Our military response to 9/11 is merely the means to contain the jihadi wave that we are facing until the Moslem world can bring the fanatics under control. Whether large-scale wars, drone strikes, special forces raids, or aiding Moslem countries in coping with their own forces, these military means won't solve the problem (although in the short run, more dead jihadis is absolutely necessary).
I retain hope that the Moslem world will turn on the jihadis and delegitimize them because the anger of the Islamist jihadis is most often turned against those who the jihadis believe are Moslems in Name Only (MINOs).
In Nigeria, the Islamist terrorists can't control their impulses to kill anyone who opposes them rather than "just" Infidels:
While Boko Haram tries to spare local Moslems and go after only infidels (non-Moslems) enough Moslems get killed and suffer the economic losses to make Boko Haram less a savior and more of a curse for most northerners. Boko Haram won’t go away until the angry, and usually unemployed and uneducated young men who provide the new recruits get turned off. That hasn’t happened yet.
And in Thailand, the fanatics don't know their limits:
Acting on a tip, police raided a house in the south and were fired on by several armed men. After a three hour running gun battle three men were killed and three pistols recovered. One of the dead had an arrest warrant outstanding for an earlier terrorist attack. A fourth man was arrested. All were part of an Islamic terrorist group that was planning an attack on a military checkpoint. These tips from locals (usually Moslems) are increasingly important in taking down the terrorist groups. In response the Islamic terrorists are murdering more Moslems suspected of informing on them or leading efforts to run or organize local defense organizations meant to keep terrorists out of an area.
This is a general problem, of course:
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri recently released an audio message, via the Internet, in which he blamed moderate Moslems for preventing more conservative or radical Moslems from taking control in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. ...
Al Qaeda and Zawahiri accuse the moderate Moslems as being bad Moslems for their opposition to using Islamic law (sharia) to govern secular and religious affairs. During the 7th century, when Islam was founded, the intent was that sharia would apply to all aspects of life for Moslems. But those who had to actually govern found that this did not work in practice, in part because there was no (and still is not) supreme authority to interpret sharia law. Thus the rulers and the clergy were feuding over the true meaning of sharia from the beginning. Naturally, the guys with the weapons won these arguments. This is how al Qaeda justifies the use of weapons and terror to establish the true religious dictatorship they believe Islamic law requires. Unfortunately, even among Islamic fundamentalists there is still no agreement on how to interpret sharia, which is why Islamic radical groups often fight each other. This tendency to drift into constant feuding and violence has been a problem with militant Islamic conservatives for over a thousand years. While modern technology makes this Islamic terrorism more widespread and lethal, the built-in self-destruction of Islamic radicalism remains and most Moslems realize it.
But if the fanatics have enough power, the non-fanatic fear of and anger at the jihadis mean nothing. The guys with guns, bombs, and the conviction that God is on their side can dominate the far more numerous Moslems who just want to live their lives and feed (and keep safe) their families.
Remember that the Anbar Awakening was the rejection by Sunni Arabs of the al Qaeda fanatics in Iraq. Remember what this required. It required Sunni Arabs to hate and fear fellow Sunni Moslems fighting on their side and to trust that their then-current enemy, America, could help them win once they flipped to siding with the Iraqi government. Our surge offensive was a visible sign of this commitment to beat the jihadis.
For all the talk in our Left about how awful we were in Iraq, our enemies--who we tossed out of their privileged position under Saddam and then fought for close to four years in a tough counter-insurgency fight--decided we were a better bet for their survival and future than fellow Sunni Arab jihadis. Our military power was absolutely essential to making the Sunni Arab hate and fear of the jihadis matter by giving the MINOs the confidence that they could beat the jihadis once they flipped.
And if the Iraqi Sunnis lack the confidence that they can win--or just survive the battle against the revived al Qaeda in Iraq? Well, we might see the Sunni Arabs in Iraq flip back:
"Since 2006, we have fought al Qaeda and arrested so many of those criminals but today we are going to back to square one," said Sheikh Aref al-Jumaili, a tribal leader from a town in Anbar province, Iraq's Sunni heartland.
"We cannot fight them now. They will kill us and get revenge because we fought them with American support. Today this government is not able to protect or support us." ...
Al Qaeda's Iraqi wing has told Sahwa fighters [the post-"Awakening" Sunni Arab militias] to hand over their weapons and uniforms and to record a video pledging their allegiance to the militant group on a flash memory stick, Sahwa leaders and security officials said.
A senior military intelligence officer said the aim was to force former Sahwa members to fight alongside al Qaeda or face the prospect of these videos being sent to the security forces.
"We do not trust al Qaeda, but our fear (of it) forced us not to cooperate with the government," said Ahmed, adding he would rather spend time in jail than join the militants. "Al Qaeda for me is like a nuclear bomb, it is a source of death".
We need to have a sense of urgency to keep this from happening. If the Sunni Arabs of Iraq flip back to allying with al Qaeda, that tide of war will come rushing back in with frightening speed. Military power is not irrelevant to beating the jihadis.
Another component of containing the effects of the jihadis is denying them money. Fanatics have payrolls and dependants, after all. Al Shabab is just the most prominent in the news lately:
This brings us around to Somali Islamic radical group al Shabaab. Originally the fanatic wing of a more moderate Somali movement trying to impose law and order after more than a decade of chaos, al Shabaab soon became a major law and order problem itself. There are still several thousand armed al Shabaab men in Somalia after several years of fighting and losing to African peacekeepers and Somali troops. Al Shabaab suffered major losses last year and has scattered into smaller groups that hide out in remote parts of Somalia. At the moment al Shabaab is more interested in raising cash as the group is broke following its expulsion from the lucrative cities of Mogadishu and Kismayo over the last two years. There are now fewer opportunities to kidnap foreigners and the pirates, who used to share ransoms with al Shabaab, have not taken a ransomable ship in over a year. In short, al Shabaab needs money.
The effort to further weaken (and eventually obliterate) al Shabaab has now shifted to the group’s finances. This is a battle that gets little publicity and is easy to keep out of the news because it is, well, stuff that mostly happens out of public view. Al Shabaab is believed to be seeking cash from wealthy Arabs in Arabia, These are men who like to donate to Islamic charities that support Islamic radicalism. For nearly a decade both oil rich Arab countries and their Western allies have been trying to stop this source of terrorist funding, but have only been able to reduce it. The money still gets through to Islamic terror groups that have lots of media coverage. For that reason it is believed al Shabaab will try to carry out more spectacular attacks outside Somalia. That way al Shabaab can gain more media coverage and easier access to wealthy donors.
We can weaken the fanatics this way, too, but money still gets through (and in Afghanistan and Pakistan, unfortunately the money comes to them for drugs grown there) and jihadis still plot to kill us (and MINOs). But the odds are with us as long as we keep waging the multi-faceted war.
So the war can end.
But until the jihad self-destruct sequence finishes, we need to use military power to contain the fanatics--"the source of death"--and keep them from slaughtering too many of us. It is not futile to fight the fanatics. All that rot about fighting back just making more terrorists is just that--rot.
