[freethinker_for_freedom]

“I think he’s mistaken on what strengthens and what weakens them in this case.”

I would say that if Petraeus doesn’t know how to fight these people then nobody in charge for the last ten years has known, as he is the only one who has had any success.

I think the lesson is, don’t get involved in fighting insurgencies in the middle East. The sad thing is, that’s a lesson that has been proven time and time again, long before we began our own misadventures, only we chose to ignore it.

[9YearLurker]

I think that’s probably a fair lesson.

I’d add into it one I think we could learn from Europe as well (as Mark Steyn is often highlighting)—which is that Western appeasement of Muslim ‘sensitivities’ and demands is culturally suicidal.

[af_vet_rr]

I think the lesson is, don’t get involved in fighting insurgencies in the middle East. The sad thing is, that’s a lesson that has been proven time and time again, long before we began our own misadventures, only we chose to ignore it.

I agree that Iraq was something we should have avoided in hindsight, and I say this as a huge supporter of it originally, but we could not have avoided Afghanistan, not after 9/11, and I would much rather we fight them over there than over here.