All They Understand

Following a successful breakup of an al-Qaeda cell in Albania by the CIA, on August 6, 2001, Mohammed al-Zawahiri, second in command of al-Qaeda to Osama bin Laden, wrote a veiled threat in the London newspaper Al Hayat in reference to their planned attacks on the American homeland;

“We are interested in briefly telling the Americans that their message has been received and that the response, which we hope they will read carefully, is being prepared, because, with God’s help, we will write it in a language that they understand.”  (Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Vintage, 2006, pp. 305-306)

What was it that we were supposed to “understand”?   Was al-Qaeda suggesting that the violence of 9/11 would defeat or intimidate the United States of America?  Were we to “understand” the power of revenge for their perceived retribution to violence against their notion of the Islamic world?

Contrast this to the assertion made in David Limbaugh’s # 1 bestselling book Crimes Against Liberty: An Indictment of  President Barack Obama (Regnery Press, 2010) that President Obama’s order to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and end the CIA’s program of secret prisons and rendition was ”appeasing” the enemy and threatening the security of the United States.   Limbaugh writes of the terrorists, “The only thing they understand is strength.”

What are our enemies supposed to “understand” about the American use of vengeance and retribution?

We’ve heard this language many times before.

During the Vietnam War it was suggested that we could bomb the Communists to the peace table and submission because “the only thing they understand is strength”.  It is estimated that the United States killed 2 million South East Asians during that decade of conflict.   The North Vietnamese won the war none-the-less.  What was it about our strength they did not “understand”?

Hitler unleashed a blitz of bombing on England and the city of London early in World War II convinced that such terror would force Britain to capitulate.  In spite of over 43,000 deaths it did just the opposite, galvanizing Allied resistance to Germany and the eventual destruction of the Third Reich.    Their ‘finest hour’ in Churchill’s words came because they refused to “understand strength”.

In an interview at NATO headquarters, asked if measures used successfully in Iraq would be applicable in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus said “As I said in Iraq when I was the commander there: you don't end an industrial-strength insurgency by killing or capturing all the bad guys.  You have to kill, capture -- or turn -- the bad guys. And that means reintegration and reconciliation." (NPR 09.14.10)   Petraeus was the architect of the strategy that helped to create the Sunni Awaking movement and the Sons of Iraq program that paid tribal leaders and insurgents to govern and secure there own areas against outside terrorist forces.   This strategy has led to a decrease in violence against US forces, an increase in Iraqi political self-sufficiency and an official end to US combat operations there.   Petraeus suggested it was not easy to cooperate with “those with our blood on their hands” but that it was the best means to bring resolution and progress.

Is General Petraeus an “appeaser” because he found a way within the cultural traditions of his Iraqi enemy to “buy off” and redirect their efforts rather than try to kill them all?  In the NPR interview the General insisted that military action was essential but that it was not the only means necessary for peace.  Is such reason weakness?

In too many instances in history the assertion of power alone has resulted not in defeat but in emboldening the determination and perseverance of those on the other end of conflict.  Centuries ago, the early Christian movement thrived under the terror of state sponsored persecutions.  The United States Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and ‘60s resulted in the legislation of Voting Rights and the end of official segregation in spite of lynching, bombings, assassinations and state sponsored intimidation.  The Iron Curtain of Soviet Communism fell without a shot being fired in 1990 after decades of the oppression and dictatorship of its “strength”.    

It is fear and anger that drive such a notion as “they only understand strength”.  Certainly we need to defend ourselves against those determined to harm us.  But whether the “they” are Native American ‘Indians’ in the 1870’s, or Japanese Imperial forces during WWII or Jihadist terrorists today, peace and security doesn’t just come when you’ve killed enough bad guys.    Our enemies understand many, many other things besides what we call “strength”.   We increase our options for success in conflict when we take the time to learn and listen what those other things might be.