Steve Cohen: Defeatist

Steve Cohen, one of the members of the United States House representing the Memphis, Tennessee area and a Democrat, showed his true colors yesterday, which are white as in the flag of surrender and yellow as in a coward of the lowest order. Cohen echoed what we heard as the the Bush/ Petraeus troop surge was taking place from the then and current but soon to be replaced US Senate majority leader Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada), then in the context of Iraq but now in regard to Afghanistan- that "the war is lost". If this attitude had prevailed when Bush authorized the surge, Iraq would likely now be in Iran's hands as Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army would have mobilised the Shia majority of Iraq into confederation with their nuclear bomb seeking brethren in Iran (or Iraq could have descended into utter nihilistic terrorist chaos with ethnic strife escalating into total open warfare between the Kurds, the Shia, and the Sunnis who would be aided by the Saudis and in common cause with al-Qaeda). If Cohen/Reid type of thinking had won the day in World Wars I or II, the United States would obviously have been defeated. When ever we have suffered reversals in earlier campaigns, when we have faced setbacks as is inevitable in every endeavor (as we are fallible as human beings), when the going got tough as happens every time troops are forward deployed where people are doing their best to kill them, we have persevered. If a change in tactics or strategy is necessary, by all means do all that is possible to create conditions for victory. If rules of engagement (ROE) are too restrictive and bind and endanger our troops, free them up to fight. It is an abomination to deploy forces and then tie their hands or make them fight with inferior tools and shortages of men and material. We must call upon our NATO allies to follow through with their commitments where they have been trying to work on the cheap and free the ROE where air, close air, and artillery support can perform the role they have traditionally played since the US entered World War II to overcome the adversaries' advantages of knowing the terrain and hiding within the local populace. Our concern to avert civilian casualties is being cynically used by the Taliban to do our troops on the ground great harm. We should have no pity for the Afghan people who sat by silent and allowed al-Qaeda to marshal the forces for the September 11, 2001 attacks on Afghan soil and gladly send opium poison to the rest of the world. The Afghans are no more innocent than the German or Japanese people who we directed our righteous wrath against during World War II. Why should we care more for their welfare than they do themselves? William Tecumseh Sherman, who ravaged much of the Southern part of our own nation during the US Civil War, said famously "war is hell". Let me amplify that, war is not a lemonade social but the most difficult endeavor on which man can embark and there is only one way to wage it- ruthlessly.