Quote: Analogies are slippery. Let's dispense with them, lest we end up talking about everything from here to ancient Babylon.
Not going to be that easy, Jester ;). Show where they break down with modern day and I will dispense with them. If you can't, then I assert they're still appropriate to modern day.
The Marshall plan of Europe, especially as it applied to our enemies, ended the base for continued threat from either country. On the other hand, the containment policy via the Treaty of Versailles was an abject failure which ruined the economies of friend and foe alike and led to the tidal wave of hatred that Hitler rode to the Chancellory. See any similarities with our sanctions on Iraq? I sure do. I again submit that the spirit of the Marshall plan is exactly the policy that will work in Afghanistan and Iraq if we can prevent Al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria from tearing it down.
Then there's any number of analogies I can make where other countries claimed our goals were futile and we succeeded anyway. That doesn't mean that this will be a guaranteed success, only that you'll need more basis for your assertion than "I feel that it's really, really hard" to have credibility for me or other Americans. Now, I think the point your trying to make is that any action will make it worse so we shouldn't do anything. That one, we'll have to wait and see. But if Afghanistan and/or Iraq go from the provisional constitutions into a functioning government (which will probably look really weird to all of us due to their unique situations), then the case will be settled. Those two we can expect to see within 2-5 years and a high rate of probability of success if we can protect them.
If Iran crumbles under its own weight because of oppressed Iranians looking across the border for what they want, that will be even more (I hear conflicting reports on the chance of that occuring however). If Saudi Arabia loses both it's energy and religious influence due to changing of neighboring Islamic countries around them (and that would be a looooong time in the making I'm certain if ever), that would be astounding. Those two are less certain and would require at least a generation.
Quote:The kind of terrorism that is most dangerous from an international standpoint, the Al Qaeda brand of terrorism, has a few key features. First, it is religiously based. That means they recruit their leaders from the terribly rich, and their agents from the lost and the angry. They are rational only from their own absurd assumptions.
I agree with you here.
Quote:They are too dangerous for most countries to support.
After 9/11, and only overtly, yes. They may be too dangerous to support openly but they're too dangerous to some dictators to oppose either. Therein lies the problem. However, I'm still boggled that the Taliban gave us our reason on a platter and ditto with Sadaam other than them both buying into their own hype.
Quote:Motives are also key. What is Al Qaeda angry about? A few things. First, the state of the Arab nations, something I agree with them about, although their solution, to return to fundamentalism, is insane. Specifically, the Saudi monarchy is odious. To Al Qaeda, they are decadent hypocrites occupying the holy sites. Second, they're pissed off about Israel.
So long as both Saudi Arabia and Israel are clients of the USA, undercutting Al Qaeda support is basically impossible. Further, any attack from that angle is, by the current "war on terror" ideology, giving in to terrorism. Now, that suits Mr. Bin Laden just fine, since he doesn't really want to make peace with anyone anyway; he wants to blow up infidels in the name of Allah.
That last line undercuts the very point you were trying to make. Your point is that if we cave on Israel (didn't we already remove most of our troops from Saudi Arabia which was Bin Laden's primary gripe), then even though Bin Laden and crew will still want to wage a war on terrorism, that there will be only about 5 people on planet Earth that Bin Laden will still be able to recruit (or whatever number you would deem to be small enough to declare success) so that he'll be undercut. It's all I can assume you were trying to say because you talk about Saudi Arabia and Israel as what we have to do to undercut Al Qaeda.
Instead, I assert that if we don't change the climate over there at its root by promoting freedom there, then everything else is window dressing. If we completely caved on Saudi Arabia on Israel, hell, if we marched all Israelis into the sea and let Bin Laden himself personally rape each of thier bloated corpses, he, as you pointed out, would still continue to operate as usual since he's not interested in peace. Instead, he'd move to Arabic poverty, or MTV, or relgious pluralism in Canada and the US, or just the fact that there aren't enough dead white people or Christians or Jews or Atheists yet. The man is the master of the shifting goalposts and to run behind him to try to keep up with his demands is to die tired.
And others, with goals similar to his, would continue to fund him which Bin Laden and crew would still continue to use to fund their propoganda and menial assistance of the poor to gin up support. That's what gets him much of his support, similar to Hamas in Palestine, it's that they give peanuts to the poor so they look like heroes so that everything they say is taken as gospel (well...Koran...ish...I guess). The religous backdrop and the talking points are all window dressing on top for us foolish foreigners to look and have some empathy with them.
Quote:If the options to undercut them are off the table...
They are. Off the table, swept up, and thrown in the cash.
Quote:...that leaves us with preventing each operation to minimize the harm done.
Didn't work on 9/11. Didn't work in Turkey. Didn't work in Bali. Didn't work in Madrid. Won't work anywhere. Sorry, it's a fools game. Prevention is just for minimizing harm while we solve the problem. If we're not going to solve the problem, an endless process of prevention is doomed to fail. Poland learned that lesson in 1939.
Quote:Intelligence is our only weapon. Infiltrate what we can, buy agents if possible, try to keep a close eye on them.
Are really willing to do all it takes to back that up? Get in bed with less than virginal people? Crude means of interrigation? Intelligence can't be your only weapon and then at the same time shout the mantra that it's supporting civil rights at all costs.
Quote:Whatever you do, don't popularize them. Downplay their importance on the outside, keep at them covertly. Don't do their recruiting for them.
We tried that process of ignore and marginalize for 20 years. We're supposed to try that for 20 more?