I can't totally agree with the assessment that we are worse off today than prior to 9/11. That assessment pretends that we could have responded differently. Perhaps a different President would not have invaded Iraq, but arguing the past is a bit of a waste of time. The reality is that, we, Western Nations, have come to believe our own hype. "Democracy is the answer", regardless of the question. The result is that we fail to ever understand the rest of the world. Why should we? They are all either trying to be like us or jealous of what we have. We cannot begin to understand the deep desire for belonging, and revenge, that drives many terrorists. Nearly fifteen years later we still see things in black and white, good and evil.

I disagree with the assessment that our politicians suffer from "task saturation." That assessment assumes we have a the ability to alter many factors that are far beyond our control. One of which is human nature. We believe that "if we have then by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow." No different than we believed in Vietnam. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Until we understand human nature, we will never win. Heck, we won't even understand what winning should look like. Our politicians don't understand it. Our military actively tries not to understand it.

And so we stubble like a blind man in the darkness, never even trying to look for the light.