[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 20, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S10231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      DEFEATING TERRORIST NETWORKS

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, throughout the 4 years since the 
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on this country, it has been 
clear to me that our first national security priority must be combating 
and defeating the terrorist networks that seek to do us harm. Former 
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke wrote a 
thought-provoking piece about the ideological battleground that is a 
vitally important part of our challenge, and about the importance of 
public diplomacy efforts in our overall campaign. It was published in 
the Washington Post on September 9, and I ask that it be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2005]

                            Our Enemy's Face

                         (By Richard Holbrooke)

       Let us take a hard look at some extremely important words: 
     ``the global war on terrorism.'' Since Sept. 11, this 
     phrase--often reduced in Washingtonese to ``GWOT''--has 
     entered the English language, popularized by journalists and 
     administration officials. It is the way our highest national 
     priority is described by almost everyone.
       But ``GWOT'' is not an accurate description of America's 
     enemy or of what we are engaged in. Unless people know whom 
     we are fighting, it will be virtually impossible to win the 
     war of ideas that is such a key part of this struggle. The 
     new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, Karen 
     Hughes, who is charged with primary responsibility for this 
     part of the war, has a chance to fix the problem, but only if 
     she is willing to change some deeply ingrained rhetoric and 
     the political reasons behind it.
       Stopping terrorists, using all necessary means, is vital in 
     protecting the Nation. We cannot win without the use of force 
     and first-rate intelligence. But suicide bombers are merely 
     the expendable, deluded cannon fodder of ruthless ideologues. 
     This has been true with terrorists throughout history. The 
     long-term battle is against the underlying ideas and leaders 
     behind these specific groups of terrorists.
       Despite factionalism and fierce doctrinal disputes, our 
     enemies, broadly speaking, constitute a movement, with goals, 
     gurus, ideologues, myths and martyrs. They share a core set 
     of virulently anti-Western beliefs and have common goals: to 
     destroy the moderate (and still majority) wing of Islam, to 
     establish Islamist theocracies that look backward toward a 
     mythic ``golden age,'' to seek the destruction of Israel, and 
     to inflict maximum damage and human suffering through acts of 
     terrorism.
       Among its leaders, there is one whose face is as 
     internationally recognized today as Adolf Hitler's was in 
     1941. He was responsible for Sept. 11. Yet the United States 
     has not made it a primary goal to expose Osama bin Laden as 
     the monster he is, something Roosevelt and Winston Churchill 
     did to Hitler, and American leadership did to communism 
     during the Cold War by demonstrating its moral and 
     intellectual bankruptcy. Bin Laden (unlike Saddam Hussein) 
     has been virtually ignored in public by official Washington.
       Terrorism is not an end in itself; it is a tactic, just as 
     it has been for countless other movements throughout history 
     that sought to destroy or paralyze the established order, or 
     attract attention to their cause. Over 2 years ago, Zbigniew 
     Brzezinski, among others, pointed out that a ``war on 
     terror'' was like a ``war on blitzkrieg'' or a ``war on 
     war.'' For this important insight, the former national 
     security adviser was both attacked and ignored. During the 
     2004 campaign, I stumbled into a public dispute with senior 
     administration officials, including Vice President Cheney, 
     when, as a John Kerry surrogate, I told a New York Times 
     Magazine writer that the phrase could be considered a 
     metaphor and compared it to phrases such as the ``war on 
     poverty.'' For this both Kerry and I were assailed as naive, 
     and I was asked, in the sneering tones of certain cable 
     television interviewers, if I really thought we were at war 
     with a ``metaphor.''
       Of course not. But despite the grand rhetoric, does anyone 
     think the United States is actually fighting ``terror'' or 
     ``terrorism'' globally? We may detest terrorism in Sri Lanka, 
     but we are not engaged in that civil war. Nor in Nepal, 
     northern Uganda, Aceh or countless places around the world.
       By calling both Iraq and Sept. 11 part of the war on 
     terrorism, the administration has been partially successful 
     in linking public support for the less popular war in Iraq to 
     the universally supported fight against al Qaeda, even though 
     no convincing evidence has been produced connecting the two. 
     No other explanation has proved as valuable in keeping 
     Americans, albeit in declining numbers, behind our 
     increasingly controversial involvement in Iraq. ``GWOT,'' as 
     Dan Froomkin wrote on The Post's Web site last month, is 
     ``the metaphor that has consistently been [President Bush's] 
     most potent weapon in the battle for public opinion.''
       The struggle against violent extremism will continue, of 
     course, long after bin Laden is eliminated by death or 
     capture. It will be a long conflict, with casualties and high 
     costs, just like the efforts against fascism and communism. 
     But fundamentally this is a war of ideas, and a more 
     aggressive, direct attack on those ideas, and the men behind 
     them, is necessary.
       For starters, Osama bin Laden must be discredited, even if 
     he remains at large. He is not, as some argue, irrelevant 
     simply because his war will continue after he is gone 
     (although, of course, it will). He remains a folk hero to 
     millions of Muslims; youths wear T-shirts of him and children 
     are named after him throughout the Muslim world. The United 
     States should stop ignoring him and his henchmen; exposing 
     them must become a top priority. He is a false prophet who 
     incites mass murder, but he is clearly eloquent and 
     charismatic. His ideas, no matter how insane they seem to us, 
     appeal to many people. (Hitler had those qualities, too.)
       Which brings us back to Karen Hughes. With her enormous 
     bureaucratic clout, derived from her closeness with President 
     Bush, the new undersecretary of state has a chance to make 
     history. To do so, however, she must change some fundamental 
     parts of our public message, and then devise better delivery 
     systems for it--precisely what she did so effectively for 
     Bush during so many campaigns.
       Hughes should begin by revisiting what her own boss said on 
     Aug. 6, 2004, speaking without a text. ``We actually misnamed 
     the war on terror,'' the president said that day. ``It ought 
     to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not 
     believe in free societies, who happen to use terror as a 
     weapon.'' He was, inexplicably, laughed at for this remark, 
     and rapidly retreated to safer rhetorical terrain. More 
     recently, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to 
     replace ``GWOT'' with the ``global struggle against violent 
     extremism''--a somewhat more accurate phrase--the president 
     immediately overruled him and again linked GWOT closely to 
     Iraq during a series of public appearances.
       But the president got it right last year. Words matter, and 
     we need better ones to explain to the world, and to 
     ourselves, who the enemy is. How about making it simple and 
     specific: something like ``the war against Osama bin laden 
     and his followers''? And then create an all-out, no-holds-
     barred campaign to expose, ridicule and destroy everything he 
     and his ilk stand for--murder, horror, intolerance, 
     disrespect for human life and a false view of Islam.

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