NWA/AMT said:Given our committment in Iraq and Afghanistan and our need to maintain the capability to respond to other large threats as they emerge, we do not currently have the troops available to commit to another large scale action. More importantly, we don't NEED to commit to another large scale action to deal with our real enemy, Al Qaeda.
As I've said repeatedly here, Al Qaeda is not an organization that we can fight with divisions or brigades as it will disperse and avoid contact except where it can initiate contact on it's own terms. That's a type of enemy that sounds familiar to many of us, because that's how people fight you when you are the greatest military power and they can't match you 'toe to toe'.
The troops we need to fight this organization are the Special Operations folks, USMC Force Recon, Delta Force, Army Special Forces and Rangers, Navy Seals and Air Force Special Operations. They can do this sort of thing very well. Meanwhile, if it takes a busboy with a silencer to take out Osama, we need to start training busboys on the pistol range. We need to make our forces fit the war, not the war fit our forces.
We need to complete the work we've started in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and identify the nations that continue to harbor Al Qaeda. It wouldn't surprise me if we find that some of those we think of as our allies turn up on that list.
Exactly.
Moreover, we need to view fundamentalist Islam much as we viewed the former Soviet Union - a long term threat that needs to both be engaged (the ones that are fundamental about their religion, but not to the point of terrorism) and contained/confronted (those that have gone over the edge).
Preferably, with an array of European and Arabic allies.