Thursday, September 14, 2006

America Refuses to Attack Taliban - Awful Decision

Want to know why America still struggles to win the war on terror? This story tells all we need to know.

And yes, believe it - the U.S. military identified a gathering of over one-hundred Taliban terrorists, had the chance to bomb or otherwise attack them, and refused to do so because the men were standing in a cemetery, and this would have violated Afghanistan's cultural sensitivities. A military spokesman confirmed the decision, explaining that our coalition forces "hold themselves to a higher moral and ethical standard than their enemies."

This decision is simply outrageous. It pains me to criticize our armed forces in this war, as they risk their lives daily to protect our freedom, something for which I am grateful and supportive to the utmost. But here, I do feel compelled to speak out, because this instance demonstrates the unfortunate degree to which political correctness has penetrated our society, to our significant civilizational risk.

The men the army spared are enemy combatants, not civilians. They are evil terrorists who fight in order to massacre as many innocents as possible. They have killed American soldiers without mercy, and given the opportunity would murder or enslave every last non-Muslim. Indeed, their vile opposition is the main reason we're still *in* Afghanistan, and attacking them, really, is a matter of self defense.

Refusing to strike them may save their lives, but it places the lives of our own soldiers at much greater risk. This is not moral and ethical, but quite the opposite. A legitimate argument may have been over the method of attack, as a surprise conventional strike might have captured them alive at little risk to coalition troops (assuming they weren't armed due to the funeral), while a bombing attack probably would have killed them. But regardless, to simply let them escape means only to allow them further chances to attack our troops. Doing so, hence, was a colossal mistake. For anyone wondering why the Taliban keeps regrouping, the answer is simple - because we let it.

To put things into proper perspective, would the U.S. have spared a Nazi officer gathering at a German cemetery during World War II? I certainly don't think so. And why? Because they were Nazis and they were evil. If we didn't stop them, they would have continued their mass genocide and their plans to take over the world.

The Taliban terrorists may lack the Nazis' power, but their murderous intentions are just the same. These people cannot be reasoned or negotiated with, only defeated. Letting them escape now will only make the fight against them more difficult down the line.

The military's awful decision has already been made and cannot be reversed. But if America wants to defeat the jihadists, we must learn from such mistakes to avoid repeating them in the future. Our freedom and civilization depend on it.

3 comments:

Solid Surfer Archive said...

I'm not sure what Dukakis would have said, but I'd argue that a true humanitarian would support striking the terrorists. It's no question that these men have been attacking and murdering both innocent civilians and American soldiers, and surely plan to continue this. Therefore, America's military would be attacking them purely in self defense.

I'd feel very differently if the terrorists were amenable to negotiation and reasoning; in that such case, I'd be wholly against attacking them. But since we know they won't compromise their jihadist values and will fight to the death, America as I see it has no choice but to respond.

I actually didn't intend this piece as a widescale condemnation of our armed forces; on the whole, I think they've been doing a great job and I'm very grateful to and supportive of them. But this is one case where, unfortunately, I think they let political correctness get way too in the way. (I should actually update the original post to clarify this.)

Solid Surfer Archive said...

Kuknkat:

Surfer,

I agree that often our military is prevented from taking the right action that would REDUCE the length of a conflict and the number of casualties because of ridiculous PC policies.

In this case I do not believe we have enough information to make a decision. Over at Autonomous they posted on the same thing and had a follow up statement from a General who claimed that it was a decision based on operational needs or some such.

In other words, the options are that they were following someone and didn't want to blow the work already done to track them back to the biggies, or, we had an operative in the group we didn't want to kill along with possible future information he could develop or...???

This could have been another leftard operation trying to smear the Bush War. It could also have been a true patriot who did not have all the information needed to understand what appeared to be a PC decision.

The way highly classified operations are partitioned all the people running the surveillance might not know all the info about what they are surveiling. Basically we just DON'T KNOW.

Solid Surfer Archive said...

Solid Surfer:

Kuhnkat, those are some really good points. I really hope you're right, and that the decision was made for legitimate reasons of which we aren't aware, as opposed to the army falling for political correctness.