The Mysterious Ubiquity of Afghans

SteynPost #25
September 18, 2018

https://www.steynonline.com/8839/the-mysterious-ubiquity-of-afghans

Welcome to a brand new SteynPost in which Mark addresses the insanity of western dithering over worthless bits of sod in the Hindu Kush while surrendering some of the most valuable real estate on the planet. Click below to watch:

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45 Reader Comments

AB43 • Sep 20, 2018 at 15:42

Mark,
To blame the current situation on GW Bush is too simplistic. In my view the problem can be traced back at least to the meeting between FDR and King AbdulAzis Ibn Saud on US Navy cruiser in the Suez Canal on 15 February 1945 at which FDR agreed not to intervene into the religious practices of Islam. To quote what King Abdulazis told FDR you may have your iron but leave our religion alone. For sure previous European leaders such as Gladstone and Winston Churchill had no illusion about Islam that it is a religion that is on a war path. Pres. Truman was the last US president that defied the pro-Muslim administration by recognizing the state of Israel. Muslims. Pres. Eisenhower demonstrated it by siding with Abdul Nasser of Egypt against France and Britain and Israel in the Suez crisis. So GW Bush statement that Islam means peace and there is a fight not against Muslims but against Evildoers that misrepresent Islam has to be viewed with this background. I assume that GWB was honest and believed that what he said is true. That was the reason that when he invaded Afghanistan he believed that when he clears Afghanistan of the evildoers Afghan tribesmen will see the light and become peaceful democrats and by being kind to them US will buy the hearts and minds of the Afghans. Obviously, GW Bush was delusional and proved again the mantra that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. Wherever the west got involved with good intentions in Muslim country or territory it got its rightful punishment such as Iran, Lebanon, Horn of Africa and the Balkans. Obviously GW Bush did not see his intervention in Afghanistan is a failure so he doubled up by getting involved in Iraq. In order not to be left behind Pres. Obama intervened in all Muslim countries along the Mediterranean shore set everything on fire and handed it over to Pres. Trump to try to extinguish it.

P. Gao • Sep 20, 2018 at 02:48

Excellent commentary. Was reading this week about the Scottish Clearances and have been wondering how much of what we're seeing today is the same sort of thing - forcing out the locals to be replaced by others. The indigenous populations of the British Isles - how many survived? How many Celts, the Gauls, survived in France? What we know as French is from the Franks - a Germanic tribe.
The invaders then are always tools, invited in and settled to displace?

Brandy Edwards • Sep 19, 2018 at 19:50

The thing that frightens me, is once these people get European passports (maybe not the "refugees" that have come into Europe, but their future European-born children, grandchildren, etc.), they're free to travel to the US very easily. I really wish the US Gov't would take a good hard look at restricting travel from Europe. We have "extreme vetting" (supposedly) in place for middle eastern countries. But, in short order, we're going to need extreme vetting for Belgium, Germany, France, etc. I fear this danger will be upon us sooner rather than later. Yet, this doesn't really seem to be on the USA's radar. I could be wrong, but I never hear anything about this.

Is it just me, or does all of this stuff feel very discouraging sometimes?

Fran Lavery

Brandy Edwards • Sep 20, 2018 at 04:45

Hi Brandy, it certainly isn't just you. While we wait around for more prudent immigration policies to be created in the marbled halls of power and then revealed to us, hone your street smart skills, take self-defense classes, get strong and fit, learn how to handle a weapon, many kinds of weapons, and always practice situational awareness in public places. When you have to do errands, or have to commute, exercise or travel, especially at night, make sure you have a companion and avoid poorly lit areas. All the common sense things we can easily forget to do. There are a lot of people roaming around who intend to do harm to others.

