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Noted in Passing: David Warren on Afghanistan

What David Warren writes in Afghanistan : Essays in Idleness I knew by noon on 9/11:

Whether it was the Americans, in Asia, or the Romans, in remote Europe, it is difficult for any mostly civilized military force to defeat or tame a barbaric enemy. This must be attempted, from time to time.

It is not sufficient to imprison this sort of enemy. As a practical matter, he must instead be killed, both to remove him definitively from the theatre of conflict, and to terrify survivors, thus make them compliant. Modern, Western, post-Christian man has failed to do this even in imagination.

The principle of “mercy” does not come into it. We were fighting to the death against a mortal enemy. Any relaxation on our part would appear as weakness, and weakness costs lives.

The war lasted twenty years, less a few weeks, counting from 9/11. The United States (and allies) once again established their incoherence in battle. A coherent strategy would have ended in victory in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the intimidation of any potential enemies thoughout the “Middle East.” This result was almost available to the George Bush regime, but was sacrificed to maintain several childish illusions about democracy and the rule-of-law, where neither had ever existed.

Foreign wars, against barbaric savages, can be fought and won. Publicity should be avoided, as it has been in all successful encounters of this sort, since history began. We cannot afford to “pull punches.”

It is a myth that Afghans were unwilling to accommodate Western ways of life, or that Muslim fanatics cannot be defeated. The former, like most men, can be governed by fear, when that is what is left to motivate them; and the latter through annihilation.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Gordon Scott September 10, 2021, 9:59 PM

    Kipling was right about so many things.

    • Kevin in PA September 11, 2021, 7:19 AM

      I concur with Gordon….and Kipling.

      I also agree with the central premise of Warren’s piece; One cannot reason with barbarians. One must kill them. However, his opening salvo – “…it is difficult for any mostly civilized military force to defeat or tame a barbaric enemy. This must be attempted, from time to time.” , begs the question, WHY?

      Second, Warren’s assertion that – ” A coherent strategy would have ended in victory in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the intimidation of any potential enemies throughout the “Middle East.” This result was almost available to the George Bush regime, but was sacrificed to maintain several childish illusions about democracy and the rule-of-law, where neither had ever existed.”, is correct, but to say that Bush doctrine was a “childish illusion” is simple-minded and I don’t believe Warren is a simpleton.
      The Bush clan are Globalists through and through. They are part of what is killing our country. One need not spend a lot of time searching into the Bush connection to the House of Saud and the oil nexus of their wealth.
      The idea of fighting for the rights of women to vote in Afghanistan (or anywhere else), the concept of “nation-building” and other such might be nice, but, in my opinion, not if it costs one American life. The Globalist agenda that has been pushed forward by the Uni-party has cost the wealth and blood of a generation of Americans and wrapping it up in the parlance of noble truth bringers to the savages of the world is how the Globalists sell it. A nations military is for the purpose of national defense, not for the building up of other nations. American taxpayers are not the charitable benefactor of the world’s downtrodden.

  • PA Cat September 11, 2021, 7:43 AM

    Meanwhile, the drooling dementia patient in the WH is flooding the country with unvetted and unvettable Afghanis:

    From the Wall Street Journal:
    “WASHINGTON—The U.S. estimates it left behind the majority of Afghan interpreters and others who applied for visas to flee Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday, despite frantic efforts to evacuate those at risk of Taliban retribution. In the early days of the evacuation effort, thousands of Afghans crowded Kabul’s airport seeking a way to flee the country. Some made it through without paperwork, while American citizens and visa applicants were unable to enter and board flights out. The U.S. still doesn’t have reliable data on who was evacuated, nor for what type of visas they may qualify, the official said, but initial assessments suggested most visa applicants didn’t make it through the crush at the airport.”

    Commentary by Michael Kennedy at Chicago Boyz:
    “The Biden administration now boasts that 120,000 Afghans were evacuated. Who are they? An agency in Virginia has requested interpreters in Dari and Pashto for refugees who do not speak English. If they do not speak English, how could they have been interpreters? One Wisconsin Congressman reported that none of the 2,000 refugees in a base in Wisconsin has an SIV visa. Who are they?”

    More at the link: https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/66603.html

    • Kevin in PA September 11, 2021, 9:31 AM

      Yes, PA Cat, it’s all part of the Globalist plan to take down America. For it is America with its notions of liberty for all, a right recognized as such to bear arms, private ownership of property and the potential to create inter-generational wealth, these are what the collectivist can not create….and so they must destroy the place where all of that and more is possible.

      Who are they? My bet; parasites and doers of bad deeds.
      It is a classic commie tactic to flood the zone with undesirables (criminals, or terrorists, or inbred and illiterate goat f*ckers) in order to create the chaos necessary to seize control.

  • Bunny September 11, 2021, 11:21 AM

    I don’t think the Afghans had much to do with 9/11.

    • Vanderleun September 11, 2021, 2:45 PM

      Well first of all “Afghanistan” is a collection of primitive tribes with modern weapons… and though “Afghans” as a group may have had little to do… the Taliban and other warlords did support many training camps for the 9/11 crew.

    • EX-Californian Pete September 11, 2021, 3:32 PM

      Based on what?
      99% of Afghanistan is Islamic- Sunni and Shia, and 1% “other” religion.
      Islamic = Muslim. The only difference is the language.