Keep Pushing!
Wretched over at the Belmont Club has another excellent blog on the current state of affairs on the War on Terror in the Middle East.
Read the whole thing here but what follows is worth noting:
'Militant' groups have often attempted to stabilize the front whenever events threatened to take a direction which they could not control. This usually took the form of a spoiling terrorist attack to re-mire things in blood, chaos and hatred as often happened during negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. It would not be surprising if the terror masters fell back on this old repertoire by staging attacks directed not only at Middle Eastern targets but at the United States to throw back the threatening psychological wave. The problem is that there is no longer any widespread confidence, even in the places like Lebanon, that terror tactics will prevail. To that extent even the most heinous attacks, like the carbomb which recently killed more than 100 in Iraq, have lost their bite. Psychologically speaking, the greatest contribution of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns is that they have shattered terrorism's myth of invincibility. The terrorists embarked on a maximum effort to dislodge the US from Iraq, employing every weapon of violence, political maneuver and propaganda they could muster and came up much the worse for wear. This lesson has not been lost to public perception and has emboldened dissidents all across the region.
The real challenge will be to find ways to respond to the campaign of spoiling terror which may be forthcoming. Unlike Iraq, where US forces can respond directly to challenge, the problem will be the ability of the US to affect events over the wider region in clandestine or indirect ways. Tempo is America's friend, but the enemy is even now looking for a place to stem the rot.
That is the terrorists are going to try to strike back, they are going to try to do something to slow down what is happening in the Middle East. The terrorists are probably working on another attack on the USA homeland. The attack even if it is on the order of magnitude of the 9/11 attacks are not going to be significant enough to cause a large scale military action to draw away forces from Iraq but it would be aimed at the American psyche.
Even though the jihadis and baathists in Iraq are on their heels we must continue to push on them until they are down and dead. If we let up now they can regroup and return to power. We must not let this happen. The terrorists know this as well as anyone and are going to try to psyche us out.
First we all hope (perhaps tonight's speaker at UW-Whitewater is an exception) all attempts at a terrorist strike on the USA fail miserably but that is just hope. Secondly we must steel ourselves for it. A stike will be greeted by many on the left as just retribution for Iraq and will steel them and their calls for withdrawl from Iraq. Those of us close to the political center and on the right (with the paleo exception) must be prepared for this.
Keep pushing!
Read the whole thing here but what follows is worth noting:
'Militant' groups have often attempted to stabilize the front whenever events threatened to take a direction which they could not control. This usually took the form of a spoiling terrorist attack to re-mire things in blood, chaos and hatred as often happened during negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. It would not be surprising if the terror masters fell back on this old repertoire by staging attacks directed not only at Middle Eastern targets but at the United States to throw back the threatening psychological wave. The problem is that there is no longer any widespread confidence, even in the places like Lebanon, that terror tactics will prevail. To that extent even the most heinous attacks, like the carbomb which recently killed more than 100 in Iraq, have lost their bite. Psychologically speaking, the greatest contribution of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns is that they have shattered terrorism's myth of invincibility. The terrorists embarked on a maximum effort to dislodge the US from Iraq, employing every weapon of violence, political maneuver and propaganda they could muster and came up much the worse for wear. This lesson has not been lost to public perception and has emboldened dissidents all across the region.
The real challenge will be to find ways to respond to the campaign of spoiling terror which may be forthcoming. Unlike Iraq, where US forces can respond directly to challenge, the problem will be the ability of the US to affect events over the wider region in clandestine or indirect ways. Tempo is America's friend, but the enemy is even now looking for a place to stem the rot.
That is the terrorists are going to try to strike back, they are going to try to do something to slow down what is happening in the Middle East. The terrorists are probably working on another attack on the USA homeland. The attack even if it is on the order of magnitude of the 9/11 attacks are not going to be significant enough to cause a large scale military action to draw away forces from Iraq but it would be aimed at the American psyche.
Even though the jihadis and baathists in Iraq are on their heels we must continue to push on them until they are down and dead. If we let up now they can regroup and return to power. We must not let this happen. The terrorists know this as well as anyone and are going to try to psyche us out.
First we all hope (perhaps tonight's speaker at UW-Whitewater is an exception) all attempts at a terrorist strike on the USA fail miserably but that is just hope. Secondly we must steel ourselves for it. A stike will be greeted by many on the left as just retribution for Iraq and will steel them and their calls for withdrawl from Iraq. Those of us close to the political center and on the right (with the paleo exception) must be prepared for this.
Keep pushing!
posted by Marcus Aurelius at 7:52 PM
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