When we failed to respond to their attacks, terrorists continued to attack us. Yet if we fight back, that encourages them, too. So we should just surrender or get used to losing whatever number of our own the enemy kills in any given year?
The statement that responding to enemy attacks with force just creates more enemies does have a hint of truth. If we merely respond tit-for-tat, simply trying to match enemy attacks, we do encourage them. We have simply inflicted a small harm on the enemy.
But by going after the enemy relentlessly--far beyond merely "responding" to enemy attacks--we have the opportunity to actually win by killing and discouraging the enemy and making supporters of our enemies reluctant to join the enemy and thus become martyrs.
In Iraq, suicide bombings have been an example given by opponents of the war of the fervor we supposedly create by fighting jihadis in Iraq.
Yet what of the fanatical suicide bombers who supposedly represent the tip of the infinite supply of fanatics we have created?
The news and Strategypage both note a new summer trend in "suicide bombings" From the news story:
Iraqi insurgents are no longer using just volunteers as suicide car bombers but are instead kidnapping drivers, rigging their vehicles with explosives and blowing them up, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.
In what appears to be a new tactic for the insurgency, the ministry said the kidnap victims do not know their cars have been loaded with explosives when they are released.
The ministry issued a statement saying that first "a motorist is kidnapped with his car. They then booby trap the car without the driver knowing. Then the kidnapped driver is released and threatened to take a certain road."
The kidnappers follow the car and when the unwitting victim "reaches a checkpoint, a public place, or an army or police patrol, the criminal terrorists following the driver detonate the car from a distance," the Defense Ministry statement said.
Well what do you know? The enemy can get discouraged! Why else trick people to carry bombs if eager volunteers are created on a daily basis by our mere presence in Iraq?
Remember, fighting back ineffectively just creates more enemies. Killing the enemy wherever we find them, relentlessly, day after day, does eventually have an impact on enemy recruiting.
And good thing, too, because if they can't get discouraged our only alternative to just losing to them is to kill them all.
