I dunno.
Iraq seems to sink deeper into fratricide. Afghanistan seems to be getting hairier.
But are we losing the war on terror? No way. These people are incapable of holding a single square mile of turf anywhere on this earth unless we let them. Radical Islamis mocked the US about the Iraqi city of Fallujah, saying the US would get its comeuppance there especially after we withdrew for aesthetic reasons the first time.
Well, we turned half of it into ash, and as for the rest, people can live there if they want.
As persistent as cockroaches are, they can never take over. They can never win. Unless we do nothing, of course. There might be a best way to kill cockroaches, and maybe we haven't found it yet. But you just keep stomping, and life goes on.
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As long as we think the war on terror is about "holding turf" the terrorists will continue to gain ground where it matters. Wake up. This is the twenty-first century, and it's ideological territory that matters.
The commitment to continue to stomp out cockroaches is a gain in ideological territory.
The ideological turf of the Arab street always has been, and always will be, of secondary importance.
Cock Roaches? That's a frightening metaphor to get into, Tom. Because the best way to kill cock roaches is to put a tent over the whole frickin' house and gas them.
I don't think that's a road we want to go down.
Your point that we can't lose unless we give up is a good one. However, it brings up a question. Can we win a war that never ends?
Sometimes I think the best soltuion is either forward to imperialism, or a complete disengagement including a cessation of Muslim immigration.
There's an element missing here: some sort of standard by which to arrive at a "winning" or "losing" evaluation. That's notably absent from the national debate over the subject, too.
Some would demand that we utterly eliminate all terrorist organizations currently extant before claiming that we're winning. Others would call for a softer standard: an acceptable degree of success at preventing the execution of terror attacks on our soil. There are many positions between those two poles, none of which could be invalidated a priori.
Really, it's about what the evaluator of the moment would settle for.
Exactly. The West is starting to learn what it's like to be an Israeli, and has been since its founding. Welcome to the real world, folks.
There's no such thing as "safe," only fluctuating levels of threat, depending on the Islamicist weather.
And it was good that many Israelis got training in New York City, too, not only for the threat of fellow man, but learning how to deal with cockroaches, too.
Every day that doesn't find you annihilated is a win.
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