We have some serious image issues in the Middle East, and that's not hard to understand considering we are a foreign military occupying their living space. It's hard to make friends when typically people are either scared of you or they want to kill you (or both). All they really see is the barrels of our guns and the devastation our bombs leave behind. They don't understand the nuances of the situation and what we are trying to accomplish. When you really think about the situation from their perspective it is not hard to understand how groups like ISIS manage to keep recruiting new people. I really don't see a way to reconcile the situation through military force. There are just too many Muslims and it's too hard to find and target only the bad ones. The harder we push the more they will hate us and the more they hate us the more powerful extremism becomes.
I think the Middle East will modernize and its culture will adapt accordingly. You can already see it happening with women slowly gaining legitimacy in society. A lot of these people are living in what we see as the third world. They don't have the internet, easily accessible education or a plethora of other conveniences we take for granted. I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to live in the 21st century when their lifestyles are not in the 21st century. With time they will learn and grow just like we and everybody else did, but their progress is being hindered by our military bombing the region for over a decade now. Diplomacy and patience is the only thing that will help.
You seem to be missing the logical timeframe. FIRST you decisively defeat the enemy.
ONLY after the enemy is defeated, should you be concerned with hearts, minds, nation building, etc.
We have been effectively been playing whack-a-mole with too few troops from 9/12/2001 and going between "shock and awe" to partial occupation and pacification, to disbanding their military, to getting surprised by insurgents thought to not exist, to "Surge," to withdrawal by an announced deadline, etc.
But never the FIRST STEP of decisive victory. We simply did not have enough troops to control the situation and occupy. This has been a "trial and error" approach from day one.
Along comes Petraeus and it looks too good to be true. A genius with a PhD. to save us from adequately staffing for decisive victory. He knows how to "surge" and win hearts and minds. And that will spare us doing the FIRST STEP of decisive victory.
Dexter says war with these people is too hard. Dexter I don't blame you for feeling the government is at fault. That you and your fellow troops are cannon fodder.
That is not unlike Vietnam, when guys came home to angry civilian protests, and the war was left without completion.
Since WWII we have spent much of our nation's treasury on weapons of war, but have not waged wars to successful conclusions.
If the war is waged for a quick, decisive victory, it minimizes loss of life. People on both sides can grasp that. If the enemy can't grasp it yet, too bad.
Increasingly I think our dependence on costly, powerful weapons has left us with a deficit in other areas. Intelligence, propaganda, etc. But mostly we have had a lack of leadership, to take the actions for decisive victory. That is the key element.
