Saturday, November 12, 2005

Once Again: We Can't Lose This War Unless We Quit

SWNID is fond of pointing out that in an asymmetrical war like the current one, the side with utter military superiority cannot lose unless it quits fighting. Suicide bombers take no territory, overthrow no governments and achieve no political objectives unless they induce the other side to quit.

The angry antiwar left has been arguing for the last two years that American actions were fueling the recruitment of more terrorists, making the war harder to win, if not giving the initiative to the other side. And lately, combined with the angry antiwar left's Big Lie* ("Bush lied!"), the drumbeat of doom has persuaded about 60% of Americans who answer polls that the war has been a failure.

Well, now it looks otherwise. The Scotsman reports on what has been inevitable: a backlash against the pointless slaughter of Muslims by suicide bombers. Demonstrations in the Muslim world are now anti-terrorist demonstrations, not anti-American ones.

We quote the following tidbit from our friends in Edinburgh:

Even in Iraq al-Qaeda may have overreached itself, according to Eric Margolis, author of War at the Top of the World: the Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet. "I think it remarkable that Zarqawi has not been caught yet. But I think it's even more likely that he will soon be either caught or betrayed, possibly by his own people.

"In Iraq there's a lot of anger and fury at Zarqawi, even among the Iraqi resistance forces who are fighting the Americans. They say that Zarqawi is polluting and defaming their struggle by terrorist attacks, which are just brutal and bloodletting, and giving them a bad name."


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*For gentle readers unfamiliar with the political strategy of the Big Lie, it goes like this:
  • Make an outrageous, damning charge against your opponent.
  • Repeat it often, at every opportunity, for as long as is necessary.
  • Treat it as if it were an established fact, part of the common wisdom of the age.
  • Express outrage that anyone would believe otherwise, attributing partisan blindness or credulity to those who object.

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