Replies

LS wrote:

They can never beat our military, and now largely don't even try. They go straight for the political will.

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DevSix wrote:

They see fighting through the political prism (attacking our political will) as simply another military front in their cause.

To this extension for them (though it will not be successful...IMO) the suicide bomber and the IED have been true innovations in the sense that our enemies have used both more vigorously then in any other time in modern history.

I don't agree with all of Peters takes within this article....but he does provide a number of very accurate points within it.
-Dev-

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The biggest point Peters makes is:

"--- Even in the days before mass media, assassins terrorized civilizations.

Today, their deeds are amplified by a toxic, breathtakingly irresponsible communications culture that spans the globe.
We may refuse to accept it, but suicide bombing operates powerfully on practical, emotional, and spiritual levels--and it generates dirt-cheap propaganda. ---

--- We praise Nathan Hale's willingness to die for his cause. Now imagine thousands of men anxious to die for theirs. ---

--- The hallmark of our age is the failure of belief systems and a subsequent flight back to primitive fundamentalism--and the phenomenon isn't limited to the Middle East.

Faith revived is running roughshod over science and civilization.
Secular societies appear increasingly fragmented, if not fragile. The angry gods are back. And they will not be defeated with cruise missiles or computer codes.

A paradox of our time is that the overwhelmingly secular global media--a collection of natural-born religion-haters--have become the crucial accomplices of the suicide bomber fueled by rabid faith. ---

--- Both the suicide bomber and the "world intellectual" with his reflexive hatred of America exist in emotional realms that our rational models of analysis cannot explain ---"

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I see Peters message being; -- we cannot reason with fanatics, either secular or religious , -- nor can we defeat them in the military sense.

Thus they must be defeated by political will.

-- This can only be done by putting our own house in order by waging a propaganda war for Constitutionalism, and against ALL types of fanaticism.