Smoke rises over Syrian town of Kobani after an airstrike, as seen from the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, October 18, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach
Kimberly Dozier, Daily Beast: We Didn’t Kill ISIS. We Made Them Stronger.
The terror army took on the world’s superpower—and is still standing. No wonder they’re drawing fresh recruits from around the globe.
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche went on holiday more than a century and a quarter ago, and wrote a little pamphlet, Twilight of the Gods, that contained a timeless line: “From life’s school of war: what does not kill me makes me stronger.”
You could say the same about our current conflict, against the so-called Islamic State. After a year of limited airstrikes and half-hearted intervention, the American military has not killed ISIS. And while the terror army’s military capability may have been degraded, their reputation has only grown. After all, they’ve taken on the world’s only superpower—and are still standing.
A top U.S. intelligence official acknowledged only a week ago that they have produced a de facto “caliphate”—a state run according to strict Islamic law—just by holding territory in Syria and expanding to Iraq and beyond.
WNU Editor: It was only a decade ago that former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was wondering if the U.S. was killing more Al Qaeda fighters than those who were joining them .... Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us (USA Today). Hmmmm .... it appears that we are not.
To paraphrase Nietzche "If you're not defeating your enemy, you're training him."
ReplyDeleteThat was certainly true in Afghanistan. But at least their efforts seem to be reducing the refugee problem, albeit only through the killing of potential refugees.
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