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| Afghanistan |
| Diana West: "Losing" Our Way to Victory |
| 2009-10-05 |
| ... It is not, as our presidents vaguely invoke, a war against "terrorism," "radicalism" or "extremism"; and it is not, as the current hearts-and-minds-obsessed Afghanistan commander calls it, "a struggle to gain the support of the (Afghan) people." It is something more specific than presidents describe, and it is something larger than the outlines of Iraq or Afghanistan. The war that has fallen to our generation is to halt the spread of Islamic law (Sharia) in the West, whether driven by the explosive belts of violent jihad, the morality-laundering of petro-dollars or decisive demographic shifts. ... But we would "lose face" in leaving Afghanistan, supporters say. News flash: We lose face every day in Afghanistan executing a costly, impotent policy based on massive state bribery, the public devaluation of American life ("population protection" trumps "force protection"), and deference to Islamic custom, as when women Marines are ordered to wind head scarves under their helmets for missions. And the point of this mass American supplication? To win a local popularity contest in which the only competition is the Taliban. Earth to military geniuses: The people are already with you, or they're against you. ... In other words, it's time to toss the policy of standing up Sharia states such as Iraq and Afghanistan onto that ash heap of history. It's time to shore up liberty in the West, which, while we are stretched and distracted by Eastern adventures, is currently contracting in its accommodations of Sharia, a legal system best described as sacralized totalitarianism. ... |
| Posted by:Thoting Grumble4938 |
| #5 She sees the symptoms, but not the cause. Afghanistan is the Left's UN approved PC war. Leaving would mean ditching the UN and leaving the bad neocon Iraq won, while Afghanistan is a shambolic lost war that was never winnable in the first place. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2009-10-05 20:21 |
| #4 Jacksonianism is kinda stragically immature. They hit us, lets hit them, but damned if we are gonna follow through to do the things necessary to actually win. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-10-05 16:50 |
| #3 I think this is more than a simple left-right issue. This article seems to look at the war from a "Jacksonian" perspective (one of Meade's 4 schools of American politics), and if Meade is basically correct then it indicates major trouble since he postulates that Jacksonian support is a necessary, though not sufficient condition for any US war effort. |
| Posted by: Thoting Grumble4938 2009-10-05 15:25 |
| #2 So the rightwing Islamophobe side of the call for withdrawl is underway. "the public devaluation of American life ("population protection" trumps "force protection")" Back when we used to win wars, accomplishing the mission trumped force protection. In this case, population protection is part of the mission. "Earth to military geniuses: The people are already with you, or they're against you." So this pundit, thinks the generals who are in country, fighting the war, in daily contact with US officers leading missions on the ground, are to be mocked as "military geniuses". If some lefty idiot were saying this sort of thing, we would be shredding it, and rightly so. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-10-05 14:38 |
| #1 Hear, hear. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-10-05 14:27 |