It's not rocket science, A. We've discussed this at length in this forum. See http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63611 and reference: http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/02/shame-guilt-muslim-psyche-and-danish.html
The important lesson from the past is, or should be at least, that the West can not make the Islamic threat go away through conventional warfare. We might as well completely discard any thought of that. That's not to suggest that we should not protect ourselves, ignore the danger, or apologize. But the mere idea of trying to eliminate this kind of threat through military action is lunacy. That can never succeed and will with absolute certainty make matters worse, not better.
piezoe makes some interesting points. Others do as well, but I want focus on his. I believe Scheuer is spot on correct about our war fighting, but piezoe is correct as well. Under current customs of civilized warfare, we cannot inflict the kind of damage Scheuer recommends. But without doing so, we cannot defeat a foe who is able to mix with local quasi civilians, ie locals who are not active fighters but who harbor them. The obvious lesson is we need to either change the way we fight wars or we need to be far more modest in our goals. We overthrew both the taliban and Saddam Hussein in a matter of weeks. It was the aftermath that was the problem. We could have just pulled out and left things for the locals to sort out through civil war. Instead, we embarked on idiotic nation-building exercises, failing to appreciate that corrupt and illiterate afghans are not the same as post WW II Germans and Japanese. Alternatively, we could have laid waste to both countries and any surrounding countries that tried to meddle, ie Iran and Pakistan. This approach might have worked out better in iraq than afghanistan, since there isn't a whole lot in afhganistan to lay waste to. People tend to be more docile and accepting when they are starving. In Iraq we had a middle course, but we were too wimpy to follow it. We should have seized their southern oil fields. We could have easily defended them. What happened outside that area was not our concern. The Kurds already had the northern part of the country, and they were on our side. So we would have taken the only thing in Iraq that had any value, and left them to sort out their religious and ethnic squabbles. "World opinion" would not have approved. Who cares? they didn't approve anyway. We shgould at least be able to thank Bush and Obama for showing us how not to handle these adventures. Sadly, no one seems to have learned that lesson, so we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
What's lunacy is thinking we can elminate the threat by playing nice. You are correct to the degree that what passes for modern day military action has failed and will continue to fail. Playing cop with a few drone assassinations just pisses them off even more. So if we can't have a rational conversation with the lunatics, and if playing cop doesn't work, what's left? Unconventional warfare, that's what. Complete annihilation of the region. Yeah, yeah, such a terrible thing to even consider, but anyone with even a shred of honesty knows that the only way peace comes to that region is when they're all dead. No doubt we'll keep wringing our hands and hoping. We'll have the best seats in the house to observe our own destruction in the process.
Ultimately our criminal justice system has to adjust to the realities required by active organized domestic terrorists. The death penalty should be in force in all states, fast tracked by a time limit on sentencing to execution in cases of terrorism. More life in prison and perhaps executions for mere conspiracy to commit terrorism. We also need to wise up stop all new immigration of muslims. Eventually we may have to outlaw Islam and make it a crime punishable by life in prison or deportment. Perhaps controlled martyrdom is the answer: Just let them blow themselves up where they can't harm anyone else.
There's plenty of hate going around. Why be concerned about the Muslims hating US ? The Europeans hate Germany for insisting on austerity. The Europeans still hate US. Obama & the Democrats hate how this country was founded. I hate the Democrats for restricting freedoms via taxes. Now, there's talk on intervening in Syria, probably by Democrats and that RINO John McCain. Let the Muslims kill each other.
The only fair solution is to arm both sides with tactical nukes. Just one nuke at a time until it's used. When they use the first nuke we give them another until it's used. We just keep this up until everybody there is gone.
Except for the posts from pspr and PT who must have been dropped on their heads when they were small, good discussion. Especially from AAA and piezoe.
You're just jealous I have common sense and you don't. Why they hate us is irrelevant save for the criminal psychological profilers.