In Defense of Offense

Does a purely defensive military posture suggest a level of tolerance of a known threat to which we simply acquiesce? Jerusalem Post columnist Saul Singer’s recent statement that “Bush is right that terrorism cannot be beaten with defensive measures” should cause one to wonder about the more appropriate strategy and response to the ongoing war against terror, especially during this very early battle for the White House in which Democrats are talking about how and when to get out of Iraq while Republicans are still trying to define victory, or at least a victory that is palpable to the American voting public. Answering the question may also have as much to do with whether one actually believes that this war would cease to exist if the US were to simply withdraw from it.

Is it merely a question of whether or not we are actually at war? Former US senator and Democratic presidential wanna-be John Edwards recently stated that the “war on terror” was nothing more than a bumper-sticker slogan concocted by the Bush administration. By this, we can only assume he meant that the situation with worldwide terrorism is not as dire as this administration would have us believe, which is incredibly naïve coming from someone who pretends to be presidential material. We can easily see that there is a war on and that American servicemen are literally putting their lives on the line each day they go to work.

The question of whether or not this nation is at war, however, may be at the heart of the current debate about whether it is time to remove our forces from Iraq. Should we choose this course of action, would it also necessitate the removal of US forces from Afghanistan? Whether the US was justified in the invasion of Iraq is now irrelevant because of the matter at hand even if there were – and still are – many who believed that the war on terror lost its focus when the US invaded a sovereign nation. Now we are in the midst of a fight on yet another front whose focus has been removed from Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida and the insurgency against the newly installed government.

Ideally the US could withdraw and assume a more defensive military posture and do nothing more than to fight back if directly attacked. Unfortunately, we have chosen to wage a war that will not go away regardless of our physical presence. To the point where we find ourselves, the president is correct: offense is now our only defense. The insurgency must be brought under control if for no other reason than that of law and order. Anything less will most likely mean another direct attack on American soil.