Fatal Flaw

Alan Germani at Principles in Practice has an essay "Somalia and Our Fatal Flaw." Evidently, America, via the CIA, has been supporting the warlords there in the hopes of keeping islamists from taking over the country and to get info on suspected al-Qeada hiding there. Well, the islamists just ran the warlords out of town and are now imposing Sharia Law. The U.S. loses again.

Mr. Germani correctly points out why such misguided policies are doomed to failure by identifying our fatal flaw as:

"The tragic flaw inherent in the "War on Terror" is its focus on individual enemy combatants. We are wasting money, munitions—and, worst of all, American soldiers—trying to eliminate these combatants while ignoring the states that produce and sustain them (primarily Iran and Saudi Arabia). As long as these regimes and their supporting populations believe that they can triumph over the West, there will be an endless supply of terrorists to fill the sandals of the few that we're able to track down and kill."

So very true. It's like trying to destroy a large anthill by killing one ant at a time, except that American soldiers are dying in the process. The anthill should have been destroyed in one fell swoop. I urge reading the whole article.