, we opened another consulate in - (inaudible) - and now we are opening a consulate in Basra. Thank you very much.
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you. Colonel Macgregor, would you like to respond briefly?
MR. MACGREGOR: The only comment I would make at this stage is to point out that Turkey, Iran, the other states in the region, have much more compelling strategic interests in Iraq than we do. From the very beginning of our intervention in Afghanistan and our subsequent intervention in Iraq, we have tended to ignore or treat the interests of the surrounding countries with a mix of contempt and disinterest, and that has been a very, very serious mistake. The people that live in Iraq will shape the destiny of that country, but so will the people who live around it, and the people that live around it and in it are going to have an infinitely greater impact than we. We need to understand that, which is why I favor withdrawal at a sooner rather than a later date because our presence in the country is ultimately not helpful in the long run, and we seem to be uncomfortable with the possibility that the people that live there and the people that live around Iraq are actually going to have real influence. We don't seem to want that. We think we can micromanage what happens in these countries. We cannot. We don't have the ability. We don't understand it. We are the foreigner and we need to recognize that and leave.
MR. FREEMAN: Dr. Pape.
MR. PAPE: I think that we have to remember that we're dealing with a non-state actor, and to see as much cohesion as we're seeing is really quite stunning. We have 800-plus suicide attacks in Iraq. Turkey has long been a close American ally of the United States. In fact, the Incirlik Air Base is still there, still operating. That was a key to our sort of enabling lots of logistics and so forth for the occupation. And the fact is I'm afraid that with non-state actors who are really worried about America's presence and who want to not just attack America but America's allies, it really does create a problem for some states in the region. I'm not telling the Turkish government to abandon the United States. I'm not saying that for a moment. I'm just trying to point out that there is a relationship here with - relating to the United States when the United States is involved in a foreign military occupation of countries just right there.
MR. FREEMAN: Dr. Weinbaum.
MR. WEINBAUM: Yes, I wanted to answer your question. I do think we have more of an obligation there than simply finding bin Laden. What we did in 1989 was to wipe our hands of the region, and it is that action and the fact that the state never really emerged again - because Afghanistan has been effectively a non-state since 1978 because of the conflict that is going on there. So, yes, I think we had an obligation to the people of Afghanistan in their recovery, and that continues to be the case. And, as I say, they have very much welcomed efforts in that regard.
And so, yes, we've got to do more than simply take care of our interests and walk out because it was our - again, our failure to recognize that unless we brought this back to where we rebuilt this - helped them rebuild a state and society; unless we did so it would become once again a playground for international terrorism. There should be no doubt in our mind that if Afghanistan fails, it will become that playground and Pakistan will fail because Pakistan is going to get the blowback from Afghanistan. It is already suffering from that blowback. You ain't seen nothing yet.
MR. FREEMAN: I think that's a very valid viewpoint, and actually in 1989 I completely agreed with the view that we had a responsibility to carry forward in Afghanistan, but I note that that was not the justification for our military intervention and it does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the military mission should be directed at or devoted to that. Whether your viewpoint should be the basis of policy or not is something that we ought to discuss, and we haven't. We've slid into this with no discussion and no one at a senior decision-making level, not even the Decider, can tell you what it is that would constitute success in Afghanistan. There is no consensus on this.
Young lady.
Q: My name is Leila Dane. I'm with IVT, a small NGO.
MR. FREEMAN: Could you speak up a little bit?
Q: My name is Leila Dane with IVT NGO. My husband is a retired Foreign Service officer, and as such is a member of FARNOVA, Foreign Affairs Retirees of Northern Virginia. They will meet next week and the topic by the lecturer of the day will be, is DOD running our foreign policy? Is U.S. military our diplomats? This is a very scary topic for me, especially after hearing what you gentlemen have had to say today - a very interesting discussion. Thank you very much. I would like your comments on how we can keep the rule of diplomacy in the hands of the diplomats.
MR. FREEMAN: Well, we spend $35 billion on civilian conduct of foreign affairs and $700 billion on military conduct of foreign affairs, so you can draw your own conclusion from that ratio.
MR. MACGREGOR: We have a very serious dilemma right now because for many political figures, regardless of whether they're Democrats or Republicans, it's easy to default to the military because officers will walk into the room, you'll tell them what you want them to do, they'll draw up a plan, they're present you with a bill, they'll organize the force, and they'll go do it, whether or not it makes sense to do it, whether or not it's the right instrument. And none of your senior officers, unfortunately, will stand up and point out to anyone, this is a very dumb idea. First of all they won't do it because they all want to be promoted, and that's essentially it. It's sort of - no one stood up halfway across Ukraine in 1941 and said, you know, I think we've gone far enough. I mean, this is the problem.
