It's become almost trite to observe that the Islamists are engaged in asymmetrical warfare against the West. They have taken our strengths, like our freedom, openness, and morality, and flipped them around in a ju-jitsu move against us.
They hide in mosques, because our rules forbid harming religious shrines. They hide behind women and children, because they know our morality will not let us fire. They excoriate us over the brutalizing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib - and reply with a gruesome public beheading. They infiltrate our country, secure in the knowledge that our borders will let them in, and our anti-discrimination laws will shield them once here. I could extend this list for pages - we all know what's been going on.
The Islamists attack us the way they do because that is all they have. Their fury will not let us live, so they throw themselves against us, splattering us with their blood. They cannot destroy us physically, so they seek to strike directly at that which is the basis of our physical strength: our heart. Our will. They hope to beat us in a war of attrition of will-to-fight.
And it's working. We can all see that too.
But there is another kind of asymmetrical warfare. If the Islamists attack us this way because it is all they have - so too we can only attack with what we have. And we tend to have mostly big messy things that go "boom". At least. Yes, we've developed Special Forces and a fantastic Army and Marine Corps. But when those don't work, what we've got left is big bombs. That's our limitation.
They keep attacking us. How many hits and near-misses have we had just since the beginning of the year, 5 eternal months ago? Spain. Chechnya. Riyadh. Istanbul. NATO plot. 375 pound dirty bomb material plot. Olympics "dry run" in Greece. Multiple bombings in Israel. Endless bombings in Iraq, some massive. Does anyone think this will stop? Or even slow down? It's not about Iraq, or Palestine, or any of that. It's pure nihilism and hate. Everyone can see that, even those on the other side. Indeed they flaunt their hate, revel in it, live for it.
So they won't stop. They'll keep pushing, keep attacking. If we leave Iraq they will follow us here. What will we do then? If we are pressed into the corner, and we cannot respond in any way but the asymmetrical means available to us, then those will be the means we will use. Can't tell the good guys from the bad guys? Better duck. Not enough troops to hold a country? It's tough, 280 million Americans against a billion plus Muslims. Well, if we're short on men, we're not short on B2s. And Tridents. And if we MUST fight, if our backs are against the wall, that's what we'll use. We'll use what we have, just like Al Qaeda, and for the same reason.
The world, some of it anyway, has been horrified by what asymmetrical warfare by terrorists has produced. They might stop to consider the horror that asymmetrical warfare by the Americans will produce.
I have a tendency to not blog on really big news stories. Other folks cover it better than I, so it's harder to get motivated, which is always a problem for me anyway.
But the coverage and ongoing controversy over Abu Ghraib has some aspects and side-effects, and I'd like to look at a few of those.
First, I need to offer the obligatory, albeit genuine, expression that these things were Very Bad, and that the perpetrators need to be severely punished. These are war crimes, and should be treated with deadly seriousness as such. I acknowledge that this episode has had an unfortunate effect on the war effort, although I think it is being greatly over-emphasized by our enemies foreign and domestic.
The Taguba report seems direct and clear, and pulls no punches, but it leaves me wondering: why there weren't officer prosecutions. I was aghast to read the full extent of BG Karpinski's dereliction of duty, and you will be too, if you read the report.
So why are there no officers in the dock? The report is a litany of command incompetence. Those soldiers are in the dock due to their direct actions, but they are also in the dock because of their officer's lack of action and responsibility. After reading the report, I can hardly believe Karpinski will show her face in public, let alone go whining all over the TV. She ought to be on charges herself, in this layman citizen's opinion. And she was not alone, by a long shot.
Ok, so there's the bare facts, the Army looked into it, dug out the truth, and is taking care of business, albeit with insufficient bloodthirstiness for my taste, but sometimes that's what rules are for. I said I was a layman. But what about those side-effects I mentioned?
To their eternal shame, the Democrats have gone berserk and are frothing at the mouth at unprecedented levels. They join the foreign crowd demanding that Heads Must Roll! They are blatantly using the tragedy of this blow to their country to further their own political careers. They think. And they see no shame in their actions! Do you believe it? No shame!
To fire Rumsfeld, or Bush, in response to this would not be so very different than what the Spanish did. That may not seem coldly logical, but I believe that would the practical effect. The voters of Spain squealed that they didn't really bend over for Al Qaeda, really they voted that way because of Aznar this and Aznar that. Sure, sure. Maybe it was even true. So what? The Islamist enemy celebrated in the streets all the same, and showed his utter scorn with further acts of impudence. So too would the whole world serve the US if we were to fire Rumsfeld, or hire Kerry. It would be seen as utter weakness, and a victory for the enemy.
There are other side effects I want to discuss, but this is getting over-long, and it's near my bedtime. Sorry, I don't have the drive of a Glenn Reynolds. :)
UPDATE
La Shawn Barber has something similar with "The Left's Self-Destruction"
Undone by their own passion. I am now convinced that the left is a godless cabal playing right into the Enemy's hands. No longer do I surmise.
She just says it better than I do.
I just saw Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday do a half-hour on "What We've Accomplished" in Iraq. In "rebuttal" to defeatist Ted Koppel, I suspect.
Its an amazing list. I have to offer a rousing OUTSTANDING! to all of our soldiers, citizens, and allies who are serving in Iraq. You've accomplished amazing things. In many ways it has been a success completely unprecedented in human history. Thank! You!
And thanks go to Chris Wallace as well. Everyone else is (over-)playing the Abu Ghraib crimes and making out like "this is America". No, what Chris Wallace shows is the real America.