Nasty, Brutish and Short

Over the weekend we heard the reports about the Pakistani Army venturing into the region between Pakistan and Afghanistan in an offensive designed to root out al-Qaeda terrorists supposedly holed up there. There were even reports of the possible killing or capture of al-Qaeda’s number-two man, the Egyptian al-Zawahiri. By Sunday evening, it was pretty clear that it didn’t happen.

But the weekend wasn’t a total loss.

Over the weekend we heard the reports about the Pakistani Army venturing into the region between Pakistan and Afghanistan in an offensive designed to root out al-Qaeda terrorists supposedly holed up there. There were even reports of the possible killing or capture of al-Qaeda’s number-two man, the Egyptian al-Zawahiri. By Sunday evening, it was pretty clear that it didn’t happen.

But the weekend wasn’t a total loss.

The Pakistani government proved it was willing to take the offensive in an area well known as a terrorist haven and notably hostile to outsiders – including government outsiders – without incurring the wrath of local tribal leaders. The operation cost terrorists of many persuasions (Chechens and Uzbeks certainly were there as well as al-Qaeda) yet another piece of sanctuary. There is one more place to which they can run, but in which they cannot hide.

And Sunday’s late news reported the Israeli dispatch of Ahmad Yassin, the Hamas mastermind, to his just reward. Yassin formulated policy and was the senior decision maker for Hamas terrorism. He praised the use of female suicide bombers, saying, “Hamas views women as the reserve force. When the military wing of the Hamas saw it necessary to use a woman to carry out an attack, it did so.”

There is a common thread in these weekend battles. Terrorists of all sorts, masterminds of all persuasions, have to know that they are not safe. They have to know that as they kill innocents, the civilized world will do its best to kill them. “No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” If Hobbes wasn’t talking about the lives of terrorists, he should have been.

There are those who take the view that terrorists have real grievances and their rage at the West, at Israel and at the civilized values of millions of Muslims around the world is, if not acceptable, at least a response to some misbehavior of ours. And killing terrorists is engaging in terrorism. And if terrorists provide social services for their own women and children even as they slaughter other women and children, their terrorism is less deserving of punishment. And finally, if one meets the nominal demands of terrorists, their rage can be assuaged and one’s self and family can be safe.

We find our tolerance for such moral relativism drastically reduced these days.

Whatever grievance they have pales in comparison to the butchery they have committed and pales in comparison to the world’s grievances against them. To fight them and make them know they will pay for their crimes is not terrorism any more than firefighting is arson. Israel and Pakistan fought two more battles this weekend, but there will surely be more to come in the war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them.