but there are two decades worth, are we really radicalising new people or just forcing the old ones out of the woodwork?

and what this really boils down to is the crushing of an ideoolgy, that once crushed will no longer be attractive to the rebels-in-need-of-a-cause? we plant the wests flag in iraq and say; "bring it on!" we liquidate the nutters and turn iraq into a western style democracy, in view of the whole world........

difficult to believe in radical islamism as a valid credo after that, huh?

p.s. i am positing this as the thought processes of some strategists buried in Whitehall or the Pentagon.