VIEW: A self-defeating war — George Soros ("it's all our fault")

An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home

The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11, a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts — Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia — a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world. Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued; a plot that could have claimed more victims than 9/11 has just been foiled by the vigilance of British intelligence.

Unfortunately, the ‘war on terror’ metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. But the war on terror remains the frame into which American policy has to fit. Most Democratic politicians subscribe to it for fear of being tagged as weak on defence.

First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.

Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush’s global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly. It inhibits much-needed negotiations with Iran and Syria because they are states that support terrorist groups.

Third, the war on terror emphasises military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown, al Qaeda is best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.

Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between ‘us’ and ‘them’. We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.

Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation.

With American influence at low ebb, the world is in danger of sliding into a vicious circle of escalating violence. We can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor. If we persevere on the wrong course, the situation will continue to deteriorate. It is not our will that is being tested, but our understanding of reality. It is painful to admit that our current predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognise and correct its mistakes. This is the test that confronts us.

Mr Soros, a financier, is author of The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror (Public Affairs, 2006)

This is vintage Soros.

He seems to always argue about first principles, usually definitions, and then he takes the argument to his conclusion. This is a time tested method of disputation which is effective against the unwary because once he succeeds in defining the ground rules the victim thinks he is coming to Soros' conclusion as his own idea.

Let's look at the basic idea that the war on terrorism is a "metaphor" which gets us into trouble. Soros is expressing a reasonably popular view here but it is one that ignores the fact that there are 1.4 billion Muslims in the world and to label this war a war against Muslim extremism is to risk turning 1/5 of the planet against us. This is precisely the 1/5 that we need ultimately to win this war because it is precisely the Muslim world that has the understanding of the traditions, the beliefs, and is in possession of the intelligence which are all essential to understanding and winning the war against Islamic Jihad. Bush was quite right in avoiding direct references to wars directed against the Muslim faith.

Let us look at Soros' syllogism. The metaphor of a war on terror is false and that leads us into at least four errors principal among them is that it leads us to seek a military solution to a political problem. Once Soros gets us to this point, he can unload a whole carload of left-wing priorities on to us like universal human rights and the world energy crisis. Soros' strategy is to change the definitional underpinnings of the arguments and then confine the solutions, both procedural and substantive, to those the left likes.

But Soros does make one frightening claim which ought to be considered even though it is largely unsupported in his argument: "Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won."

Soros is saying that we cannot win this as a war on terror, indeed we cannot win it as a war at all, therefore let's abandon the concept of waging a war and take up the tools of the left. His next step, no doubt, which we will see in a subsequent article, will be to turn toward one world government.

At least once on these threads we ought to leave off the name calling and actually address the merits of an argument. Soros might be right even though he is Soros -but I doubt it.

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