Vote for and support politicians who want to seal our borders and who articulate the promise to vote the correct way, that is, with the safety and security of you and your fellow citizens in mind first and foremost. If they get elected and when any immigration bills make it to a vote, hold them to their promises. Get involved in a local party organization and make sure the others there say the things that you need to hear to reinforce what you believe to be true. A borderless and unprotected nation is not a nation. I don't leave home without a knife on my person and will have no issue with using it to protect myself if approached by a stranger. Also good is a pepper spray on a keychain, and if possible, adopt a dog. Many dogs need loving homes and they can help you with safety issues. I think the truth is that we are largely on our own to defend ourselves and when you most need a police officer, he/she may not be anywhere close to your location. A laundry list of obvious items, right? Still, I think it's worth being a serious safety-conscious individual. Finally, take a first aid class and learn how to help another injured person who may fall victim to any kind of trauma or assault and might need that little extra attention or comfort until medics get to the scene.

Nicola Timmerman • Sep 19, 2018 at 17:22

I see city council has voted to make Edmonton a sanctuary city. Edmonstan soon.

Fran Lavery • Sep 19, 2018 at 17:15

"How do you solve a problem like Sharia?" Well, once all the Marias of the world have had their cliterectomies, there won't be anyone who will dare to ask that question, not in the political communities, not in the medical communities and not in the pop cultural communities. Hell's bells, other than Mark Steyn and a handful of other brave people, who's asking now? There well may be cures for all forms of cancers, Alzheimers and all other mental and physical diseases by then, but what person will want to live a long and healthy life? Oh, nevermind, the females in the population won't know what their missing anyway. They'll all be submissive to their nasty, authoritarian and devout Muslim hubbies and Imummies.

If we really wanted to put Sharia devotees out of existence, it would take a multi-pronged offensive. If, indeed, we're in a Cold War with them, why can't we apply the techniques of the Cold War in fighting our enemy, and I mean pull out all of the stops, using everything that is at our disposal?

I'll never forget when the images srarted appearing on tv of the long march of immigrants heading into the Western European countries and they were said by media outlets to be refugees fleeing their war torn countries. It was remarkable that most of the individuals looked like men of fighting age. I think it was Mark Steyn or Rush Limbaugh who first pointed out the puzzlement of why were these men marching towards Europe, and not fighting the wars raging back in their own countries. They were breaking into the Western European arena of their global jihad, that's why. The battles back home were just a distraction to their bigger picture.

Roy A Crocker

Fran Lavery • Sep 19, 2018 at 19:42

Got a nice chuckle out of your cleverly worded opening line Fran. Mark does indeed stand almost alone on this subject. Even on Fox news now brave souls like Robert Spencer and Pam Geller are rarely seen anymore compared to a few years ago. Western culture is indeed engaged in a multi-generational cold war with Islam. Notice I left out the now obligatory preface 'Radical'. As recep tayyip erdogan has correctly pointed out there is no such entity as Radical Islam there is only Islam and there is only one qua'an.They play the long game and as osama bin laden famously said - while we have the watches they have the time. Words of wisdom.

Fran Lavery

Roy A Crocker • Sep 19, 2018 at 21:49

Wish I was that clever, Roy, but that was lifted straight from Mark's video, which I thought was permissible as long as we used the quotation marks. The line just got me going, that's all.

James Morphew • Sep 19, 2018 at 17:03

The day when We, the Neighborhood or the Town, had shared values and would stand up strongly for them are gone. Somewhere, we forfeited the right or ability to protect our daughters or families from aggression, and most notably aggression from guests from other countries. Maybe we lost the values, or maybe we lost the nerve, or maybe we retreated from the excesses that sometimes occurred. Likely some of all. But we now have two tasks: 1) identify those values again, and 2) garner the nerve to enforce them. And enforcement is, by definition, intolerant.

Joseph Meade • Sep 19, 2018 at 16:48

Thank you Mark. I could listen to a Steyn Post every day. Keep them coming Maybe one or two from the ship? Wish I could join you on the cruise but medical issues dictate.

Laura Rosen Cohen

Joseph Meade • Sep 20, 2018 at 14:45

SECONDED (the every day part and the wish I could join y'all on the cruise part).

Laura Rosen Cohen

Joseph Meade • Sep 20, 2018 at 14:51

Hi Mark, this was excellent. Steynianly depressing with a side order of super sized Reality Bites and a non-alcoholic mocktail from the local kebab stand-you know, the one beside the FGM clinic.

