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Jewish World Review Feb 28, 2012/ 5 Adar, 5772 Admit defeat during an election year? Obama DOES have an understandable foreign policy By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We must withdraw all our military and aid personnel from Afghanistan before the Obama administration's groveling gets more of them killed.
Rioting broke out across Afghanistan after U.S. troops inadvertently burned Korans in a garbage pit at Bagram Air Force Base a week ago Monday (2/20). At least 30 people -- four of them U.S. servicemen -- have been killed since the rioting began.
The Korans were part of materials taken from the library at the Parwan detention facility adjacent to Bagram AFB. They were ordered destroyed after it was learned that terrorists held there were exchanging messages by writing in the books.
The books were written in Dari and Pashtun. The U.S. troops who were told to destroy them had no idea there were Korans among them.
"The Quran is the most sacred object in the daily lives of Muslims and burning it is considered an offense against G0d," noted the Associated Press. "Muslims can only dispose of Qurans in very specific ways, including burning or burying those that have been damaged or corrupted to prevent G0d's word from being defiled."
Muslims are selective about expressing indignation over improper disposal of their holy book. Each year thousands of Korans are dumped in a sewage canal in Lahore, Pakistan, according to a Pakistani news broadcast posted on Youtube last Oct. 22. Apparently some of the locals use them for toilet paper.
As soon as the mistake was discovered, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan apologized. "It was not a decision that was made with respect to the faith of Islam," said Marine Gen. John Allen. "It was a mistake. It was an error. The moment we found out about it we immediately stopped and we intervened."
There the matter should have rested. But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also issued a public apology, and President Barack Obama sent a letter of apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. A deputy defense secretary apologized at a mosque in Sterling, Va. Friday.
Serial obsequiousness has not mollified the Afghans. Two U.S. officers were murdered inside the Afghan Interior Ministry Saturday by an Afghan police intelligence officer. Seven U.S. servicemen were injured Sunday when grenades were thrown at their base.
The administration's groveling "whets the appetite" for violence because it signals weakness and fear, said columnist Charles Krauthammer. "People love to see America on its knees."
President Karzai has demanded that the U.S. military personnel responsible for the Koran burning be put on trial, even though he acknowledges it was a mistake. He has not apologized for the treacherous murder of U.S. soldiers by his government's military and police. Nearly 200 Coalition members have been killed or wounded in nearly 50 documented attacks by members of Afghan security forces, according to war correspondent and former Green Beret Michael Yon.
The murders of NATO troops by Afghan troops "do not represent rare and isolated events," according to an Army study released last May. The "rapidly growing fratricide-murder trend" by Afghan security personnel confirms the "ineffectiveness" of NATO policy, "A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility" concluded. The study swiftly was classified, presumably because it conflicted with the administration's happy talk. But the truth is getting harder to conceal.
We were right to go into Afghanistan after 9/11 to oust the Taliban, because it had sheltered al Qaida. But staying after we had done so was the height of folly. Afghan society is so backward and violent the chances of "nation-building" succeeding there were infinitesimally small, no matter how long we stayed our how much money we spent. We see how little gratitude there is for the aid we've already provided.
Mission Impossible also has been Mission Pointless. Afghanistan is a cultural backwater largely because it is so geographically isolated. Al Qaida long ago decamped for countries with better access to targets in the West.
Pulling out now would be admitting defeat, which is the administration is loathe to do in an election year. But Mr. Obama has sought peace talks with the Taliban, to be "moderated" by a senior cleric of the Muslim Brotherhood -- which suggests he was planning to get out quietly once the election is safely past. Maintaining the charade for another eight months is not worth the blood of a single American soldier.
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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2011, Jack Kelly |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
