Terror vs Liberty

Terrorism has been a "meme" long before meme was a Wired term. The point is to get asymmetrical coverage and awareness: to terrorize. Islamic fascism isn't new either, it's just another form of fascism, using terrorism as it's conveyance.

From the meme post below, we completely agree on the last point: how do you tell what's working, how do you fight an idea? I think the current model is to fight the terror meme with a "liberty meme". Democracy as meme. Going and attacking the source of the problem, with soft power in addition to hard power is definitely part of the current operational strategy.

I need some time to craft a good post on this, but I'm convinced that there is a geometry to this strategy. In other words, there is a crescent of terror spanning from southeast asia, through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and down into Saudi Arabia and Africa. Iraq is in the heart of this crescent.

You can look at Iraq in a lot of ways, but one major way is as a base from which to promote democracy and reform. It will work if we can leave the hard power phase, and stick with it using soft power.

The question is how committed are we to both parts of the war? Hard power and soft power. Terror vs. Liberty. Meme vs. Meme.