Have you considered whether the Western "dithering" and "insanity" was actually supinely purposeful and intentional and not accidental in any way? Could the "insanity" actually be exquisitely sensitive, suicidal and mindful deference to our new overlords?

Just wanted to throw that out there coz your SteynPost wasn't sufficiently depressing.

*kidding*

**waves**

Sol Cranfill • Sep 19, 2018 at 16:42

The end of the world must be nigh, judging by its inhabitants. The attitude prevailing across the west is a free-for-all freefall. Eat, drink, and be merry (for tomorrow we die), It's almost a year since the Las Vegas shooting. Ho hum. US debt is skyrocketing. Oh, well. Consequences have gone away. They'll be back, with a vengeance.

Joseph Dornisch • Sep 19, 2018 at 10:27

Any chance you can convert more of these to audio only?

Mark replies:

Every single episode of SteynPosts is available in audio only here.

Joseph Dornisch

Joseph Dornisch • Sep 19, 2018 at 12:50

Oh sorry, I thought I looked at the Audio menu, but obviously not well enough. It would still be nice to have the download link for the audio on the blog post (this page), though.

siberianmo • Sep 19, 2018 at 10:15

Mark,

Emerging from my bunker in east-central Missouri and not within ear-shot of any call to prayers (yet),
I applaud your SteynPost submissions.

I look forward to what you have to say and the way you say it and your SteynPosts always are spot on. This latest very sobering splash of reality should be mandatory viewing in the legislative auditoriums throughout the western world - whatever in hell that encompasses today.

As an aside from your use of "we" throughout in reference to 911 - only thing missing is you not taking the next step to U.S. citizenship. Then again, even I am wondering of the "benefit" in these topsy turvy times.

Cheers, in spite of the most disturbing reality about to engulf us all!

Tom in Missouri

Susan Loring

siberianmo • Sep 19, 2018 at 20:15

It's good to see a comment from you, Tom. I've wondered where you've been!

siberianmo

Susan Loring • Sep 20, 2018 at 09:08

Susan - How nice!

I am trying my best to ward off becoming addicted to the "news" ad nauseam. Though I do make the effort to read Mark's submissions - daily. Comments - well that is another story.

Anyway, you may find me at: siberianmo.smugmug.com - my escape from it all.

Cheers!

Tom in Missouri

PK33 • Sep 19, 2018 at 09:45

McCain was an opportunist and a RINO. But, as a POW he was a victim and so was one of the earliest given that victim status as a mantle to carry through his entire life. No matter what he did, he always found a way to trot out that victim card so he would be given a pass. That, is truly deplorable IMO.

Matthew McWilliams • Sep 19, 2018 at 09:41

I recently took the opportunity to reread my copy of F. A. Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit (The Errors of Socialism)." It gave me a much better understanding of the motivations and thought processes of our rulers in formulating immigration and other policies.

In Hayek's view what we call culture occupies the evolutionary space between instinct and reason. By extension he concludes that culture including custom and morals practiced by societies did not arise as a result of the application of reason, but prior to it. Instead, his theory is that cultural practice evolved quite by accident as a trial and error process, much like random biological variation in Darwinian evolution. Those societies that adopted the best cultural practices (by accident) thrived and dominated those with less effective cultural practices (adopted by accident).

How this fits in with current immigration policy is as follows. Hayek acknowledges that socialists (I would include progressives and others) tend to be very intelligent. However, he then goes on to state that intelligent people put too much value on intelligence; i.e. Reason. That is the so called "Fatal Conceit." These people believe that culture, as well as economics, can be modified and optimized through the application of reason.

The problem according to Hayek is that because culture did not arise as a result of reason, it cannot be modified, or even really understood by the application of reason. Reason may be able to analyze various cultural practices after the fact, but it cannot tell us why they were adopted in the first place. Further, culture is deeply ingrained in children by a method of learning by imitation, not through the use of reason. These intelligent socialists fail to recognize or accept that fact.

I have concluded that this is why we as a country spend years running around foreign lands trying to change the culture or bolt on aspects to western culture to distinctly non-western nations. This is also why we fail miserably at it time and again. The same goes for the insane belief that we can import large numbers of people who practice a completely alien culture and expect through reason to fully integrate them to our native culture. It won't work according to Hayek. I agree with that assessment. It is our intelligent leaders who fail to recognize this.

