Close interactions with the umma have poisoned our culture and goaded the Muslim world to even higher levels of purple-faced rage.
Despite our bowing and scraping, and our military leadership slapping hijabs on our female soldiers, the Muslim hate meter is still pegged. I am tired of our government's spasmodic self-flagellation at every Islam-fueled temper tantrum, and the serial apologies are making me sick.
Our government has fallen all over itself paying obeisance to Islam over a koran burning, but has said not one damned word about an Afghan policeman killing two of our soldiers.
Mark Steyn Says it Best
I don’t like the wholesale reprinting of articles posted elsewhere, but Mark Steyn says it so much better than I can in his brilliant and succinct post at The Corner, Winning Hearts, Minds and Trigger Fingers…
here’s a headline from today’s New York Times:
Afghan Police Officer Turns Gun on American Soldiers, Killing 2
These are the Afghans who know us best — the ones selected, trained, and funded by us for a decade.
What did these soldiers die for? That their commander might offer even more abject prostrations of apology over “any disrespect to the Holy Qur’an”? Would it help if General Petraeus stuck a couple more apostrophes in the approved spelling and began his press releases with, “In the name of Allah the most merciful . . .”?
We have internalized our enemies’ psychoses — that we are the unclean ones.
Related:
Andrew McCarthy – No More Dhimmitude
Michael Graham - Fired Up Over Nothing
15 comments:
I am disgusted beyond words at the West's bowing and scraping to Islam.
Steyn's point, These are the Afghans who know us best — the ones selected, trained, and funded by us for a decade is well taken.
We have not won their respect nor effectively communicated to these Afghans as to what freedom really means.
That Karzai can even think that he can utter DEMANDS that the United States punish Terry Jones for burning the Koran is surreal. But not unexpected! We have not stood firm behind our principle of freedom for quite some time in Afghanistan.
Besides, the Moslem world perceives Obama as weak and wishy washy regarding American principles and American interests. A correct observation.
I wouldn't be quite that pessimistic. Out of dozens of Muslim countries, only Afghanistan seems to be producing violence in response to the Koran-burning. There hasn't been much sign of anti-Western rhetoric in the various Arab rebellions. Compared with the situation ten or twenty years ago, it's actually pretty encouraging.
We unseated the Taliban and disrupted terrorist operations. Mission accomplish, lets get out.
Infidel: Perhaps the region is trending more favorable to us, I just don't know, and we don't have enough data at this point.
My larger point, as Trestin so concisely summed it up, is we just need to get the hell out. Our cultures are incompatible. I don't think we should spend any further American blood or treasure over there.
They will either sort their problems out or they won't, but we need to get out of the way.
Well, Trestin may be right that we need to withdraw, but to say the mission was accomplished is wierd. What have we accomplished? The Taliban would easily come back to power if we withdrew, as the experiment with Karzai has been an unmitigated failure. Even in Iraq, the future looks completely uncertain. We have to face facts: we're not very good at this whole "nation building" thing!
JMJ
The mission we accomplished was knocking the taliban from power and establishing a new government. We gave them a space to create a better life and they blew it.
We agree that we are not good at nationbuilding. Look at where nationbuilding has succeeded and the common factor is the people who lived there wanted the nation built, and they did the heavy lifting themselves.
Can't argue with that!
JMJ
Those that haven't, check Silverfiddle's link by Michael Graham - Fired Up Over Nothing.
I like the way British Gen. Sir Charles Napier handles it.
The Afghans never, never, stop fighting. Fighting is what they do. If there are no foreign armies to fight, they will fight with each other. Let them. Bring our men and women home now!
No one who understands history or the knee jerk politics of George W. Bush can argue with a straight face that invading Afghanistan was a good idea. I think the Bush administration realized their mistake soon after, and this is why he took us into Iraq —where it was easier to kill al-Qaeda. No one in all of history has conquered the Afghan, but thousands of good young men have died there. I asked the question in 2001, and I’ll ask it again now: what in the hell were we thinking?
In spite of these serious missteps, Barack Obama adopted Afghanistan as his “war of choice.” We continue to ignore the facts. Given its proximity to Pakistan, we cannot win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. There is no reason that any soldier, airman, or Marine should die just so that Mrs. Mohammed can vote in a local election. But more to the point is this: our government no longer knows who the enemy is. The enemy is al-Qaeda, not the Taliban. Al-Qaeda attacked the United States; the Taliban were merely their simpletons. So what this boils down to is this: the United States continues to send our most precious resource to Afghanistan for no other reason than to prop up the fragile regime of Hamid Karzai. He isn’t worth it.
