Of course it is not working. Mainly because it is not a war so much as a popularity contest. Make been a Jihadi profoundly unpopular and the whole problem evaporates into the Desert sun.
It is a confrontation between a medieval way of life and the shock of modernism. Of course the losers get bent out of shape and strike out. Tactically we need to confront with our power and merely ask for focus and change. That should include a proper education in the Koran isolating those components that Jesus would never support.
Then we put a price on non compliance and that needs to be summary castration for recalcitrant mullahs and caught jihadist. This is easily administered and applied even if you no longer spend time there. The beauty of this approach is that all those so treated can return alive to help feed their families.,
No 70 virgins for them.
The ‘War On Terrorism’ Isn’t Working
If insanity is doing the same
thing over and over in the expectation of a different result, then our
foreign policy surely qualifies as madness.
Since 2001,
in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States has
been in a state of constant warfare: the Afghan conflict has been
ongoing since that time, the longest sustained combat in our history.
From
Iraq to Syria to Somalia and beyond, US forces and their proxies are
engaged in a “war on terrorism” that shows no signs of slowing down,
only expanding.
In Afghanistan, more than half the country is under the control
of the Taliban, the radical Islamist group that sheltered Osama bin
Laden – and they are now joined by ISIS, which has extended its
tentacles into that country.
In Iraq, after our war of
“liberation,” a civil war pitting Shi’ites against Sunnis is raging, and
terrorist attacks are the norm. The Iranians have extended their sphere
of influence into the country, and US troops are still fighting there,
despite the much-heralded “withdrawal.”
The focus of US military
action in the Middle East has now shifted to Syria, where a multi-sided
civil war has been raging ever since the so-called Arab Spring.
There
we have managed to destabilize the regime of Bashar al-Assad by
supporting alleged “moderate” Islamists, while we simultaneously fight
ISIS – which is tacitly supported by our “moderate” proxies. The result
has been a disaster of epic proportions: hundreds of thousands dead, as
refugees pour out of the country and into Europe.
Far from
winding down, the “war on terrorism” is constantly expanding. The latest
front is in Yemen – arguably the poorest country on earth – where our
Saudi allies, aided by the US, are slaughtering civilians, bombing
funeral processions, and setting off a famine that will kill many
thousands more.
And while al-Qaeda does indeed have an active
franchise in Yemen, the Saudis aren’t targeting them – they’re going
after the Houthis, a religious sect that is neither Sunni nor Shi’ite,
whose adherents are fighting both the Saudis and al-Qaeda.
The
Houthi-Saudi war started because Saudi missionaries were spreading Sunni
fundamentalism in their historic homeland: in short, the Houthis are
resisting the very extremism that provides terrorist groups like
al-Qaeda and ISIS with their base of support. Yet we are aiding Saudi
Arabia – the epicenter of global terrorism – in their merciless war of
aggression.
All this frenzied military action – the bombs, the
proxy armies, the “surges” – has led to precisely the opposite of its
intended result. If our “war on terrorism” was supposed to end or even
reduce the incidents of terrorism in the West, it must be judged an
absolute failure.
All across Europe, terrorists are swarming like
termites after a rain. We saw what happened yesterday [Monday] in
Manchester: the biggest attack in Britain since 2005, and the
culmination of a series of prior incidents. In France and Germany it’s
the same story.
And in the United States, the trail of post-9/11
terror follows the same pattern: far from diminishing, the number of
terrorist incidents is on the upswing. Sixteen years after the twin
towers fells, we are less safe – and less free.
Draconian
security measures are now taken for granted, and that includes not only
cumbersome rules and restrictions around airline flights but also
universal surveillance. Engulfed in a quagmire of perpetual war, we are
fast approaching the condition of a police state – with not even the
benefit of increased security.
Most ominously, the ranks of the
terrorist armies are swelling, as hatred of America and the West is
incorporated into the religious tenets of Islam.
Some argue that
Islam was always antithetical to Western values and norms, but this
debate is now rendered irrelevant as the cycle of violence and
repression makes this proposition a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The
roots of this disaster are in the presidency of George W. Bush: he and
his neoconservative advisors launched a war that was supposed to
transform the Middle East into a laboratory of “democracy” – exported by
force of arms.
The idea, as expressed by neoconservative
ideologues, was to “drain the swamp” of the Middle East, so altering the
environment in which the “mosquitoes” of terrorism lived and flourished
that they would be unable to produce a second generation.
Yet
we are now into the third generation – and they are more numerous than
ever, buzzing around Europe and even the US, stinging at will.
So what’s the solution?
Let’s start by acknowledging that what we’re doing isn’t working.
That’s half the battle right there.
The
other half involves winding down the multiple conflicts we’re presently
engaged in. Afghanistan is a hopelessly Sisyphean conflict that can
never be “won” – it’s long past time to get out. If the Iraqi government
we put in place is incapable of defending itself, then let them fall –
we can no more prevent that than King Canute could stop the tide from
coming in.
Syria is a catastrophe made in Washington: our
“regime change” policy doomed that country to perdition. We should have
the decency to recognize that, and stay out of their internal affairs:
let Assad and the Russians take care of their terrorist problem.
We here at Antiwar.com have been saying the same thing, consistently, since 2001.
Since
1995, Antiwar.com has been the premier voice of dissent when it comes
to our interventionist foreign policy. We said the Afghan war would
become a quagmire unless we took care of business and got out as quickly
as we went in – and so it came to pass.
We warned that the Iraq
war would be very far from a “cakewalk,” as some of the neocons assured
us, and that it would spread throughout the region – and we were right
about that, too. We said funding “moderate” Islamists in Syria was not
only a mistake, but also a crime – a crime, I might add, that is
ongoing, despite the campaign rhetoric of President Trump.
And
while it would be in poor taste to say “I told you so!” – well, we did
warn that the “war on terrorism” would result in more terrorism, not
less. Now we are living in that reality.
Yet still the voice of
the War Party dominates our national discourse. The same neocons who
authored this catastrophe are all over our national media, and are being
listened to – at least, by those in a position to make policy.
That’s why we need your help.
The
War Party is supported by big corporations that profit from our foreign
policy of constant conflict: and the “mainstream” media is their
biggest ally, the indispensable megaphone that allows them to broadcast
their message far and wide.
For over twenty years, Antiwar.com
has provided the essential counterpoint to their barrage of lies,
half-truths, and government-approved propaganda – but we can’t continue
to do it without your support.
We have managed to raise $32,000
in matching funds in the course of our current fundraising drive – but
we don’t get a penny of that money until and unless we get the
equivalent in smaller individual donations.
Now is the time for
you, our readers and supporters, to come through with the funding we
need to keep going. The American people are waking up: they are
wondering why they’re less safe despite the assurances of our leaders
that we’re “winning” the war on terror.
They’re beginning to
question the wisdom of our interventionist foreign policy, but they
don’t know how to answer the constant barrage of war propaganda funneled
by the “mainstream” media.
We have those answers – they’re in
every edition of this web site – but we need to bring them to a much
larger audience. You can help us do that by making your tax-deductible donation today.
By Justin Raimondo, Guest author
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