PK33

Matthew McWilliams • Sep 19, 2018 at 10:18

ITA. What is wrong with letting people live in their own cultures, which they may love for the most part? If they need some aid, say, learning better agricultural methods, clean running water readily available, education and support for solid sanitation and hygiene practices, many would support that and I for one do, through specific charities that demonstrate results "on the ground".

I worked at a psychiatric hospital during my college days. There was a huge drive to move long-term residents out to the communities and into group homes. Many did not want to go. They liked their life, their friends, their routine, the recreation and work options, the staff and the security of the institution. Try to explain that to government social workers who only had one lifestyle in mind and it went totally over their heads. I often said that if you lived fairly comfortably one way for most of your life within an environment largely free of danger or threat, where you knew what each day would bring, it would be difficult to change, especially if you didn't want to change. The fatal conceit, or hubris, of Western societies will be our downfall indeed.

Matthew McWilliams

PK33 • Sep 19, 2018 at 12:19

I am perfectly happy to let people live in their own cultures, assuming they do it in their own country and allow me to live my own culture in mine. This seemed to have been a pretty reasonable way to proceed vis-a-vis the muslim world so long as it was them simply riding around on camels or horses with surplus muzzle loaders from Napoleon and accessing the western world from their own countries was a difficult and expensive undertaking.

The world has changed considerably now. In the northern hemisphere the list of countries capable of nuking up seems to be longer than the list of those incapable of it. This includes much of the muslim world. Also, accessing the west is much easier than it used to be. Witness the 1.5 million who literally walked into Europe. The same is true at the U.S. southern border.

The fact of the matter is that belligerent cultures are much more well armed than they used to be and many do not seem content to limit the practice of their culture to their own countries. From the 16th century into the 20th Europeans went around the world imposing their culture on other societies. Should we be surprised that the reverse is happening in the 21st? We shouldn't. This is what cultures do, they spread if they are capable of it.

Another observation that Hayek made is that when two cultures come into contact one eventually wipes out the other. Usually it is the superior that wins out, but not always. The superior is usually stronger, but can still lose out.

When Bush launched the second Gulf war in 2003 I agreed with it. My rationale was simple. The Middle East simply cannot stay the way it is. I said at the time that it has to change or its problems will become our problems. Looks like I was right. I was in favor of remaking Iraq, and later Syria, but I have come to believe that it was botched by people who think reason can change culture.

Cultures cannot be changed by reason, they must be wiped out. This doesn't mean wiping out the people, but forcibly changing the culture by taking over educational and cultural institutions and directing the development of the younger generations. This kind of undertaking raises serious moral and ethical questions, but I think the alternative is unacceptable.

Of course we can always throw up our wall and threaten to wipe out anyone that attacks us,which will be an effective strategy until it isn't. (See the above regarding nuking up)

PK33

Matthew McWilliams • Sep 19, 2018 at 12:38

Indeed. Build a wall and someone (many someones) will want to climb over it. Or tunnel under it.

Andrew A

Matthew McWilliams • Sep 19, 2018 at 15:03

"This doesn't mean wiping out the people, but forcibly changing the culture by taking over educational and cultural institutions and directing the development of the younger generations."

Matthew,

Both the Islamists and the leftists have internalised this conclusion and are implementing it successfully.

Sol Cranfill

Matthew McWilliams • Sep 19, 2018 at 18:07

That's very interesting. Today's U.S.-brand, tofu-fueled socialism, though, has approximately the same intellectual heft as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's doppelgänger, YouTube entertainer Miranda Sings.

Babs

PK33 • Sep 19, 2018 at 21:55

Yeah, in your sense of living their culture, I support that. But what has that to do with a flood of others that share a detrimental view of our culture?
Yeah,I'm for clean running water, we all agree on that. So let's make it a priority which it is not.
I used to cringe because my mother would drag me along on her quest for free food for those that she cooked for in the mental "half way house". I can't tell you the anger she felt when she discovered that all the "free food" was actually labeled in Russian.

