I am Kyle's self-indulgence

Things got ugly week in Washington this week, as politicians and news commentators raced to to turn the subject of terrorism to political gain. First, we had Vice-President Cheney claiming that Joe Lieberman's loss in his state's primary elections will encourage terrorists. Then a Headline News anchor suggested that Liberman's liberal opponent is "the al Qaeda candidate." And finally, after news of a foiled bombing plot in England came out, President Bush tried to link the suspects with Hezbollah, using the same shaky philosophical comparisons with which he linked Iraq to al Qaeda in the minds of Americans.

I guess we know what to expect in this year's elections.

As fear of terrorism continues to be used as a justification for imperialist foreign policies, it's easy to forget just how far we've gone down this road in the last five years. It's now generally assumed that a global "war on terrorism" is necessary to prevent America from being attacked again. But is that really true?

Let's look at the bombing plot of this past week. That attack was prevented not by a military presence in Afghanistan or in Iraq. It was not stopped by an act of pre-emptive war, or an invasion of a sovereign nation. It was not even foiled by the detention thousands of suspects in a military prison. What prevented the latest terrorist plot was nothing more than simple law enforcement.

For me, this has helped to once again put things into perspective. I am reminded of the absurdity of a war on a tactic--which is exactly what terrorism is. It is sometimes effective to defeat an enemy nation through military invasion and occupation, because a nation is governed by a ruling body that can surrender to an invading force. But the tactic of terrorism, as traditionally defined, is perpetrated by individuals. You simply cannot carry out a military campaign against thousands of individuals. All you can do is guard your own borders against attacks at home--which is what we should have been focusing on these last five years.

Instead, we as a nation have bought into the line that a "war on terrorism" is necessary to prevent another attack in our own country. This has served as a convenient rationalization for military attacks that serve other political and economic purposes. The purported links between Iraq and al Qaeda proved to be every bit as untrue as the claims about Iraq’s WMDs. Israel has now followed America’s example in using the kidnapping of two soldiers by a terrorist militia to serve as justification for an extended bombing campaign against Lebanon.

There is a growing view that all of these military actions, with their high cost in human lives, do nothing to actually prevent terrorist attacks by individuals. If what we really want is to prevent attacks in our own country, then we need to learn from this past week's success and focus on strengthening law enforcement measures in our own country, rather than topple foreign governments.