Saturday, August 14, 2010

What Allah Knows

As our chattering class begins to work up a proper panic about the war in Afghanistan, it would be wise to keep in mind the words of Kipling I ran across some years ago:

Man cannot tell, but Allah knows
How much the other side was hurt.

That is, while we focus on our own problems--real or perceived--it is too easy to ignore the problems of the enemy we don't see and conclude only we have problems. Our press and many commentators made this mistake repeatedly during the Iraq campaign.

Strategypage addressed the Afghanistan campaign, noting the contents of a letter from Mullah Omar to his lads in Afghanistan, which indicates a number of problems his side is having. It isn't all happy IED planting and beheadings for our enemies these days.

Too many people here think our troops are just acting as targets in Afghanistan. They are, in fact, hurting the enemy. We are not losing. I think we are winning. And if we don't run away, we'll win this yet.