PK33

Babs • Sep 20, 2018 at 07:48

Babs, What it has to do is with a flood of migrants under the guise of refugees. Letting them live their culture means helping them in place, or if they are displaced by conflict, in a nearby and similar place. Instead of inviting them to Europe or North America, as some politicians have done, help them where they ARE and stop the refugee charade where those that would do Western citizens harm have an easier time getting into the country, never mind staying and reproducing for generations.

If every culture is equal, as the Left purports to believe, why should people be encouraged leave those cultures? Especially when most are young men, abandoning women, children, elderly and the disabled.

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 07:49

Unpopular opinion: America should have nuked Afghanistan no later than 2pm ET on September 11, 2001.

All day and night, I kept thinking that the awful images on my TV would be replaced by shots of Tora Bora in flames. Then I thought, well, maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow never came.

What was the worst that could happen? I thought. We had to nuke Japan, twice, and hey, they've been awfully quiet ever since, haven't they? They took it out on us by doing what? Making Godzilla movies? That's a chance I'm willing to take...

People who know far more about military matters would tell me solemnly that you can't just drop bombs from the sky. You need "boots on the ground." Their reasons why were unconvincing; in fact, I don't remember them. Sorry.

Again, I'm not a military historian at West Point or anything, but it seemed really weird to me that we were doing a Marshall Plan thing in Afstan BEFORE bringing them to their knees; building schools for a people who have no written language and no prior regard for education? Hospitals in a place where life is cheap?

Marshall Plan type dealeos worked for Japan and Germany because both nations had hundreds of years of higher culture to revert too, arguably the _highest_ cultures in the world, pre-WWII, a paradox that used to interest historians and philosophers, I vaguely recall...

Within living memory, both Japan and Germany had been civilized, and then some. Their resounding defeat snapped them out of their temporary insanity, and they didn't give anybody any trouble after that, unless you count Hello Kitty merchandise and Fassbinder movies.

It helped a lot that we told Japan they couldn't practice their weird kamikaze etc religion any more too (cough)

Afstan had no such high culture. If we'd nuked the place strategically, who would even be able to tell the difference? They had no such high culture to return to, only memories of centuries of defeating "stronger" militaries. So building them schools and stuff was idiotic. They would have "understood" one thing: absolute defeat, for the first time ever.

Yes, a lot of their co-religionists would have jumped up and down angrily. But didn't they do that anyhow? Remember, I'd witnessed the Iran hostage crisis and the Rushdie affair. Let 'em burn W in effigy and hold up their misspelled Death to America signs for a week or two. So?

Instead we let them carry on their weird child abuse rituals and so forth, while bringing in airport security theatre at home. (While leaving in place and likely strengthening the bureaucracy-mentality that WOULD have reduced the body count on 9/11: The agent who checked in Atta said to himself, "If this guy doesn't look just like a terrorist, I don't know who does," but let him through anyhow, because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in Human Resources hell.)

Back in the Bush years, leftists were scolded: "You can't say you support the troops if you don't support their mission." I regret to say I didn't have the courage at the time to push back against this movement conservative line. I was still trying to clarify my own principles on such matters, reeducating myself on the fly, unlearning 30+ years of "facts". Yes, the cynical left was lying about the "supporting the troops" part, but that doesn't mean they were _wrong_.

People made fun of Trump for asking, during the campaign, why do we have nuclear weapons if we don't use them? In fact this seems to be a perfectly sane question.

I wasted more years of my youth in the anti-war, no-nukes movement than I care to recall. (In my feeble defence, I was drunk.) I comfort myself that at least I was a member of the very small sliver of that movement, the Neither East Nor West faction, that believed the Soviet Union was bad, too. We read Solzhenitsyn and "Darkness at Noon" and wore Solidarność buttons and taunted the Marxists at demonstrations mercilessly.

We hated America, too, because Canadians are reflexively anti-American anyhow. We got our information about the US from, well, the US: We simply believed what Hollywood and the American (and Canadian) media told us. Remember, this was pre-internet... and pre-Venona.

In those days, it was considered completely unremarkable that, say, Tom Hanks' wife campaigned on behalf of Afstan women, encouraging them to toss off their chadors. Again, this is all lost to (popular) history.

