It may seem un-American to offer advice to the enemy but, if ever there was a win-win situation, this is it.

If Al Qaeda would like to win, all they have to do is copy our Vietnam experience, declare victory, and go home.  The American people can finish your job.  It will be peaceful, bloodless, and all of our objectives will be fulfilled.

Here is what I offer:  follow the lead of the Irish Republic Army and Basque separatists by laying down your weapons and vowing to never fight again.  If you wish, you can even borrow the line from one of the original Americans, Chief Joseph, and say “I will fight no more forever.”  It will be a public relations coup for you and a better world for all of us.

The result will be to force the U.S. government into one of the most difficult decisions it can make: create and inflate a new enemy or start to dismantle the military/industrial/Congressional complex (Eisenhower’s grand-daughter, Susan, said “Congressional” was in the original draft of his warning).   The United States is not good at peace.  You’ll have us right where you want us - dazed and confused.

We now spend as much on defense and security as the rest of the world combined.  Our spying on the world has been exposed by Snowden, Manning, and others.  Germany is backing out of their intelligence agreements with them because they discovered we’re inveterate spy-ers even on our allies.  Russia, Ecuador, and Venezuela offer sanctuary to Edward Snowden.  Secretary of State John Kerry didn’t feel the love on his recent South American tour because of our espionage.  The American people have lost faith in our government. Let’s face it, Al Qaeda, except for those lapdog British, we’re running out of friends.  You have us surrounded.  Declare peace.

The pressure would be squarely upon us.  The government would have to explain why it needs to spend over fifty percent of its discretionary income on military, Homeland Security, the NSA, the CIA, the expanded TSA, and a host of other agencies run by the likes of Klapper (he smugly perjured Congress without consequence) and Hayden.  Granted, 70% of the NSA’s budget is contracted out to for-profit contractors such as Booz Allen which is owned by the Carlyle Group which, in turn, is owned in part by the Bin Laden family and Dick Cheney.  So, Al Qaeda, you’ll have to absorb a little pain, too.

Peace will necessitate we start bringing troops home and finding jobs for them.  Peace requires we spend our money on infrastructure, fair markets, food integrity, schools, clean energy, health, and other low priority projects.  Peace will require our Congress to work constructively and in a bipartisan manner to make the United States and the world a better place.  Frankly, Al Qaeda, it has been so long, I don’t know if we can do it anymore.

So, Al Qaeda, bring the government to its knees.  Declare peace and enforce it among your peers.  We fear that more than war.