It’s Not Al-Qaeda Any More (Stupid)

We’ve been fighting this ‘war on terror’ for five years now and it’s time to look back and take stock of exactly how we are doing. Are we winning or losing? I think the jury’s still out. We certainly have won some victories: the Taliban were quickly pushed out of power in Afghanistan and there have been several plots thwarted by the authorities. Certainly according to the journalists I've heard, Al-Qaeda has been seriously crippled. But there have been too many setbacks as well.

Even if you didn’t agree with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq (moot at this point anyway), he and his aides certainly have done a poor job of prosecuting this war. We began it before we finished in the Afghani hills, taking needed soldiers away from that fight, tried to invade on the cheap with too few troops, had absolutely no plan for any aftermath, no contingencies for ethnic violence from formerly repressed groups (as exemplified in Yugoslavia after Tito’s death), and have generally continued to fumble around like blind men looking for the exit. We’ve wasted significant lives, time and resources on a war we never should have waged in the first place. Having said that, of course, now comes the hard part. We can’t leave. Not now. If we do, the insurgents will claim victory and be emboldened, just like the administration says. Even a broken clock’s right twice a day.

More potentially serious, even more than the quagmire in Iraq, is the resurgence of the Taliban. They are taking the battle to our forces and causing significant problems. The NATO commander has stated the level of fighting is more intense than in Iraq and has begged for thousands more troops. The Afghans have lots of experience in fighting prolonged guerrilla wars of attrition with invaders – remember what they managed to do to the Russians – and we need to avoid those pitfalls, otherwise the Taliban resurgence will put us in another quagmire. Sadly, other than invoking the occasional convenient historical reference, this administration apparently has no one who has cracked open a history book on that region (or any other).

But the most grave issue, and potentially the most dangerous, is that the United States is doing nothing to 'win the hearts and minds' of the average Muslim. If we lose them, then the terrorists will find ready and willing help from a growing segment of the general population, become even more brash and even more dangerous. And believe me, groups like Al-Qaeda are doing their level best to convince the general population they act in the best interests of Muslims and the U.S. does not. Most of the Lebanese did not support Hizbollah – that is, before the war. Now? Now, even amongst the Christians, Sunnis and Druze, Hizbollah’s support is surging. If we continue down the path we’re traveling, we risk losing the average Muslim. And if we do that, heaven help us, because the terrorists will enjoy popular support they currently don’t and will become many times more dangerous than they are now.