New Kind of War for U.S. : Effort against terrorism demands different sacrifices

The war against terrorism, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright warned as U.S. cruise missiles struck suspected terrorist-linked targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, is the war of the future. And the future, it hardly has to be said, has arrived. Unlike in past wars, at stake this time is not control of territory or resources or even, as was said in Vietnam, a contest for hearts and minds. President Clinton has called the conflict “a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism, between the rule of law and terrorism.” A central question is whether Americans and their government are ready to pay the costs of that struggle.

The immediate focus on Osama bin Laden, reputedly the organizer of the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, helps to put a face on today’s terrorism, though the America-hating millionaire hardly represents the whole of the threat. Bin Laden is a major financier of terrorism with a perverted sense of religious mission, one that attracts fellow believers, but if he were to disappear the terrorism threat would barely be diminished. There are many who demonize the United States as the font of the world’s ills and the source of their personal frustrations. This is what assures that the anti-terrorism struggle will be prolonged and makes the measure of its achievements uncertain.

There are no boundaries in this conflict, no central headquarters from which strategy and directions emanate. This is a war in which intelligence successes depend not on monitoring the movements of divisions but on tracing transfers of money. It is a war in which the significance of victories may best be gauged by the length of the intervals between terrorist attacks.

Above all, this is a war in which civilians, especially Americans, are the targets of choice. We have seen that already, in the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Scotland in 1988, in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, in the Aug. 7 embassy attacks that killed and maimed scores of East Africans as well as Americans. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen foresees “the kind of terrorism that could use chemical and biological weapons.” The danger to Americans at home as well as abroad must be taken as a given.

For decades, there has been some degree of international cooperation against terrorism, though its effectiveness has varied depending on the courage or cravenness of national leaders. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, a number of European governments shamelessly refused to arrest known Palestinian terrorists on their soil, for fear of inviting retaliation or jeopardizing commercial relations with certain Arab states. The United States has demonstrated its readiness to act unilaterally against terrorists if need be, exercising its right to self-defense. But the fight against terrorism is sure to go much better if it is fought as an alliance involving many countries.

The U.S. government faces a further challenge. Its anti-terrorism policies, to be effective, must have tangible and reasonably steady public support. Winning that backing depends on persuading people that not only is a policy right but that the means for carrying it out are necessary, even unavoidable.The problem is that the nature of the fight against terrorism limits what can be revealed about it, since to do otherwise could compromise vital intelligence sources and methods or embarrass other countries. Are Americans ready to trust their government to operate in the shadows to fight terrorism, casting a cloak of secrecy over information that a free citizenry has come to expect? That issue of trust is likely to be tested soon as the war against terrorism grows hotter.