Fact is, terrorists rarely win. True, they succeed at killing people -- murdering innocents, destroying property and creating misery -- but that's not their intended goal. Terrorism by definition is violence with a political purpose. And terrorists are terrorists not by choice, but by desperation. They kill men, women and children indiscriminately because they think there's no other way to advance their cause. Propaganda and politics have failed them. They lack armies or economic power.
Terrorists need to move beyond terrorism to a strategy capable of achieving victory. Either become an army and conquer territory, become a mass political movement to gain the loyalty of the people, shoot their way into power and take over the palace, or enter politics and compete in this sphere. Absent one of these changes, they merely kill. And as we know, criminal gangs don't take over cities just because they kill lots of people. Violence must be focused at an objective or it is just killing.
This is historically correct. But on the surface this seems to hold that a law enforcement approach could defeat this loser tactic of terrorists. If they can't win, just persist with arresting them and we will win.
But first of all, they kill too much to just try and put the cuffs on them. The toll would persist at too high levels for too long.
Second, nukes make the price of letting these losers continue too horrible to treat as just criminals. Sure, we can console ourselves that losing Charleston won't defeat us, but we still lost a city and all those souls. Just move on, right?
Wrong. Just because we can't be beaten by nutballs who seriously think they can achieve a new caliphate that will one day include Cleveland is no reason to take them lightly. They can still kill a lot of us. And so we have to wage war against the terrorists and the regimes that might supply the terrorists with nukes and state support.
And nukes are merely the worst. Chemicals and bio weapons are potent threats. And let us not forget that box cutters and airline tickets could kill tens of thousands if done right.
So there is no reason to relax. No reason to let up. We have to take down the regimes of Iran and North Korea. And others are out there waiting to become dangerous if we don't destroy them or scare them straight. I don't care if we pull Iraqs or Libyas on these regimes. But one way or another, our security depends on it.
