There’s a new Islamist threat! Let’s go bomb something. Surely that will solve the problem even though it never has before and generally makes things worse because, wait for it, people get pissed when you blow up their villages and bomb wedding ceremonies. Apparently these ungrateful wretches don’t understand we’re making their countries safe for democracy and instead rise up and fight against the invaders.
Those crazed radicals at Foreign Policy say maybe if the US keeps doing the same thing and it keeps failing, maybe it’s time to try something new.
The New York Times reported this week that the Pentagon is now seeking a new set of military bases in or around the Arab and Islamic world so that it can prosecute the military campaign against the Islamic State et al. more effectively.
Excuse me, but isn’t that exactly what we’ve been doing since the 1990s and with greater energy and effort over time? Yet there are more al Qaeda affiliates now than there were back in 2001, and organizations like the Islamic State didn’t even exist back then. Is it possible that our entire approach here has been ill-conceived and has been making the problem worse instead of better? And what would a more serious approach to terrorism look like?
Who benefits from such a short-sighted, self-defeating approach? Why it’s the war pigs, who make money and amass power, lots of it, Â by having all war all the time. This include defense manufacturers, think tanks, PACs, and politicians. They don’t want an end to war because war has put them where they are. On this, all the presidential candidates with the exception of Sanders, walk together. Truly, there is just one party and it’s name is the War Party.
However, despite their bluster and strutting and babble about American Exceptionalism, it’s not working.
If the United States were truly serious about terrorism,
We would also have a more honest and open discussion about our own role in generating it. Our reluctance to consider whether certain aspects of U.S. foreign and defense policy inspire anti-American extremism began as early as the 9/11 Commission.
We would now be having a frank discussion about the role of the media. I’m positive organizations like Fox News and CNN do not intend to help al Qaeda or the Islamic State, but that is in fact precisely what they are doing
We’d also see more creative efforts to discredit, marginalize, spoof, and embarrass the groups we oppose.
You’d see a more hardnosed approach to the various American “allies” who are part of the problem rather than being part of the solution.
Meanwhile, it’s clear our security is mostly faux and more theater than real.