But I was never a convinced pacifist, unlike many of my colleagues. At the annual super solemn self-flagellation festival at the downtown memorial to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a little voice in my head was always muttering, "They asked for it." On 9/11, the little voice grew very big. Luckily I was able to find a new set of friends... (see "internet" above.)

All that to say that, again, I am simply a rank amateur. I have never served in the military. I do not have a university degree in anything, let alone military history. But/therefore I don't understand what we've been doing over their for 17 years either. I think I had the right idea.

But it's the story of my life that nobody listens to me... :-) And I'm only on coffee #1, so excuse any typos.

Calvert Whitehurst

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 08:26

My idea for retaliation after 9/11 was to drop a huge vat of pig fat on the Kabba. But yes, the thinking that we are reducing the likelihood of combating terrorism at home by attacking it at its source is, to put it mildly, flawed. Especially since many in the Western governing elite aren't serious about it anyway.

Susanna

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 08:56

Your opinion is popular with me. Spot on.

PK33

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 09:49

One point of disagreement, if I may nitpick.

"Within living memory, both Japan and Germany had been civilized, and then some. Their resounding defeat snapped them out of their temporary insanity, and they didn't give anybody any trouble after that, unless you count Hello Kitty merchandise and Fassbinder movies."

Germany has and is giving many people much trouble. I lay the migrant "crisis", and it is a crisis - for Europeans, at the feet of Merkel and Germany, trying to continue to pay penance for WWII. Trouble indeed.

PK33

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 09:55

OK, one more nitpicky comment, although two may have pushed over the limit of a nitpick.

"We hated America, too, because Canadians are reflexively anti-American anyhow. "

Eastern Canadians are reflexively anti-American. It is not the same in Western Canada, especially the prairie provinces but not even on the West coast where they love the Western US and model their own society after California especially, and to a lesser degree, Washington and Oregon. Please don't make the mistake of giving Canadians a single identity, based on Ontario. It just isn't so.

PK33

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 10:07

Perhaps if Germany were "nuked" similar to Japan, they would have felt that they paid their penance for the atrocities instead of inflicting self-destructive immigration policies on current generations of Germans and Europeans. These are my thoughts, based anecdotal evidence of my own German colleagues who do not like the immigration policies but try to somewhat justify them,"because of the war".

Ian Cory

Calvert Whitehurst • Sep 19, 2018 at 10:57

"But yes, the thinking that we are reducing the likelihood of combating terrorism at home by attacking it at its source is, to put it mildly, flawed."

I'm not sure Calvert.The flaw is in thinking that it resides in a military solution. Not now given the global infestation of radical Islam and its poisonous medieval ideology. Today it is a cultural, intellectual, political, and educational battleground and one which the civilised, (i.e. the non Islamic Jihadist) world appears to be losing. It's worth pondering that the American war in Vietnam was lost on the home-front even after its decisive victory in the 1968 Tet Offensive after which the Viet-Cong was effectively a spent force. The regime in Tokyo pre and during WWII was of a martial, military character. That can be, and was,defeated militarily. But an ideology needs to be confronted on that level because it is a battle of global will and belief not nomenclature.

Kathy Shaidle

PK33 • Sep 19, 2018 at 11:25

You are right. As almost always, I agree with Adam Carolla on that topic -- Is it too late for us to do it? :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcmuGj4vMwg

PK33

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 11:54

LOL Excellent video. Carolla has fairly good videos on Prager University as well.

https://www.prageru.com/presenters/adam-carolla

In the long run, Germany may indeed be subject to bombing once again, when it becomes a caliphate, and it is rushing in that direction. UK is in the caliphate race too, which will be first? My money is on the UK.

Roy A Crocker

Ian Cory • Sep 19, 2018 at 16:54

Ian: Wish you had mentioned the one man responsible for turning the bloody Tet offensive victory into a crushing defeat virtually overnight. It was of course the "most trusted man in America" Walter Cronkite on the CBS evening newscast. This grossly inaccurate report spread like wildfire through the national media and pretty much ended public support for the war effort. After retirement "Uncle Wally" felt safe to come out and show his true colors as a hard left democrat. Many of us had figured that out long ago. Tom Brokaw in an interview the day after Obama's election was near tears gushing about this great and historical result, coming across like a love sick teenager. It never ends - in fact the network nightly news (all three) broadcasts are now more biased than ever.

