[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGtXIYUVm7Y[/youtube]
“We cannot let the terrorists win, we must stay the course!”
I think sentiments like this miss the forest for the trees. Terrorism relies on the principle that a small, rogue group can perform violent, targeted attacks on a population that causes them to change policy and expend resources in responding to the fear and terror generated by an event that the terror group could never dream of replicating on a large scale.
By that definition the terrorists have won. We have launched two wars, spilt the blood of thousands of men and women, maimed and killed thousands of civilians, and spent trillions of dollars and continue to spent billions in the midst of a recession. Am I saying we should have done nothing? No. But we are running ourselves into the ground for a group that has become very small.
My biggest worry is that we are going to have another terrorist attack and it will whip up our commitment to stay our current course. There will be future attacks: when you look at people like the potential Time Square bomber there is simply no way to catch every lone wolf or tiny cell of terrorists. But will we let the fear they are trying to place in our hearts take root? Will we realize that this is not a conventional war fought by land or air but instead in the minds and hearts of Afghanis and other civilians around the world who become radicalized by our military and policy missteps?
I simply do not think we should be in Afghanistan the way we are now (leave a targeted, focused police force, not an occupying army). I hope President Obama and General Petraus will move in that direction in the coming months.
I agree, but I don't believe any administration, however well intentioned, is that committed to sanity — the answer to defusing sympathy for terrorists (which leads to new recruits) would require foreign policy changes resulting in large-scale sacrifice from our fat and comfortable country over multiple administrations, and that is a political non-starter. All administrations from now on will have to be viewed as "doing something about it" even if that action is counterproductive in the long run. One could say that nations like Britain, who have had many terrorist attacks are the example to follow (their populace knows how to continue on with their lives and not react hysterically in the way the terrorists desire). Part of this is probably due to their recent experience with war on their own shores (a civilian populace more stoic in the face of violence after WWII), partly because they acknowledged (silently) their role in provoking the anger of the IRA, partly because UK citizens would have been the "collateral damage" in any broad military retaliation, and partly because the heat of Northern Ireland's righteous indignation would have been immediately felt by England in such an instance. As long as we're geographically distant from our target and entrenched in the Military Industrial Complex, I doubt any administration (Republican or Democratic) would choose any route than the one that has been chosen in dealing with terrorism. The voting public simply won't put up with the alternative.