Guarded Optimism on Afghanistan

The American Spectator looks at recent developments. Taliban fighters changing sides.

Maybe, maybe not.

Conrad Black at NRO:

From my most recent NRO article, on the clash between (and within) civilizations: “Militant Islam should be recognized as an antagonist, and moderate Muslims should be courted, much more systematically than they have been; Indonesia should be treated as a major power in the world. . . . The debate should not be between ourselves about how to deal with Muslims, it should be between Muslims about the unwisdom of provoking us all.”

From the article, here's the immediate prelude to that:

Non-Muslim countries and regions should make it clear that we are not prepared to be condescended to as infidels, that the Judeo-Christian traditions of the West antedate those of Islam (we are all Abrahamists and Gabriel called on our preceptors first), and that the widespread mistreatment of Christian minorities in some Muslim countries should produce proportionate retaliation, but not at the expense of the civil rights of our own Mulsim minorities. The Muslim massacre of a million Christian blacks in the Sudan should have received a much more energetic and righteous response than it has. And the mad idea of a large mosque almost adjacent to the World Trade Center site should never have gained any traction at all. That debate makes our entire society look like idiots, with Michael Bloomberg, Maureen Dowd, Katie Couric, et al. all thoughtfully holding hands as proverbial “useful idiots.” The less house-trained Islamists who now frolic in and degrade the United Nations and some of its agencies and commissions should be sent packing.

We have to fight the bad guys here and at home. We can't cut and run with hard deadlines that don't look at what's going on on the ground. Only then can we empower the moderates so they don't get their heads cut off, hmm? And so that their women aren't routinely beaten, raped and murdered over nothing. And ours. Even the useful idiots.

No safe haven for terrorists. Not another 9/11.

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