The real question is, "how many will pick up a bomb and try to kill us?" and "how much organization is devoted to doing it?" Very few, and none, in Pakistan.
I wouldn’t want to rely on that assumption, especially given what’s at stake.
We can never make a Muslim love us. Not unless we want to become one.
We don’t want to make them love us. We just want them to stop blowing us up. This is by no means impossible. How many terrorists do you see coming out of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, or Bahrain? They are as Muslim as anybody else, and if you ask their opinion, they aren’t at all happy with the US, but they are too busy making money and doing business – much of it with Americans – to act on those opinions.
We can dominate with force to a certain extent, but intimidating your enemies into submission is a dangerous game. They will grovel to us in public, but they will take any opportunity they can get to stab us in the back. Sooner or later one will catch us with our backs turned and get a tooth in, and it might be one with rabies. Reliance on intimidation may be a necessary tactic at times, but it is not a viable long term strategy.
It is also necessary to note that deterrence is only really effective when the potential aggressor is sure that the act will be traced to them. That makes it very effective against governments, which have no place to hide. If a terrorist group believes, accurately or inaccurately, that they can escape retailiation by dispersing and taking refuge in places where our military force can't reach them, deterrence will not work. Military suppression of governments that support terrorism will not eliminate terrorism. It will force terrorists to disperse and to operate in smaller and less connected cells. They will have to be more mobile and less dependent on open support from Governments. That will make them more dangerous, not less.
A lot of people here seem to assume that terrorists are a bunch of inept cowards who will quit if we stand up and strike back at them. That’s a very dangerous assumption. We have to assume that the enemy will adapt, and adopt a posture designed to negate our military advantage. |
