The editors of the Washington Post are convinced that we can “win” against Islamist terrorist groups if we just deploy enough troops in enough places:
The raid on Mr. Qurayshi exemplified Mr. Biden’s preferred approach to global terrorist groups: containing them via “over the horizon†strikes and local allied forces rather than through long-term U.S. ground commitments such as the one he terminated in Afghanistan in August. It does not, by itself, vindicate that approach. To the contrary, the defeat of the Islamic State’s dangerous prison assault demonstrated the wisdom of keeping roughly 900 U.S. troops in Syria to support the Kurds, as Mr. Biden has quietly decided to do. The president has his hands full with deterring Russia in Ukraine and the longer-term effort to counter China. Yet, as Mr. Biden’s decision to strike the terrorist leader showed, those goals cannot be pursued at the expense of vigilance against jihadist terrorism.
I think they need to define “win”. I’m confident that by stationing a thousand troops here and a thousand troops there we can whack the moles down when they pop their heads up if that’s what they mean. The victory will only be temporary.
As I’ve pointed out before violent fundamentalist violence is endemic in any confession that is sola scriptura and has no magisterium but whose holy scripture can be interpreted as authorizing violence against infidels (however defined). Let me decompress that a bit. Sola scriptura means that scripture is the sole source of truth for the confession. Magisterium means ultimate teaching authority. Islam fits that description. The Qur’an is the source of truth for believers and there is no ultimate teaching authority whose interpretation of the Qur’an is more valid than that of the individual believer. Sure, there are scholars but they’re not authoritative.
Fundamentalist violence in Islam didn’t suddenly materialize in 2001. It’s cropped up from time to time among Muslims since the founding of the religion. There is no “win”.
One problem is that the CIA/Pentagon have had a long-standing practice of enlisting radical jihadists in wars against perceived enemies of the US. The Taliban are one example. We funded, equipped and trained the early Taliban for our war against the USSR in Afghanistan. Later, of course, the Taliban slipped the leash, and went on their own campaigns for their own goals.
Another terrorist group we have funded and defended is ISIS. God only knows what Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi did to po the US, resulting in his assassination, along with his family. But note that he was living unmolested (’till now) in Atmeh, Syria, ON THE TURKISH BORDER.
ISIS was and is clearly the creature of Turkey and the US, who hoped it would help overthrow Assad. In the early days, ISIS ruled a chunk of NE Syrian and controlled its oil fields. The terrorists were allowed by the US and Turkey to steal Syrian oil and transport it to a Turkish port in large truck convoys. Erdogan’s son had a piece of the action.
These convoys were well known, operated in full daylight, and US forces were ordered to let them be. That changed when the Russians showed up and began bombing the convoys.
ISIS, like the Taliban, eventually escaped our control, at least for a while. They enlisted the remnants of Saddam’s army in Iraq, and came close to seizing Baghdad. It took a major US effort to bring them back under control. But nowadays ISIS is back in Syria under the protection of both Turkey and the US.
Other terrorists groups, like the al-Qaeda affiliated el-Nusra, have proven more loyal and malleable, and they still engage Syrian government forces on our behalf.
One might note that the presence of 900 US troops in Syria. Trump was told there were none after he ordered them out. The Pentagon simply lied to him, and bragged about it in public. Those troops are an aggressive invasion force. There is NO UN warrant for that force. Their presence in Syria, which was at peace with the US, is a war crime, and Biden and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are war criminals, who should be in prison.
The editors and columnists at the WSJ are classic 19th Century war mongers; think Hearst. They are morally and intellectually reprehensible. There is no war by the US they do not support, and there is no war crime, like the murder of a dozen or more civilians in the raid on al-Qurayshi, NOT reported by the Pentagon, that they do not support.
PS. I have had a subscription to the WSJ for several years, but their editorial and op-ed pages have become so vile I am letting it lapse.
They are also actively supporting wars with Iran, China, and Russia. Americans will likely die in those wars, but the WSJ editors don’t care.