If we devolve into revenge, that's the same trap the M.E. has been in for centuries. There is no way out, except extermination. Not good.
That's why the question of "What is Success?" is important and especially urgent, not that the administration refuses to define it.
If we slap "evildoers" with 30-day war, after overwhelming evidence of the guilt of the nation-state, that's one thing. If we pursue questionable attacks that don't show results in the form of greater security here at home, it misses the point.
What I'm hearing from the administration misses the original point of being American: "we can have terrorism, we can live with that, and we'll keep adventuring abroad into other countries' arguments". America was not invented to be another overextended Roman Empire, with disputes everywhere in the world that wasted their assets and caused their demise.
Our strength is in our people, our enterprise, and our military, in that order. Instead they've got it bass-ackwards, leading with the military chin, content with leaving us open for a right cross to the noggin, by suiciders, of which there is apparently an unlimited supply.
The only way to fight suiciders is not give them a reason to feel they are being exterminated. That's the only reason they can muster suicide volunteers. That's the only way we can avoid a war (or wars) of extermination. |