We have forfeited the debate about strategy in uniform. People at senior levels have said, that's not my responsibility. That is wrong; it is their responsibility. It's not a question of rejecting or refusing; it is simply making it abundantly clear that it may not be the right instrument and explaining why it isn't the right instrument. If they don't like it they can fire you, but you see no one wants to leave. Everybody wants to be promoted.
MR. FREEMAN: Ms. Moazzam.
Q: I'm Leena Salim Moazzum, counselor at the Embassy of Pakistan. I'd like to congratulate Professor Pape for his excellent presentation, with which I totally agree because of the statistics which are evident in my country, very recently also and at the present when the - (inaudible) - is in its peak. In spite of that, because of the increase in U.S. presence and bombings on the - it is technically Pakistan although it's the porous area - the amount of suicide attacks which have increased. And I'm afraid when Professor Weinbaum says that he doesn't agree with this, I think it's evident when you study our country's history of the last six months even, let alone when the last president was out-elected, or a new one came. And just during that time and that change it was evident why the suicide bombings went down during that time. During the election time, for example, on February 18th, 2008, during that time there were no suicide bombings in the area, in the entire country, not just the porous border area.
Just a quick question for Professor Pape. I wonder if ever, at any point, any U.S. government has been briefed - (inaudible). Has anyone ever invited you to bring them up to date with the suicide bombers and why and where and what and all this?
MR. PAPE: Yes, mostly the intelligence agencies. So because this has been funded by the Department of Defense in part, I've given, over the last year and a half, probably 30 detailed briefings to our intelligence agencies like NSA, CIA, DIA, and so forth, and I'm - even though it sort of has, you know, disagreed with a large part of the Bush administration, there's a lot, at least in the bureaucracy, that has heard quite a bit about this. Going up to the higher political levels - that is, principals on the NSC - no, and I'd certainly be up for doing that, but you can see that that might be a little more difficult because at this point they would know what I was going to say. So the thing is it's not like - it may not - you know, it's not exactly -
Q: It's not so simple because the timeframe also has to be kept in mind, the change of the U.S. administration, et cetera. But I was just wondering, in spite of all this, in spite of what you've just told me, that you have been up there, why the increase in U.S. attacks on the tribal areas, on the - (inaudible)?
MR. PAPE: Well, I think that what's happening is that the U.S. government is trying to figure - I think the U.S. government realizes we're in the worst of both worlds. That is that - and the two worlds here are not about Kandahar itself. The two worlds are that Osama has a sanctuary and we have some forces in Afghanistan that is destabilizing the country. And I think that what you've seen over the summer, at least the best I can tell because I do hear what's, you know, sort of happening between some of the folks who are debating with Cheney and so forth, is I think you've seen a debate and I think that Cheney's side has kind of lost. Cheney has understood that if he pushes too hard to invade Pakistan unilaterally that this might be a bad thing. And there's - you might think he should be pushing for that but actually he's been more retrained, and I think he's losing, and I just think it's because there's the horns of a dilemma, as you're seeing quite clearly.
The problem that we have is that we have two little force here to actually stop the sanctuary but enough force to actually help it to grow and to destabilize both countries, destabilize both Afghanistan and Pakistan. I think that what we should be doing here is demilitarizing this. I'd be very surprised - if you look at the force to space ratios you would need to actually have - you know, we're talking about a quarter million American troops going there. We're not talking about a few more thousand, okay, as you probably would know, because of the force to space ratio issue.
So the fact of the matter is I don't see there being a military solution in the offing, not in the - you know, I don't see us reaching to that, so therefore I think that what we have to do is solve this with political concessions and economic transfers to local actors in the tribal regions and actually the kinds of things your government is doing I think are starting - would make sense.
MR. FREEMAN: So you're arguing - I think we have to let Dr. Weinbaum make a comment, but I think you're arguing, essentially, Dr. Pape, with Dr. Weinbaum, that there needs to be attention to economic and welfare issues -
MR. PAPE: Oh, absolutely.
Q: Like - (inaudible).
MR. FREEMAN: - and a demilitarized approach.
