Strategypage reminds us of something that should be obvious as we see the jihadis defeated by our war effort:
Meanwhile, it's useful to keep in mind that Islamic terrorism is nothing new. In the last thousand years, these cycles of Islamic terrorism eventually die out when enough of the Islamic radicals are killed off, and potential replacements are put off by their poor chances of survival or success.
The kernel of truth is that jihadis did multiply when we started to fight back after 9/11. But that doesn't mean it is pointless to fight them. Decreasing jihadi numbers and their zeal requires us to not only fight them, but to defeat them in battle.
Any war results in an enemy mobilizing its resources to fight. The jihadis did the same. Had we not decided to fight, the enemy would have continued to kill us in terror attacks without mobilizing more resources and recruits. Why bother? They were killing us with increasingly brazen and bloody attacks and we were destroying tents and aspirin factories in response.
But when we counter-attacked in force after 9/11, the enemy had to mobilize to resist our greater effort. And our greater effort has beaten their greater effort--especially in Iraq. If we continue with this war policy of fighting and not just policing jihadis, we will kill off the jihadis and put off the potential recruits by making victory and even personal survival too remote to sign up for the jihad.
So let's keep making dead jihadis--they are the only good ones, after all.
