A question to all you in uniform out there
A new blog, called “The Officers’ Club” (which I have become quite the fan of) has an article on the assymetric nature of fighting terror. To the point, how do you do, without giving up your principles.
For some time now, I’ve been pointing out that the War on Terrorism (and the War in Iraq…which is a fundamental component of the GWOT) can be divided into two completely separate conflicts. The first is the military conflict, the struggle to find and defeat our enemies.
The second is the political battle. And that battle can be -and has been- overlooked in the past.
Back in the summer of 2003, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel with Cliff May’s Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The thrust of the trip was to examine how a democracy handled the challenges of fighting an unending asymmetrical conflict, without compromising the high ideals of an open society.
There, I listened in on a lecture by an Israeli Defense Force Colonel that sticks with me to this day. “We Israelis,” she said, “have militarily won this fight time and time again. What we didn’t realize is that while we were off fighting the physical battle, the Palestinian terror organizations were off winning the political one.”
Israel stands today largely isolated from the rest of the world, for no other reason that they were attacked, and that they won, whether it was in 1948, 1967, 1973, or during the years of the first and second Intafada.
We were attacked and right now we are winning. There have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11, and the global war on terror is confined to the theatres where we have chosen to fight it.
But each military victory against terrorists can be a political victory for terrorists.
The political battlet is one that every American and every like-minded citizen of the world can fight. It requires an allegiance to our high ideals of democracy, a scorn for those who would attack those ideals, and a voice to affirm those convictions.
The War in Iraq and the greater War on Terror are fights that will be won or lost on the shores of the United States, not Afghanistan or Iran.
The author is right - the political dimension to this fight continues to favor the Jihadis solidly. Frankly, I have little confidence that we will win the political aspect of this fight; the media has demonstrated its’ fealty to the Jihadi cause time and time again, and they still form so much public opinion.
I feel increasingly that a democracy CANNOT fight and win such a battle AND stay true to it’s principles 100%. I get the feeling that sooner or later, in order for victory to be attained, a double standard HAS to be imposed on these Jihadis - WE are right, YOU ARE WRONG.
Sadly, such non-relativistic thinking is taboo, but that is EXACTLY what must be annunciated for this socio-cultural war to be won.
So - the question: what does your leadership training tell you? And does that conflict with what (I was taught) is the 1st objective of leadership - Accomplish The Mission. (The assumption here is that the Mission is to render AQ, and by extension RadIslam, toothless, or dead even.)