An Indictment of Our Long-Term Counterterror Strategy

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Okay, so we’ve got a deadly spike in violence in Afghanistan, a terror attack in Syria and a deteriorating situation in western Iraq. Terror experts are saying this kind of thing:

Dan Benjamin, a national security analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the surge of violence in Afghanistan shows a familiar pattern. “It is clearly the case that tactics pioneered elsewhere, such as Iraq, particularly suicide bombing, have been taken up in Afghanistan,” he said.

“There is no question that there is a global circuit now. Technology and strategy and tactics are being shared among different groups in different theaters,” Benjamin added.

Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, said episodes like the increase in violence in southern Afghanistan, western Iraq and the bombing attempt in Syria show things are getting worse, not better. “It’s an indictment on our long-term counterterror strategy that we haven’t had any great success in reducing the long-term trends toward more terrorism,” he said. (AP)

And, as noted earlier, a new poll says the American people, who a week or so ago trusted the Democrats more to keep us safe, now, after an all-out fear-mongering offensive by the administration, have more faith in Republicans to fight terror. Right, then.

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