The current outbreak in Islamic terrorism is largely self-inflicted and is kept going by the ease with which young Moslem men will get involved. This is not unusual. For example there is a similarity in ages of the Iraqi terrorists, and common criminals back in the United States. In both cases, 80 percent of the suspects were between 18 and 25. This is the prime age for criminal and anti-social behavior, and has been for a long time. In the United States, it was also the case that young criminals tended to be poorly educated, and often illiterate. What was different with Islamic terrorism is that there was a lot of money available for dedicated (willing to die) soldiers of Islam. ...
The poor economic performance, and tendency not to allow women to be educated, leads to many young, ignorant, unemployed men. These are prime prospects for Islamic radical groups. The pitch is that it is all fault of someone else, and that if we kill enough of the right people (local tyrants, and their foreign allies), than all will be right again. It won't, it hasn't, but it works great for recruiting of the young, clueless and desperate.
It isn't simply a lack of jobs. Unemployed people around the world manage not to react by strapping on suicide vests or flying hijacked planes into buildings full of people. Seriously, that's not a normal reaction.
Radical Islam gives those unemployed--and unemployable, given their atrocious education options--young men an "honorable"--as defined by jihadis--alternative to playing video games; along with the cash to prove that the definition of Islam that glorifies killing has a base of support. And so lots of Moslems who don't share the jihadi definition of Islam die at jihadi hands.
Western military action is necessary to protect Westerners from the collateral damage by killing jihadis and by helping the majority of Moslems who don't want Islam to be a hate-filled murderous religion (but who are justifiably fearful of the murderous jihadis amidst them) so they can defeat the jihadis.
It's a Long War. And if we simply come home these murderous jihadis will follow us home. I highlighted this problem with fighting religion-fueled fanatics back in 1997, describing a lesson we should learn from Iraq's problem with going to war with revolutionary Islam-inspired Iran:
Not wanting to repeat our experience in Vietnam, many [Americans] speak of needing an "exit strategy" before committing troops. Such an approach seeks to minimize our losses under the assumption that we will at some point lose, so we had better know when to cut our losses and get out. It also assumes that the situation allows for an exit and that our enemy will allow it. The Iraqis desperately wanted out of the war they initiated in 1980 but were locked by Iran in a death grip that allowed for no easy exit.
An "exit strategy" against such an enemy just brings the battlefield closer to home. It may take two sides to wage war. But it only takes one side to kill on a possibly larger scale than what we've endured.
We are locked in a death grip with the jihadis. And while "mowing the grass" by killing jihadis is absolutely necessary, it isn't enough to win the war. That will require Moslems to win the Islamic Civil War over who defines Islam. And we need to help moderate Moslems win that struggle. Only then can we exit the war and safely come home.
UPDATE: My thoughts in the days following the attacks.
