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July 3, 2007
Why We're Losing
It appears we are slowly losing our defensive war with terrorist Islam. Ralph Peters explains why: we aren't fighting to win.
Both Shiite and Sunni Muslims are at war with us. We struck a serious blow against Sunni terrorists by destroying al-Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan. But the Shiite terrorists' more threatening safe haven in Iran goes unmolested:
Aware that Tehran's commandos were active in Iraq, supplying weapons, training and direct supervision of attacks that targeted Americans, we did nothing. An Iranian diplomatic passport turned out to be a better form of body armor than anything our troops wear.
Patience isn't a virtue when a hostile government's killing your soldiers. Our timidity only encouraged Iran, which has paid no serious penalties.
Peters doesn't want to invade Iran…
But selective strikes against the infrastructure of the Revolutionary Guards (and the Quds Force in particular), as well as against Tehran's security services, are the minimum needed to get the regime's attention. […] Sanctions? Diplomacy? Tell it to the troops in Walter Reed. Or in Arlington. […] If military action isn't a perfect answer, appeasement is never the answer. Give in to terrorists' demands, and you'll only get more demands.
But on the home front, instead of calls to respond to Iran's escalating provocations, we get demands that foreign terrorists be granted all the rights of American citizens. Clearly this is not going to help us win, but it's as if no one really wants to win. The Republican administration seems satisfied to maintain a doomed holding action for as long as it can, whereas Democrats, insanely but undeniably, want us to lose.
Peters thinks our leaders just don't grasp that the war is serious:
They live in perfect safety and don't really care if you or your children die, as long as you vote for them.
If roadside bombs were going off on Capitol Hill, we'd punish Iran ferociously and stop treating captured terrorists like white-collar crooks. But as long as the IEDs only kill and cripple our soldiers and Marines, neither political party gives a damn.
The enemy has already crashed a jet into the Pentagon — more than the Nazis or Imperial Japanese ever managed. What will it take to wake Washington up to the fact that this fight is for real, and that we had better stop pussyfooting and play to win? As Iran scrambles to develop nuclear weapons technology, we may soon find out.
On a tip from Byron.
Posted by Van Helsing at July 3, 2007 8:42 AM
Comments
The death of Farfour made me think about another reason we're not winning. The enemy is serious, and their seriousness is reflected in their propaganda, which goes all out to make us the enemy, to rally their own people in hatred.
Whereas our media is more sympathetic to the enemy than they are to our own soldiers. And our leadership carries on less like a government at war than like Bourbon courtesans at the Court of Versailles.
The dumbest mistake Al Qaeda could make would be to nuke New York and Washington, because it is only the interference, arrogance, and idiocy of our leadership that prevents the rest of us from wiping them out.
Posted by: V the K at July 3, 2007 9:18 AM
Everyone in high places refuses to name the enemy: Islam. This is a religious war.
There was a story going around yesterday about how or dolts in charge met with radical Muslim groups to discuss ways to avoid the non-existent "Islamophobia" that never occurs after a Muslim terrorist attack.
Our media is rotten to the core. Objective my arse.
People like to say that Washington is controlled by Big Jew. Then why haven't we destroyed the Muslim world? Oil. People in high places might be pro-Israel, but our government is definitely not.
Posted by: Steve at July 3, 2007 9:46 AM
yeah great article. know what made me sick to my gut? was pres bush laughing it up with that murdered putin. just nauseating
btw please fix the comment thing. it takes way to long
Posted by: wiz at July 3, 2007 2:05 PM
Sorry about the slowness of the comments function. The more content accrues, the slower everything gets. I'm looking into ways to fix this.
Posted by: Van Helsing at July 3, 2007 2:41 PM
wiz: You're a bit impatient, aren't you? Maybe you can tweak it, but the Comments section seems to work just fine, VH.
Man, has Mr. Peters hit the nail on the proverbial head! If we would (could) just fight this war (I thought that's what it was, immediately post-9/11, but these days, I'm not at all so sure) like a war should be fought, i.e., kill the enemy, wherever the enemy is found (Iran, anyone?), and obliterate his resources, it would have been over by late 2004/early 2005, about the time the new government in Iraq had created and then established its Constitution, elections having been successfully held.
Instead, we dilly-dally around (I can only agree that GWB now seems content to just let us "hang on" in Iraq and Afghanistan, until the new administration (be it Dimocrat or Republican) comes into office -- then it's their problem!), we don't kill the enemy, in fact we appease him, daily, kiss his ass and pretty much just pray that he doesn't hit us on our shores, again -- as if.
We're headed for a fall, guys, and it's gonna be a big one. Maybe it'll be a wake-up call, maybe it'll mean the ascension of another Chamberlain who will appease Islamofascism out of existence (good luck!), leading straight to the take-over of this country by our enemy -- hard to say at this point in time.
Posted by: jc14 at July 3, 2007 3:20 PM
People have been saying the phrase "exit stratigy" ever since this war started. Here is the ONLY "exit stratagy" a war should have:
1} Defeat the enemy by breaking his ability or will to wage war.
2} Make sure that there are no hidden enemy forces that will continue fighting.
3} Make sure that the country's population won't create the same mess that started the war
4} Pack up and go home.
It's worked in hundreds of wars throughout history, why is THIS ONE treated as something diffrent?
Posted by: KHarn at July 4, 2007 8:44 AM
