>>I believe that the inability of essential leaders to lead the goals of terrorism (because they are dead) is prima facie evidence that Bill's remark that "killing terrorists lessens their ability to attack" is not challengeable. I believe, however, that you did challenge said assertion (with qualification to follow) in spite that you agree with me that the death of essential terrorist leaders would compromise their personal ability to plot against us. I believe that their personal ability to plot against us is linked to the overall ability of terrorists carte blanche to instigate attacks.
To put it another way: I believe that ten terrorists are likely to present less danger than 10,000 terrorists--and I think that was the gist of what Bill was saying.<<
Solon -
That first paragraph is so convoluted it's difficult to follow. Trying to decipher your train of thought there would be like going down a rabbit hole.
It's probably true that ten terrorists are likely to present less danger than 10,000, though I will note that the attacks of 9/11 were planned and executed by a number of people much closer to ten than ten thousand.
Once again, the majority of the terrorists in the world aren't in Iraq. They're spread out all over the globe. Our military force concentrated in Iraq is not even making a dent in their number, despite the extraordinarily high price we are paying in lives, money, and the damage to our international standing.
What I'm saying is that we're expending a huge effort to go after a relatively small number of terrorists. It's analogous to fighting the ten, and leaving the ten thousand alone.
>>So I guess what confuses me, Allen is this: If you don't believe that killing terrorists is an effective tool in the struggle to stop terrorists from having the ability to kill us (in spite that you acknowledge that dead terrorists no longer have the ability to direct terrorist goals), then what is an alternative?<<
I believe that conventional military power is not effective against a shadowy enemy that is geographically dispersed, hides among civilians, and can keep a very low profile for months and years between attacks.
The fight against terrorism has to be waged on multiple fronts. On the military side, surgical missions by Special Ops forces guided by good Intelligence would be more effective than large armies. We desperately need better Intelligence. We have to go after their sources of funding.
Oh, and despite the fact that conservatives think the approach has been discredited, I believe law enforcement is an important and effective part of the fight.
But we also need to stop giving our enemies so much good recruiting ammunition. We have to actually live up to our principles as a nation. We can't torture people and deny them basic rights while holding ourselves up as morally superior.
We can't try to impose our values upon other nations by force. We have to stop alienating the people in other countries who could be helping us.
When we throw our weight around, we simply help to convince more of the moderate people in places like Iran that we're evil and that we're a danger to them. More and more of them become susceptible to the propaganda of the radicals.
We will never win the battle for hearts and minds with bullets and bombs.
- Allen |
