Was the Global War on Terror a success?

[ZZLPHeels]

Reading an NYT article this morning about the rise of a new insurgent group in Syria and this particular passage caught my eye:

The war on terror, while presumably preventing another large-scale attack like Sept. 11, nonetheless failed to dismantle jihadist ideology. Instead, it compelled these movements to recalibrate their approach, moving away from cross-border terror networks to localized governance and insurgency, or in some cases, like in Libya, militants were absorbed into the government. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has gone to great lengths to signal that it has no quarrel with the United States. Its leader, Mr. Jolani, said in a May 2015 Al Jazeera interview that Syria would not serve as a base for jihadist attacks on the West. His group set up a political office for international outreach and engaged with countries including Turkey, presenting itself as a trustworthy partner focused solely on Syria.

Opinion | One-time Jihadists Now Control Key Syrian Areas

The rebel group H.T.S. was born as an Islamic State branch. But since pivoting from international jihad, it became dominant in Syria’s northwest.

www.nytimes.com

We know the GWOT was costly, both in terms of human lives and in terms of resources. We know we gave Afghanistan back to the Taliban. That said, we did not experience anything close to another 9/11, and it seems as if we put enough fear into groups across North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia that we largely eliminated the ability of groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State to flourish under the radar like Al Qaeda did prior to 2001. We protected our borders, and our people. Is that enough to call the war a success?

 

[finesse]

If you think that destabilizing the ME so that the civil wars had a greater priority than attacking here, then it did work for the time being. The groups you mention don't have to operate under the radar anymore. I'll bet there are others that do and are. Imo, we mostly just kicked the can a little further down the road.

 

[Centerpiece]

Is “Global War” the new term for “World War”?
Will World War lll be referred to as Global War l in the history books?

Was 9/11 an inside job? Was Saddam Hussein’s attack on Kuwait about oil or beachfront property for a new Trump Hotel?

 

[ZenMode]

Terror is the result of an ideology. As long as the ideology exists, a war on terror will be largely a waste of time.

It would be like waging a war on obesity without addressing nutrition and exercise.

 

[Batt Boy]

Despite our many military accomplishments, it did not work because it failed to address the underlying inequalities that allow poisonous ideologies to create harm.

 

[4heels4evr]

absolutely nothing

 

[4heels4evr]

better way

 

[gtyellowjacket]

I don't think we can say if the war on terror was successful at preventing large scale terror attacks. We certainly haven't had any but who knows if it's our military interventionism that's the cause of it or if it wouldn't have happened anyway. Who knows if a more limited military interventionism in Afghanistan that just decapitated Al-Qaeda would have done the job.

It has been extremely successful in funneling our tax dollars to the military industrial complex in a period when we have really had no peer Nations to defend against. We should have been decreasing our spending after the Soviet Union fell but we have really ramped it up.

 

[finesse]

I wish we'd have gone for the limited action in Afghanistan. I thought we should have proclaimed them international criminal and put a huge bounty on their heads with no questions asked.

As it was, once Bush made the most glaringly dumb tin eared remark I've ever heard in foreign affairs about a crusade, we lost about a third of our international support and most of any trust. Something about 200 years of warfare between two religions that made that a sore subject. Then invading the wrong country for the wrong reason just didn't help. By the time we got to where we should have started, we were pretty fubared.

 

[ZenMode]

Despite our many military accomplishments, it did not work because it failed to address the underlying inequalities that allow poisonous ideologies to create harm.

I don't know if extreme religious beliefs, in any society, can really be traced back to inequalities, at least not financial inequalities. Many Islamic terrorists are university educated and have successful careers.

 

[Batt Boy]

I don't know if extreme religious beliefs, in any society, can really be traced back to inequalities, at least not financial inequalities. Many Islamic terrorists are university educated and have successful careers.

But they prey on the suffering of others. Sure, the terror leaders are often Western educated and from privileged families, but their ability to generate support lies, I believe, with the suffering inequality provides.

 

[ZenMode]

But they prey on the suffering of others. Sure, the terror leaders are often Western educated and from privileged families, but their ability to generate support lies, I believe, with the suffering inequality provides.

I would attribute the prevalence of Islamic/Jihadist terrorism, specifically suicide bombing, to the fact that they literally teach the eternal benefits of martyrdom to school children. It's religious brainwashing beginning at a young age. Muslims aren't playing for their time on Earth. They're playing for eternity and the non-Muslim world greatly underestimates the importance of that belief. It's also why a war on terrorism is ultimately meaningless. It's a war you can't win. All we can do is use our intelligence agencies to try to stop the attacks before they happen.

