The failure to recognize that training requires a sanctuary such as the Taliban's Afghanistan and a reasonable survival rate for the trainees just astounds me. Before 9-11, the enemy had that sanctuary and trained lots of terrorists. Our cruise missiles destroyed some of their tents but that was about it. Now we kill the jihadi enemy. And in Iraq we kill them in droves.
The idea that fighting our enemies just makes things worse by making the enemy better is so ridiculous that it is hard to even respond. If you don't understand that when you are at war you must kill your enemy I don't know what else can be said to persuade you of the folly of this belief.
But try Strategypage:
It’s pretty obvious that al Qaeda has lost much of the professionalism they had five years ago, after thousands of terrorists had received professional bomb making and weapons training in Afghan camps. Most of those terrorists are now dead, captured or out of the terrorist business. The new generation, inspired by terrorist propaganda on the Internet, or in the Arab media, are being killed off so rapidly that their fate is having an adverse effect on recruiting. Young Islamic radicals are no longer running off to join the war in Iraq with any prospects of coming back alive. Those that do come back in one piece, are often not much help for recruiting. They tell of deadly American troops, and a hostile Iraqi population.
Fighting back does not make things worse--at least not for us. Fighting is the first requirement to achieve victory. One wonders what the anti-war Left assumed would be in the perfect plan they keep insisting we should have had before going to war in Iraq since actually fighting apparently isn't a concept they understand.
So repeat after me: "We are not training the enemy--we are killing them."
UPDATE: It is difficult, I admit, to stay focused on the big picture when the enemy is still capable of gruesome attacks as have happened the last couple days in Iraq: "Suicide bombers infiltrated a line of police recruits and a crowd of Shiite pilgrims Thursday as insurgents killed 125 civilians and five U.S. soldiers, escalating attacks while political factions worked to forge a coalition government. " We are winning. But we have not yet won.
