Martha Crenshaw, a noted terrorism expert at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, says that "at least as significant" as the smashing of Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan is the breaking up of its interests in Western Europe through intense police and intelligence work. "It's important to remember that Sept. 11 was planned in Germany and other Western European states," she says. But such upbeat appraisals of the war on terrorism aren't shared universally. Critics say that as the campaign has progressed, the US seems to be targeting any terrorism anywhere.
Martha Crenshaw is Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, author of Revolutionary Terrorism: The FLN in Algeria, 1954-1962 (Hoover, 1978), and editor of Terrorism, Legitimacy, and Power (Wesleyan, 1983). I usually yawn and move on to the next article when I see a "noted terrorism expert" associated with a university. I'll make an exception in this case and agree with her.The term "mission creep" was used to denote how terrorism is being attacked globally. This argument is one of smoke and mirrors. What the global intentions of the US amount to isn't a case of strategic overextension, with its attendant "mission creep", but rather a case of concentrating on the priority missions such as destroying elaborate al Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan while performing economy of force efforts in the Balkans, Yemen, and the Philipines. Notably, the vast majority of the deployable forces of the US are still in strategic reserve, and most of these side theatres are either being drawn down or defined as being sole training missions with few combat assets in direct support.
Until the "mission creep" aficiandoes can show how subordinate missions are detracting from priority missions in a substantive manner, I'd say that Crenshaw and Bremer are spot on, and "creepy" Pena is waffling about undefined issues.
Posted by Tom Roberts 3/16/2002 1:46:21 PM |