Article: Who Is Winning the War on Terror?

So who is currently winning the War On Terror? Robert Gates was asked a similar question regarding the War On Iraq during his confirmation hearings. His reply was nobody was winning. Is the answer the same for who is winning the War On Terror?

Western Conservatives, particularly those from the US, claim that the facts say we are winning. After all, the terrorists who attacked us are hiding in caves rather than roaming the country side. The country they once resided in with impunity is now a "democracy." They also like to point to the new Iraqi "democracy" that replaced the rule of terrorist enabler and brutal tyrant Saddamn Hussein.

Islamic terrorists can point to increases in the number of recruits and terrorist attacks. Islamic terrorists can also point to a surge in support for both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the insurgent attacks against American troops in Iraq.

An objective analysis of the War On Terror will include factors such as effectiveness and efficiency before rendering a decision. Despite the human, mechanical, and monetary resources used to fight this war, we are neither safer from future attacks nor closer to winning. This would qualify our war as being ineffective. In addition, our dependence on expensive hi-tech weapons without any net gain in our war implies that this war is inefficient. The icing on the cake here is that using hi-tech, highly expensive weapons inefficiently makes sustaining this war over a long-term period more and more difficult. As the war continues, the overhead from our weapons is working towards our defeat. This would make staying the course our greatest threat and our enemy's trump card.

An objective analysis of the War On Terror will also examine the chain of events that have followed the beginning of the war that occurred on 9-11. The response to 9-11 was not just made by the U.S. It was made by the Russians in Chechnya, Israel in the Occupied Territories and our closest ally, Great Britain, in Iraq.

We could summarize that response in two ways. First, we could call this response State Terrorism. It must be called State Terrorism because civilians are the ones who have suffered the most by the violence administered by these countries. And civilians have become the main victims because it has been the infrastructures that were made the primary targets by the West while Russia has been severely heavy-handed with its attacks in Chechnya. Calling our attacks State Terrorism may offend some; but we must remember that terrorism is in the eye of the recipient, not the aggressor. To hope that one survives the bombings, the invasion, the loss of basic services and then the resistance against the occupation is to live in terror. As a result, what we have is Western State Terrorism Vs Islamic Jihad Terrorism. Those in the West are chanting "Let's Go State" while the other side responds with "Go Fighting Jihadists."

The second way of summarizing our response to 9-11 is to look at who is winning this war? In truth, both neither side is winning and both sides are winning. To be specific, those who are winning are those who promote authoritarianism. It is unnecessary to show the authoritarianism of the Islamic terrorists. But the rise in authoritarianism of those practicing State Terrorism has been well camouflaged by using fear-mongering. Just in the U.S., we see vicious verbal attacks on dissent, the erosion of rights, increases in surveillance, the seizing of more power by those in authority, and the ability to act with impunity by the same. Outside of our borders, our authoritarianism is more blatant. This does not include the increased authoritarianism that Russia is exhibiting on its own citizens and Israel is using with its neighbors.

Will we win the War On Terror by forcing Western Authoritarianism over Islamic Jihad Authoritarianism? It is unlikely that we will win the hearts and minds of enough people in Asia with such an approach. And in truth, this is the group that will probably determine the outcome of this war. For the longer that Orientals either sit on the fence or the more they decide to join with the devil they know, the longer our war is prolonged and, because of overhead of our weapons, the sooner we will run out of resources.

While today's question might be who is winning the War On Terror, a more important question is who will win the War On Terror. For what if we were fighting this war with strategies that would work for our eventual defeat, does it matter who is winning today? And if we win means Western Authoritarianism becomes triumphant, what will be our future when the war ends?

A variation of this article first appeared in the blog extrememoderate.townhall.com