“The stakes are high”?
The Telegraph says the “stakes are high” when our men kill the enemy, because killing the civilians who are sometimes among the enemy can be an effective recruiting tool:
As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley’s gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.
By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand…American intelligence named the dead commander as Mullah Najibullah, who, they said, had been responsible for leading attacks against British forces in and around the town of Sangin, in Helmand.
The attack, and four other missions against suspected Taliban compounds, are clearly effective, but the stakes are high. Coalition attacks on mistakenly identified targets here, as in Iraq, have left dozens of civilians dead and wounded and can act as a recruiting sergeant for the terrorists.
But Capt Staley said he had no qualms about pressing home such attacks until no one was left standing and claimed that American pilots were more effective than their British Apache counterparts, who he said flew higher and were less ruthless in finishing off their targets. “The Brits are good but they don’t have the extreme aggression that we do.”
The Telegraph’s comment that the “stakes are high” because of the enemy’s recruitment efforts means, among other things, that we have not even reached the end of the beginning of this war.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
So, what where these “civilians” doing standing around with the Taliban in the first place, and how, pray tell, is anyone supposed to tell the difference between a regular civilian and a Taliban civilian?
The greatest recruiting tool the terrorists own are those who make such statements, letting the enemy know without doubt that the West trembles in their socks over what the enemy thinks about their own self-defense. Why should any young Muslim man take the side of people who exhibit such cowardice?
May 1st, 2007 at 3:29 am
It isn’t cowardice, it’s sensitivity. It’s stupid to make enemies when it can reasonably be avoided. We’ve decided on a hearts and minds campaign rather than one of theocide, and killing is much more limited in this sort of war.
Don’t worry, if this way fails there will be hecatombs of dead women and children.
May 1st, 2007 at 5:19 am
What the hell are you talking about staghounds? The sarcasm just isn’t working.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:22 am
Alright, staghounds, have it your way. Let’s call it “sensitivity.” That sounds all nice and PC. Unfortunately, whether you call it “sensitivity” or cowardice, the motive make no difference to in an enemy who states explicitly that he wants nothing less than to take over, and who doesn’t mind killing “sensitive” citizens in order to do so. The only place it makes a difference is in the why and the way we fight for ourselves. “Sensitivity” or cowardice, the consequences of these two motives have shown themselves to be remarkably the same when it means that we do not fight for our values. (I recognize that I am assuming that you have managed to find value in Western Civilization. That’s a mere assertion on my part, of course.)
One might say that “sensitivity” isn’t really a value worth fighting for, especially when that sensitivity is reserved exclusively for the enemy. One might even say that “sensitivity” isn’t a value at all, but an indulgence, when it requires one to turn off one’s rational faculty and actively evade the facts of reality.
If the policy of “sensitivity” is to win over the hearts and minds of the enemy, I think it is time to ask ourselves just how it’s working out, especially for those who are not a part of the enemy, but are forced to live among them as human shields and political fodder. Emphasis on the fodder. Does blaming the defender protect the defenseless?