Give it to Me One More Time

(T)error is an unsatisfactory adversary, since it is a mental condition rather than a tangible foe. You cannot fight against ''terror,'' since you cannot shoot it or sink it in the sea. In addition, terror is an undignified emotion

--Jeff Cooper, Gunner's Guru, former Marine Lt. Col.

Yassir, That's my Baby
No, Sir, Don't mean "Maybe"
Yassir, That's my Baby now
--Yes Sir, That's My Baby, Kahn/Donaldson

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David Brooks, Republican acolyte, gains some legitimacy by virtue of his column at the New York Times, but his work is neither reasonable, articulate nor accurate. He is one of many contributing to the mish-mash of terminology in the MSM.

In his most recent, ''The Insurgent Advantage,'' (viewed via the Free Republic) Brooks says ''The war on terror has shredded the reputation of the Bush administration,'' as well as those of Tony Blair, Ehud Olmert and Nouri al-Maliki.

That's because setbacks in the war on terror don't only flow from the mistakes of individual leaders and generals. They're structural. Thanks to a series of organizational technological innovations, guerrilla insurgencies are increasingly able to take on and defeat nation-states.

Setbacks in the war on terror? Mr. Brooks is confused out of the gate, though he is quoting this time from author and former Air Force officer John Robb. Robb speaks to the emergent, open-source nature of modern insurgencies from a conservative perspective, but has anybody yet shown terrorism and guerrilla insurgencies to be one and the same?

This is my beef: In the spectrum of war, terrorism is a low-level I or II threat, easily handled by police and/or regular army units. This is the threat facing America--not insurgencies seeking to overthrow our government.

Terrorism is not and will not ever be the cause of any state ceasing to exist. There is no historical precedent of terrorism defeating a nation-state. That is why terrorism is a low-level threat.

Terror organizations may evolve into insurgencies using guerrilla and terrorist tactics, but when and if they do, they will have emerged from level I and II threats. At that point they achieve insurgent status, they are no longer terrorist organizations, but have transitioned into a higher level threat. They become more organized, have popular support and are willing to expend personnel and operational assets on military operations.

Calling al Qaeda in Iraq a terror organization is a misunderstanding of the threat level and a minimization of the organization. In Iraq, al Qaeda is operating as a belligerent force in a guerrilla war. The 19 operatives who flew to America to attack WTC were analogous to U.S. Special Operators.

Al Qaeda sponsors terrorist activity worldwide. But al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has all the hallmarks of a military organization. In Iraq, they are probably operating as force multipliers in the fray. Al Qaeda began as a military organization, utilized by U.S. interests. It is only when they turn on the U.S. that we call them terrorists.

The key point is, if we had not intervened in Iraq's affairs, those members who are now operating as a military organization would not be engaging U.S. forces. Our intervention animated the group's activities.

As simulated laughter pointed out in his review of Robb's book, the terrorist arm of al Qaeda elicited a classic overreaction on the U.S.'s part. It was textbook terrorism in action, and GWB and Co. played right into their arms.

Quoting from John Robb, Brooks says,

''today's extremist organizations are not like the PLO under Yasser Arafat. They're not liberation armies. Instead, modern terror groups are open-source, decentralized conglomerations of small, quasi-independent groups.'

Yassir Arafat never commanded a liberation army! To be charitable, the PLO may have had dreams of being a liberation army, but they never made the transition out of terror organization. Since his PLO never advanced beyond its terror roots, it was an army in name only, like the Symbionese Liberation Army here in the U.S. during the good old days of comfortable domestic terrorism.

''In one case, Iraqi insurgents spent roughly $2,000 to blow up an oil pipeline in Southeast Iraq. It cost the Iraqi government $500 million in lost revenue. For the insurgents, that was a return on investment of 25 million percent.''

Equating insurgency with a return on investment is irrelevant. Terrorist's and insurgent's aim in all operations are funding and recruitment. Therefore, kidnapping and ransom are the key operations for most terrorist and insurgent groups.

Bombings are frosting on the cake, and could be viewed as training and validation missions for future inner sanctum members. All terrorist and guerrilla groups require members to earn their bones.

''(T)hese new groups are not seeking to take over their countries the way 20th-century guerrillas did. . . They merely seek to weaken states, so they can prosper in the lawless space created by collapse of law and order. That way the groups don't have to construct anything or assume responsibility for anything.''

Again, the ubiquitous conflation of terms. Terrorism is not guerrilla warfare.

In the 20th century, generally all terror groups were left wing and nihilistic, proposing no other social agenda than change and violence. Witness groups like Red Army Faction, Red Brigades, and Action Directe. No terror group ever expected to overthrow a government. Guerrillas, however, do entertain this agenda. We're back to the continuum of war.

''(As) Lawrence of Arabia learned decades ago, that it's better to weaken target governments, but not actually destroy them''

Lawrence was trying to destroy the Ottoman Empire and replace it with the new Arab neighborhood friendly to England. Though Lawrence fought within the WWI arena, he utilized classic guerrilla techniques. To the West, Lawrence was the good guy in the white hat, but his soldiers, under the Bush paradigm, were unlawful enemy combatants since they did not represent a nation-state or wear uniforms. That was good then, but bad now.

''Robb is pessimistic that. . . the Defense Department or the Department of Homeland Security can ever keep up with open-source insurgencies.''

It is neither the duty nor the responsibility of either of these organizations to deal with insurgencies. America is not threatened with insurgents; levels I and II terrorism is the threat. Where lurks the insurgent threat to fat, dumb and happy America?

Brooks says ''the very nature of the threat is that it's random and cannot be anticipated.'' While the threat of terrorism is random, it can be anticipated with proactive, coordinated police and police intelligence activity.

Despite Condoleezza Rice's disingenuous statements following 9-11 about not being able to imagine using planes as missiles, saying that it cannot be anticipated is the same as saying we are powerless to counter this threat. And it is a lie. This powerless feeling is what leads to overreaction and phony, preemptive wars.

All terrorist activities have a signature and give off pre- and operational intelligence indicators. 9-11 was slap full of them, but U.S. agencies were asleep at the wheel. If U.S. agencies were operating at even minimal levels, 9-11 would have been counteracted.

Brooks cries out,

''If the Iraqi insurgents defeat the U.S. then every bad guy on earth will study and learn their techniques.''

It is not if. They have already defeated the U.S. But, tell me once again: why is it we were fighting an insurgency in Iraq, anyway?

U.S. security issues are based in terror, not in an Iraqi insurgency.