AN EYE FOR AN EYE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

It's really easy to get all puffed up with self-righteous indignation and demand military retaliation for injuries the U.S. has sustained at the hands of radical Islam. See: "Young News Anchor's Message to Obama Goes Viral --Final Thoughts from Tomi Lahren" on YouTube July 22, 2015. It's popular. It's also what George W. Bush did after 9/11 and what did it produce? Trillions of dollars wasted (placing the U.S. in financial jeopardy) and thousands of American lives lost over the course of 14 years, with none of Bush's war aims achieved. Not one. U.S. retaliation also produced hundreds of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi civilian casualties plus destruction of their property and infrastructure, fueling the rage motivating tens of thousands of susceptible Muslims to join radical Islam, in effect resulting in the creation of ISIS and the disintegration of such social order as existed in much of the Middle East before the U.S. invasions -- think Syria, Iraq, Libya, Tripoli, Gaza, and, increasingly, Afghanistan. Should it spread to nuclear-armed Pakistan, it will be Katy bar the door. The experience of the past 14 years simply illustrates the limitations of U.S. power in the region. Clearly U.S. retaliation as a strategy has failed and more knee-jerk retaliation will simply fuel radical Islam's recruitment and funding, thereby ramping up escalation so that, indeed, radical Islam increasingly becomes 'the rule rather than the exception.' The U.S. is playing right into the enemy's hands by retaliating mindlessly. It's what they want America and its Western allies to do! Why else would ISIS broadcast gruesome scenes of westerners being beheaded if not to goad the U.S. into retaliating? Revenge may be sweet, and, therefore, popular, (as comments to this video reveal) but it is strategically counterproductive. Inexperienced, ballsy young ideologues like, Tomi Lahren, lacking the ability to think strategically and given a megaphone beyond their ability to manage intelligently, are furthering the enemy's objectives and pushing the U.S. in the direction of irreversible escalation to all-out religious war with catastrophic consequences. They think the U.S., with its bombers, missiles, carrier task forces and sophisticated weapons systems can overpower radical Islam, simply by flexing its military muscle and not suffer damage. Nothing could be further from the truth. America is dealing with a wily, resourceful, ruthless enemy impervious to Cold War weaponry, dedicated to and capable of inflicting grievous harm to vulnerable Americans at home and abroad. Retaliation simply enhances that capacity and provokes added determination to escalate the violence against America. By retaliating the U.S. is playing checkers against an adversary playing chess -- a game the Arabs perfected long before it spread to the West. A fundamental principle of strategy, both in chess and in warfare, is never to underestimate one's enemy or overestimate one's own powers -- a dictum the advocates of retaliation have yet to learn, for which the U.S. has paid a steep price which could get much steeper if it keeps poking the hornet's nest. There are so many ways in which the U.S. could suffer grievous harm at the hands of an enemy further empowered and angered by more retaliation: attacks on the power grid and the Internet; electro-magnetic pulses (EMPs), biological and chemical attacks, dirty bombs, suitcase A-bombs, cyber-attacks scrambling the ownership of financial assets and corporate operations. Any one of these could disable the U.S. economy, throwing the country into a Hobbesian dystopia. In an open society, such attacks are difficult, if not impossible to prevent in the face of a resolute, resourceful enemy, so it behoves Washington not to add to their resolve and resources by mindless retaliation. You want more Chattanoogas"? Just keep retaliating. What was it Gandhi said? "An eye for an eye makes only makes the whole world blind." Think, people. Think. What's the alternative to retaliation? Read: "What To Do About ISIS" and "Time for 'Benign Neglect In The Middle East" .