Does fighting a great evil make it stronger?
I don't think so.
But that's the old -- and new -- meme in the war on terror.
Terrorism is the epitome of genuine evil because it consists of deliberately targeting innocent, non-combatant men, women and children as a primary strategy.
Is it counterproductive to fight this genuine evil? Some argue that in degrading the capabilities of Al Qaeda, the U.S. may be inspiring more attacks. Is is true?
Soccerdad responds to pundits:
I don’t buy this spin. If the United States is degrading the capabilities of Al Qaeda that’s a good thing. True, Al Qaeda may be adapting, but the way Sanger presents it, it makes Al Qaeda more dangerous. It’s as if they are arguing “that which kills Al Qaeda makes it stronger. That makes no sense.
Some years ago, Thomas Friedman described Hamas as a “…ragtag terrorist group.” His point was that Israel should stop fighting Hamas, because it only served to make them stronger. This is nonsense. Hamas (and Al Qaeda) may not be IBM (as Friedman noted) but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have some organizational structure. Those in leadership positions have specific skills in terms of their abilities to recruit and plan. Killing of the leaders necessarily degrades those capabilities.
What Sanger and Friedman do is ascribe as much importance to motive as to means and opportunity. If Al Qaeda is forced to failed bombing attempts instead of intricate terror plots that kill thousands, clearly the former is preferable. That doesn’t mean that that the latter isn’t possible, it just means that it is now a lot harder for Al Qaeda to pull off.
I don’t buy the spin that fighting Al Qaeda only makes them stronger.
I responded to similar arguments in the summer of 2007, when Harry Reid and his ilk in the Democratic Party were telling America -- completely inaccurately, as history has proven -- that the war in Iraq was irretrievably lost. If Al Qaeda Is "Evolving," Why Can't America's Iraq Strategy Evolve Too?:
Here's what passes for the conventional wisdom on Iraq: The war was badly planned and therefore is failing miserably. As a result, America's only option is to fold up the entire operation and slink away, leaving the Iraqis to whatever bloodbath awaits them. We've reached the point of no return; the war is irretrievably lost; and no amount of rethinking or redoubling of effort will make any difference.
Meanwhile, Al Qaeda's early losses in the war on terror, including the deaths of major leaders such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and possibly Osama Bin Ladin himself, are completely irrelevant, since Al Qaeda is "evolving" constantly and is planning mass casualty attacks on the U.S.:
Al Qaeda terrorists are rebuilding their capabilities and continuing to plan mass-casualty attacks inside the United States, according to an intelligence assessment made public yesterday.
"We assess [al Qaeda] has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in ... Pakistan [tribal areas], operational lieutenants and its top leadership," according to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a consensus analysis of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
"Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here," the report stated.
Retired Vice Adm. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence whose office produced the NIE, said the United States will face a "persistent and evolving terrorist threat" in the next three years.
The seven-page public summary of the classified report said the United States is in a "heightened threat environment."
"They're working as hard as they can in positioning trained operatives here in the United States," Mr. McConnell said. "They have recruitment programs to bring recruits into [the tribal] region of Pakistan [who] could come to the United States, fit into the population and then use some of the training that they receive in the Pakistani area for explosives and so on."
Is the contrast between the defeatism of the media in viewing America's chances in the Iraq war and the endless optimism for Al Qaeda's chances stark enough for you?
Al Qaeda remains a threat because it is "continuing to plan" further attacks and "will intensify its efforts" and its members are "working as hard as they can."
But when it comes to the Iraq war, working harder, intensifying efforts, rethinking, and continuing to plan are off the table for the United States. The only option we have is to rip our leaders from limb to limb, metaphorically speaking, for having started the war. Since things look bleak now, they're going to stay that way no matter what America does, and its only option is to turn tail and run.
Don't tell me we've tried long enough and hard enough in Iraq and there's no point in continuing any longer. Nonsense. Al Qaeda's attacks on the U.S. predate the Iraq war, but nobody seems to be pulling out a stopwatch and insisting that Al Qaeda's chances of striking a mortal blow at the U.S. or the West are forever lost.
What a fitting metaphor is Harry Reid's surrender slumberthon in the Senate tonight. Harry Reid knows how to lose a war he has already declared lost. The solution is quite simple: Lie down, accept defeat, and make no effort to prevail.
In the real world, the margin between victory and defeat is rarely great, but the outcome matters a great deal. The margin of victory usually turns on one thing: motivation. If we are motivated to win; if we are determined; if we are constantly "rebuilding our capabilities" and "continuing to plan" and "intensifying our efforts and "working as hard as we can," then there are very few forces on earth that can stand in our way.
By the same token, if we are frequently announcing that we've already lost and that our cause is hopeless, and holding slumberthons to protest our own nation's continued effort to prevail, then we certainly can bring about our own defeat.
Defeatism is for losers. Fighting genuine evil does not make it stronger. The only way evil can prevail in the world is for enough good men (and women, and whole nations) to do nothing.
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