A military approch to terroism is not the answer

Let’s see, we were told that Osama Bin Ladin, and the majority of the terrorist responsible for 9/11, were from Saudi Arabia, land gushing oil and lots of Sunni Muslims. We were told that Bin Ladin was a Sunni who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. We were told that it was the Saudis who financed Bin Ladin’s 9/11 attack on America. We were told that the first order of business would be to go after Bin Laden. After all, he and his buddies were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans. All over America, there was a call to arms. Americans everywhere readied themselves for war, adorning their cars with American flags, and bumper stickers that read “these colors don’t run. America would serve Bin Ladin with a merciless indictment, and unleash the greatest military in the world, in an effort to bring him and other terrorist to justice. President Bush promised that justice would be swift and certain. Though justice was anything but swift and certain, Bin Ladin is now dead, no longer a threat, but Al Qaeda has metastasized into ISIS.

One would have thought that America would have immediately gone after Bin Ladin, who was in the mountains of Afghanistan, and the Sunni leaders of Saudi Arabia for their role in financing him. It didn’t happen. America’s thirst for oil caused it to turn its head. Instead, America went after the Sunnis in Iraq, overthrew their leader Saddam Hussein, disbanded their military, and turned a rudderless country over to the Iran backed Shiites. It didn’t seem to matter that Iran is one of America’s biggest enemies. Meanwhile the generals and officers of Hussein’s Sunni army, angry over Americas intervention in their sovereign nation, and the public hanging of their leader, went on to form an invisible nation called ISIS or ISEL. It appears as if America is breeding its own enemy. The more we kill, the more we seem to create. One year it’s Islamic Jihad, the next year it’s Al Quaeda and now it’s ISIS.

Lately, ISIS has been beheading people at an alarming rate. These beheadings should make it obvious to any sane person, that America’s approach to eliminating terrorism has been a complete failure. The American people has given the greatest military force in the world, an unbridled mandate to eradicate terrorism. Yet, after a 14 year mission to “kill the terrorists”, after 4493 Americans have been killed in Iraq, after 2,356 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, terrorism is still alive and well. It should be abundantly clear by now, that a military approach to this problem is not the answer. However, if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, then I at least understand the real problem. We have a lot of Americans who are crazy as hell.