The anti-war left will have a hey day with the latest unauthorized killings that happened in Kandahar, and rightly so. We send them over there to kill people, but only in government-approved ways.
It's a fraught issue ripe for a deep and reasoned philosophical debate. Unfortunately, we no longer know how to have those, so instead, the left's taliban-West outrage squad will squeeze every emotional drop out of it as the armchair generals beat the war drums louder, further inflaming our emotions and clouding our intellect.
I uncategorically agree with Mark Steyn's latest column, America's Longest War will Leave no Trace.
The Rumsfeld strategy that toppled the Taliban over a decade ago was brilliant and innovative: special forces on horseback using GPS to call in unmanned drones. They will analyze it in staff colleges around the world for decades. But what we ought to be analyzing instead is the sad, aimless, bloated, arthritic, transnationalized folly of what followed.
It seems certain that, waging World War II today, the RAF would not carpet-bomb Dresden, and the U.S. would not nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And, lacking the will to inflict massive, total defeat, would we also lack the will to inflict that top-to-toe "cleaning process"?
To modify Bismarck, the Hindu Kush is not worth the bones of a single Pennsylvanian grenadier, or "training officer."My fellow conservative Americans who may still be in the thrall of those talking heads who insist we must stay in Afghanistan: Go read Lt Col Dan Davis' report of his experiences in Afghanistan, Truth, Lies and Afghanistan.
They haven't changed for thousands of years. We sure as hell won't change them.
