As we all celebrate this minor victory (it seems almost weekly now that an "al-Qaeda #" from country X is slain) we should also ponder this far more reaching question: will the slaying of individual terrorists -- be they Zawahiri or bin Laden -- have any real effects on the long term goals of the jihad? Will it eliminate the theological mandate of jihad and the division of the world into two perpetually warring halves -- Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb? Killing them off one by one is of course a very good thing. But let's always keep in mind the differences between symptom (terrorist) and cause (ideology).
"Top Al-Qaeda operative believed killed in Pakistan," from the Regional Times, October 20:
ISLAMABAD: A missile attack from a remotely piloted US aircraft is believed to have killed a senior member of Al Qaeda in South Waziristan, a former member of a militant group in the region said. The operative, Khalid Habib, an Egyptian who was chief of operations in Pakistan’s tribal region, was described by the CIA as the fourth-ranking person in the Qaeda hierarchy.
I have some semi-intimate knowledge of the crushing of a terrorist movement in Latin America and it seems that there are only two ways to end an indigenous terrorist movement: absolute destruction or humiliation. In the first, a dictatorship must be established and human rights disregarded. In the second, the group must be both soundly defeated and then persistently mocked and humiliated so that the average person begins to look at them as pathetic. It kills the recruitment pool. I have been disappointed that this lesson, which our military learned through covert ops in Latin America, is not being applied to the Middle East.
Killing these guys off, or neutralizing their effects (prison/jail) will not stop Islamic hegemony and the jihad that propels it.
This is because of the legions of wannabe's, who will fill the shoes of the slain. And believe as the slain believed, so jihad will continue.
As long as we have 'Fight them until', there will always be a jihad...
The slaying of individual terrorists who are high in the chain of al Qaeda can't be anything but beneficial. Al Qaeda is an organization that took years to build. Deconstructing it can only be to the good.
The mindset won't be eliminated, but terrorists need more than the will to kill. They also need the means. Al Qaeda provides the means for all too many people. It brings people together and the whole is stronger than the sum of the parts.
Whether or not it has the effect we wish it would have, the killing of these murderers is also just. It is retribution. It is deserved.
RAYMOND: "But let's always keep in mind the differences between symptom (terrorist) and cause (ideology)."
This is one "root cause" the Left has no interest in exploring.
I remain convinced that killing every jihaddi that rises to prominence, or even acquires a rep for effectiveness, privately within jihaddi circles, remains an important component of countering and defeating the jihad.
A component, mind you.
Not sufficient, and it may be debatable whether or not it is necessary (personally I'm inclined to think it is) but important.
The jihaddis must be repeatedly shown to be impotent.
The war of ideas is the central point of course.
And massive retaliation, social, financial and military against the supporters of jihad is necessary.
But successfully whacking the jihaddi mole every time he raises his psychotic head is part of breaking the spirit of the movement.
BTW, I second Cyril Lucar's comment above.
Albeit with the reservation that we never really stopped the Latin American communist movement, and they now hold Bolivia and Venezuela.
Joeblough is correct. Killing enemy officers is always a good idea. Doing so:
1.) degrades their command and control capability
2.) forces them to dig deeper into the barrel for replacements
3.) erodes their morale
4.) increases our morale
5.) makes it more likely that they will make a costly tactical error
Kill the leadership, defoliate the Poppy's, Destroy food shipments, Give them all no peace in the Winter.
Keep them Cold, Hungry and Broke. Desperate people make desperate decisions that only compound their troubles.
jihad is the symptom
imams, mullahs, muftis and ayatollahs are the vectors
islamic ideology is the plague
It's quite evident from the number and quality of kills that we're getting some good intelligence from the region. One wonders about the sources.
Are they Afghani refugees who've been recruited by Kabul to help the Americans? Are they local Pakistanis, and if so, were they recruited by the ISI to help the US (an improbable supposition), or were they recruited directly by us?
I would not disagree with you about the benefit in taking out the leaders, with the possible exception of segregated, isolated, life imprisonment, a la Abimael Guzmon in Peru, which avoids turning them into "martyrs." We may not have stopped communism, but we've pretty well relegated El Sendero Luminoso and (the other group that was massacred in the embassy) to insignificance.
