Strategypage writes about the Islamist terrorism we've had to cope with for many decades now:
Islamic terrorism has been around for over a thousand years and flares up every few generations. Eventually the cost and futility of it all becomes apparent and it lies dormant again. It will keep coming back until the Islamic world adjusts its theology and customs to ease the tyranny and oppression that has been the hallmark of Islam for most of its history and the cause of endless rounds of terrorism. ...
But there's a difference between the past and the present. The world is now characterized by the near-instantaneous proliferation of information and misinformation, ease-to-use communication systems, and technologies that provide cheap, readily improvised WMD capabilities. At the same time, the development of our cultural, social, economic, industrial, and political structures offers vulnerabilities never dreamed of by earlier terrorists. This presents unprecedented problems for security forces, problems that are neither purely military nor purely law enforcement, but a mixture of both, with a lot of complex intelligence demands. All this places complex strains on governmental jurisdictions, and the intersection of the public and private sectors, not to mention civil liberties, cultural traditions, and privacy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the military component of the Long War is a necessary but not sufficient factor to winning the war against Islamist terrorism.
We have to contain the surge of violence directed at us until it burns out; and we have to help Islamic society marginalize the philosophy that breeds Islamism which breeds terrorists.
And I'll add an old complaint of mine: failure to win this war will erode our civil liberties as we are forced to ratchet up security in the face of continuing Islamist efforts to kill us.
You can argue that NSA and TSA are effective or not; whether they are necessary in their current form; or whether they cross the line of balancing security versus civil liberties, or not; but they are an infringement on our civil liberties. And if you hope that these infringements are going to be just a temporary wartime measure, you should want us to win this war as soon as we can.
I'm no expert on how one reforms an entire society. But if we don't want to just endure this wave and call it mission accomplished when the tide recedes on its own, as others have done, we'll just set ourselves up for the next wave with weapons of mass destruction available to any hate-filled group.
I hoped that a long military presence in Iraq after we broke the backs of Sunni and Shia (Iran-backed) Islamism would help transform a Moslem society in the heart of the Middle East the way our troop presence allowed us to transform Japan, Germany, Italy, and South Korea.
But we aren't in Iraq, and al Qaeda is waving their banner over Anbar cities (although I have confidence that they'll be run out when Iraq gathers forces) while Iran uses Iraq to bolster Assad's war on his people.
That's what happens when you try to "responsibly end" a war rather than win it.
I guess our plan B is hope and change. We will allow our enemies to thrive and hope they are their own worst enemy, leading to that needed societal change.
Let's hope Islamists are their own worst enemy. John Kerry and the government he represents sure aren't.
