One Week Later

by Marko Peric

A week has passed since the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by terrorists. The death toll has crept up, and although final numbers are probably still weeks away, it appears that more than 5000 people died in the attacks. For those that were not directly touched by these events, life is starting to get back to some semblance of normalcy. At least, for those that don't work in skyscrapers. Or at airports.

As of this writing there has been no strike against the terrorists, but it will surely come soon enough. The level of rhetoric and anger is rising all around, and unless the Taliban decides to hand over Osama bin Laden on a silver platter, it's only a matter of time until the shooting begins and the bombs start falling. Just where the bombs will land remains the question of the day.

Everything I've said above you already know, unless you've been living in a cave somewhere other than Afghanistan. I felt the need to summarize before getting into this rant, the topic of which is "what's going to happen now?" I don't know what will happen any more than you do. I'm not Nostradamus, which is a good thing, because it would be hard to write rants in quatrains. What I do have is a suspicion about what I expect will happen. I'm putting this down to virtual paper now, and we'll see how close I come to being right.

First, I don't see Afghanistan handing Osama bin Laden over to anyone, not without a fight. The Afghans are a tough people, they fought the Russians for a decade and won (albeit with lots of support from the rest of the Islamic world and the CIA). They fought the British when India and Pakistan were colonies, and won then as well. The country is rugged and unwelcome to invaders, and the people aren't afraid of a fight. Granted, the Russians and the Brits didn't have anything comparable to the resources and technology the US is able to bring to the fray, but this isn't going to be the turkey shoot that Desert Storm was.

Second, a full scale ground invasion of Afghanistan is highly unlikely. The last thing the US wants to get involved with is a second Vietnam war, and considering that supply lines to Afghanistan have to run though a neighbouring country, most likely Pakistan, sustaining a war requires maintaining the favour of Pakistan. Also, Afghanistan has little or no value to the rest of the world, quite unlike the oil wells of Kuwait. Afghanistan isn't worth invading to root out terrorist elements. What will happen instead is air strikes and special forces squads moving in to eliminate bin Laden's camps. Small, mobile, and deadly is how you get at this people. Strike fast, level the camps, kill anything that moves. It's unpleasant and unpalatable, and you won't be seeing footage of it on CNN.

Third, the illustration of the "war on terrorism" being similar to the "war on drugs" has been bandied about in the media already, and I feel this isn't a bad comparison. After all, the war on drugs isn't a war against any specific state or region, it's a war on individuals. It's not a traditional war where there are armies and battle lines. The US didn't invade Columbia to stop the flow of cocaine.

The war on drugs so far has met with many failures. It's hard to fight a war against a foe that you often can't isolate or identify. Does this bode ill for the war on terrorism? Not necessarily. The thing is, there are billions of dollars to be made in moving narcotics. As long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be a supply. It's basic economics. Cutting off the supply is all but impossible. But how much money is there in terrorism? None. There is no profit to be made in blowing up buildings. It doesn't make economic sense. Sure, this doesn't deter the hard-core fanatics who are willing to be suicide bombers, but there's not much to be done to discourage anyone that devoted to a cause. However, I suspect that there are only so many people actually willing to do this. There will always be a few, but they are only a small group of marginalized people. When there's no money involved, and when the US government is actively hunting down terrorists, the prospect of becoming involved is a lot less palatable. It's ironic that one of the basic human vices — greed — will deter people from this particular evil. There is no money in terrorism. And that's why we can beat it.