The Latest Afghanistan Debacle.. What We Have Learned

With all the political one-upsmanship going on, it's easy to dismiss the current Afghanistan hearings as a pointless farce.  In fact, no great friend of the PC Government, even Chantel Hebert of the Toronto Star reports today that the hearings are going nowhere.

As Hebert states this morning, the hearing is "is flying blind and about to run on empty."

I say, don't dismiss it so quickly.

There are some serious lessons to be learned here, which I suggest bear keeping in mind for future reference, as follows:

1.  In the current world construct, Muslim extremists have changed the face of war.  No longer will the dissaffected or the power hungry seek to don uniforms and seek to overcome their opposition by reference to Sun Tzu's "Art of War", they will, like cowardly rats, enmesh themselves within the general population and seek to win through a chaotic war of attrition.   You may kill a thousand of them, but if there are another thousand taking their place, eventually, you will tire and just give up.  That is their hope.  And if you don't give up, they are counting on the fat and happy population of the citizens picking up the tab for your labor to give up.

This is Afghanistan.  And their plan, ingenenious in it's simplicity as it is cowardly and without compassion or concern for their own citizens around them, has worked.  Soon, Canada, and other allies, will leave Afgahnistan, and it will likely revert, more or less, to the country it has been for centuries, and will still be for centuries to come.

2.  For those countries who might, in the future, consider providing military assistance to a country oppressed by a murderous regime, be warned.  You will not receive thanks or reward.  Your soldiers will die.  You will be forced to spend billions of dollars to  carry out your duty, and you will be second-guessed, by the Monday morning quarterbacks of the U.N., and Amnesty International, and desk-jockies at home, who will seek to criticize everything you have done - under the 20/20 vision of hindsight.  And the criticisms, while in truth most often being simple political stunts used to discredit the existing government, will still put the soldiers and their officers in the line of fire. 

The criticisms will come, mostly, from those who have never held a gun and been asked to kill another human being at the direction of their government, or watched their own close friends die, in some cases, feeling their last breath of life leaving them as they are held in your arms.

As with fighting a war against terrorists, you will see a politician as your friend today, and seeking to shoot you in the back tomorrow.  Because the battle to gain power knows no friends, and knows no decency.

3.  The message, clearly, is to ignore it.  When countries "over there" run into difficulty, when their citizens are being murdered for doing things like, oh, believing in a different god, for having the wrong colored skin, or for just being the wrong gender, the message is, turn away.  Forget about places like Somalia, and Bosnia, Darfur, and Afghanistan.  Put up strong walls around your own country - send them some token money for food and clean water - but forget about military assistance.  The price is too high, and the rewards too fleeting.

When fighting an enemy who will set up rocket launchers in children's schools and in hospitals, enemies who train their insane posse of misfits to cry "torture" at every opportunity, concepts of "human rights" and "civilian casualties" will be used as extremely effective tools to undermine our troops ability to effectively protect themselves or others, and, as we've seen, will be used to put them up to derision and ridicule.

Better to turn away.

4.  Finally, and most clearly, Michael Ignatieff has shown himself to be the ultmate hypocrit.  The man who stood shoulder to shoulder with George W. Bush, cheering on his misplaced plan in Iraq, the man who said, there is a time and place for torture when necessary, is happy to turn his back on his own words and to attack those who put their own lives on the line to help others. 

Yes.. this hearing has been no trivial waste of time, and it's lessons should not be quickly dismissed.

So, as we move forward with these lessons in mind, we know NEVER to place our troops in a foreign country where terrorist rats are besieging their own citizens, and NEVER, EVER put any faith in anything that Michael Ignatieff writes, says, or does.

Lesson learned.