A New ‘War on Terror’ Would Be Just as Disastrous as the Original

"We don't need to use a faulty model and apply it to the very real terrorism problem that we have at home," says terrorism expert Max Abrahms.

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More than two months after rioters stormed the Capitol, Washington, D.C. is still occupied by National Guard troops, and the police say they want to make the fencing that surrounds the Capitol building permanent.

Political scientist Max Abrahms studies global terrorism. He says that the U.S. government's response to January 6 is disproportionate to the actual threat and has turned the Capitol into something resembling a green zone in a war-torn country.

"I think that this was one of those situations where the government swung like a pendulum from doing too little to do way too much," Abrahms tells Reason.  

"They were clearly overwhelmed and unprepared for this onslaught," says Abrahms. "So the government responded by putting in place something like 25,000 national guards in caging up the Capitol. That would be appropriate not to deter the next Timothy McVeigh but to deter something like ISIS storming Baghdad."

Abrahms says that "luckily that's not the threat environment we're dealing with in the United States."

Abrahms worries that the war on terror, started by the George W. Bush administration after 9/11 and which included detaining suspects without due process, torture, mass surveillance, and counterproductive military action, is coming to the homefront. The target: white supremacists and anti-government militia groups.

"Our response to 9/11, and this isn't stressed enough, was actually deeply counterproductive against the kinds of terrorists that we were combating," says Abrahms. "Americans can do much better. We don't need to use a faulty model and apply it to the very real terrorism problem that we have at home."

Abrahms believes that the mainstream media and the government are attempting to weaponize some of the legitimate fear that has resulted from the events of January 6 in order to marginalize those on the political right, "including those with quite reasonable views."

"There's this perverse phenomenon where terrorism commentators and pundits, broadcast ubiquitously by the media, make it seem as if terrorists are just so brilliant, strategic, and effective," Abrahms says. "In fact, we often see the exact opposite."

Abrahms argues that such illiberal actions could actually serve to incite terrorism. 

"One of the telltale signs of an illiberal government is when it makes no distinction between what it sees as political extremists and tactical extremists," Abrahms says.

Abrahms is concerned that a heavy-handed crackdown lumping the extreme beliefs of some on the right together with the extreme tactics of would-be terrorists will ultimately backfire, just as the war on terror swept up many innocent Muslims and spurred even greater radicalization. 

"I'm really worried, frankly, about Timothy McVeigh 2.0. I think that the government needs to do everything possible not to create one," says Abrahms. "But I'm not confident that the government actually is doing that."

Abrahms believes that the government should prosecute those who commit terrorist acts of violence to the fullest extent of the law. However, he worries that there will be some crossover between who the government regards as a political extremist and an actual terrorist. 

"We cannot crack down on people just because we don't like their ideology," Abrahms says. "Otherwise the government is going to turn into the thought police and that is going to spawn the next generation of terrorists."

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Capitol riot footage by Ford Fischer. 

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