nimh wrote:
The alternative to "overreaction" is not "inaction" (and hoping the enemy will "wither away").
The alternative, instead, is appropriate action.
That's a new question rather than an answer, I know.
In casu, as you know, I consider appropriate reaction to have been going after Osama and Al Qaeda, hunting them down, killing them, and destroying their primary base.
Obviously, the US has failed in doing so. Osama is still at large. Al Qaeda has succeeded in a whole range of post-9/11 attacks, from Indonesia and Pakistan through Turkey, Saudi-Arabia and Morocco to Spain. And in Osama's primary base, Aghanistan, the intervention has been undermanned and underfunded to such an extent that not just the warlords, but the Taliban, now too, roam around freely again through much of the country, allowing Osama's men to find new refuges.
This at least is a self-consistent argument. However, it is based on a narrow and, in my view, incorrect, definition of the problem. I believe the problem the West faces arises from a widespread and growing Islamist reaction throughout the Moslem world. Al Quaeda is merely one of many symptoms of an underlying problem whose causes range from the backwardness of most modern governments in the Moslem world; abuses inflicted on them by Europe during the past century; and the growing perception among their people that the world is passing them by (as it is).. Bin Laden himself calls for the restoration of the Caliphate (Abolished by Attaturk after Britain and France brought down the Ottoman Empire) and the recreation of Islamist theocratic rule throughout the Moslem world. Other like radical groups have emerged in other parts of the Moslem world. In addition other actors, including gangster regimes such as Saddam's and rebel independence movements, as in Chechnya, exploit this discontent for their own purposes.
You apparently confine the problem to al Qaeda and directly affiliated groups. I don't. The police and judicial approach you seem to suggest may well be appropriate to your definition of the problem. However, it is far from adequate for mine.
You cited Germany's problem with the RAF. I agree this was primarily a criminal matter - and we also had our own contemporaneous problems with the ?'Weather Underground' and others. What confronts the West now is a very different - and far more serious - thing.
As I indicated earlier, if the European powers fault the U.S. for inadequate investment of our resources in Afghanistan they are certainly free to fill the gap themselves. Germany is doing this to a degree now (but only around Kabul). France is doing nothing. If you wish to influence the arrangements, you must come to the party yourself.