MR. WEINBAUM: Nobody is going to doubt that, of course. The problem, as I suggested before, with these tribal agencies is the fact that it was a neglected area by the Pakistan government over a long period of time. Look, the problem that's emerging from the FATA, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, that problem is Pakistan's problem; it's not just the United States' problem. The leadership in that area has been transformed. We should try - and they did try - to initiate political - some kind of political arrangements. To this point they have all failed. That's not to be blamed on the United States. They failed, and I just want to simply point out that there's going to have to be a certain amount of force that's available along with political and developmental solutions. At the moment you cannot negotiate from weakness. Right now they feel they're on a roll, and therefore they have broken every single agreement. And I think Pakistan has a real dilemma here now and I don't see an easy way out.
MR. FREEMAN: The young man at the - tall young man at the rear and then you, Miss. You may have to bend down.
Q: Jared (sp) Smith from Congressman Putnam's office. I have two questions. One is a preface. There was a Foreign Affairs article about this I guess last month saying that the surge in Iraq was partly successful because you were able to reintegrate the Ba'athists and all the other factions in society. So if we look forward - (inaudible) - Afghanistan with what we know now, assuming that there's some sort of surge, how likely is it that we'll have a similar resolution in Afghanistan?
And my second question -
MR. FREEMAN: I think Dr. Weinbaum should lead this.
Q: Okay. You were talking about blowback along the southern border of Pakistan -
MR. WEINBAUM: If you want to use a saturation approach you'd probably have to put 150,000 troops in. Nobody's going to be doing that. We're not really talking about that.
Q: Well, even without the surge, then. I'd like to get your comments on that.
MR. WEINBAUM: Without a surge - I'm sorry?
Q: How likely - how plausible is it to see a similar reintegration of like Taliban and -
MR. WEINBAUM: It's a very different situation. You can't use an Anbar approach, which was based on the self-interests of tribal sheiks in that area. You don't have anything comparable to that. The Pashtuns are not well organized. They don't have the leadership. You're not going to see that. This is a long-term - it's going to be a long-term process; I don't think there's any question about that, and what we need now is smart policies and patience.
MR. FREEMAN: Even allowing for the lengthy technical struggle we had with the projector, we're really over time, so I'd like to ask the very patient lady who's been standing here to make her comment or ask her question.
Q: Thanks. I'm Dr. Diane Perlman. I'm a political psychologist studying the dynamics of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, enemies, et cetera. This was a very good panel and I think that all the different presentations created a coherent picture. And I have a - well, some comments. One is that in terms of terrorism, that there's a needs theory that people would prefer to get their needs met by decent means, and when those are blocked and rejected and there's humiliation, despair, helplessness, then people resort to more violent means. So, you know, they started out with petitions, demonstrations to end the occupation, and then when it gets to that point then we say, well, we don't want to reward terrorism, we don't want to reward bad behavior. So we create a false double bind where it seems like we're damned if we do - so like what we really have to do to end it is what we refuse to do, for psychological misunderstandings. And I have your book, by the way, and I love your work.
The other thing is that the way we understand terrorism here is like there are two different views of enemies. Like one is, this is who they are; they're bad, they're inherently evil, and they can't change - (inaudible). The other one is that it's dynamic, that people are driven to extremes by certain situations. So we have one policy, and I think a lot of decent, well-meaning people and politicians are sort of gripped by beliefs that are completely false, which you all demonstrated very well. So I think that we need a massive education campaign, especially in the next few months, and that people believe that, you know, we need a president who's tough. And I think people can understand it if it's packaged in a way that they can get it, because it's pretty self-evident that the tougher we are we increase hardliners recruiting to terrorism - people are more dangerous when they're afraid - but we hear our politicians and pundits and even decent people and not-so-decent people saying, you know, it's okay if they hate us as long as they fear us, where that's exactly incorrect. So I think we need a lot of education - (inaudible). How come you're not on all the talk shows?
MR. PAPE: Well, actually when the book first came out in 2005, if you go back, I actually was on quite a few talk shows, more than you might think. The fact is the real thing that I've seen - I've given many hundreds of talks in the last few years. The real thing is when people actually see the data - so three minutes on O'Reilly, even though O'Reilly was very respectful because he knew I had a lot of data - (chuckles) - is only a little bit helpful. What's really helpful is to take the time and make you wait to actually show you the actual information so that you can see that there's not just my interpretation of it. And that's more difficult. That's the sort of thing I've been able to do with the intelligence agencies.
I've had a few chances to come to Congress. I've had a few chances to show some of this to some folks in Congress, and I'd be up for more of it. I come to Capitol Hill every chance I can. On Monday I'm going to speak to the Air Force Association's national convention. There will be 800 senior Air Force folks again. And I've done this before, so just to give you a sense, this is not a small conference. And they're putting me up in the big thing with all the different - they're doing all that, but even so, the value there is they've giving me 45 minutes to make the whole presentation. And so that's pretty nice, but that's really what - the problem is hearing it for two minutes is not as important as actually seeing some of the information. So, anyway, I'm up for doing it as much as I can.
