My Thoughts on the War on Terror

I was reading another post, where someone was talking about how the war on terror is unwinnable. I thought about this for a while, and, after deep thought and, three beers...came up with my own analysis on the War on Terror. To put my position in perspective, lets just say that I work within the community (no not the terrorist community). I see and read about things happening all day that that I wouldn't dare tell my wife (if I could). My thoughts on the current situation takes me back, for lack of a better example, to the early years before the US was a Nation.

The British military was the undisputed world power of the 18th centrury. Their strength came from their tactics using an ordered and structured military that fought wars against like-minded militaries that used similar tactics. However, when confronted with guerilla tactics, as used by the French and their Indian allies during the French and Indian War, the British Army could not compete. Simply stating, they played by rules of war at the time, their opponent did not.

Fast forward to the War on Terror. We, the US, abide by the law of land warfare. We give comfort to the enemy when taken prisoner (Abu Gharif aside...the work of misguided idiots), we use tactics that are well known and comercially available in the form of public dispersed manuals, and we generally have an intrinsic vallue on human life. On the other hand, or enemy will take hostages, execute them for public display, resort to guerrilla tactics, and generally have nothing to live for besides the wish to invoke death.

An enemy that holds life as less value than a political statement will win any war. They will win because they have nothing to live for and nothing to lose.

However, if the US changes their tactics to play on the same level as the terrorists, the US loses. The aim of the US is to change not only regimes, but a school of thought. Our pitch is that we have a better way to live though freedom and liberty. How do you convince someone that has never tasted freedom or liberty that our way is right? It's like trying to convince someone that your cooking is better than theirs.

Our goal in this War on Terror is to protect the safety and security of the citizens of the US. In doing so, I feel that the direction we have taken has misguided the public to the real dangers. The danger is the thinking that the ends justify the means. To deny the liberty that the Constitution provides, even to those even not subject to it, is to tell the terrorists they win.

I'm not saying that some level of protection is warranted in the homeland, I'm saying that any idea that we can change the thinking of the terrorists with terror is seriously mistaken. The real victor of the War on Terror will be the first to change their way of life without sacrificing their religion.

So in closing, go out and buy yourself a HUMMER to keep the economy going!!! To hell with the environment. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but look at your life and make a choice for what's best for you and the future of America.

Rome did not lose to the biggest army, but to barbarians, greed, and lethargy.

Abu Ghraib may appear to be an aside, but I doubt it, since it was leaked. It is no secret that the US will often ship certain captives off to middle Eastern states for interrogation at the hands of the merciless so as to appear removed from the bloody inquisition to follow. That does not make the US any better than the interrogators. Now if I read correctly, the US just released some 300 or so Guantanamo detanees who were held for three years. What a waste or time and expense for the most part save for the few they hope to track in an effort to obtain something more concrete.

That said, the issue I have with what is happening today is how this "war on terror," an euphamism I detest, by virtue of it being an open and perpetual battle against a tactic, is being waged. The US has a choice, a continued lobbing of a number of thousand pound bombs on various supposed terrorist hideouts thereby creating enemies of the families of victims, and needless loss of life of military personnel because of invasions such as Iraq, or the use of covert operations. I prefer the latter approach, in that, fewer innocents are killed and therefore fewer enemies created; fewer military personnel are killed; the cost is drastically reduced; the citizenry are not concerned about the slaughters on either side as they are reduced to a news story on the second to last page, if that.

My two positions may seem at odds with each other, but they are actually not, for to be covert means little is told to the public, and the acts though as heinous as the terrorists' is a more equitable, and more reasonable fire for fire approach.