Whatever happens, we have got, the UAV, and they have not. For now at least...

For a while now (several years at least) I've been concerned about how the reams of paranoid stuff I'm reading is affecting my worldview. To dispel that I occasionally force myself to read the leftist equivalent, and that soon reassures me that I'm on the right track.

There are a lot of branches off the "right track", which is subjective to begin with. The key that I find to evaluating my opinions is to look at articles about contentious things which are written by those ideologically opposed to me. I frequently notice that I read something that intends to enrage with injustice, etc. and I draw the opposite from it. Polemics against violating the "rights" of terrorists (newsflash, bleeding hearts; they have none under international law) by waterboarding, keeping them up late, etc. fail to move me, and indeed usually make me feel that much more could and should be done to wring useful info out of them. Why else are we keeping them alive anyway?

So, general worldview intact, I look for the best ways to identify and defend our interests. Identifying them shouldn't be necessary, but I find it shocking the lack of direction in the West these days. What happened to "with us or against us"? THAT was the key, and we've thrown it away.

Many see that as "be like us" which is not remotely what it means to me. These jihadis of any stripe are the enemy of all reasonable people the world over. They are the most pernicious religious idiots out there, and need to be obliterated, hunted to the death and their financiers and apologists with them. With that as the objective (although the latter two groups might be a bit harder to liquidate) I see some hope that Gen McChrystal's strategy might have a chance to work, at least partially.

Putting our troops on the front line and not letting them call the shots is still a mistake, but the drone attacks are starting to bear fruit on the other side of the Durand Line:

January 1, 2010: In South Waziristan, Pakistan, a Taliban suicide truck bomb went off at a sporting event, outside a village that was organizing an anti-Taliban militia. The blast killed over a hundred and wounded 3-4 times that. The villagers were enraged, and called for vengeance, and continued use of the militia.

January 2, 2010: In the wake of the January 1st South Waziristan bombing, popular opinion became more insistent that the Islamic terrorists, particularly the Taliban, be hunted down and killed or captured. The government thus decided to go into North Waziristan to seek out Taliban who had fled there after the army moved into South Waziristan. There, police and troops continue to raid rural compounds where the Taliban have taken refuge, and hoped they would not be noticed. But too many people, even in the tribal territories, are appalled at the Taliban bombing attacks against civilians and the murder of tribal elders. For the Taliban, that means too many people willing to pass information on to the police or army. It's getting harder to hide, the more suicide bombing headlines there are.

Al Queda poisoned their own well in Iraq a few short years ago, and the same is happening in Pakistan now with both them and the Taliban. Things are starting to swing to the point where the stick (Hellfire strikes from Predators/Reapers) is being led by our carrots (rewards) and peoples' revulsion with the Taliban's methods.

Rewards were previously ineffective, but now that the shine is off the home team, people would like to watch movies and listen to music. There is nothing appealing about strict interpretations of any religion, and Islam is no exception. Pakistan is far ahead of Afghanistan, and the rules of the game are a bit different, even in the tribal areas. Even in Afghanistan, nobody wants the Taliban back in charge, as bad as things are, and in Pakistan they were never intended to take over, just keep the Indians busy in Kashmir and off-balance in Afghanistan.

I come back to my "raiding" doctrine, and it's working as I write this where it is being employed. The counterstrike on the CIA in Afghanistan is a sign that things are starting to bite, as these were the men who find targets for the UAV strikes. A setback for our side, but the locals will keep bringing us targets as long as our interests coincide, as they do at present.

Things still look shaky for us, but we can beat the jihadis if we want to. This will remain anecdotal as I can't find a source for it, but I read the other day that WW2 vintage Brits were polled, and many said they wouldn't have fought if they had seen what their country would turn into. That is our biggest fight, with ourselves, and that is the only one that can bring us down.