Annie
Diamond Member
- Nov 22, 2003
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Violence has escalated, it must be responded to:
http://op-for.com/2006/09/iraq_and_afghanistan_escalatin.html
http://op-for.com/2006/09/iraq_and_afghanistan_escalatin.html
Iraq and Afghanistan Escalating
By John
62 Bodies Found in Baghdad --
BAGHDAD, Sept. 13 -- Nearly 100 people were killed or found dead in a series of bloody incidents throughout the Iraqi capital over the past 24 hours, authorities said.
At least 62 unidentified bullet-riddled corpses--all bearing signs of torture--have been found throughout the city since Tuesday night, said Brig. Gen. Abdullah Mahmood of the Interior Ministry.
And things aren't looking much better in Afghanistan. Mike Yon's latest at National Review:
Until recently, suicide bombings were virtually unknown in Afghanistan. Today they are common. Several CADG employees, including one Brit, were driving on a dangerous section of road recently and came upon a fresh car-bomb detonation. An Afghan employee got out and picked up the hand and brought it back to the car, took it to the office, and buried it. Five suicide bombings have occurred this year in the immediate vicinity of CADG operations, although each attack was targeting a different person. Daily attacks of various sorts make reconstruction projects increasingly difficult to complete.
There is a dedicated movement in this country who manipulates news of this sort into an argument for giving up. On the contrary, I see it as reason to step up, to intensify.
Pro-war bloggers have a habit of ignoring the bad news, in the same way that anti-war bloggers ignore the good news. I'll be the first to admit guilt in that courtroom. But that's the wrong path.
We simply must acknowledge our military defeats. We must learn from them, adjust, and rededicate ourselves to accomplishing the mission and winning the war. The news that 62 innocent Iraqis were tortured and beheaded isn't reason to despair or give up hope, it's a call to arms a reminder of the pure evil of that we are fighting. It reaffirms our belief that we are the good guys, they are the bad guys, and that good guys killing bad guys is one of the few cosmic rights in this universe.
Guys like Mike Yon understand that. In an email earlier today, he wrote:
We are going to lose that war if we do not make radical changes. We are not seriously trying to win it.
Yon's got what I call focused pessimissm. When he writes that the ground sit in Iraq or Afghanistan is taking a dive, it's out of a true, apolitical desire to win the war. He understands that selling blood, toil, tears, and sweat didn't go out of style in the mid-40s. People, Americans especially, respond to challenges. This war is a challenge, and it's time we start responding to it.
Half of any fight is how you pull yourself up after you've taken one on the chin. If we can't stand back up, then we stay on the mat. And we lose the war.
September 13, 2006 02:13 PM The Long War