[sweetjazz]

PR -- Thanks for your reply and I am glad to hear you are busting the fish in addition to fighting the bad guys.

I guess I have one major question that I haven't been able to answer. What does it mean to "win" the War on Terror, and what kind of casualties (fatalities and injuries) will it realistically take to win? Does winning mean the complete elimination of all people who support killing American civilians (this would seem like a never ending task)? Does it mean weakening the terrorist organizations so that they cannnot plot an attack on American without great difficulty (and does this mean that we still have a basically never ending task)? Does it mean reducing the capabilities of terrorists so that while they might still be able to launch small scale attacks (car bombs), they cannot succeed in a large scale attack like 9/11?

Of course, I would like to see terrorists eliminated completely, but what is the cost in doing so? We have already lost several thousand American troops and seen tens of thousands more be seriously injured. Based on your post and my encounters with other people in the military, I can see that the military is made of up really special and heroic people. I value highly the sacrifice you and your fellow soldiers are making, but I also recognize how valuable it is to everyone (especially the people who know you well) to bring you back safe and sound.

I think the War on Terror is complicated, because I don't think we can just do what the Islamists are demanding (removing our troops from the Middle East) and it's not clear at this point whether they would stop attacking us even if we did. But at the same time, when I see how many American troops have been killed, how many have been injured, how many Iraqis have been killed, it's hard for me to call what's happening "winning." If this is what victory looks like, then it comes with a heavy pricetag.

I think that is something that bothers a lot of us who don't agree with the war in Iraq but do support the war on terror (though maybe not as much as you think we should). In Afghanistan, it seemed like we made a lot of progress. We really routed al Qaeda's organizational capacities and killed or captured many key operatives. (I'm including subsequent captures in Pakistan, like Kalid Sheikh-Mohammed.) At the same time, we were able to limit our casualties because our goals were rather modest. We routed the Taliban (necessary because of their support for al Qaeda) and oversaw a regime change, but we were successful it seems because Afghanistan is a small country, the Afghani people strongly wanted the American military presence to fill the leadership vacuum, and we chose a mission which had relatively well-defined objectives. Even without finding Osama bin Laden (and the fact that the Afghan government is now descending into chaos again), I think the Afghan war was largely a success.

In contrast, we have lost many more lives in Iraq, and from what I see reported, it does not look like we have made nearly as many gains. It seems like American officials are still struggling to figure out the insurgency. Despite the fact that we have the best military in the world that always completes the mission they are assigned, the insurgency has strengthened over time, not weakened. That tells me that they are winning the political battle and the battle for civilian support -- it's obvious to me that they can never win in direct military confrontations. Moreover, they have now made our policy decisions hard. Do we increase the intensity of our searches for insurgents to try to stop their progress, at the risk of alienating ordinary Iraqis? (A lot of people in Washington -- I mean policy folks not our Congressman and Senators who are too busy grandstanding on the issue -- now think we were too aggressive in pursuing the insurgents earlier and alienated too many Iraqi families.) But without increasing the intensity of our pursuit, how do we expect to weaken the insurgency?

It is these kind of complexities that make it hard for me to support the decision to go to war in Iraq (though now that we are there, I do believe we must do what we can to "win" by providing the Iraqis the necessary resources -- political and military -- to maintain their new democratic system). Yes, I want to "win" the war on terrorism by making it less likely that a terrorist can pull off an attack like the one we tragically saw on 9/11. I am just not sure that the aggressive approach of looking everywhere for places to attack them is the best strategy. I think it is better to pick our spots. We reduce the losses and strain on our military; we give the enemy less recruiting propoganda to try to get new recruits; yet we still pursue them aggressively when the conditions are favorable for us.

Ultimately, I think our nation still has to accept that there is always a risk of terrorist attack and we can never completely eliminate it. If we go after Saddam Hussein, then that buys time for Kim Jong-Il. If we destroy terror training camps in Afghanistan, new ones will likely emerge in Somalia or Egypt. Like you said, it is a cat and mouse game, with both sides trying to get one step ahead of the other. Because of that, we have to make good strategic decisions about how to go after terrorists. Is it better to try to pursue their individual cells, or is it better to get after heads of rogue states who might ultimately supply the cells with weapons? Will going after a head of state create a power vacuum that will lead to the creation of many new cells? Will going after individual cells be stymied by their hiding in a state controlled by a rogue leader? Can we achieve our objectives through the threat of military force without using it? (Arguably, we were doing so in Iraq before the war started, albeit somewhat imperfectly.)

My main concerns regarding the leadership in this country is not whether they are pursuing the right goals (at least in terms of foreign policy), but whether they are doing so in the smartest and most strategic way. We all know Saddam Hussein was a bad bad man and was evil (just like Kim Jong-Il and several other heads of state are); but just because he is very bad and evil does not mean that it is necessarily in the best interest of the U.S. to remove him from power. While there were some positive consequences of the war, there have also been some negative consequences. I have my doubts as to whether President Bush can effectively weigh the two considerations and come to the right conclusion. (In fairness to him, he has to appear optomistic in his speeches even when things are obviously not going as well as he says they are in order to try to keep morale up and support for the war from eroding.)

Anyway, just some of my thoughts.

Cheers,
Mike