Parallels between piracy two centuries ago and terrorism today. The key is breaking state sponsorship, and a sense that it’s okay and profitable and useful to have terrorist bands operating from inside your borders, with your money backing them.
Useful? How could that be so? Well, imagine you have a … well, competitor. Enemy. Another country that’s causing you nothing but grief. Certainly your populace thinks so, and that’s a useful attitude to encourage. But militarily — well, you can’t field an armed forces that can do anything useful without paying a huge cost (in diplomacy, or in terms of having your butt whooped).
So you sponsor some psychopaths who have such a mad-on against your enemy that they’re willing to do the dirty work. You provide them with shelter, perhaps. Money. You provide them with intel, even materiel to use. And then you get out of the way, and let them do their thing. Sure, it can be dangerous, if they decide that you’re the enemy. But short-sightedness is common in such affairs, else hubris.
Think Syria. Think Iraq.
Heck, think the US regarding Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Could this be the point where the US is willing to stop sponsoring terrorists — er, freedom fighters? And can we convince enough other people that it’s not profitable, not wise, not useful, to do so as well?
Good article.
(Link via InstaPundit)