George Will is wrong, wrong, wrong
Last night, I wrote briefly about the impending George Will column in the Washington Post in which Will says we should withdraw from Afghanistan. I have nothing against George Will – in fact he and I had a nice short chat one night at the National Press Club several years back and I found him to be an affable and brilliant fellow. But, this is way out of his lane, as Uncle Jimbo wrote last night.
Will wrote;
So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.
Oh, Pakistan matters because it has nukes? How very Cold Warrior of you, George. Afghanistan sure mattered in September 2001, didn’t it?
That’s typical inside-the-Beltway drivel. The best way to get some political cover is to send in some SpecOps guys occasionally to score cheap and meaningless victories against a burgeoning threat just to get the ruling party through the next election. It’s reminiscent of the Clinton aspirin factory/Bedouin tent attacks of the late 90s. Big flashy explosions that shifted little mounds of sand around the desert.
We’re dealing with an enemy that declares a victory every time one of them successfully farts without getting a Hellfire shot up his bum. Our withdrawal from Somalia is what precipitated this war on terror – pulling our forces “off-shore” (anyone who saw a shore in Afghanistan, please tell us about it) will only embolden those stone age cretins and encourage even more attacks against our interests.
How many times during the Bush years did we suffer the slings and arrows from the Left about how we didn’t fix Afghanistan in 1988 – now twenty years later, they’re ready to follow the same strategy. And George Will is giving them the political cover to set us up for the next attack as well as rebuild support with Democrats’ far Left constituents just as they are beginning to oppose Obama. Good one, George.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media, Military issues, Terror War
The Jihadi community only understands, respects and fears force. For them, any and all compromise, appeasement and self-imposed restriction is a victory. In this sense, our Judeo-Christian ethic works against us: We expect, have always expected in our “Western-ness”, that forces will work in good faith if we will.
The Jihad culture will not; not now, probably not ever.
Must not have been invited to a beltway cocktail party in awhile…..
Having grown up in Saudi Arabia I recognize and understand anon’s perspective but it is really much more complicated. Christianity and Islam are mutually exclusive religions with a long history of Crusade, Jihad and uneasy co-existence. Both expanded the faith through conversion and/or extermination. Christianity has by and large given up proselytizing by the sword and Christians have moved towards tolerance, co-existence and a preference for secular government. Islam has not yet renounced Jihad and Muslims still prefer their religion to be deeply imbedded in their government to the point that even the most moderate Muslim nations restrict or totally prohibit Christianity.
Thinking we can apply our mechanisms of secular governance and religious tolerance on any Muslim society is like applying a band-aid on wet skin. Sorry, it just won’t stick and once we leave they will go right back to their own ways.
Where Anon is correct comes from Islam being born in the desert amongst the Bedouin. The Bedouin are a fierce but honorable people. If they give their word they will keep it but they will fight to the death over a goat, if needs be. They do indeed respect power and brutal force, but also wisdom and honor.
Christian boots on Muslim ground is an offense to that honor and makes us enemies we did not have and do not need. On 9/11 we were attacked. The correct response should have been overwhelming, ruthless and brutal, followed by asking God for forgiveness. The point would have been made, and respected, and the Jihadists reigned in. It is not our place to teach the Muslim world Christian values and secular governance, we can only set the boundaries, and mean it.
After giving fair warning for the innocent to flee, God leveled Sodom & Gomorrah. He made His point. RCX
After giving fair warning for the innocent to flee, God leveled Sodom & Gomorrah.
Unfortunately, as you well know, we lack the stomach (culturally) to level anything.
That said, what is the next best solution?
I have to disagree with Mr. Chiroux on this one. I will agree that extended occupations on anyone else’s lands are a sure way not to win friends. But at the same end, these are Wahhabis we are dealing with here, people whom believe that Jews, Christians, and even their fellow Muslims are apes, pigs, unclean, polytheists deserving of the sword. How do you negotiate with that? You don’t.
Let’s get real here. The only country actually run by Wahhabis(Saudi Arabia) happens to pride itself on being 100 percent Muslim and has a genocidal, bloody, imperialistic history since its conception as a state in the 18th century, and from the looks of things, not a whole lot has changed. Everywhere the Saudi religious establishment goes, trouble pops up.
Of course seeing that our relationship with the Saudis doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon, maybe we should consider leaving Afghanistan. I mean if we want to beat the Wahhabi ideology, perhaps we should address the actual root of it, which is not Afghanistan.
“The best way to get some political cover is to send in some SpecOps guys occasionally to score cheap and meaningless victories against a burgeoning threat just to get the ruling party through the next election.”
Some people have a little too much Hollywood on the brain. Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, Rambo or any combination of the three are not going to get rid of the Taliban. They also would not have been able to remove Saddam Hussein from power. There rarely is an easy solution that allows you to only place a minimal amount of troops in harms way. Its that sort of mentality that led to Johnson’s failed strategy of proportional escalation.
[…] This Ain’t Hell (but you can see it from here): I have nothing against George Will – in fact he and I had a nice short chat one night at the National Press Club several years back and I found him to be an affable and brilliant fellow. But, this is way out of his lane, […]
Have little to add. If there is a clearly established threat from (you name it) we need to address that threat.
But we won’t. Really shouldn’t use the collective ‘WE’, but if recent history is a guide, it’s worth considering.
OTOH it’s just a LEO issue. Let them deal with it after the fact.
How many times have the jihadists thrown up our withdrawal from Somalia as big victory for them? They use it constantly as a recruiting tool to convince their mentally feeble followers that they can beat a super power. I get a special sick feeling in my gut everytime I hear or read that in one of their jihadi propaganda efforts.
We can not cede one inch of ground. Iraq is working out their issues because the Iraqis are finally getting the stones to stand up and if you want to get angry or frustrated at anybody, get that way at the Afghanis. There is a whole lot of history that you need to be familiar with when it comes to trying to grasp what the country of Afghanistan is all about, not the least of which is how the country came into being in the first place and why it is so hard to instill any sort of national pride in its citizens.
I am by no means an expert on the issue either, but to me it looks like rather then working on a national scale, we are going to have to do this province by province and maybe that is the change in strategic philosophy that Gen McChrystal was alluding to.
We can not leave on the enemies terms no matter what the cost, and it pains me to say that, but we should have at least learned that lesson if nothing else from our incursion into Somalia.
Robert Chiroux: just one point, the existence of Christians in the world is an affront to the Jihadi, regardless if they have BOG in a Muslim Nation.
Mr.Robert Chiroux, I agree with you 110%. Yes, we need to fight Al-Q & the other bastards, but building a Jeffersonian democracy where all ethnic groups are treated equally in “Afghanistan” is about as worthwhile as teaching the proverbial pig to sing. We’re talking about a people that just ratified a law allowing hubby to starve wifey if she isn’t giving him quality time.
The 31st Commandant of the United States Marine Corps has seem fit to write a letter to Mr George Will and says that he is in total agreement with him.http://abcnews.go.com/images/ThisWeek/Krulak_letter2.pdf