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April 26, 2004

Fantasy World

I've often felt that people - mainly but not exclusivey Democrats - should be required to take a basic knowledge test before commenting on military matters. Lately, the number of liberal commentators who've joined the "Legion of the Invincibly Ignorant" is overwhelming.

Case in point: "Brad", at his blog "Sad Parade".

In a piece last week (which I discovered after Michelle Catalano slimed an especially ignorant comment of "Brad"'s), he said:

But here's what gets me angry. As reported in the Post:
An Afghan military commander, Zakim Khan, said earlier this month that 700 troops, including 100 U.S. soldiers, were involved in operations to track down high-level terror suspects in the area of yesterday's ambush. See anything wrong with that? It's ridiculous enough that only 700 soldiers were involved in this critical mission. But only 1 in seven of them were Americans. Just like in the Tora Bora operation in December 2001, our Defense Department remains not committed enough to eliminating the real threat to America, and letting them slip over the border into friendly Pakistan.Stop right there.

Brad: How many US Special Forces guys led the Northern Alliance (the Afghan one, not this one) to a stunning victory over the Taliban - something over 100,000 Russian soldiers couldn't do?

100.

100 Green Berets on the ground, backed by a few thousand airmen and a "fire brigade" of a few thousand soldiers and Marines.

In counter-terror and counterinsurgency warfare, a small number of well-trained, highly motivated men are frequently more effective than larger units of regular troops.

Which is what we learned in the Tora Bora, which was not a special forces operation, but rather a standard, regular Army operation involving troops from the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne divisions. The men were not prepared for the sort of short, sharp, unconventional campaign that the Tora Bora required, and suffered casualties and fell short in executing the mission accordingly.

It had nothing - no, less than nothing - to do with numbers. Not that I'd expect a liberal blogger like "Brad" to know.

Had Bush concentrated the war effort here, where Tillman was serving, rather than pulling troops and diverting funds to Iraq ($700 million, according to Bob Woodward, all without Congressional approval!), we might be a little safer from al Qaeda. Instead, what the misguided and unnecessary and quagmire-ish Iraq campaign has done is fulfill Osama bin Laden's prophecy of the United States invading and occupying the Holy Land.
I'm only answering this because it's the sort of idle speculation that seems to pass for thought about foreign policy and the war on terror to too many Democrats, especially lefty bloggers.

First: Iraq is not the Holy Land. Saudi Arabia is - and the fact that we haven't invaded the home of so much terrorism money and manpower causes many on the left to smirk like a toddler that just made a good pants and declare the President "hypocritical".

Second: Iraq is hardly a quagmire, although "Brad" will join many liberal bloggers in repeating the trope in the hopes that the ignorant will believe it.

Third: Confining the war to Afghanistan would be utterly pointless; Al Queda has moved on. We needed to, as well.

Fourth: Invading Iraq was necessary - but to know that, you'd have to be aware of the limits on Liberal thought on foreign policy best codified in "Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary (In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive.)

Which leads, inevitably, to statements like this:

Do the neocons ever pause to wonder if this action alone breeds terror?
Sure.

Compared to the simple facts that we are Americans, democratic, observe laws other than Sharia, let women get educations and hold office, and tolerate religious diversity, though, it's really not such a big deal.

Why do I single out "Brad"? because he left what may have been among the stupidest possible comments in Michelle Catalano's post about Tillman's death. "Brad" is a poster child for the sort of detached, fantasy world approach to the reality of the war on terror that I've read - no worse than the likes of Atrios and Kos, but somehow more depressing in its own way, watching the little swarm of ideology-addled halfwits that sprang to his defense on Michelle's blog (which is easily one of the most substantial and eloquent blogs to have sprung from 9/11 and the war).

There's never enough time or energy to fight bilge like that - although here, and now, I am.

Posted by Mitch at April 26, 2004 04:21 AM
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