Taliban and Al Quaeda leaders are being killed at an increasing rate. Civilian casualties are down. Recruitment of Afghans to defend their country from terrorists is up. Al Quaeda's strike attempts are growing smaller, sloppier and more amateurish.
We're winning. I don't expect the Republicans to admit it, because, in contrast to what they claimed about liberals, they really DO want us to lose so they can regain the power they pissed away so badly. I don't expect the mainstream "liberal" media to admit it, because they're terrified Republican Brownshirts like Liz Cheney will claim they're biased or that they're downplaying the threat.
But why the hell aren't the Democrats pushing this story? If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama go on TV and said, "we're not out of the woods yet, but we're making real progress," what the hell are Liz n' Dick Cheney and Pat Buchanan going to say? "No, we're losing?" Good luck with that message.
8 comments:
Because the Democrats are more focused on the health plan right now? it is puzzling. Maybe they listen to Rush et al too.
Interesting. What if we win the war we were destined to lose?
Well, first we have to define winning, i.e. we need to get straight what our objectives are. If we want to rule Afghanistan, we'll lose like everyone else who's tried that. If we define winning as leaving behind a government and an army that can keep terrorists from using the country as a base, then we can win in Afghanistan.
Because, although we're winning against al-Qaida, we haven't totally crushed all terrorism (and never will); also, "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan means a stable democratic government in both nations, and what we actually have at the moment will collapse into civil war and/or dictatorship the moment our last soldier leaves their soil, if not sooner.
When we use police tactics or spy tactics to fight terrorist groups, we win; when we use convention armies to fight terrorist groups, we lose.
What happens if we use both?
(finally got my Google account to work)
If we use military force to fight terrorism, we lose, no matter what else we use. An army is too blunt an instrument to combat small cells of fanatics. The collateral damage it leaves behind ends up creating more terrorists and radicals than it destroys, Q. E. D.
More to the point, democracy cannot be introduced from outside; it has to originate from within, and the people have to have the ability to defend it themselves. Kharzai's government is to all purposes a corrupt, incompetent dictatorship, and the Iraqi government under al-Maliki not far from it. In both countries we have a two or three-cornered civil war either simmering (in Iraq) or active (if Afghanistan) that will blow up into total chaos if we ever leave.
Long story short: we need to divorce the war on al-Qaida (best handled through CIA, FBI and international police efforts) from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then stop wasting our time occupying those two nations. Once our troops are gone and the bombs stop falling on schools and weddings (and people stop vanishing into black-ops torture centers like Bagram AFB), we will have a chance to reverse the odium America has with the common Muslim people.
Winning? While things appear to be better in some aspects depending on who you read, I don't know if one can ever really win a guerilla war.
http://libertarianrepublican.blogspot.com/2009/02/australia-arson-suspect-arrested-muslim.html
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