Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
Posted by Bob's World

I like this line of thought, because it is a unique way of reframing the problem. Framing the problem correctly seems to be the origin of most of our failure. I second your thoughts on the intell community and their narrow view of the problem set. Whe we say we use intelligence to drive operations that simply reinforces your point, because now instead of executing a strategy we're simply trying to catch mice.

I'm goint to try to rain on your parade a little. While I agree with many of your points, I'l focus on the one I quoted above. For the global islamist movement to maintain wind in its sails it "must' paint the U.S. as the bad actor. It uses that narrative to mobilize the people against the great satan. I think you clearly identified the center of gravity. Unfortunately, the islamist narrative doesn't have to be acccurate, just perceived to be true, and unfortunately we have history that will hard to shake. The point is I think this is another infeasible objective, but if we could make it work it would be very powerful. There is another parallel in the Saudi issue, that is the Palestine-Israeli conflict. Who has given more aid to the Palestinians than any other nation? I read that the U.S. has, but obviously our information/influence activities are not in synch with this cash handout effort, since we still get slaughtered in the media as simply siding with Israel. The U.S. has "always" put a lot of pressure on Israel to back off on their hard right wing policies, but again it shows the limits of U.S. power, because we can only influence either of them to a small extent. This location is the grave yard of good intentions for many U.S. administrations.
While you are right that we cannot escape our history, that is, IMO, more of a benefit than a hindrance to turning this around.

First being that we have a very short history; second being that most of that history we were the little guy our self working to get out from under the big guy's control. We build a national ideology around our belief that we had a right to be free from that control, and we succeeded in achieving that vision. I believe that oppressed populaces around the world still look to that example, still look to the "idea" of America as the first colony of western Europe to stand up and be free.

It is only a relatively short history (though longer than my life) that we have stepped from the role as an example of achieving freedom and slid (through the controlling efforts necessary to contain the Soviets) through our Cold War engagement into a place where we are now more of an obstacle than we would like to admit. Like when I look in the mirror and see that I look more like I think of my dad, and my sons look more like I picture myself. We have grown up and become our parent. It happens; but unlike for us as humans, for us as a nation it is a reversible condition.

But you have to stop doing what you're doing and start a new approach. Doing the same old thing in the same old ways rarely leads to much change.

De Oppresso Liber, brother, De Oppresson Liber