James P

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 17:37

Just as a practical matter, I'm not sure nuking Afghanistan would have done much... There's so little to nuke that would look any different afterwards. We could have eliminated Kabul but Bin Laden and the leaders would be unlikely to have perished. That said the message to the world would have been a powerful one and we could have had a real test to make sure our nukes still work properly.

Babs J

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 19:06

I moved to Japan in 1947, not that long after WWII ended. The people were eager to learn all things American and stared at us in disbelief mixed with curiosity. After the American Occupation ended, the only hostility I ever felt from the Japanese came from some of their grade school and junior high school students. They threw rocks at us at our favorite swimming hole in a mountain creek. I never went back to swim after that. But I have always admired them for their lack of hostility toward us, particularly in lieu of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; I'm sure we would not have treated them the same if they had won the war and occupied the USA.

Roy Koczela

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 19, 2018 at 22:12

"People who know far more about military matters would tell me solemnly that you can't just drop bombs from the sky. You need "boots on the ground." Their reasons why were unconvincing; in fact, I don't remember them. Sorry."

Because terrorists are not dumb enough to stand under bombs. They get out of the way, let you nuke the innocents, then recruit the survivors.

Doesn't necessarily have to be our OWN boots doing the work of actually rooting out the terrorists and holding the territory so they don't take it back, but it has to be SOMEBODY's. Otherwise, we're just "launching a $2 million missile at a $2 tent and hitting a camel in the butt" to paraphrase GWB.

I don't pretend to be a military expert either. I can recommend the book "The Strongest Tribe" by Bing West about the point when things were at their best in Iraq (2007-2008).

P. Gao

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 20, 2018 at 01:03

Just some extra thoughts. Osama Bin (son of) Laden was Saudi, his top aids Egyptian. They moved their operation into Afghanistan because it was on its knees after the Soviet invasion and the resultant civil war, and had no means to stop the hijacking of their country. The Afghans were not in control of their nation or destiny at that point.
Years ago, before this happened, at a hotel in Pakistan, an old woman stopped us in the hallway and led us by the hands to her room where she sat and told us in her language all sorts of things. Her adult son came by, saw her guests and profusely apologized, she wanted to tell everyone how the Soviets had entered their village, killed her husband (his father) and her son (his brother). Their home was gone, their family destroyed and they couldn't return. They were hoping to go to the United States and had been waiting months for any news of their visa application. What can one say? She needed to testify to the crime, to tell the world what had happened, and elderly widow who had lost everything except one son who was trying to find a safe place for her. Most Afghans don't venture farther than a few miles from their homes in entire their lives, they aren't the problem. The international jet-setters who move place to place to cause trouble are the ones on whom to focus.

David Coats

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 20, 2018 at 01:43

I prefer to leave a separation of the wheat from the chaff via nuclear holocaust in the hands of our Creator, unless, like the Japanese in WWII, our adversary leaves us absolutely no other reasonable choice.

If things were to reach that point I wonder if we'll have leaders capable of making such a momentous decision or whether we'll have surrendered the nation to leaders who are more comfortable dancing on the nation's grave.

Laura Rosen Cohen

Kathy Shaidle • Sep 20, 2018 at 14:54

NEW FRIENDS SEE INTERNET. Draidle, I resemble that remark!!!

Have you been to Ground Zero? The little voice in my head would have put the little voice in your head to shame.

Josh • Sep 19, 2018 at 06:22

Re Demographic Decline: I see at Breitbart that President Trump has increased the share of Christians among refugees to 71% (from 50%) and reduced the share of Muslims to 15% (from 50%). Call it what you will, I call it keeping a promise. Along with appointing conservative jurists, standing by Israel, unshackling the US economy, etc.

Roy A Crocker

Josh • Sep 19, 2018 at 18:40

Right on Josh - and the left along with the mainstream media (now a single entity) hates him for all of it.