MR. FREEMAN: I think it is very important that the intelligence community, which has had an interest in your work and is dedicated to reality-based analysis rather than delusion, benefit from your research and discussions like this. But, in the end, the intelligence community does not decide policy, and it is the decision-makers who need to be educated, and you cannot educate people who do not have open minds and who believe they already understand the situation to their complete satisfaction. So one of the points I'd take from your comment is that in selecting a candidate for president for whom to vote this November, perhaps we should look at the question of how open to correction of erroneous ideas a person is, how much they are prepared to learn, because it's clear that what we are doing is not working and we do need to reconsider and press the reset button.
MR. WEINBAUM: Chas, can I just make one comment?
MR. FREEMAN: Sure.
MR. WEINBAUM: Occupation is a perceptual matter.
MR. FREEMAN: Exactly.
MR. WEINBAUM: We've had forces in South Korea and of course in Germany. We have no issue here with terrorism. The point here is that when we are being viewed - when we come to be viewed in Afghanistan as occupiers, we're in trouble, and that is what we're moving toward, unfortunately. The Soviets never succeeded in gaining the confidence of people because from the beginning they were viewed as occupiers. We were not viewed as occupiers, but that doesn't mean that your invitation is without conditions, and our problem is that increasingly we have been doing - because I think a faulty policy which has been driven by military policy, the priorities have been military, and for that reason we have increasingly come to be viewed as pursuing our own interests rather than their interests. If we can go back to being seen as pursuing their interests, we will be welcome again with open arms as we were initially.
MR. FREEMAN: Sir - sitting down - you. We're coming to the end. You will be the second to the last and Commander Zeigler will be very last.
Q: Thank you. I'm Howard Jennings with Progressive Democrats of America, and we've just distributed a packet of information to all the members of the House concerning a lot of the issues that you all have discussed. And we think it's critical that we continue this momentum. And it's pretty clear from the information presented here that the military-only approach is in fact the naive approach and the ineffective approach. And the militarists who are on the campaign trail would have us believe that global terrorism is the greatest threat that we face and potentially greater than any we ever have; I don't know. I'm curious what you all think about how valid actually the threat really is.
But whatever the reality of that, how best can we thwart this notion that the military approach is the solution and instead put forth some credible, more effective evidence of other approaches in time to perhaps influence the election, but if not at least begin that process of educating the person that occupies the White House next time? Can we hope to put such a thing together quickly here and focus it on the right folks?
MR. FREEMAN: It is said that you can always count on the United States to do the right thing after we've exhausted all of the alternatives. And we are rapidly doing just that, which leads one to hope that after some reconsideration we will find a more effective approach to this. I don't think it's an accident that you heard - that sounds very Soviet, doesn't it; that's not an accident - but I don't think it was an accident that you heard essentially the same thing from four speakers with very different backgrounds and very different perspectives, namely it's not just that the military are not the solution to the dilemmas we face, but that in some respects over-reliance on them is the problem and therefore an approach which is more comprehensive which, in effect, rests on strategy rather than spin, which does not assume that by calling occupation liberation you can transform it into liberation, for example, is probably more likely to succeed.
I assume that as someone active in politics you are a hopeful, optimistic person and I would like to share your hope that we will finally get this right.
Commander Zeigler, the last word.
Q: Well, actually it's Captain Conway Zeigler.
MR. FREEMAN: Oh, okay. I'm so sorry.
Q: I feel like Jack Sparrow saying, "It's 'Captain' Jack Sparrow."
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you, thank you.
Q: Captain Conway Zeigler, U.S. Navy retired.
MR. FREEMAN: I salute.
Q: I want to apologize for a somewhat simplistic question that I already went over with Colonel Macgregor. We're having a debate in the intelligence community on what is the central front on the global war on terror. Now, I realize that the question of a central front and whether there is a global war on terror is simplistic, but the various candidates, it seems to me - the president suggested Iraq and General Petraeus in an article in the Washington Post was suggesting Iraq. Afghanistan is now being talked of by some people, and I think Obama's been talking about that. Pakistan is something that, you know, is reasonable candidate. Saudi Arabia; based on Dr. Pape's recommendation I think some people have said that. And another candidate I think that's also strong in the running is Israel. So if anyone would like to deal with that before we get kicked out of here I would really appreciate it. Thank you.
