The Hole at the Heart of Our Strategy

We’re scrupulously non-judgmental about the ideology that drives terrorism.

Thirteen dead and 31 wounded would be a bad day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, and a great victory for the Taliban. When it happens in Texas, in the heart of the biggest military base in the nation, at a processing center for soldiers either returning from or deploying to combat overseas, it is not merely a “tragedy” (as too many people called it) but a glimpse of a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of what we have called, since 9/11, the “War on Terror.” Brave soldiers trained to hunt down and kill America’s enemy abroad were killed in the safety and security of home by, in essence, the same enemy — a man who believes in and supports everything the enemy does.

And he’s a U.S. Army major.

And his superior officers and other authorities knew about his beliefs but seemed to think it was just a bit of harmless multicultural diversity — as if believing that “the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor” (i.e., his fellow American soldiers) and writing Internet paeans to the “noble” “heroism” of suicide bombers and, indeed, objectively supporting the other side in an active war is to be regarded as just some kind of alternative lifestyle that adds to the general vibrancy of the base... [snip]

What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that’s the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan or in Texas...

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[FLASHBACK > Rumsfeld was right:

MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2008
The War of Ideas Should Be Engaged

"Private media does not get up in the morning and say what can we do to promote the values and ideas that the free Western nations believe in. ... It doesn't mean we have to infringe on the role of the free press, they can go do what they do, and that's fine," ... "Well, it's not fine, but it's what it is, let's put it that way. ... We need to engage and not simply be passive and allow that battle of competition of ideas."

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