Category: General

West: “Trying to transform Afghanistan into an anti-jihad, anti-Sharia player…is like trying to roll Sisyphus’ rock up the hill”

As we have long noted here, in a state like Afghanistan, the proponents of Sharia will never accept a democratic republic — it’s Islamic law or war. So what exactly are U.S. forces going to accomplish there?  (Or, in the words of Sheik yer’mami: “is it progress if we teach cannibals to use fork and knife?)

“Let Afghanistan Go,” by Diana West, April 23 (thanks to JW):

• Cowardly CZECH soldiers  have let their British command down by refusing to fight terrorists several times

[…] Don’t get me wrong: If killing small bands of Taliban is in the best interest of the United States, I’m for it. But I do not believe it is — and certainly not as part of the grand strategy conceived first by the Bush administration and now expanded by the Obama administration to turn Afghanistan into a state capable of warding off what is daintily known as “extremism,” but is, in fact, bona-fide jihad to advance Sharia (Islamic law). Anybody remember Sisyphus? Well, trying to transform Afghanistan into an anti-jihad, anti-Sharia player — let alone functional nation — is like trying to roll Sisyphus’ rock up the hill.

This is not to suggest that there is no war or enemies to fight, which is what both the Left and the Paleo-Right will say; there most certainly are. But sinking all possible men, materiel and bureaucracy into Afghanistan, as the Obama people and most conservatives favor, to try to bring a corrupt Islamic culture into working modernity while simultaneously fighting Taliban and wading deep into treacherous Pakistani wars is no way to victory — at least not to U.S. victory. On the contrary, it is the best way to bleed and further degrade U.S. military capabilities. Indeed, if I were a jihad chieftain, I couldn’t imagine a better strategy than to entrap tens of thousands of America’s very best young men in an open-ended war of mortal hide-and-seek in the North West Frontier.

I decided to ask someone with real military experience how we could fend off jihad without further digging ourselves into Central Asia. I called up retired Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, one of the few top military leaders who talks on the record, to ask for his strategy recommendation for Afghanistan.

“Basically, let it go,” he said.

Find out why. Read it all.