I long argued that only fighting ineffectively creates more jihadis. Yeah, lob some cruise missiles at some empty tents and call it mission accomplished and you'll just anger people enough to join the jihad without killing off any or scaring off any over the likelihood of dying in said jihad.
And even if in the short run fighting does lead to more jihadis, that's natural too. Just as our troop strength went up after 9/11. Not many on the left argued that terrorism just creates more American troops ready to kill their sorry asses wherever they hide, but that's what war is--each side mobilizes resources to fight the other side. At the beginning of 1945, I'm pretty sure that Germany had way more troops in uniform than at the end of 1939. Obviously, fighting the Nazis wasn't an exercise in futility.
Having gone to war, one must then beat the enemies mobilized to fight us. We beat the jihadis in Iraq after much difficulty (and in the Philippines with much less fanfare). And we are seeing the effects of this in Afghanistan:
[Fewer] Afghans are signing up for what are often suicidal missions. So more Pakistani Taliban (and other terror groups) are being imported. Pakistan was always a source of well indoctrinated young men (from the many Islamic religious schools), who were especially suitable for suicide bombing missions.
But Pakistanis are now in short supply. Pakistani and Afghan parents are no longer tolerating seeing their children being turned into suicidal fanatics. So more foreigners are being recruited. There are plenty of Arabs and Chechens who find Pakistan the easiest place to get to for those seeking Jihad (“struggle”) against infidels (non-Moslems) and possibly a glorious death for Islam. ...
The problem with using foreigners and amateurs in the tribal territories (on both sides of the Afghan border) is that these guys don’t know their way around and have been easy pickings for Afghan and NATO troops. ... The newbies know little and are not usually in shape to keep moving. Instead of hard-to-catch tribal warriors, you have a lot of ill-prepared targets.
The Taliban still have the money to entice recruits, it seems, but the recruits aren't what they used to be.
Always remember that it is far easier to see our problems--which are discussed in a free press constantly--than to see the problems our enemies face fighting us. Just because we don't read about them doesn't mean they don't exist.
It is tough to remember this basic fact about viewing the war, especially when the enemy knocks down a helicopter with large loss of life for our side, but enemy successes are really rare and mostly confined to killing innocent civilians. Remember that in Iraq, just as we were on the cusp of battlefield victory, smart guys were celebrated by our press for predicting a fiasco.
We can keep knocking down the enemy in Afghanistan (and in Pakistan) and eventually defeat them. I'm not so much worried about the end of the surge in Afghanistan. It was always going to end and I was always nervous about having so many Americans in landlocked Afghanistan without really secure supply lines. Indeed, I'm on record as thinking that we can win without the forces the last surge provided. So I won't say that simply eliminating the surge troops will cause defeat. But having added them and signaling our commitment, I am worried that the fast pace of withdrawal gives the impression to our enemy that we are cutting and running.
But while that impression may increase our casualties for a while as the enemy believes they have a shot at winning despite all their losses, as long as we keep hammering the enemy (and separating the people from the enemy in proper counter-insurgency form), they'll learn that their hope was false. Eventually, not even the idiots willing to join the jihad now will want to run off to Pakistan to die. And the guys with money probably will decide it is a waste to hire them.
Patience. Only we can save the enemy.
