A two-front war

We're losing the battle of minds.

Want to know my beef with the conservative worldview? It's not that it advocates strong military action as a way of safeguarding American interests; that is the reality of the world and we may as well be upfront about it. It's that this worldview is grounded in the belief that simply setting rules around people and enforcing them is enough to alter human behavior. The strict-parent model, with swift and harsh punishment as a way of deterring misbehavior, is applied everywhere, from criminal justice to international terrorism. Capture or kill the enemy, and show their peers what happens to those who cross the line, and people will naturally fall into order.

Except, it's not working. We're losing the battle in Iraq, in Afghanistan, against terror groups worldwide who are finding it easier and easier to recruit members, to inculcate themselves onto local populations, to gain political legitimacy. We're losing these battles because strength in arms must go hand-in-hand with a campaign of thought and persuasion against the very ideas that prop up our enemies. We spend billions of dollars on missiles and tanks and private contractors, while extremists set up madrassas and food handouts in impoverished villages ignored by the Western world. We make token efforts to bring development to the areas most vulnerable to Islamofascist encroachment, but are swift to fly in troops equipped with guns but without local knowledge or language training, to root out the groups offering the only alternative to chaos and oblivion. How is anyone surprised that when given the chance to elect a government through free elections, these countries side with anti-American, extremist politicians? We're in denial of the fact that we've been outfoxed, by those who have been quietly building support for years. For all the effort that we put into domestic politics, we've been horrible politicians worldwide.

We made an effort in Indonesia, after the tsunami, when American troops flying the American banner undertook missions purely to rescue lives, rebuild villages, and improve their quality of life. The result? The Indonesian government has become one of our most effective allies in fighting terrorist cells and one of the few Islamic countries in the world where the US remains relatively popular.

It's a battle of minds as much as arms. We ignored that when invading Iraq without a plan for restoring order and faith in secular, democratic government afterward. 2,500 American deaths later, how far have we come? The country is sliding into civil war, and it's only now that we're making an appreciable effort to strengthen civil institutions, health infrastructure, and economic stability, the things that convince people to trust progress and the American agenda for freedom. Israel is ignoring that right now, only offering threats to justify its air raids, rather than promises to rebuild the villages it destroys and create a progressive society in the wake of Hezbollah's physical destruction. If it leaves Southern Lebanon a burnt-out shell of a region after all this is over, the threat will come back one-hundred fold. If it fills the void with something good, something that convinces people that Israel, the West, free thought, free speech, and democratic government are positive influences on the lives of everyone, that will be the real blow to Hezbollah.

We can be so good at this, at fighting this battle of ideas, because we have logic and compassion on our side and what we're espousing is individual freedom. If only our leaders took it more seriously.