America's Political Divide Is a Strategic Vulnerability

As a U.S. Army veteran who faced radical Islamic terrorists in combat, I have looked into the eyes of men taught from childhood – in madrassas and through propaganda – to hate Americans with a purity of purpose that left little room for doubt. Their hatred was not something I merely observed. It was something their eyes burned into mine. That hatred was foreign, cultivated, and directed outward. What I struggle to comprehend is the visceral contempt some Americans now direct at their fellow citizens. It is a hatred that feels familiar in intensity yet alien in origin, because it comes from…