Short-term benefits or long-term gains? - early March

What do you prioritize when there are severe potential consequences for choosing one over the other? If the world chases the “bad guys” we simply polarize the population which was neutral or sometimes supporting the “good guys”. We’ve seen it time and again-West Bank/Gaza, South Africa, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, etc. If you target those you fear may do you harm, you generally just create more. Unfortunately, the alternative is living through a period of insecurity as you work with local populations to build good-will and governance structures that allows them the freedom to address such security risks. We’ve tried to strike a balance after we fell on our face in Iraq by moving in with serious numbers of troops to provide the sense of security that people begin to take ownership of their environment. In Afghanistan, we haven’t come close to providing the amount of support needed to try to strike that same balance between the two, and we will not engage the “bad guys” in Yemen as we have in these other places. More connections are what is needed, between people and their government, between extremists and those they deem to be infidels. That human connection at the end of the day is what begins to draw the tensions to a close. How to create that space for understanding is just another challenge.