On September 7, 2006, the State Department issued a report evaluating its counterterrorism efforts, 9/11 Five Years Later: Successes and Challenges.
Seven of the report's eight sections recount counterterrorism successes. All appear to have been worded with great care, lest any complicating context seep in and spoil the relatively celebratory tone. As government reports go, the effect is oddly poignant, as if someone had picked their way through a devastated, mine-triggered field, plucked its few lone flowers, then presented the sparse bouquet as evidence of a flourishing garden.
Some blooms amid the bullet points:
- In Afghanistan, "there are no functioning al-Qaida training camps."
- Iraq is off the state sponsor of terrorism list, as is Libya.
- Unlike before 9/11, today Pakistan and Saudi Arabia "stand with the United States as key allies in opposition to terrorism."
- In contrast to the pre-9/11 "patchwork" counterterrorism efforts, today we have a "comprehensive approach, consolidated under the Department of Homeland Security. . . ."
- Thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act and the newly formed National Counterterrorism Center, barriers that formerly prevented information sharing among government agencies have been struck down.
- "Before 9/11, the United States did not openly challenge repression … in the Arab world." But today, "democracy and freedom are an integral part of the U.S. agenda globally."
This is not to say the report is short on examples. These are only a few of the most prominent, and perhaps most expected, examples the report gives of American successes. There are at least a hundred more —from bioterror to WMDs—detailing counterterrorism strategy advances and terrorism defeats. New commitments have been made, and funding dedicated to their research and execution. Technology has gotten smarter, and employees more numerous. Manpower has been increased, initiatives have been launched, gaps closed, barriers removed, and dialogues begun. New partnerships have been made and old ones revived.
New acronyms abound. To protect borders, the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) launched the CSI (Container Security Initiative) to ensure that objects are unobjectionable, and US-VISIT (Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) to ensure that people are as well. The U.S., Mexico and Canada will cooperate on issues of shared concern through the recently formed SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America).
In case of an attack on U.S. soil, logistical and military responses will be headed by the newly created USNORCOM (Northern Command). NORCOM is not only the first Command to be added to the existing military command structure since 1946, it is also the first to be responsible for "the U.S. homeland."
The abundance of detail, in fact, is stunning. In a sense the counterterrorism report is a consummate product of America, where more is always better and if you must say something, it should be nice. Still, the strain of keeping a good face on things shows up in moments of ambivalent rhetoric: "Since the September 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe."
Safer, but not yet safe
The ambivalent hedging is the unfortunate result of simplification. In this report, reality's complexities are so forcefully filtered out that the meaning of remaining facts is diluted, too.
I wouldn't argue that there is reasonable evidence to support the report's claim that "the United States, with its partners in the Coalition in the War on Terror, has made significant strides against al Qaida, its affiliates, and others who threaten us." A U.S. bombing raid did kill Al Qaida associate Musab Al Zarqawi; terrorists can no longer finance their operations with the unscrutinized ease of the past.
Yet, other evidence impinges on the simplicity of the claim. On September 11, 2006, respondents to a poll of just over 40,000 Al Jazeera online readers (Arabic edition) revealed that 49.9% support Osama bin Laden. Anti-Americanism continues unabated, globally.
But such evidence is not much permitted into the State Department report. Like most other fora in which counterterrorism measures and their effects are discussed, the report holds complex facts hostage to all leadership's desire to turn reality into checklists. In order to evaluate the evolution of current policy well, we might begin by dispensing with checklists and begin finding new ways to permit the complexity of these issues to be expressed.
Yes, the United States wiped out Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and yes, leaders have been killed and captured. But no, Al Qaeda does not appear to be the worse for it. And no, it can't truly be said, as the report does, that because of this "the Afghan people are free." Not while Taliban insurgents escalate lethal attacks on on Afghans and NATO troops, tribal warlords reassert their territorial claims, and illegal poppy production and trade continues.