Liberal Politics Killing Our Troops

Ralph Peters is spot on here, agian. That some of our generals buy into the political correct and insane rules that the liberal establishment believes is the way to fight a war, and that the generals believe it is more important to support a theory of battle field cowardice and surrender, makes all other thoughts other than America becoming an 'also ran' in the world of 'also rans' come true.

It is so sad that we have come to this point in our history and not learned anything about what is right and moral. This doesn't include everyone but, again, how can so many in and out of our government and population believe we, as a nation, are at fault for most of the world problems.

I am so confused and saddened that we have fallen so far into the abyss of moral ineptitude that we want to bury ourselves in wrong headed, misguided and misinformed politics of the liberal left.

Have we completely forgone any sense of moral correctness? Any sense of responsibility for what our history has produced to guide us when tough times dictate decisions based on principles that have proven to sustain the American dream of freedom to chose?

Could we have lost the knowledge to know right from wrong?

Keep the faith



The rules murdering our troops
By RALPH PETERS
/Last Updated:/ 2:55 AM, September 24, 2009/Posted:/ 12:57 AM, September 24, 2009

When enemy action kills our troops, it's unfortunate. When our own moral fecklessness murders those in uniform, it's unforgivable.

In Afghanistan, our leaders are complicit in the death of each soldier, Marine or Navy corpsman who falls because politically correct rules of engagement shield our enemies. Mission-focused, but morally oblivious, Gen. Stan McChrystal conformed to the Obama Way of War by imposing rules of engagement that could have been concocted by Code Pink:* Unless our troops in combat are absolutely certain that no civilians are present, they're denied artillery or air support.*

If /any/ civilians appear where we meet the Taliban, our troops are to "break contact" -- to retreat. These ROE are a cave-in to the Taliban's shameless propaganda campaign that claimed innocents were massacred every time our aircraft appeared overhead. (Afghan President Mohammed Karzai and our establishment media backed the terrorists.) The Taliban's goal was to level the playing field -- to deny our troops their technological edge.

Our enemies more than succeeded.

And what has our concern for the lives of Taliban sympathizers accomplished? The Taliban now make damned sure that civilians are present /whenever/ they conduct an ambush or operation. So they attack -- and we quit the fight, lugging our dead and wounded back to base. We've been through this b.s. before. In Iraq, we wanted to show respect to our enemies, so the generals announced early on that we wouldn't enter mosques. The result? Hundreds of mosques became terrorist safe houses, bomb factories and weapons caches.

Why is this so hard to figure out? We tell our enemies we won't attack X. So they exploit X. Who wouldn't? It isn't just that war is hell. It's that war /must/ be hell, otherwise why would the enemy ever quit?

This week's rumblings from the White House suggest that we may, at last, see a revised strategy that concentrates on killing our deadliest enemies -- but I'll believe it when I see the rounds go down-range. Meanwhile, our troops die because our leaders are moral cowards. Over the decades, political correctness insinuated itself into the ranks of our "Washington player" generals and admirals. We now have four-stars who believe that improving our enemies' self-esteem is a crucial wartime goal. And the Army published its disastrous Counterinsurgency Manual a few years back -- doctrine written by military intellectuals who, instead of listening to Infantry squad leaders, made a show of consulting "peace advocates" and "humanitarian workers."

The result was a manual based on a few heavily edited case studies "proving" that the key to success in fighting terrorists is to hand out soccer balls to worm-eaten children. The doctrine ignored the brutal lessons of 3,000 years of history -- because history isn't politically correct (it shows, relentlessly, that the /only/ effective way to fight faith-fueled insurgents is with fire and sword).

The New York Times lavished praise on the manual. What does /that/ tell you?

A few senior officers continue to push me to "lay off" the Counterinsurgency Manual. Sorry, but I'm more concerned about supporting the youngest private on patrol than I am with the reputation of any general. As a /real/ general put it a century ago, "The purpose of an Army is to fight." And the purpose of going to war is to /win/ (that dirty word). It's not to sacrifice our own troops to make sad-sack do-gooders back home feel good.

We need to recognize that /true/ morality lies in backing our troops, not in letting them die for whacko theories.

The next time you read about the death of a soldier or Marine in Afghanistan, don't just blame the Taliban. Blame the generals and politicians who sent them to war, then took away their weapons./

Ralph Peters' new novel is "The War After Armageddon."/NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc.nypost.com , nypostonline.com , and newyorkpost.com are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.