Posted on 10/03/2009 8:56:42 PM PDT by Saije
Today's column is for all hawkish Americans currently wrestling with looming doubts about the pointlessness of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and clubbing them down with the much-mentioned perils of leaving Afghanistan to "the terrorists."
In short, it's about how to "lose" Afghanistan and win the war.
And what war would that be? Since 9/11, the answer to this question has eluded our leaders, but it remains the missing link to a cogent U.S. foreign policy.
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 (Shariah) in the West, whether driven by the explosive belts of violent jihad, the morality-laundering of petro-dollars, or decisive demographic shifts.
This mission demands a new line of battle around the West itself, one supported by a multilevel strategy in which the purpose of military action is not to nation-build in the Islamic world, but to nation-save in the Western one...
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 female Marines are ordered to wind head scarves under their helmets for missions...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
BS
Islam has been waging war against the West since about 650 AD. They brought down the Byzantine Empire. They besieged Vienna. They waged a pirate war at Tripoli. They allied with the Germans in WWI and in WWII. They have fomented terrorism for decades and decades.
Our presence over there is not the CAUSE of the problem. Only an idiot would see it that way. We take the war to their homes so that they are prevented from bringing the war to our homes. It's pretty simple, really.
“Our presence over there is not the CAUSE of the problem.”
I don’t think that’s the point of her article at all. I think her point is that Muslim countries aren’t going to become Westernized no matter how hard we try to create the conditions for that whereas Western countries are slowly but surely being Islamicized...a point commentators like Mark Steyn makes regularly.
We’re not going to win any wars anywhere against anything until we beat back our own communists and particularly those in high places in Washington.
The futility of trying to fight radical Islam when the so-called commander of the effort is closing down the one prison where captives can be safely put, has ended all meaningful interrogations that might lead to future threats, has actually said he has no interest in victory...
Well, come on. I don’t want to see Afghanistan turned back over to al Qaeda and the Taliban but it’s preposterous to think we’re going to GET something over there with communists running things here.
Some wars are bigger than others and the Left has to be taken down here before anything meaningful can be achived elsewhere—if it can be.
Victory in this war is not optional.
People who don’t believe in anything have a hard time understanding that, they are sure the enemy can be appeased.
We are in a war against radical muslim imperialism. Not everyone understands that, but the muslim imperialists understand it very well. If we declare victory and run for the high hills, the Obamists will be easy to convince that this was a great victory. But the muslim imperialists won’t be fooled, they’ll know it for what it is. A great victory for them. They’ll have a Texas sized territory to operate from, a legal government to hide behind, and the war will continue on another front, much closer to home.
Eventually we’ll get it, and we’ll fight back in seriousness. The question is how many US cities will burn before we get it, and if we will ever again have the luxury of fighting them in a faraway land far from our homes and our families.
“...so busy trying to win the wars over there that we end up losing the one here...”
.
The country is sending its brave men and women to fight the burglar at the front door while it keeps the back door wide open for his accomplice to enter the house.
“Victory in this war is not optional.”
And no one is saying it is. But what victory is there in propping up Karzai and the Afghan parliament, who recently passed a law making it legal for a man to beat his wife if she withholds sex, while in the West people are afraid of publishing cartoons that might offend Muslims?
Life’s complicated.
“Life’s complicated.”
Yes it is. And we’ve got simpletons at the helm these days.
Am glad someone gets it.
Too many think they know why we shouldn’t be defending
ourselves from an enemy who has declared war on America
and who has attacked other countries around the world,
from London to India.
Diana West is not my idea of a Military expert.
The Paulites rather that deal with the real enemy find
substitutes, and dismissing 9/11 to the point that some blame America as Ron Paul calls it blowback.
At any point in time, there are thousands of Marines and Navy from here in San Diego defending America in the
Middle East so we don’t have to here.
The Far Left and other fringe groups does not want us defending our country. How many more people do they want to see jump from 80 stories high or ID from DNA because bits and pieces are left of a person who just showed up for work one morning.
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