re: "Obama to give Re-Election speech on A-Stan tonight"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") has concerns about our strategy in Afghanistan.


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.

re: "My Plan on How to Fight the Next Middle East War"

Frank J. Fleming at PajamasMedia ("exclusive news and opinion 24/7 with correspondents in over forty countries") is thinking about Grand Strategy.

Money quote(s):

"War is hell … if you’re in the war. For everyone else, it’s the whining that gets to us. The constant calls of “quagmire” and how everyone is dying for nothing and that we’re only making things worse and how we’re wasting money (yeah, the left used to pretend to care about that) really wear on us. I don’t know how our troops are doing with all the deployments, but all the civilians seem worn out from only hearing about war. We’re all war weary — despite most of us not being directly affected by any of the combat. Maybe our troops can handle getting shot at and going on multiple deployments just fine, but we can’t deal with the civilians complaining about it all the time."

Remember this?

"Obviously avoiding wars in the Middle East is not a realistic option, and I’m sure we’ll get involved in plenty more in the future. So how can we do that and avoid the constant whining of dumb hippies and having all those useless countries in Europe call us warmongers? Well, think back to the Iraq War and when people really started to viciously complain about it. We had broad support going in, and people were still pretty up on it during the initial bombing campaign and even once we got to the point of pulling down the Saddam statue. People truly started getting angry, and the “Bush=Hitler” signs came out in full force, when we stayed and tried to help.

Bombing a country is nothing, but hanging around the country afterward, helping it rebuild and establish a system of government where the citizens don’t get bossed around by a homicidal dictator, gets us into trouble. And it is pretty difficult for the troops; it requires them to stand out there exposed among the populace instead of just running around in tanks and exploding stuff. Plus it takes a long time, during which there will be constant whining about it, especially if there are Republicans in office to blame. The left basically collaborated with the insurgents in Iraq, saying, “Hey, if you kill more troops, then we will scream even louder about how awful this war is and hopefully get Bush out of office. So help us out here!”"

You have to love Frank J. He has a plain-spoken way of saying what he thinks and making it accessible.

"So I ask: Why should we even stay and help a country after we’ve bombed it?

Think about it. When President Bush gave that famous speech on the aircraft carrier in front of the “Mission Accomplished” banner, we could have just left the war then and said we won, and who could have argued with us? If you can go to a country, blow stuff up, and leave unscathed, that sounds like success. If someone came and burned your house and walked away, you wouldn’t say you won because the guy left. So why shouldn’t we in a future conflict in a Middle Eastern country just blow up stuff, declare victory, and leave?"

This is what's called a punitive expedition or war. Because its purpose is to punish. And that's it.

____

Hat tip to Frank J. at IMAO ("Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated.").