Money quote(s):
"When fighting an enemy that thinks in centuries and millenniums, announcing that you only have the vision and fortitude to manage a year and a half to oppose them is nearly criminal.
Afghanistan and the larger war against Islamist extremists is one we are quite poorly suited to fight. They have a long war mentality and know this is a clash of civilizations"
The Huntington question is one I'm still undecided about.
One of the reasons is that it's difficult, frankly, to credit tribal Afghanis with being part of any civilization to speak of, at least in other than the most broad and general of definitions.
"(E)very weakness that al Qaeda and the rest have properly stated about us; we don't have the will or intestinal fortitude as a nation to fight them as they do to fight us. They don't have to beat us to win; they simply have to outlast us"
The flip side to this is that all we have to do is not lose.
"They were slaughtered in the thousands by the Soviets, and yet they simply cringed away, licked their wounds and returned. They were toppled by us in one of the most amazing uses of Special Operations force multiplication in 2001, and yet they simply cringed away, licked their wounds and returned. Now we have again dealt them crippling blows and even finally killed their head goat-raper, does anyone doubt they will again cringe away, lick their wounds and return? Who will stop them, the kleptocracy of the Karzais, the Afghan Security forces, the international community? Hell no!"
One of the advantages of being part of an only nominally literate culture is that your institutional memory has a very short shelf life. Usually that's a disadvantage, but if keeping up your tribe's will to fight requires that you have a fairly short memory for the times you got your butts kicked, it can work in your favor.
"If we had left in 2002, we could have claimed a victory and then proclaimed that we will bomb the living hell out of any Islamist bastards who pop their heads up. We didn't and in staying we planted a flag in the ground." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)
The "Pottery Barn" rule is so much horseshit. The West, collectively, has forgotten the merits of the punitive raid or action. After all, it's hardly "reconstruction" if you're building something they never had to begin with.
"(W)e did fight them and killed them in bunches, but that was a tactical victory for the prowess of American fighters. This battle in the greater war? That we will watch al Qaeda and their allies claim for a win."
The demographic reality of high birthrate cultures mean our enemies have some advantages in the long run. Doesn't mean they're guaranteed a win in the end, but that's how they're betting at any rate.
No comments:
Post a Comment