Meet the new general, same as the old general
A great deal is being made of Obama's firing McChrystal and replacing him with Petraeus. But let's not get carried away: this is not General Grant being appointed commander of the Union armies. Both McChrystal and Petraeus represent the same point of view: that the U.S. Military in Afghanistan should be devoted to a gigantic social work exercise that is supposed to win the hearts and minds of Islamic supremacists, but which will actually only weaken us at their expense.
"PRUDEN: Sacking the general doesn't change much," by Wesley Pruden in theWashington Times, June 24:
President Obama rids himself of a particularly clueless general, but his fundamental problem remains. The clueless general is Stanley A. McChrystal. His fundamental problem is himself. [...]Jihad Watch
The president obviously still thinks a few more speeches can spike the guns of war. Mr. Obama has already banished "terrorism" from the world, or at least that naughty word, replacing it with something more or less benign that he calls "man-made disasters." Even as he was calling the general home to be cashiered, one of his special envoys was busy making nice with the authors of "man-made disasters." Rashad Hussain, the special envoy to the Organization for the Islamic Conference, a Saudi front financed and led to "protect" Jerusalem from the Israelis, says the president should henceforth be called the "Educator-in-Chief on Islam." The president's White House dinners, celebrating Ramadan and other Islamic holidays, demonstrate that Islam is now as American as apple pie (or even a BLT on toast, or a plate of ham and eggs).Mr. Hussain praised the president for sending Valerie Jarrett, a senior aide, to a session of the shady Islamic Society of North America. He told the Woodrow Wilson International Institute for Scholars in Washington that the United States will support an Islamic effort in the United Nations to "criminalize defamation of religion," i.e., "criticism" of Muslim violations of human rights. "The [Organization for the Islamic Conference] and the Obama administration will work together in the U.N. on the issue of defamation of religion, especially in Europe," he said. Since the U.N. is not notably concerned with criticism of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or Whirling Dervishes, it's clear enough where the U.N. means for this to go.The week's events demonstrate that President Obama either doesn't understand his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nature of radical Islam vs. the West, or all of the above. Sacking a general doesn't change any of that.
Posted by on June 25, 2010 2:25 PM
