Sobering Developments in the War on Terror

Victor Davis Hanson on the odd rules of this war:

To best deal with certain difficulties we’ve encountered in these battles thus far, perhaps the United States should adopt the following set of surreal rules of war.

1. Any death — enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian or soldier — favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on morality; Westerners do and show it hourly. So, in a strange way, images of the dead and dying are attributed only to our failing. If ours are killed, it is because those in power were not careful (inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely due to some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes into play. For the United States to have such power over life and death, the enemy appears to the world as weak, sympathetic, and victimized; we as strong and oppressive. Terrorists are still “constructed” as “the other” and thus are seen as suffering — doctored photos or not — through the grim prism of Western colonialism, racism, and imperialism.

In short, it is not just that Western public opinion won’t tolerate many losses; it won’t tolerate for very long killing the enemy either — unless the belligerents are something akin to the white, Christian Europeans of Milosevic’s Serbia, who, fortunately for NATO war planners in the Balkans, could not seek refuge behind any politically correct paradigm and so were bombed with impunity. Remember, multiculturalism always trumps fascism: the worst homophobe, the intolerant theocrat, and the woman-hating bigot is always sympathetic if he wears some third-world garb, mouths anti-Americanism, and looks most un-European. To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or kill.

2. All media coverage of fighting in the Middle East is ultimately hostile — and for a variety of reasons. Since the 1960s too many reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the advantages of the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the news in such a way as to show us the victims of profit-making and an affluent elite. Second, most fighting is far from home and dangerous. Trash the U.S. military and you might suffer a bad look at a well-stocked PX as the downside for winning the Pulitzer; trash Hezbollah or Hamas, and you might end up headless on the side of the road. Third, while in a southern Lebanon or the Green Zone, it is always safer to outsource a story and photos to local stringers, whose sympathies are usually with the enemy. A doctored photo that exaggerates Israeli “war crimes” causes a mini-controversy for a day or two back in the States; a doctored photo that exaggerates Hezbollah atrocities wins an RPG in your hotel window. To win these wars, there must be no news of them.

Powerline wonders whether the Bush Administration has lost their way:

According to this piece in the Jerusalem Post senior members of the Israeli Defense Force are "fuming" over being denied the opportunity to achieve a military victory over Hezbollah. I find it particularly disturbing that the Bush administration appears to have played a key role in denying the IDF that opportunity. Indeed, Tony Snow reportedly stated at a press conference today that an Israeli move deeper into Lebanon did not correspond with American policy.

Does this mean that American policy is now to protect Hezbollah from the Israelis? I'm struggling to understand how, if the reports we're getting are true, this question can be answered other than in the affirmative. At a minimum, it apparently is inconsistent with Bush administration policy for our main ally in the Middle East, when attacked by a terrorist organization that is also committed to attacking (and has attacked) the U.S., to fight to win.

The administration now seems joined at the hip with the French when it comes to combatting Hezbollah. It's almost as if Kerry, not Bush, won the 2004 election.

I think they've lost their balls and lost their minds, which means many more Americans are going to lose their lives.

Meanwhile, they show no interest in actually going where Al Qaeda IS.

Our military is infinitely more powerful now than it was in World War II, the last time we fought fascists globally. It is not our military which has withered. It is our political leadership, which lacks the courage and the competence to fight and to win.

George Bush calls himself a compassionate conservative.

Unfortunately, what America needs in these dark times is a commander-in-chief with less compassion and more determination to fight and to win. Selling out Israel to win brownie points with Hezbollah signals one thing and one thing only: Dubya is a spent fighter.

There's been a lot of evinced concern in some quarters about the erosion of American freedom in wartime. Much of this has targeted the President and his efforts to secure the country.

Let me ask you this:

Do you feel more or less free than you did on 9/10 when it comes to air travel?

Do you feel free when you have to show several forms of identification merely to take a trip domestically?

Do you feel free when you have to remove your shoes so somebody can X-ray them?

Do you feel free when you can't pack toiletries in your carryon bag?

Do you feel free when you have to show up several hours before a flight just in case you get randomly selected for the body cavity search?

These freedoms have been taken away not by our government but by our enemies. If we do not annihilate them, these freedoms will not return in our lifetimes.

And yet those who claim to be most concerned with American civil liberties can't muster one iota of outrage at the terrorist scumbags who have taken these freedoms from us. Instead, the usual suspects do everything they can to ensure that suspicion and restriction must be spread with meticulously blind disregard for common sense and efficiency.

It may warm their hearts to see the blue-haired grandmother searched while groups of young Arab men board planes without hindrance, but it makes one wonder whether they care about liberty at all, or merely observing all the peculiar pieties of political correctness.

We are at war. Our victory is very far from assured. And yet still we yawn, and grow accustomed to patiently waiting for the next plane to fall from the sky, to wait for the next batch of Americans to leap burning from a downtown skyscraper, to listen for the gentle tsk-tsking of those who believe we have brought it on ourselves for daring to build so much so high.

It is a strange war when so many of our countrymen have surrendered prior to the first shot.

Update:

Some more disheartened conservatives:

Michael Rubin.

Andrew McCarthy.

Dean Barnett.

Mark Levin.

Michelle Malkin.

Scott Johnson.

We can rise above setbacks on the battlefield. We can absorb the blows delivered by the enemy, and methodically annihilate them. We can make profound sacrifices of blood and treasure to achieve victory. We can do all these things, and have in the past.

How do we carry on fighting when our political leaders surrender before our soldiers get the enemy in their sights?

Where is our Churchill amidst this mewling horde of Chamberlains and Petains?

Update II:

The Jerusalem Post isn't pleased.

The Israelis have some blame to bear themselves. Not moving aggressively to clear Hezbollah from Lebanon helped to cause this debacle. As a result of their indecisiveness, Israel is now less safe than she was before the attacks began. Moreover, she has sold her kidnapped soldiers down the Litani River, a dishonorable act if ever there were one. Israelis have a right to expect better of their government and their generals than their pathetic performance in this conflict.

As do Americans.