Austin Bay addresses two major points that seem to drive the retreatists on Afghanistan, in his discussion of al Qaeda in general:
Napoleon understood the importance of assessing his opposition's position. He wrote in 1809, "In war one sees his own troubles, not those of the enemy." Focusing on one's own troubles and those of allies thwarts the clear-headed analysis of a diplomatic or military conflict Napoleon insisted was the mark of an effective senior commander.
American media have made a business of touting America's troubles in the War on Terror. Tales of doom, fright and angry despair are audience-grabbers. Would that doom, fear and despair were the sole traits. An "it must be our fault and we made them angry" argument threads the cable TV carnival of doom. In the case of Hasan, this shtick became a discussion of his "alienation" and "isolation."
Ah, the classics of the retreat genre.
One: we're doomed to be defeated by our relentless enemies.
And two: it's our fault they're our enemies.
With that type of analysis, it is easy to see why they believe they are the only ones smart enough to understand that retreating before inevitably victorious and morally superior foes is "reality based" or some such rot.
I know it is fruitless to try to convince our nuanced class that we are the good guys in this fight with Islamo-fascists, but do look at the war from the enemy's side:
Measured by the grand map of the would-be caliphate, al-Qaida has arguably lost significant ground since 2001. Several Sunni and Shia conflicts continue, but the strife Zarqawi sought to fatally ignite failed to shatter Iraq. He did incite defeatists in the U.S., but it was Zarqawi who was defeated in Iraq.
Read the whole thing, as they say.
Or consider that even O'Hanlon doesn't think we are doomed in Afghanistan specifically.
Bay points to the lament of Zarqawi when all the bright kids were crowing that we were doomed to defeat in Iraq. I wrote of this, too, at the height of sectarian violence in Iraq (and I first brought it up in mid-2005), quoting not Napoleon but Kipling:
Man cannot tell but Allah knows
How much the other side is hurt.
Our nuanced class thought we were doomed in Iraq even as our enemies showed desperation in avoiding defeat. We won that war.
And now our nuanced class has focused their big-brained analytical abilities on getting us to run from Afghanistan even though our enemies are hurt.
I just don't see reason to panic about our fortunes in Afghanistan. Let's cut the nuance and focus on a simple thing--victory in Afghanistan.
