Posted by
TheLeftIsEvil on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 8:39:14 PM
Now, after you've gone to Michael Totten's web site and read his description of what victory over al Qaeda feels like to the liberated Iraqis in Anbar Province, check out Victor Davis Hanson's latest to find out why doing this is so difficult.
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson091407.html
Here are a few outtakes to tease you:
"First, there is the degree to which terrorists can obtain weapons
sophisticated enough to kill well-protected soldiers of a far more affluent
society. That requisite need not mean parity with the arsenal of the more
advanced nation, but rather only the ability to nullify much of its
technological superiority.
The terrorist always scores points when his cheap, workmanlike weapons
triumph over high-tech gadgetry — think of simple rocket-propelled grenade
rounds blowing apart a $2 million Blackhawk helicopter, or simple, imported
roadside bombs still immune to the countermeasures dreamed up by a Pentagon
task force."
"Second is the enemy’s desire and ability to kill the requisite number of
Westerners in sufficiently savage fashion — hanging their corpses on a bridge
or executing them on the internet — to cause large-scale demoralization on the
home front. Savagery is a force multiplier: the more horrific the carnage on
the suburban televisions of America,
the better."
"Third, there is the problem of new global communications — another advantage
for insurgents who want to exhaust the West. It is often said that had the
weeks in the hedgerows after D-Day (June to late July 1944) or the Battle of
the Bulge (December 1944 to January 1945) been televised each hour on CNN or
Fox — with real-time email and cell phone communications with beleaguered
soldiers in the field — we would never have won either battle. Both victories
saw horrific casualties as a result of intelligence failures and sheer
incompetence, but our culpable generals counted on enough of a window of public
ignorance to rectify their mistakes and continue the battle.
None of these developments means that we won’t win in Iraq, stabilize the nascent democracy there, and
help bring prosperity to the heart of the Middle East.
But we should accept that in a world of increasing Western material comfort, it
is becoming far harder for postmodern societies like the United States and Europe
to fight ever more premodern foes."
Happily, as Totten's report shows us, defeating terrorism, even in a beaten down Third World country like Iraq, is eminently doable. Especially by our incredibly brave and kindly American troops.