"Well gotta know the enemy...wah hey"-Green Day

FYI: The beginning of this may be a tad controversial.

I will say that I am in no way defending the actions of Major Hasan or his dispicable act of mass murder...but a member of my family brought up the title of a controversial presentation that Major Hasan gave to his classmates-"Why The War on Terror is a War on Islam."(The NYT confirmed this) ...and I must admit that without having seen this presentation to gauge it's accuracy, I agree.

Upon reading a book by William R. Polk entitled "Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerrilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq" I've realize what a long and successful history acts of terrorism and guerrilla warfare have been used to level the playing-field against a stronger entity.

The recent War on Terror however, had a very narrow line of sight: 1. The group must be Islamic. 2. The group must use terrorism as a tactic.
If this were truly a War on Terror, and not just targeting an Islamic flavor, then it would also include: The Basque separatists in Spain, Christian insurgents in East Timor, (until recently->) Hindu-Marxist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Action Directe in France, Aum Shinrikyo(religious zealots) in Japan, Babbar Khalsa(Sikh separtists) in India, etc. http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Terrorist.html

Do not think that this goes unnoticed by the Muslim world as well: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/361.php?lb=brme&pnt=361&nid=&id=
"8 in 10 countries believes that the US seeks to weaken and divide the Islamic world."

Not only did we forget to mention some terrorist groups, but we made the stupid mistake of lumping all Islamic terrorist groups together.

Groups Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, most of Taliban(in Afghanistan at least- Pakistani Taliban is more of a global org.) cannot be lumped in with al Qaeda.

The reason for this is b/c those first couple of groups are totally and strictly nationalist groups with real grievances and tangible aims. They want to establish Shariah Law within their borders(assuming they have obvious borders...not so much with Hamas). Their aims are really no different than other religious nationalist groups like evangelicals in the US, Zionists in Israel, or PJP party in India. Their method however, is a violent one. The thing is, we can address their issues and actually deal with them.

al Qaeda however is a transnationalist group that wants to get rid of all nations and establish a global caliphate. They use the plight of the Palestinians and other things as rallying points but really, they don't give a shit about the Palestinians trying to form a nation b/c al Qaeda itself is anti-nationalistic. They have been refered to as Islamofascist but as my Italian heritage has taught me, Fascism is a uber-nationalist philosophy...and al Qaeda is anything but nationalist.

It is important then, to take those rallying points away from al Qaeda. We must solve the Israeli/Palestinian issue, we must stop supporting dictators in the Middle East, we must stop killing civillians and starting BS wars, etc. We will never succeed in killing every al Qaeda operative, but we can make their movement obsolete. As both Sun Tzu and the band Green Day put it: "Know Your Enemy."