Presumably there is a finite number of potential jihadis, given that they are a fraction of the total world Muslim population. That finite number is still pretty large. But the number of highly motivated, well-trained, veteran terrorist fighters available is far smaller. And the number of competent, skilled experienced leaders and planners, is smaller still.

“As if, the laws of arithmetic somehow prevent the war from enflaming, enabling, and increasing anti-American terrorists.”

Who is actually making this argument? My response to your statement is: so what? Is it somehow a surprise that America taking the offensive in the Middle East is going to inflame radical Muslims and inspire more of them to be terrorists? Should we expect no reaction? Again, I consider this to be a non-argument or simply an argument for doing nothing. Is there a way to kill our enemies without inspiring sympathizers to take up arms?

1. Both disdain traditional politics. A realist interested in democracy promotion in the Middle East would focus on building local democratic movements, which would defeat the Islamists politically rather than inflame them militarily. Likewise, a realist interested in civil rights would focus on building a longlasting political movement using legal and political action, and only occasionally nonviolent direct action. In contrast, both neoconservatives and radical leftists prefer the methods that don’t involve dirty politics.

2. Both view blatancy as a good in itself. Radical leftists judge people by how much they piss people off rather than by how much they achieve. Neoconservatives judge leaders by how many people they’re willing to kill rather than by how much positive influence they yield. In both cases, the emphasis is on trashing the Winter Palace rather than on administering Russia.

3. Both use the same old historical analogy even when it fails to work in other circumstances. Radical leftists point to the success of Martin Luther King, failing to mention that he had a huge amount of moderate infrastructure behind him, and that even then he couldn’t expand his tactics to anti-war and anti-poverty activism. Neoconservatives analogize every struggle to World War Two, even when it’s a war of choice against a population that hasn’t undergone German-style discombobulation and even when they don’t offer anything approaching the Marshall Plan.

4. Both tend to draw from the same pool of people. The leading intellectual neoconservatives used to be radical leftists holed in City College. David Horowitz’s politics were once left of Noam Chomsky’s. The focus is not so much on a specific cause as on general platitudes - freedom, democracy, equality, peace - combined with horrific methods of achieving them.

this funny joke for ameriki: why all government in middle east forbid the intermarriage between of the turk and the kurd.
ANSWER: BELOW

BECAUSE THEM OFFSPRING BE KNOWN AS THE “TURDS”.

“the parallels between neoconservative arguments, either in the form The Commissar is rebutting or in the form David is advancing”

I’m neither a neoconservative nor am I advancing a particular argument in this case. I was merely responding to the “we’re creating more terrorists argument,” which I find pointless.

The rest of your comments are basically sweeping generalizations that I’m not sure apply even to a majority of those you are talking about.

That is a gross oversimplification of the point, which is that invading a country solely so that you can perpetually “fight the terrorists over there, so they don’t come over here” is a crappy and infeasible strategy. A war against Islamic extremists and terrorists hinges upon political victories, which in this case is influencing other countries toward our way of thinking and getting them to reject Islamism. Somehow I don’t think invading a country, wreaking havoc and then falling back on “okay, folks, sorry about all the chaos, but you make excellent human bait for the amorphous enemies we claim to be fighting here.”

Somehow I don’t think invading a country, wreaking havoc and then falling back on “okay, folks, sorry about all the chaos, but you make excellent human bait for the amorphous enemies we claim to be fighting here” [is going to do us much good in that area.]

Is that why we invaded? Is anyone actually arguing that as a viable long-term strategy? I’m not. You are beating a strawman.

Maybe if we left the Islamists alone they would leave us alone, as they did on Sept 11, 2001. Let’s keep a low profile just in case.

There is a whole range of options in between “leaving them alone” and doing what we have done in Iraq.