Via Herschel
I have enough posts on Afghanistan to write a book. But I thought it may be a good thing to give some closing thoughts on a failed campaign.
From the beginning of the George W. Bush era, the notion had been that people love liberty and will always side with it. This is a demonstrably stupid assumption, disproven merely by looking at the medical yoke of tyranny Americans seem to love at the moment.
The important facet of human belief systems Bush failed to take into account was religion. Islam isn’t built for liberty, and liberty isn’t compatible with Islam. When David Kilcullen wrote his doctoral thesis on counterinsurgency, he learned all the wrong lessons. He mistakenly believed that hearts can be won, and that the measure of doing that is a function of the degree to which they all share in the wealth, prosperity, political theater, and health of a nation or people. It’s the sociologist’s dream – couple human terrain with force from guns, and any culture can be transitioned into something that it is not.
More @ Captain's Journal
"The Great Game" continues
ReplyDeleteTrailing blood...
DeleteAt the end of WWII when Japan wrote it's new constitution much has been made over including language renouncing military agression. What is ignored that McArthur forced them to also include language prohibiting any place for Shinto Buddhism in government. McArthur did this because Shinto and it's Emperor worship was the basis of "warrior code" that underpinned the suicidal fanaticism that made the war in the Pacific so horrendous and bloody.
ReplyDeleteAfter the fall of the Taliban in 2001 Bush the younger (piss be upon him) fed us the notion that Islam is "a religion of peace" and raised no objection to Shria law being included in the new constitution of Afghanistan. Ditto Iraq two years later.
Gee that's all worked out so wonderfully hasn't it?
Bush the younger (piss be upon him) fed us the notion that Islam is "a religion of peace"
DeleteBraindead.