ZERO SUM

In the wake of 9-11, maybe it was a day or two after, President Bush offered up a formulation for how the United States would look upon the world as it went about the business of combating terrorism: You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists. It was the correct way to assess the situation, for in a world where a few angry young men could turn short knives, civilian airliners and skyscrapers into instruments of mass murder, there is no middle ground. The nations around the world that support and harbor terrorists, the pundits and intellectuals who give terrorists the mental armor to conduct their savagery, and the so-called charities that fund the training and coordination of terror activities were thus put on notice to cease and desist or face the consequences. The United States would bring all the force it has to bear, military, economic, moral and otherwise, to end terrorism as a viable weapon. The time to choose had drawn nigh--you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.

I remember in the days and weeks immediately following 9-11, before the Afghan campaign got started, visiting chat boards in sites as far-flung as San Francisco and London, hoping to find a world reeling and shocked as I was. I remember the shock of what I saw there. It didn't match the horror of watching 3,000 innocents murdered on live TV--nothing can match that, and it's seared on my mind forever. But it was a real shock. My own countrymen, and people around the world, reacted with anger and hatred, not toward the killers and those who led and supported them, but toward President Bush for dileneating the world so simply: You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists. I remember wandering into one English chat board and reading the conclusion reached by one man. He decided that though the terrorists were probably wrong, that the US may have sort of deserved it, but that in the end the either/or formulation just couldn't be right. But since that was all Mr. Bush offered, and he just couldn't side with America no matter what, then he said, and I'll never forget reading this, "Well then, I guess I'm with the terrorists." Simple as that, no muss, no fuss. What faith I had in humanity evaporated.

I think that either/or formulation is driving much of the world's problem with the US-led war against the terror masters, and has been from the beginning. Not that it's the wrong formulation, or that President Bush shouldn't have said. It's right, and he was right to lay it out, to "show his cards" so early. Real leadership in a time of crisis demands clarity. It keeps us focused on the mission, the big picture. But for much of the world, apparently a majority, laying things out so starkly is unnerving. They can't deal with it. It seems too simple, too direct, without the wiggle room we're all used to using in our everyday lives. You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists. For those who had never before thought about the larger ramifications of their ideas, this formulation caused a kind of mental short-circuit, an invalid instruction, and kicked them out of the mental and moral sequence that allows rational thought and reasoned discussion. Thus, the leader of the attacked nation became the world's worst terrorist only 9 months into office and before he had ever fired a shot to avenge the dead. He made the either/or zero sum calculation and laid it out, so it must be his fault that all this menace now surrounds us.

The zero sum formula is correct, for classically liberal societies cannot long survive such a direct threat without challenging and overcoming it. As that threat cannot survive long without states and finances in support, no distinction should be made between the actual perpetrators and planners of mayhem and the states that use them as proxies. In truth, no distinction should have ever been made between terrorists and their state backers. The 9-11 atrocity simply forced President Bush to destroy that distinction for all time.

As has become apparent in the past few months, there's another zero sum conflict raging right now. It's entirely diplomatic for the moment, but is no less threatening. Former American allies France and Germany, two countries the US has had to save from themselves and each other over the years, are vying to become a legitimate counterweight to American power. That effort necessarily entails defeating the US in some measure and on some battlefield, and as neither France nor Germany can field a military force capable of making a dent in ours, and as neither can on its own wage any kind of economic or direct political attack that has any hope of success, the two have banded together to stop the US from defending itself and the integrity of international law and collective security. If the Franco-German alliance wins, Saddam Hussein lives to flout the law for a while longer, and to build his precious weapons which he will some day wield against one of his neighbors, or Israel, or against his own people or against ours. If the American alliance wins, Saddam dies, and with his end the threat of weapons proliferation recedes in the Middle East for a short time. But the back story is this--American victory in the UN Security Council and over Iraq renders the Franco-German alliance impotent, immoral and corrupt, exposed for its mad desire for power and dominance in the European Union. A Franco-German win curbs America's ability to defend itself, and basically ends our effort to destroy global terrorism. It's that simple--a zero sum. Both sides can't win.

There is a third zero sum, either/or contest underway. Its scope is just beginning to manifest itself. It's entirely political, and taking place right here in America. On one side, those who remember 9-11 and want to make sure it never happens again, and on the other, those who will use 9-11 or indeed anything else to score political points and hopefully regain the levers of power as soon as possible. That second side is composed entirely of the American left, and range from the true radicals such as ANSWER to those who still maintain the appearance of responsible comment and thought. Some on that side have publicly supported the war while it was far off, only to drop that support once actual combat has neared. It is a very good thing that nearly none of these people have ever been in the military--they've shown themselves utterly untrustworthy when things get tough. That side finds itself threatened to its very core by a US victory--if President Bush has been right all along, that a zero sum approach to terrorism is the only way to win the war, the left will stand discredited. During its most recent eight years in power, and flashing back to the four short years it spent in power a few years earlier, America suffered a series of terrorist outrages and those in power at the time did nothing to stop it or prevent more. Hostages taken in Tehran and held for 444 days, and the response ranged from public hand-wringing to a fatally pathetic desert rescue attempt. The World Trade Center, attacked by a truck bomb, and there was no response. Military men and women murdered in their barracks, and aboard a US warship, and American embassies blown apart, and there was no meaningful response. While the forces of murder raged jihad, the American left which held power muddled through hoping that it could just go along, get along and leave the clean-up to some future date.

It's now clean-up time. If President Bush, who more than anyone else represents the part of America that still believes in the right of self-defense and in the necessity of justice, cleans up hellholes like Afghanistan and Iraq, and then perhaps North Korea and Iran, and then perhaps Syria and others, the go-along left will stand discredited for all time. The zero sum world we now live in brooks no compromise. We must either stamp out al Qaeda and its backers or it will over time and in little increments stamp out us. It's that simple, and it is that very simplicity that explains much of the world's turmoil. You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists. It's a dangerously simple world we now inhabit. Doubly dangerous if you've chosen to stand on the wrong side of history.