We can almost never avoid a strong application of overwhelming force. But it is not enough that we cut down the trees, we have to salt the forest.
joeblough:
I would not disagree with you about the benefit in taking out the leaders, with the possible exception of segregated, isolated, life imprisonment, a la Abimael Guzmon in Peru, which avoids turning them into "martyrs." We may not have stopped communism, but we've pretty well relegated El Sendero Luminoso and (the other group that was massacred in the embassy) to insignificance.
We can almost never avoid a strong application of overwhelming force. But it is not enough that we cut down the trees, we have to salt the forest.
"In the first, a dictatorship must be established and human rights disregarded. In the second, the group must be both soundly defeated and then persistently mocked and humiliated so that the average person begins to look at them as pathetic."
-- from a poster above, describing how terrorist groups or movements in some parts of Latin America have been fought
Since it is clear, from the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences, that the hold of Islam on the minds of men is not to be uprooted by an Infidel invasion, the best way to weaken Islam is by doing two things:
1) letting the fissures -- ethnic, sectarian, economic -- within the Camp of Islam work their magic. A little propaganda, a little nudging, from outside, can help things along, but that is about it. Infidels can point out how Islam is a vehicle for Arab supremacism, and can detail just how this is supported by the texts, and by the behavior of Arab Muslims right now, and during the past centuries. Shi'a and Sunni in Iraq will go at it if only the Americans move aside, and that will worsen the already-tense relations of Sunnis with Shi'a in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (in the Eastern Province), Kuwait, Yemen, Lebanon, Pakistan. Constantly pointing to the failure of the rich Arab Muslims of the oil states to help other Muslims -- just look at how Pakistan, in desperate economic straits, has begged Saudi Arabia for preferential oil prices and has been completely ignored; just look at how the non-oil Muslim states have received tens of billions in Infidel aid, with more coming all the time, but nothing from the rich Arabs. This should be talked about all the time, and Western governments, ending their aid to Muslim states, should make clear that they can go to Saudi Arabia, with its trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund, and Kuwait with its half-trillion dollars, and the U.A.E. with something like $850 billion. Good God -- write about it, talk about it, don't drop it for a minute. Ask why the rich members of the Umma don't help out other Muslims, other members of the Umma? Keep it up.
2) Mockery and humiliation -- this can occur quite easily, because Muslim defensiveness, Muslim taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, Muslim hysteria over the slightest thing (mention, in any public gathering with Muslims, little Aisha and see what happens)--can be so easily provoked and then that hysteria be exploited. Become adept at getting right to the heart of the unspeakable matter, and hark, what discord follows!
And keep that up, too.
Letting the fissures work their magic; mockery and humiliation might work but they need one condition attached to them before they have the slightest chance: not a single Muslim, no matter how moderate or pro-Western he or she might be, moves outside the Muslim world.
That must include people like Ayaan Hirsi-Ali. As long as they remain Muslim, even if it's cultural, they remain a danger. The fact is, we can't distinguish the Hirsi-Alis from the Attas. Look at the woman who claimed to be the victim of a hate crime. She was given the benefit of the doubt by the university. We can't keep doing that.
We have Tariq Ali blaming America for all of Pakistan's troubles and going on his book tour and doing interviews on C-SPAN. Americans are going to give him their hard-earned money.
The presence of American troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the reason for Pakistan's failure to advance since independence. Islam itself was cleared as a reason. It seems everything is the fault of the Pakistani Army throwing its lot in with America during the Cold War. Meanwhile, not a word is said about the presence of Muslim warriors in the Western world.
PMK -
I don't see Ayaan Hirsi Ali as being in any discernible sense at all, a Muslim.
She is a publicly self-declared atheist and apostate, as much so as Ibn Warraq or Ali Sina or Wafa Sultan, and as such, carries a price on her head. (Or would you only believe she was really an apostate, after she was assassinated?)
Her allegiance is given to the Western Enlightenment, to Reason, and I personally see no cause, in any of the interviews I have watched, or the writings I have read, to doubt the sincerity of that allegiance.
And she certainly does not pull any punches in her critique of Islam, nor in the advice she gives about actions needed to resist Jihad and Sharia - for example, she has openly, specifically declared that Islamic schools should not be permitted to be established within the non-Muslim lands. No Islamic schools - period. Imagine if *that* piece of advice were followed by all our Western governments, and all existing Islamic schools were shut down, and none were permitted to be built! One less headache...