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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (28297)	2/9/2004 3:06:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793799

You may want to read these very recent articles. Though Thailand is not mentioned here, it too is a hotbed of terrorist activity and of course you know about the Philippines. The terror threat within the geographic limits you define is definitely significant and growing daily. There is nothing here I disagree with, and nothing here that’s new to me. I could actually add some bits here and there: I keep in fairly close touch with regional matters. I wasn’t trying to say there was no terror threat locally, but that the threat is structured in a way that would make large or even medium-scale troop deployments pointless and in most cases counterproductive. We may be seeing SF teams moving quietly in and out, for training and in rare cases operational missions, but even those will be limited. JI is a terrorist organization and a dangerous one, but it is in no way a military organization, and it cannot be effectively confronted by conventional military force. They are highly fragmented and dispersed over a wide area. These training camps you hear so much about are not permanent fixed installations: you’re looking at temporary collections of huts in the jungle with small groups working for limited periods of time. There’s also the small issue of sovereign rights: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are all American allies, and are all to some extent democratic. We aren’t going to invade them, and they aren’t going to allow significant American deployments. I’ve said for a long time that the real challenge of the war on terror is not going to be dealing with the terrorist presence in openly hostile states. The real challenge will be dealing with terrorist groups that are entrenched in states that are at least nominally friendly, but which lack the ability or will to move effectively against the terrorists and their supporters. That’s a much more difficult situation to manage, especially when the missing factor is will. If a new strike against the US is being prepared – and we have to assume that this is the case – the base for the preparations is more likely to be Bangkok, Brussels, or Marseille than Tripoli, Teheran, or Damascus. We know that’s the case, but we are not going to try and do regime change in Thailand, Brussels, or France. It’s not a war we can win with conventional military force. You won’t be seeing the 2nd ID marching into Sulawesi or Mindanao any time soon. I’m sure they’d like to march down Patpong Road, but they won’t be doing that either.