RAND: Military is not well suited to countering terrorism

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/07/study_questions_us_strategy_ag.php

Study questions US strategy against al-Qaida

Rand research group says US can defeat al-Qaida with change in strategy

BARRY SCHWEID
AP News

Jul 28, 2008 23:32 EST

The United States can defeat al-Qaida if it relies less on force and more on policing and intelligence to root out the terror group's leaders, a new study contends.

"Keep in mind that terrorist groups are not eradicated overnight," said the study by the federally funded Rand research center, an organization that counsels the Pentagon.

Its report said that the use of military force by the United States or other countries should be reserved for quelling large, well-armed and well-organized insurgencies, and that American officials should stop using the term "war on terror" and replace it with "counterterrorism."

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," said Seth Jones, the lead author of the study and a Rand political scientist.

"The United States has the necessary instruments to defeat al-Qaida, it just needs to shift its strategy," Jones said.

...

The second most common way that terrorist groups end, seen in about 40 percent of the cases, is through police and intelligence services apprehending or killing key leaders, Jones said. Police are particularly effective because their permanent presence in cities helps them gather information, he said.

By contrast, the report said, military force was effective in only 7 percent of the cases.

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1. All of this was stated repeatedly before we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was true then, it is true now. It was ignored then, and it will be ignored now. Not least because police activity does not provide any pretext for abrogation of Constitutional and human rights, or for spending trillions of dollars on useless crap, or for trying to commandeer natural resources in strange foreign lands.