QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  From the brilliant Walter Russell Mead, in the American Interest, who argues that no response to the Paris attacks will actually change the reality of what we face: 

Regardless of what kind of response the West ultimately launches, military efforts in the wake of Paris will not spell an end to terrorism. There is no chance for a cure for the causes of terrorism anytime soon, no matter how much Paris may have stiffened Europe’s resolve. Across the Middle East, democracy isn’t taking hold, economic development is further away than ever, and bad governance is still endemic. This “civilizational wound” isn’t going to be cured, and the sense of backwardness, bitterness, alienation it creates isn’t going to get better. The Arab world as a whole is no closer today to, say, an East Asian-style development miracle than it was in 1950 and neither the West nor anybody else has the slightest idea how to change that.

And...

We can kill Osama bin Laden. We can (and we should) crush ISIS. But we can’t change the reality that jihadi ideology is alive and well, feeding off the discontent and disempowerment felt so widely in the Islamic world. We can strengthen our security at home, we can continue to improve intelligence collection and to disrupt the ability of terrorists to communicate, to travel, and to raise and move money. None of these measures can ever be completely successful, and new jihadi movements will likely spring up to replace the ones we defeat. But we cannot relax our vigilance. The price of failure is too high.

And...

The French and their allies have every right, and even have a duty, to strike ISIS as hard as they can. The hopes and the prayers of the civilized world will go with the pilots and fighters as they bring retribution to the authors of evil. But we cannot be naive. The war against terror has a long way to go, and we must brace for more horrors like the ones so recently visited on the City of Light.

COMMENT:   Please read the whole thing.  Mead is one of the best writers writing today.  He is fearless and not politically correct.  He goes for the truth, not an "alternative narrative."   He is telling us that the threat we face today has its origins in the failures of the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Can there be any doubt?  When is the last time you rushed to a store to buy an import from Syria or Egypt?

But the left will go through its usual ritual and blame the West, the United States, and, of course, Israel.  The myth is repeated on our college campuses every day.

November 17, 2015