 

[4heels4evr]

I wish we'd have gone for the limited action in Afghanistan. I thought we should have proclaimed them international criminal and put a huge bounty on their heads with no questions asked.

As it was, once Bush made the most glaringly dumb tin eared remark I've ever heard in foreign affairs about a crusade, we lost about a third of our international support and most of any trust. Something about 200 years of warfare between two religions that made that a sore subject. Then invading the wrong country for the wrong reason just didn't help. By the time we got to where we should have started, we were pretty fubared.

B4 W entered Iraq we could have waited 2 weeks to search for WMD. If none found we could have continued the search for WMD and waited another 2 weeks and continued the search and waited 2 weeks and continued the search and so on and so on on and we would not have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and constituted the search for WMD ... Now look where we are.

 

[finesse]

I would attribute the prevalence of Islamic/Jihadist terrorism, specifically suicide bombing, to the fact that they literally teach the eternal benefits of martyrdom to school children. It's religious brainwashing beginning at a young age. Muslims aren't playing for their time on Earth. They're playing for eternity and the non-Muslim world greatly underestimates the importance of that belief.

Says someone oblivious to the mindset of Christians who have been doing it longer. The biggest difference is that Islam never had a 30 year War to separate church and state.

 

[ZenMode]

Says someone oblivious to the mindset of Christians who have been doing it longer. The biggest difference is that Islam never had a 30 year War to separate church and state.

I'm not oblivious to anything.

The difference between Islam and Christianity is how seriously each side takes their religious books and doctrine.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

Terror is the result of an ideology. As long as the ideology exists, a war on terror will be largely a waste of time.

It would be like waging a war on obesity without addressing nutrition and exercise.

This is true, however a person or group can have all the motivation in the world yet can be denied the capacity to act on that motivation. We know that after 9/11 Islamic extremists maintained their desire to inflict catastrophic damage on the United States through terror attacks. They were unable to do so. A lot of credit should go to the FBI, CIA, and DHS for thwarting plots through intelligence and law enforcement actions. My argument is that the role of the military in disrupting those plots through the denial of the enemy's ability to wage warfare should also be considered.

 

[Calheel]

I'm not oblivious to anything.

The difference between Islam and Christianity is how seriously each side takes their religious books and doctrine.

Each side? Are you suggesting there is a Christian side and an Islam side?

if so, I've got some important news for you about how many different "Christians" and "Muslims" there are in the world.

 

[ZenMode]

This is true, however a person or group can have all the motivation in the world yet can be denied the capacity to act on that motivation. We know that after 9/11 Islamic extremists maintained their desire to inflict catastrophic damage on the United States through terror attacks. They were unable to do so. A lot of credit should go to the FBI, CIA, and DHS for thwarting plots through intelligence and law enforcement actions. My argument is that the role of the military in disrupting those plots through the denial of the enemy's ability to wage warfare should also be considered.

Totally agree and I mention our intelligence agencies in a later post, but we're only addressing the symptom... something we absolutely need to continue to do.

 

[Batt Boy]

I would attribute the prevalence of Islamic/Jihadist terrorism, specifically suicide bombing, to the fact that they literally teach the eternal benefits of martyrdom to school children. It's religious brainwashing beginning at a young age. Muslims aren't playing for their time on Earth. They're playing for eternity and the non-Muslim world greatly underestimates the importance of that belief. It's also why a war on terrorism is ultimately meaningless. It's a war you can't win. All we can do is use our intelligence agencies to try to stop the attacks before they happen.

Id suggest you talk to the other 99% of Muslims.

 

[ZenMode]

Id suggest you talk to the other 99% of Muslims.

Muslims aren't divided into only two groups: those who are willing to kill themselves/others and those who aren't. Polling shows that there is a concerning level of support for killing of apostates and blasphemers among other concerning views. After the killing of Charlie Hebdo, a poll of Muslims in the UK showed that 27% of had sympathy for the reasons behind his killing. About 75% of Muslims in Palestine believe October 7th was justified.

Yes, there are moderate/liberal Muslims and moderate/liberal Muslim majority countries where women aren't forced to live in bags and girls are allowed to be educated, wear shorts, etc. The question is how to get the rest of them to that way of thinking, where their religious books and doctrines are taken much less literally.