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American Jihad by Bruce Hoffman

  • ptown_trojans_1
    Had this forwarded to me by a colleague. It is long, but an eye-opening read. The author is Bruce Hoffman, who I would consider one of the best experts on terrorism.

    The article, written before the Time Square debacle, notes that American is still suffering from system failures and lack of imagination.

    Notably, that we focus on things one at a time, instead of the broader picture-Iraq, Afghanistan, back to Iraq, now to Yemen, etc. It should be a global net focus.

    Second is we focus on body count too much. Here Hoffman goes through and proves that killing a terrorist leader does not mean much, it only slows the group down. Drone strikes are a tactic, not a strategy, and according to him the U.S. is relying to heavily on them.

    Third, we are missing the threat here at home. While it is nice to say, we fight them over there so we don't have to fight him here, the reality is we are fighting them there and here. He illustrates this by laying out the threats and events over the past year.

    Fourth, we have failed to acknowledge the strategy of al Qaeda. All the years after 9/11 and we still have no figured out al Qaeda. We bow to politics instead of strategy according to him.
    BOTTOM LINE: we do not understand our enemy. It has become a cliché in the war on terrorism to invoke the ancient Chinese philosopher-warrior Sun Tzu’s dictum “if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Military tactics, as Sun Tzu taught, are doomed to fail when they are applied without detailed and comprehensive knowledge of those whom they are being applied against, or an understanding of how the enemy thinks—and therefore how that foe is likely to respond and, moreover, adapt or adjust to those tactics...

    Dangerously, thus far our own policies have led us to appear weak, inconsistent and confused. This is not good for us, neither for the message we send ourselves nor for the effects on the potential al-Qaeda recruits waiting in the wings, summoned by a call to arms against the enervated infidels..
    Finally, he hits at something about the American structure, that is is still broken. While shit happens, there are still many leaks in the system and needs for many reforms, in the intelligence, oversight and executive branches.

    The closing:
    AMERICA’S COUNTERTERRORISM strategy has long been weighted toward a “kill or capture” approach targeting individual bad guys. It has also been erroneously based on the assumption that America’s contemporary enemies—be they al-Qaeda or the Taliban—have a traditional center of gravity, and that they simply need to be killed or imprisoned for global terrorism and the Afghan insurgency to end. Accordingly, the attention of the U.S. military and intelligence community remains directed almost uniformly toward hunting down militant leaders, not toward understanding the enemies we face and the environment they come from, operate in and depend upon. This is a monumental failing, not only because decapitation strategies alone have rarely worked in curtailing terrorist or insurgent campaigns without effectively countering radicalization and recruitment processes, but also because al-Qaeda’s and the Taliban’s respective abilities to continue their struggles are indisputably predicated on their capacity to attract new recruits and supporters, thereby replenishing their resources.

    Addressing this gap in our existing strategy is more critical than ever given the need to adjust and adapt to changes we see in the behavior and operations of our adversaries, who are far too elusive and complicated to be vanquished by mere decapitation. An effective response will thus ineluctably be based upon a strategy that effectively combines the tactical elements of systematically destroying and weakening enemy capabilities (continuing to kill and capture terrorists and insurgents) and the equally critical, broader strategic imperative of breaking the cycle of terrorist and insurgent recruitment that has sustained both al-Qaeda’s continued campaign and the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.

    Until we disassemble the demand side—the persistent resonance of al-Qaeda’s message and its capacity to engage in the continued radicalization of a new cadre—we will never be able to stanch the supply side: the thinning, but still formidably adequate bench of key al-Qaeda operatives waiting in the wings to succeed their deceased or imprisoned predecessors.

    And until we recognize the importance of these vital prerequisites, America will remain perennially on the defensive: inherently reactive rather than proactive and deprived of the capacity to recognize, much less anticipate, important changes in our enemy’s recruitment and radicalization processes, its support apparatus, and its targeting strategies and modus operandi.

    The war on terrorism has now lasted longer than America’s involvement in World Wars I and II combined. That we are still equally far from winning cries out for precisely the knowledge that we have neglected. We would do well to remember Sun Tzu’s other famous dictum that “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
    http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=23200
  • Footwedge
    Obviously the "fight em over there" shtic needs to change. We bomb the crap out of Pakistan citizens and then scratch our head when they try to retaliate.

    This is not brain science nor rocket surgery.
  • Writerbuckeye
    I prefer this op/ed piece by an American Muslim on how to deal with the problem here at home. He also believes we aren't addressing things properly in our own backyard.

    We've stopped looking at this as a war, especially at home, and it is costing us dearly.

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/05/07/m-zuhdi-jasser-times-square-muslims-homegrown-islamist-terror-hasan-faisal/
  • ptown_trojans_1
    Writerbuckeye wrote: I prefer this op/ed piece by an American Muslim on how to deal with the problem here at home. He also believes we aren't addressing things properly in our own backyard.

    We've stopped looking at this as a war, especially at home, and it is costing us dearly.

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/05/07/m-zuhdi-jasser-times-square-muslims-homegrown-islamist-terror-hasan-faisal/
    Ehh, I agree with most of that, but I think Hoffman does a better job at looking at the overall picture and deciding how our intelligence and military strategies examine and fight this war. Granted Hoffman's piece is longer.

    Buzzwords like militant Islam are irrelevant to me. Instead you need to focus on the networks of threats, get inside them, understand why they want to strike the U.S., how they ascent the stairway of terrorism (Great article to read btw) and how we adapt our intelligence, law enforcement and military those tasks.

    It is a worldwide war, that involves the U.S. as well, and we need to have a better, more highly adaptive, multifaceted, politics aside, approach to the problem.
  • believer
    ptown_trojans_1 wrote:Buzzwords like militant Islam are irrelevant to me.
    Militant Islam exists and it lies at the heart of the problem. It also explains why this world-wide problem has no easy answers.

    Ignoring the radical religious mindset that allows this type of terrorism to exist while attempting to apply Western-style secular rationalist thought to the problem is a mistake of epic proportion.

    Radical religious-based ideology is not a uniquely Muslim idea (The Crusades for example), but it is a difficult and perplexing problem to overcome.

    One thing is certain in my mind: Radical Islam exists, it's pervasive, and its goal is to convert the infidel world-wide (or eradicate it if necessary). Applying secular rationalist diplomacy to fixing the problem is naive and an exercise in futility.
  • Footwedge
    believer wrote:
    ptown_trojans_1 wrote:Buzzwords like militant Islam are irrelevant to me.
    Militant Islam exists and it lies at the heart of the problem. It also explains why this world-wide problem has no easy answers.

    Ignoring the radical religious mindset that allows this type of terrorism to exist while attempting to apply Western-style secular rationalist thought to the problem is a mistake of epic proportion.

    Radical religious-based ideology is not a uniquely Muslim idea (The Crusades for example), but it is a difficult and perplexing problem to overcome.

    One thing is certain in my mind: Radical Islam exists, it's pervasive, and its goal is to convert the infidel world-wide (or eradicate it if necessary). Applying secular rationalist diplomacy to fixing the problem is naive and an exercise in futility.
    What percent of Muslums are miltant would you estimate? .0001% or so?