That's Terror-Able!

Terror as a tactic has been largely discredited over the years. It has proven to be so ineffectual to the point of being counterproductive in the long term. Hey, hindsight's always 20/20. Unfortunately, this seems to be a lesson lost on most policy makers, but for the rest of us in the real world it is something to keep in mind. Especially as we watch the results of the United States failed terror campaign in the Middle East beginning to sow the seeds of its own future failures. A few prominent example of failed terror campaigns would be Nazi Germany's genocide on the eastern front. It may seem strange to a people raised on John Wayne and Saving Private Ryan but there were a number of countries, particularly in the east where rather large segments of the population initially saw the Germans as liberators. Well, at least preferable to the Russians anyway.
 That is until they released the death squads and the hapless Nazis found out mass shootings and gassing children is really not the way to win people over. Given Germany's shortage of manpower later in the war this seems like a real lost opportunity. Another glaring example would be the United States conduct in Vietnam. It turns out dropping millions of tons of ordinance on people kind of makes them angry and so rather then bend to Washington's will the united states, the world's premier military power was defeated by a nation of rice farmers. Well, here we are a few decades later and it seems not much was learned from that whole experience and now a decade of failed policies in Iraq and the greater Middle East has culminated into Isis.
 For a long time the US military believed they could suppress any opposition to occupation with terrorism. This manifested itself into night raids where people would be carried off to secret prisons and often never heard from again. Another method utilized was the bombing of anywhere military aged males might gather. This policy resulted in many ruined social gatherings. It turns out drone operators and apache gunship pilots have trouble distinguishing a soccer game or a wedding from an armed uprising. Live and learn I guess.
 Now they are finding out people tend to get mad when they're routinely massacred and in a country where there are no jobs, plenty of guns, and even more angry men relieved of family responsibilities by a hellfire missile problems may arise. So here comes Isis which for now has the convenience of having the western militaries around keeping the relatives of the people they massacre busy. Once that situation changes what seems like a relatively cohesive fighting force will eventually fracture and the Islamic state will most likely be left wondering where they went wrong.