The reported level of buyers remorse now expressed by previously enthusiastic consumers of the military model for handling international terrorism can easily be explained as a public relations fumble by propagandists doing the best they could with poor material, or the shortcomings of execution that have hobbled an otherwise sound strategy of enhanced domestic security premised upon "fighting them over there" a little more vigorously, and hence successfully, next time.

It may well be that this becomes the dominant narrative which shapes American international force projection in the future.

The search, as it were, for a bigger, better, military solution to assymmetric threats from newly empowered non-state players.

This would be too bad.

Drowning, as we now are, in the nightmare of wanton murders, the complete bankruptcy of our strategic hamlet clear hold & build program, the growing alienation of even our professed "partners" in the face of repeated acts of brutality and humiliation, we may be motivated sufficiently towards introspection so as to come to see that the flaws are not merely bugs in the application of military force as moral suasion and conduct guidance.

The flaws are built into the tool.

As soon as the populace inhabiting some geographically contiguous area is declared collectively responsible, hence collectively punishable, for some wrong done our nation, issues of agency and proportionality become central to any claim we might make that justice sanctions the hell we plan to bring.

This extends well beyond the tactical issues of  how narrowly we focused our rocket fire, how carefully we inspected our targets, etc.

On a "global" scale, where the people are illiterate, tribal, and not democratically empowered to choose their government, they do not have sufficient agency that they will agree to become liable for the acts (or refusal to act) of their "government".

This is even more pronounced as an issue in the case of Afghanistan where we unleashed generalized destruction because of a quarrel with a regime that we did not in fact recognize to be the government of Afghanistan.

Beyond agency, even if one may erect a philosophical structure to extend liability throughout Kandahar for Mullah Omar's sins, is it manifest that ten years after his guests committed a mass murder in New York City, the farmers of Mullah Omar's home town must still endure nightly raids of their homes, destruction of their livelihoods, and mass incarcerations, all as part of the intentional application of pressure upon Afghan society to do what, exactly?  

Now that they cannot hand over Bin Laden, how would they show their repentence for their prior hospitality, so as to get us the fuck out of their country?

All of this quagmire of increasingly Hatfield/McCoy tribal feuding flows from the original sin of applying the free-fire zone theories of warfare to what was essentially a law enforcement problem.

The reason for due process is to get the particular individual or individuals who are guilty.  Who had the agency, who used the agency, and whose actions may be proximately tied to outcomes.

Turning our back on due process, we doom ourselves even without the nightmare "abberations" that momentarily inform so much of our public opinion revulsion to the war.

And the one hopeful part of all this, is that once we realize that only a law enforcement agency with legitimacy in the target population can successfully exercise force when undeniably force may be needed, self preservation will drive us to cede sovereignty upward.

One world government, one world police force, so we can stop acting like Zetas--free lance enforcers for the (oil) cartel.