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Why the Law Enforcement Model Is Ineffective Against Terrorism

Jack Hays

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What we seem to have here is an excellent illustration why terrorism should be confronted via warfare rather than law enforcement. This is the fundamental US strategic debate. As the Long War continues, I wonder how many times the lesson will be repeated?

Brussels Attacks Were an Interrogation Failure
Marc Thiessen, Washington Post

". . . Abdeslam’s questioning is a textbook example of why the law enforcement model for interrogating terrorists is a disaster. As we saw in Brussels, law enforcement officials are in no hurry to extract answers from a detainee, because they are questioning terrorists after an attack has occurred. Their goal is to extract a confession in order to secure a conviction. In such circumstances, patience is a virtue.

But in an intelligence-driven interrogation, patience is deadly. Interrogators are trying to get information from the terrorist quickly, before an attack occurs. In such circumstances, you need to take a terrorist from a state of defiance to a state of cooperation quickly. Speed is of the essence.
It is simply unconscionable that Abdeslam was allowed to protect the identities of cell members and their plans for the Brussels attacks. But that is only the beginning of the shameful incompetence on display here. Not only did officials not ask Abdeslam about future attacks, but they also compounded that error by holding multiple news conferences in which they bragged about his arrest and boasted how well he was cooperating. This was a fatal mistake. . . . "
 

This was quite a debate in the Bush period and within the administration. Personally, I believe that the criminal law categorization is inadequate, but preferable in certain ways to the war approach and vice versa. I think we need to rethink the matter and define a third type of engagement with appropriately structured laws and procedures.
 
I could kiss the author of that piece...

Finally someone speaks some sense!!!!!
 

I must disagree. I don't believe there are any "appropriately structured laws and procedures" for the Long War. Our enemy has erased the combatant/noncombatant line and is certainly no respecter of the laws of war.
 
Military is even worse. Now, paramilitary is a different story.
 
Abbazorkzog said:
Indeed. I don't know about you, but the CIA is kind of paramilitary IMO. I disagree with calling it a 'war' per se.
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The people I thought of as the smartest in DoD started calling it The Long War shortly after 9/11. CIA has many capabilities.
 
Jack Hays said:
I must disagree. I don't believe there are any "appropriately structured laws and procedures" for the Long War. Our enemy has erased the combatant/noncombatant line and is certainly no respecter of the laws of war.
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That is part of the reason that the laws of war will work as poorly as those of criminal and civil law. We are being faced a structurally totally new type and level of challenge that therefore requires appropriate new law. I don't see how the war laws can work by themselves. That was why the last administration used a modified war definition.
 
Jack Hays said:
The people I thought of as the smartest in DoD started calling it The Long War shortly after 9/11.
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Intellect is very different from wisdom. Even the smartest people alive can be massive fools. And I find it foolish to give ISIL the credit of starting a World War, they are not nearly as powerful as TPTB give them credit for.
 
Abbazorkzog said:
Intellect is very different from wisdom. Even the smartest people alive can be massive fools. And I find it foolish to give ISIL the credit of starting a World War, they are not nearly as powerful as TPTB give them credit for.
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The war began with Al Qaeda. ISIL is a latecomer. The terrorist side will take many forms and carry many names before it's over.
 

I don't believe I made myself clear. This war, sooner or later, will be conducted with a complete absence of law.
 
Jack Hays said:
The war began with Al Qaeda. ISIL is a latecomer. The terrorist side will take many forms and carry many names before it's over.
Click to expand...

But you can't win a war against an idea. Declaring war on an idea is one of the most foolish decisions a truly sound strategic mind can undertake. This 'Long War' is much more similar to the War on Drugs than an actual military operation.
 
Jack Hays said:
I don't believe I made myself clear. This war, sooner or later, will be conducted with a complete absence of law.
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Especially if we keep putting it off and appeasing them to bide them time to grow stronger and stronger..
 
Abbazorkzog said:
But you can't win a war against an idea. Declaring war on an idea is one of the most foolish decisions a truly sound strategic mind can undertake.
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That is precisely why the aforementioned smart people preferred to call it The Long War rather than The Global War on Terrorism.
 
Jack Hays said:
That is precisely why the aforementioned smart people preferred to call it The Long War rather than The Global War on Terrorism.
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Agreed, and like I said in the edited portion of my post, it is more like the War on Drugs, which like the War on Terror, should cease. Terrorism should be treated like a propaganda campaign, what it is, and can be aptly defeated with a combination of PMC's, intelligence and counter-propaganda.
 
Jack Hays said:
I don't believe I made myself clear. This war, sooner or later, will be conducted with a complete absence of law.
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This is possibly true. As citizens we should do everything to avoid a situation of widespread lawlessness. This would at first seem possible to hold at arm's length from the citizenry but that would work as little as maintaining security in a world in which we abdicate convention and legality. It seems a far more sustainable strategy to restructure our system of international security and the legal system in which it is embedded ie that defines it.
 
The only way to win the war against Jihad is to have the worlds Muslim population take leadership in going after the jihadists.
 

I have for some time harbored the dark premonition that the age we take as a frame of reference (19th & 20th centuries) will in the future be regarded as a quaint interlude. Since WW2 no US adversary has demonstrated the slightest regard for the laws of war and/or conventions of international practice. Since 2001 our civilians have been explicit targets and our enemies have deliberately concealed themselves among civilians -- and struck from there.
 

Again this is certainly true. To a certain extent this is because the laws of war are not very sensible without believable and robust enforcement. As it is they are naively conceived and probably have harmed us much more than having helped anybody. The other thing is that since the 1950s no power could challenge first the two nor later the sole superpower in open combat. That would have been irrational and deadly. Consequently other methods developed and evolved.
As far as our people being targets, this has been going on since much further back thañ 2001. Parts of my family were targeted as far back as the early 1970s. Admittedly they were diplomats and the terrorists were socialists in Germany, but the principal was not so very different.
 
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Jack Hays said:
That is precisely why the aforementioned smart people preferred to call it The Long War rather than The Global War on Terrorism.
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The Long War yep.

When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
~ Sun Tzu
 

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
 

Maybe but after 9/11 do you really think it was practical to not engage in overt military action? Not saying everything since should have been boots on the ground, but I don't see how politically some counter propaganda or covert ops would have been sufficient.
 
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