I use swamp draining a LOT to justify Iraq as part of the War on Terror and stand pretty close with the much maligned NeoCons on our strategy (apparently, since I'm not White / Jewish, detractors say, I'm not allowed to actually be Neocon).   A friend asked me to clarify what I meant by my repeated references to "swamp draining"....   A short email turned into a long email which is now turning into a couple blog articles.   

I'm going to break up the argument across articles to keep comments in particular more manageable & directed -- and, of course, cuz I don't have the time to sit and write this all down in one shot  ;-)

• What are the root causes of this terrorism?
• What is the ultimate solution?
• Where's the best place to start?

Contention #1 -- The root cause of 9/11 is the Arab swamp-

• Terrorism is the symptom, not the problem:  It's the tip of a large, socio-economic iceberg.  Al Qaeda et. al (Ansar al Islam, Islamic Jihad, Abu Nidal Organization, Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, and all the other little, micro, affiliated groups) are "mosquitoes" that come from the general swamp of Middle Eastern / Arab morass.   Stomp out Al Qaeda, one of the other organizations will take up the slack or emerge in true Whack-a-Mole fashion.   For ex., Fareed Zakaria notes:

  Most terror attacks over the past two years have been planned by [non Al-Qaeda affiliated groups]. They are inspired, not directed, by Al Qaeda, and draw their support from a variety of mostly private sources.

  Or, as we saw in Spain:

  Spanish investigators said they now believe that the leader of a cell that carried out the March 11 bombings of four rush-hour commuter trains in Madrid sought the assistance of al Qaeda in the months preceding the deadliest terrorist attack in Spain's history, but said they have no evidence that al Qaeda directly participated in the operation.

  You can't just hunt / shoot terrorists... that's akin to hunting U-Boats but not attacking the Nazi's.
• The real problem is the politics, econ, and sociology of the majority of the Arab Middle East.  The majority of the Middle East is a mess.   The only thing an ambitious 20 yr old can do to 'feel like a man' is go off and blow something up. He can't run for office, speak his mind, invent something, can't start a biz, etc. You either sit at home, depressed, or go out and "join the fight!"  What you're fighting is some amalgam of Satan, Israel, Globalization, your local government, capitalism, whatever -- basically anything that can conspiratorially be pointed at as a source of your sorry fate.  This environment made Bin Laden inevitable rather than vice versa.   We're targeting a societal "way of war".    Zakaria again:

  What drives terrorism, however, is not easy means but strong motives. Militant, political Islam has brainwashed thousands of young Muslims around the world who believe it is their duty to fight against the modern world. This ideology of hatred has grown as the Western-supported "moderate" regimes of the Middle East miserably failed to deliver economic opportunity or political freedom to their people.  

• Left unchecked, the Mosquitoes will continue to become more capable - Cheaper WMD & other tech (for ex., flight school) make the mosquitos more capable than in the past.   The same tech, financial, and managerial innovations that make entrepreneurs more powerful apply to these sundry organizations as well.  Al Qaeda doesn't need to maintain a "command link" to it's branch in Germany, it just uses an internet chat room.   A group in France is basically an "independently owned & operated" franchise with the most minimal "branding" link back to Al Qaeda.   Knocking out Bin Laden or Zawahiri won't neutralize the Spanish cell.    The increase in their capabilities leads to commesurate urgency to respond.
• Law enforcement isn't an adequate response - Law enforcement measures are targetted at catching the criminal after the crime.   Deterrance is similarly organized around the credible threat of after-the-fact retaliation.   How does that stop a suicide bomber?  And, eventually, how does that stop a suicide WMD?
• Oil allows this situation to persist -- As many have pointed out, the real Oil issue is that it's free money for these governments that can be relied upon no matter how illiberal and wasting of human capital their policies are.   It would be a Good Thing if the US (and the world) could somehow have zero oil dependency upon this region BUT it will not / cannot happen fast enough to alleviate the threat ahead of us.    (Jane Galt also has a fun post here)
• No specific US policy change will make the problem go away -- They don't hate us because our troops were in Saudi, because we support Israel's existence, or because we provide aid to Mubarak's Egypt.   All of those factors contribute, no doubt & their pseudo intellectuals certainly get a lot of mileage out of these arguments - but this is like saying the Soviets hated us because of Vietnam, Korea, and Cuba.   Even if these issues were to all disappear, at the end of the day, they subscribe to a universalist, "one Truth", theistic belief system at odds with our "free discovery of truth via econ + sci + tech + democracy" belief system.  We may try to assure ourselves that ours isn't a universalist belief but the long tentacles of global capitalism and consumer marketing have a power that most Americans don't quite grasp but which they see every day.  Envy and shame are powerful things and every broadcast of a Space Shuttle launch, every computer that boots up with a Microsoft logo and every can of Coca-Cola is a small reminder of where their society stacks up against ours.  Britney Spears terrifies them but in a weird, oblique way, most Americans just can't understand and few of them can truly verbalize.  Just about the only thing that could placate them would be if the US was as much of a failure as Syria and/or under their political / social control.

The real way to solve big mosquito problems isn't with better nets & repellents but rather by draining the proverbial swamp. This first article in the series is possibly the least controversial - but I do think it's important to spell out some of the big implications -

• you can't win this war by only targetting Al Qaeda / Bin Laden / Zawahiri / whomever
• the failure of law enforcement & deterrence makes preemption necessary
• our runway is shrinking as tech makes WMD-terrorists more and more likely
• total disengagement from the region is neither feasible nor would it solve the problem

The next couple of articles will deal with the questions of what to do about this problem and where to place our efforts to install a solution.