Though it is enmeshed in US foreign policy today, the "War on Terror" was not inevitable. Smarter US choices after the September 11, 2001 attacks could have avoided the catastrophes that ensued.
Hello subscribers! As with all FX columns, we'll have a two-week window for questions here. If you have questions for Alex please get them in sometime in that period. Thanks!
Have you read Violent Politics by William Polk? Your point about occupying forces almost inevitably losing made me remember that book. Anyway, great article. It’s wild to me that politicians now widely admit the fault of the Iraq war but, as we saw with Biden’s bombing in Syria today (as retaliation against people in Iraq resisting the occupation), continue to maintain its legacy and nurture its offspring.
I enjoyed this piece as depressing as that may seem. I particularly like your point about people viewing our failures as problems of execution rather than problems of wisdom. We have a lot of collective reckoning to do, and I think this whole alternative scenario exercise is one way to learn from our costly mistakes and engender a fresh skepticism when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. I very much look forward to your future writing here.
Thanks for this Alex. While it's depressing to revisit the multitude of missteps, mistakes and missed opportunities (let alone the implications and consequences of them), it is important to remind ourselves of what might have been with sounder leadership.
Do you think that the approach in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombings offered an alternative path that was missed by the US at the time, or is the fact that it occurred in Indonesia, committed by Indonesian citizens make this a special case?
While I may be misguided on this one, from memory it appeared to have been led by a criminal investigation and - some general silliness in the Australian media aside - certainly didn't lead to open hostility between regional actors. They seem to have caught and punished the perpetrators, and (as far as I am aware), besides the Marriott Hotel bombing in 2003 and the Australian Embassy bombing in 2004, seemed to put a lid on this kind of 'terror as spectacle' in Indonesia.
Or, (as I suspect is the case), am I being supremely naive and the same kind of brutal anti-terror approaches were just as true in this case as it was in the broader "War on Terror™"?
Hello subscribers! As with all FX columns, we'll have a two-week window for questions here. If you have questions for Alex please get them in sometime in that period. Thanks!
How would we have gone searching for the perpetrators if they would likely be linked with Saudi Arabia?
Have you read Violent Politics by William Polk? Your point about occupying forces almost inevitably losing made me remember that book. Anyway, great article. It’s wild to me that politicians now widely admit the fault of the Iraq war but, as we saw with Biden’s bombing in Syria today (as retaliation against people in Iraq resisting the occupation), continue to maintain its legacy and nurture its offspring.
I enjoyed this piece as depressing as that may seem. I particularly like your point about people viewing our failures as problems of execution rather than problems of wisdom. We have a lot of collective reckoning to do, and I think this whole alternative scenario exercise is one way to learn from our costly mistakes and engender a fresh skepticism when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. I very much look forward to your future writing here.
Thanks for this Alex. While it's depressing to revisit the multitude of missteps, mistakes and missed opportunities (let alone the implications and consequences of them), it is important to remind ourselves of what might have been with sounder leadership.
Do you think that the approach in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombings offered an alternative path that was missed by the US at the time, or is the fact that it occurred in Indonesia, committed by Indonesian citizens make this a special case?
While I may be misguided on this one, from memory it appeared to have been led by a criminal investigation and - some general silliness in the Australian media aside - certainly didn't lead to open hostility between regional actors. They seem to have caught and punished the perpetrators, and (as far as I am aware), besides the Marriott Hotel bombing in 2003 and the Australian Embassy bombing in 2004, seemed to put a lid on this kind of 'terror as spectacle' in Indonesia.
Or, (as I suspect is the case), am I being supremely naive and the same kind of brutal anti-terror approaches were just as true in this case as it was in the broader "War on Terror™"?