Terrorists cannot be defeated by military means

Israel did not achieve any of its military objectives in Gaza. There were no independent observers in Gaza so the IDF kill all policy was implemented with the determination to render Gaza uninhabitable. An IDF Lt Col declared half the dead were Hamas, a pathological liar, he will rise in the rotten ranks of the IDF. Kill one terrorist, in fact another man's freedom fighter, you create 10 more. Israel will be subject to the wrath of generations of oppressed Palestinians. Israel killing and destroying Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and next Iran has no friends in the Middle East. Do not visit Israel there is strife and discord throughout the apartheid state.

Terrorism cannot be defeated by military means alone. Muslims who attack the West in Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe are not committed fanatics, instead they are mostly young men alienated by foreign invasion, corrupt governments, local factions and bitterness over unemployment due to globalisation or they glory in the dignity of combat.

In Iraq, the inevitable cycle of international intervention and subsequent rejection generated more recruits for Al-Qaeda, surprisingly. America has learned a bitter lesson and hopefully this will influence President Biden’s policies inn the Middle East.

America failed to recognise many rival and mutually hostile factions in militant Islam and blindly fought them all. U.S. Armed Forces Commander in Iraq General Petraeus recognised the disenfranchisement of the Islamic Army and promptly paid these former Sunni soldiers more to fight Al-Qaeda than Al-Qaeda paid to kill American soldiers.

The asymmetric warfare that Al-Qaeda initiated with the 9/11 attack has cost America $3 trillion to date. The military superiority of the United States has been severely tested with horrific injuries and 4,000 servicemen killed The civilian cost to Iraq cannot be accurately estimated being estimated between 60,000 and 600,000 civilians killed and 2.5 million internally displaced Iraqis. America must adapt from short term costly combat commitments to active engagement with threatened societies coupled with a broader containment approach. Afghanistan was worth fighting for because a greater ‘Pashtunistan’, including strife torn Pakistan, controlling nuclear weapons is unacceptable. The August 2021 rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan by Donny from Queens ruined everything. Misplaced US policies resulted in 75 million refugees worldwide.

Success requires building relationships with the tribes and enticing militants into mainstream society. Afghans compare the cruel but just Taliban with the remote and corrupt Hamid Karzai Kabul government. President Karzai includes drugs warlords in his alliances. This has gone up in smoke since the withdrawal.

Iraq riven with faction fighting is not a viable democracy, Afghanistan, however, is riven by divided strategies and command. The lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq is that it is counter productive to challenge Al-Qaeda in its own natural hinterland in a culture alien to western mindset in future counter terrorism must support a domestic response.

Fundamentally neither British nor Americans were prepared to learn Pashtun. The wisdom gained from many years of western military and political folly must be learned and applied. Britain and America brought chaos and left chaos. Russia and Iran replaced the US in the Middle East.

Russia faces strife from ISISK refer to Moscow and Dagestan, 2024. Russia allied with Iran destroyed Chechen/ISIS terrorists in 2012. Russia has 98% of its army personnel committed to Ukraine