After yet another failed, fifth-rate attempt to blow up a used car, what have we learned?
1) Law enforcement works. The terrorist was tracked down and captured within a few days. Terrorism of this sort is essentially a law enforcement issue: military weaponry, torture, and a reduction in civil liberties makes no difference whatever in fighting terrorism.
2) Pakistan is the number one source of terrorists in the world. It has a dysfunctional government, a military that cannot be trusted, and we’re stuck with them. Sooner or later, we’ve got to decide whether we want to take the fight against terrorism into Pakistan, or attempt to contain the problem within Central Asia. Predator drones aren’t any more effective against terrorism than the Jonas Brothers.
3) We have to accept that sometimes the terrorists will get lucky; this time they didn’t.
4) Religious extremism is the greatest threat to freedom in the world today.
5) We need a new strategy, one that sees terrorism as a problem, one of many we don’t adequately address. Terrorism is not and has never been an existential threat to the US. Afghanistan and Iraq have been and are total failures; they do not address terrorism in any way. The US military has proven inept at nation building. The US intelligence community has not been sufficiently successful in tracking down and capturing terrorists. We’re fighting small, mostly ineffective groups of no-hopers and wasting trillions of dollars on defense systems that are wholly inadequate and wholly outdated for the job at hand. A bit of genuine accountability for these failures would be most welcome from our leaders, but the last 10 years have demonstrated convincingly that accountability is not part of the landscape in Washington.
Gorilla says: “Add your own lessons, and hope someone in power will eventually get an education!”
