A Two Pronged War

Fire of Liberty


Austin Bay has a good column over at Tech Central Station about how the war against Al Qaeda will only be won if we target the nations that provide a haven for terrorists and beat them at the media game. We've got to convince the terrorists and their sponsors that they cannot win a protracted war against free nations while at the same time demonstrating to the folks in the Arab/Islamic world how much more democracy has to offer than Osama's death-cult. Take a look:

Maj. Gen. Doug Lute, operations officer for CENTCOM, argues that IEDs (improvised explosive devices, bombs like those used in London) are "perfect asymmetric warfare weapons" for 21st century terrorists. ("Asymmetric warfare" pits mismatched enemies -- the weak side tries to avoid its own destruction, while targeting the strong side's political or military vulnerabilities.)

"IEDs are relatively effective," Lute says -- meaning when they go off, they usually kill and wound. "IEDs are cheap to make. They are available (i.e., explosives and triggers, as well as skills required to assemble them)." But, moreover: "IEDs are anonymous. This makes them the enemy's most effective weapon because they are really an IO (information operations) weapon. They intimidate, sow fear, but do so without certain identification."

Anonymity means "the terrorists can be a very small group" of people or politically weak organization, Lute adds.

What makes the small and anonymous appear powerful and strong? In the 21st century, intense media coverage magnifies the terrorists' capabilities. This suggests that winning the global war against Islamist terror ultimately means accomplishing two things: denying the terrorists' weapons of mass destruction and curbing what is currently Al Qaeda's greatest strategic capability: media magnification and occasional media enhancement of its bombing campaigns and political theatrics.

In fact it looks like we're winning on the "democracy is better than terror" front, especially after reading an article over at Yahoo News titled "Support for bin Laden falls in Muslim countries." Sounds great to me, Lets continue on the other fronts.