Kingmakers

For the second day in a row, our blogfriend Amanda Marcotte provides the impetus for our blogging.

We call suicide bombers in Iraq terrorists, which they are. But we talk about them and treat them like an opposing army. This is in keeping with our continuing “war on terrorism,” which will presumably end when terrorism itself walks into the oval office, sits down, and hands President Jenna Bush its sword.

But what, exactly, is the reason for treating suicide bombers like enemy soldiers? Why not treat them like criminals?

Many people scoff at this sort of thing, because it sounds like you’re coddling the suicide bombers and the people who encourage them. “Do you want us to slap the cuffs on terrorists, and read them their rights?” they ask. “Should we issue subpoenas against Osama bin Laden?” Then they fall off their chairs laughing. After all, it’s much harsher justice to blow up an enemy than it is to lock up a criminal, isn’t it?

We at the Blasphemy Blog say, emphatically, NO!

It is harsher, yes, but not more effective.

Why? Well, consider that an insurgent army is much more socially acceptable than a criminal gang. When we declared war on terrorism and terrorists, we gave bin Laden and his ilk the cache of an army.

But they are not an army. They are criminals, and should be treated as such. It is not easy to track down and arrest international criminals, but it is possible, and we do it all the time. We seize their assets like we seize drug dealers’ assets. We raid their headquarters like we raid a crack house.

We don’t negotiate with them, though. Why? Because police, prosecutors, and judges do not negotiate with criminals. They don’t have to, because everyone who is not in the gang is on our side. It’s the law-abiding world against al Qaeda.

Or, at least, it should be. Thanks to our decision to treat this like a war, instead of the hunting, capture, and prosecution of some of the worst criminals in history, we might someday be forced to negotiate with terrorists. They’re already talking about bringing the insurgents to the negotiating table in Iraq.

How did it come to this, that we have to treat these criminals like they are a normal political faction? Well, it came to this because we treat Osama bin Laden like he already has what he only covets: a country to rule.

Really. Bin Laden’s end desire is the restoration of the Islamic caliphate. The caliphs were the rulers of the Islamic world when it was a vast empire, the most powerful on earth. (Their seat of power, incidentally, was Baghdad.)

Bin Laden talks about wanting to purify the world through the use of fundamentalist Islam, but Islam under the caliphate was actually pretty decadent. It was also, however, a truly powerful empire that came quite close to overrunning Europe. Bin Laden wants to return to those days. He doesn’t want to revive a religion; he wants to be an emperor.

By declaring war on him and his gang, we’re giving him what he wants. And if we keep treating him like the king he wants to be, someday he, or his grandson, will simply be a king.