MR. FREEMAN: Well, thank you for that simple question. Who would like to lead on that?
MR. PAPE: Can I?
MR. FREEMAN: Please.
MR. PAPE: Yeah, many people think that Israel is underneath the threat to America; that is, it's driving al Qaeda, and I'm not trying to say that it's not important that there be a good deal between the Palestinians and Israel. I think there should be, for the Palestinians and for Israel. But if you look at all the al Qaeda suicide attacks and other attacks that have occurred in the last now 13 years, we're now well over 30 and the fact is we haven't seen a single al Qaeda attack against Israel. We haven't seen a single effort that's failed to attack Israel. I'm actually a little surprised about that. I think that it's important to realize that when you're trying to mobilize folks from the Middle East and from the Arabian Peninsula, it's normal to criticize Israel. I'm afraid the median voter on the Arabian Peninsula does not like Israel, and so if the rhetoric is not somewhat anti-Israeli it's going to seem weird to that particular group.
What I would say is that the problem with thinking about the central front is that what that means is, well, if we kill somebody here, will that end the problem? So when you say to the American public, where's the central front, what they hear is who should I kill, right? And the problem is if you kill bin Laden, that's not going to solve the problem if you still have 100,000 or even 25,000 heavy combat troops on the Arabian Peninsula. If the combat troops go away from the Arabian Peninsula, then it also starts to make sense to do heavy economic assistance, heavy political assistance, and probably still kill bin Laden. (Chuckles.) I'm not trying to say that we can't kill bin Laden or we shouldn't think about that as helping on the margins, but I think the whole debate about where is the central front on the war on terrorism is actually continuing to mislead us into thinking, oh, my gosh, if only we had killed bin Laden, 95 percent of the problem would go away. Okay, 5 percent would go away.
MR. MACGREGOR: Very briefly, there is no existential military threat to the United States of America today. There has not been an existential threat to the United States since 1989. Now, I suppose that if we continue to intervene around the world with the object of transforming the societies that we occupy into facsimiles of ourselves, that we can precipitate alliances against us and eventually bring on the global war that some people seem to want desperately.
Islamist terrorism is not an existential threat to the United States - never has been. It won't be. It's a problem. It's going to stay with us for some period of time. We are not going to completely eradicate it because, quite frankly, its reasons for existence are not entirely a function of us, and the societies in the Islamic world are going through a very difficult and turbulent period of change. It's likely to last for the rest of the century. The question is how do you handle these things? And I think that the military instrument is, for the most part, the wrong one. That does not mean that the United States should not establish a clear red line that says, if you harbor terrorists, we will attack. We reserve the right to protect ourselves, and if we think you are harboring terrorists we'll go after you.
But the David Petraeus argument - and I happen to know him - has been for a long time that if we leave Iraq, Iraq will be transformed into an al Qaeda terrorist state. Well, I think the Turks and the Persians will have a great deal to say about that. I think the Saudis will have a great deal to say about it. And I think there's a lot of evidence that in our absence al Qaeda is going to have one hell of a time justifying its existence inside Iraq. But that is the kind of conventional wisdom that has driven the use of military power where it was inappropriate to do so, and that needs to stop.
MR. FREEMAN: This is, I think, a good note on which to end. Let me offer my own answer to the last question. I agree with Colonel Macgregor; there is no existential threat to the United States other than the one that our reactions to a minor threat pose to our own values and traditions. That is the existential threat we face. There is no longer a Russian who has a key that can murder 70 million Americans 17 minutes after the key is turned. As a veteran of the Cold War I frankly find it virtually incomprehensible that we should have a leadership that so exaggerates the threat to our country that it does the work of terrorists for them by spreading fear, which is the objective of terrorism.
Second, the question where the central front in the struggle is located is answered not by saying the central front is Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Iran or Israel. The central front is wherever we conduct an occupation that stimulates people to go after us. Whether we are in fact liberating or occupying is, as Dr. Weinbaum said, a matter of perception, but it's one to which we need to attend. I prefer - I think the concept of central is essentially meaningless in the transnational context of struggle. I think the correct formulation is that employed by Dr. Ansary, who has now left us. I'm sorry he can't be here to comment. The correct formulation is not the central front but the center of gravity. Dr. Ansary said that the center of gravity in this struggle is the mind. It is the psychology. It is the attitudes, the values, and the rage of a particular group of people, and that this war can be won only in the mind, not on the battlefield.
So with that conclusion I thank you all for your participation and patience, and I ask you to join me in a hand of applause for the panel, which I thought was just terrific.
(Applause.)
(END)