Remember the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center? No, not that one, the one in 1993.
Explosives planted in a parking basement of the north tower blew a hole through five stories of the building, with extensive damage to its infrastructure: electrical, sewage, etc.
Six people were killed in the attack and about a thousands were injured. Tens of thousands were evacuated from the building.
The Clinton administration treated this attack as a crime and promised appropriate action. The FBI investigated and eventually the criminals responsible were identified, arrested, tried, and sentenced to multiple life sentences.
Without putting it in these words, President Bill Clinton chose the metaphor of "crime" to characterize the attack. It was dealt with as we deal with crimes.
Eight years later, a new set of attackers struck a more devastating blow to the World Trade Center towers, destroying them, with much more loss of life. As we know, the 2001 attack was masterminded by a wealthy Saudi--Osama bin Laden--and the suicide flyers were 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, two from the United Arab Emirates, and one from Lebanon.
Unlike President Clinton in 1993, President George W. Bush chose the metaphor of "war" instead of "crime."
He invaded Iraq and waged a war there that is still under way and, recently, expanding. It was left to President Barack Obama to bring the final 9/11 criminal to justice in the execution of Osama bin Laden, but by then, the death and destruction of 9/11 was eclipsed by the "war on terror."
We Americans overuse the "war" metaphor and usually suffer from doing so. We declared a "war on poverty"--and poverty won. Then we declared a "war on drugs," and drugs won, just as terror seems to be winning our latest "war."
Crimes and acts of war require different official responses, and it is vital that we make an accurate assessment of what we are responding to. Wars are more devastating than crimes, and we need to avoid the tragic error of turning a crime into a war.
The Islamic State does not represent a real country capable of waging war on its neighbors; they are gangsters and thugs. To be sure, they are a large and well-equipped gang, partly due to weapons supplied by our earlier war effort.
Wars can be resolved by negotiations in which each side gives a little, but that would not be appropriate in dealing with gangsters like Islamic State or Boko Haram in Nigeria. When a war ends, the soldiers of the defeated side are allowed to return to their pre-war lives.
We need to recognize the Islamic State and Boko Haram criminals for what they are.
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Dr. Earl Babbie of Hot Springs Village is the Campbell professor emeritus in behavioral sciences at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.
Editorial on 09/18/2014