There Is a Military Solution to Terror

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 6/3/08 | BRET STEPHENS

[Dawnsblood]

The deeper problem here is the belief that the best way to deal with insurgents is to address the "root causes" of the grievance that purportedly prompted them to take up arms. But what most of these insurgencies seek isn't social or moral redress: It's absolute power. Like other "liberation movements" (the PLO comes to mind), the Tigers are notorious for killing other Tamils seen as less than hard line in their views of the conflict. The failure to defeat these insurgencies thus becomes the primary obstacle to achieving a reasonable political settlement acceptable to both sides.

This isn't to say that political strategies shouldn't be pursued in tandem with military ones. Gen. David Petraeus was shrewd to exploit the growing enmity between al Qaeda and their Sunni hosts by offering former insurgents a place in the country's security forces as "Sons of Iraq." (The liberal use of "emergency funds," aka political bribes, also helped.) Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has more than just extended amnesty for "demobilized" guerrillas; he's also given them jobs in the army.

But these political approaches only work when the intended beneficiaries can be reasonably confident that they are joining the winning side. Nobody was abandoning the FARC when Mr. Pastrana lay prostrate before it. It was only after Mr. Uribe turned the guerrilla lifestyle into a day-and-night nightmare that the movement's luster finally started to fade.

Defeating an insurgency is never easy even with the best strategies and circumstances. Insurgents rarely declare surrender, and breakaway factions can create a perception of menace even when their actual strength is minuscule. It helps when the top insurgent leaders are killed or captured: Peru's Shining Path, for instance, mostly collapsed with the capture of Abimael Guzmán.

[rfp1234]

Israel has shown that, with its effective targeted eliminations of Hamas leaders.

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for your consideration

[Yo-Yo]

Revolt Within Al Qaeda?
Aired: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 10-11AM ET

Osama bin Laden , left, and his top lieutenant Egyptian Ayman Al Zawahri, television image broadcast Sunday, Oct. 7, 2001 (AP, file)

By host Tom Ashbrook

The big news in Western media out of Al Qaeda country lately is that Al Qaeda is in trouble. That the spearhead of global terrorism is being rejected by mainstream Muslims sick of death and destruction, even rejected by onetime theorists of jihad.

New Yorker magazine reporter Lawrence Wright has gone deep on what he calls "the rebellion within," and he joins me today. Also with us, Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, who voices skepticism on Al Qaeda's reported setbacks from the frontlines in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This hour, On Point: Testing Al Qaeda's "rebellion within."

Listen here

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[Valin]

Thanks..fascinating

[Tolik]

I think nobody put that better than Osama himself when he was spouting about strong horse v weak horse. What percentage of military brute muscle is in the making of strong horse can be different depending on the specifics on the ground (as general Petraeus demonstrated). What is without any doubt is that opposite is true - you can’t be a strong horse if you can’t support your claim with military muscle.

Opponents of the military force usually bring a straw man of using it indiscriminately, left and right, killing everything that moves, etc. Which is stupid, of course. And our military is anything but stupid. They learned how much and where to use the force.