Finally, let me say this: there is no US national interest in Afghanistan. None. Anyone who thinks there is has overdosed on RC Cola and moon pie.
Muctang, there are more things wrong with what you said than are wrong with Gary Busey's mind.
"No one who understands history or the knee jerk politics of George W. Bush can argue with a straight face that invading Afghanistan was a good idea. I think the Bush administration realized their mistake soon after, and this is why he took us into Iraq —where it was easier to kill al-Qaeda."
Let me get this straight: Are you saying that Bush did all that right somehow? That his motivation to invade Iraq was to "kill al-Qaeda," really? That by realizing the mistake of invading Afghanistan he dealt with that by staying there with roughly the same constant force and then starting a second front in Iraq? That it was easier to go after al-Qaeda in a far more developed and dangerous country that in the end cost us far more in blood and money?
Really???
"In spite of these serious missteps, Barack Obama adopted Afghanistan as his “war of choice.”"
This is a joke, right?
"Finally, let me say this: there is no US national interest in Afghanistan."
A large majority of the American people wanted war with Afghanistan after 9/11. Bush parlayed that into a another war that was of more interest to him and his cronies. The US had some interests in both countries, of course, involving oil and national security. But the interests controlling the GOP had far more pressing concerns: which war would make more money for them?
The Afghans were harboring radical international criminals who had killed thousands of Americans.
Iraq was supporting some Palstinian radicals, and indirectly some terrorists, in the neighborhood of Israel, but only toward the end of Baathist rule, during the economic recession brought on by the seige, for domestic and regional political reasons.
The Afghans have been exporting heroine around the world for years, killing more people and ruining more lives than terrorists ever could.
Iraq isn't even a player in that sort of criminal behavior.
It just goes on and on.
We dive had a reasonable cause to go into Afghanistan (not Iraq at all), even if you or I think it was probably the wrong decision. George W Bush, and no one else, bumbled it. Obama tried to salvage the operation, and always said he was for it, but he didn't start it and didn't bumble it.
That stupid sleazy moron you Republican voters put in office for eight horrible years is completely to blame for the utter and total failure of the wars, especially Afghanistan. The time has come to realize that the BUSH/GOP FAILED WARS need to come to an end.
JMJ
Obama shares the blame. Afghanistan was the liberals' "Good War," remember. They invoked it often, lamenting we were not spending more money and more troops there because we were wasting it all on Iraq? Remember those lefty talking points?
Of course, those of us with any brains knew the lefties were just using the issue as a cudgel, and Obama proved it when he announced we were withdrawing the at the same time he announced the troop increase.
He declared surrender preemptively, as befits his brilliant military mind.
Afghanistan is easy, but we lack the will.
All victory in Afghanistan will take is 650,000 troops, and that number is based on historically successful military occupations.
Our mistake is that while technology is a force multiplier in combat, it is not in an occupation. Technology can extend the range of your troops on the ground but cannot substitute for it.
As far as counterinsurgencies go, there has been no successful counterinsurgency that has not has the backing of the people, or that has not been executed by an overwhelmingly superior military force.
The plan for Afghanistan is to turn over security to a national police force of some 80,000 officers. That will give them 1 police officer per 375 people or a ratio of 2.66/1000. That will give them a ratio similar to Poland...who thinks Afghanistan is as stable as Poland? Sepp, in Best Practices in Counterinsurgency suggests a ratio closer to 20/1000 which would dictate a national police force of 500,000 in Afghanistan.
There are basically two defined types of warfare, limited and total.
In limited warfare you have clearly defined objectives: Destroy X, Y, and Z, or Take X, Y, and Z.
In total warfare the objective is to eliminate the enemy's will or capability to resist.
Without overwhelmingly superior numbers you can not engage in limited warfare with an enemy engaged in total warfare and even then you will still suffer casualties through attrition.
Given that the objective of the insurgency is to eliminate our will to resist (as they do not have the ability to eliminate our capability to resist), and given that we do not have the will to engage on a level necessary to ensure victory, I would propose that we have already lost the strategic war.
Sure we will blunder about for the next 12-24 months engaging in tactical victories, but in the end we will leave and the Taliban will come back.
They might not call themselves the Taliban, but in a few years there will be no discernable difference.
Jersey, since you state we had no reasonable cause to go into Iraq, you'll agree with me that we had no reasonable cause to go into or attack Libya?
Cheers!
Mark Steyn is spot on...he subbed for Rush this past week Silver..not sure if u caught some it..brilliant!...thanks for posting and sounding the alarms.:)
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