Moreover, it is a MYTH that we "cannot defeat the terrorists militarily." This was the line used about Japan too, but in fact, when they run out of men, you have won.
No armed force in history---EVER has sustained the % level of losses that the Islamic "insurgents"/terrorists have sustained and won. There is also a new study of Japan ("Downfall," by Richard B. Frank, that uses Japanese documents) that shows that the A-bomb had several levels of effects. Yes, it had what we all know as a "diplomatic" impact, by convincing the Japanese that any further holding out would be useless. But he shows it also had a MILITARY effect, by showing that even their by-then dispersed military forces were helpless. They already could not get any more kamikaze volunteers.
So there is a pretty good argument that when the bad guys all die, you have won "militarily."
They can never beat our military, and now largely don't even try. They go straight for the political will.
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.
But see, if you READ the actual Army Docs (not to mention the Marines' docs) you will see that they emphasize "full-spectrum warfare," which includes political, information, military, social---it IS warfare across all fronts. That's why it's frustrating that someone who should know better---Peters---only has to look at "On Point" (the Army's history and "lessons learned" about Operation Iraqi Freedom) and you can see GOING IN that they knew what the score was.
Peters isn't making the point that Iraq can't be defeated militarily. We can do that. He's saying we can't defeat fanatics & fundamentalism worldwide.
Moreover, it is a MYTH that we "cannot defeat the terrorists militarily."
Muslims, communists, fascists, anarchists, -- fanatics of every stripe still abound in this world. We will never defeat such terrorists in a military sense.
This was the line used about Japan too, but in fact, when they run out of men, you have won.
Japan never ran out of men, it ran out of a will to fight.
No armed force in history---EVER has sustained the % level of losses that the Islamic "insurgents"/terrorists have sustained and won.
There are hundreds of millions of potential Islamic terrorists. Whats their percentage of loss?
There is also a new study of Japan ("Downfall," by Richard B. Frank, that uses Japanese documents) that shows that the A-bomb had several levels of effects. Yes, it had what we all know as a "diplomatic" impact, by convincing the Japanese that any further holding out would be useless. But he shows it also had a MILITARY effect, by showing that even their by-then dispersed military forces were helpless. They already could not get any more kamikaze volunteers. So there is a pretty good argument that when the bad guys all die, you have won "militarily."
All the 'bad guys' in Japan were dead? -- I'd grant that they lost their fanatical devotion to the cause, because we were ready to invade & kill em all; -- can we invade the muslim world & kill em all?