General Petraeus' Warning Betrays His Own Misunderstanding
General Petraeus has warned that if Reverend Terry Jones burns a Qur'an, this will increase the danger to American troops. And it probably will, though not by a lot, since the Muslims of Afghanistan, as of Iraq, or those who take Islam to heart (that is, almost though not quite all) are deeply anti-American to begin with, which does not mean they won't use the Americans to fight their own enemies, or to inveigle money and weapons out of them.
What does General Petraeus, at this point, understand of Islam? He's a puzzlement, precisely because he gives the impression of being not unintelligent. So what's keeping him from recognizing the folly of American policy, American goals, in Iraq and now Afghanistan? Is it, as I suspect, that he cannot allow himself to come to understand that what he attempted to do was part of that folly, that it furthered that folly? Is he like those soldiers who, upon returning from Iraq, state that they support the war "because otherwise the whole thing will have been in vain, and my buddy's life will have been sacrified for nothing" and so on? Is it all at that level?
Possibly.
Posted on 09/09/2010 12:45 PM by Hugh Fitzgerald
Comments
9 Sep 2010
Lugo
Liberal ideology keeps otherwise intelligent people from recoginizing the folly of a lot of policies. Why should foreign policy be any different?
It is not at the level of "otherwise it was all in vain". It is at the level of "if I contradict the prevailing wisdom in Washington, I will be stripped of my command and denied any further opportunities for power." Nobody above the level of Colonel is willing to admit our policies and goals are absurd and self-defeating. By definition, anyone who makes General has drunk the Kool Aid and has agreed to parrot the prevailing dogma of the political elite; otherwise they'd never have been promoted in the first place.
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