Protecting the barbarians

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Ash: pragmatist

I've been following the story of the UN workers brutally murdered and beheaded by a load of Afghan barbarians.  This was done supposedly in retaliation for a rogue Pastor in Florida burning a copy of the Koran, after which we're expected to accept that a Muslim gang on a rampage of slaughter is an understandable response.  And to cap it all off, the President of Afghanistan's demand is that he wants the looney clergyman prosecuted. 

It's the sort of news that makes me wonder what the blazes we're doing in Afghanistan at all.  In these situations, I take the line that General Napier took towards suttee:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; [then] beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours

In hindsight, we should have dumped the nation building at the beginning and put Afghanistan under a military governor until it suited our interests to withdraw.  Whether we left behind a democracy or just left should have been what suited us.  I can understand protecting a people trying to develop a functional democracy while we guide them toward something resembling civilisation, but if we're acting as the foreign legion for a slightly less fanatical version of the Taliban, then we're just wasting blood and treasure.  If that is the case, it would be far more in our interests to blast to atoms every military asset and bit of infrastructure on both sides and then leave with the clear message that if the Afghans give us any more trouble, we'll turn the whole country into radioactive glass.  Then we'll spread a rumour that electronics make Muslim men's penises fall off.  It worked in Africa.

What particularly sickens me is the response of the United States in particular and the West in general to this latest outrage.  Taking a break between golfing and holidays, Mr Barack Hussein Obama issued this statement:

The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry. However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity.

"Desecration of any holy text?"  Does this mean that Mr Obama will now condemn "artists" who treat the Bible like a bog roll?  Maybe take away their government grants?  I wouldn't hold your breath.  You'll notice that the beheading of innocent people gets second billing so that Mr Obama can scold an American citizen  for exercising his First Amendment rights.  The man has his prorities and his general isn't much better with his referring to the victims in the passive voice as if they were caught in a house fire.  Meanwhile, we even have the Guardian bleating in a leading-question poll that declares, in the words of Dr Heinz Kiosk, his eyes rotating in both directions, "WE ARE ALL GUILTY!"  Not to be outdone, the US Senate's way to handle savagery in Afghanistan is to propose imposing sharia law in the United States.  And they have the gall to use the wartime excuse by turning it on its head!

In a more civilised age, the USA, NATO, or the governments of the victims would have launched a punitive raid against Mazar-i-Sharif (where the atrocity took place), removed the savages who inhabit it to the outskirts while dropping every man between the ages of 14 and 60 stark naked 20 miles from town, and let them walk back to the pile of smoking rubble where their city once was.  Then Mr Karzi would have been quietly brought before the NATO theatre commander (not the US ambassador or a teleconference from Mr Barack Hussein Obama), not invited to sit while the commander pointedly remained at his desk, and told bluntly that if this happens again, Mr Karzi would face the Taliban on his own.

Blast it, we should have lowered the boom the second Afghanistan imposed that apostasy law.

What a stench.

Update: Powerline runs a poll asking if it's time to pull out.

In my opinion, given how we've approached this campaign and with the stunning leadership Mr Dunham, I can't see how we can do much more and I've no stomach for acting as the protector for a load of headhunters.   I say pull out with the promise that next time they give us any trouble, we're coming back just long enough to make the rubble bounce.

Update: Headline: Afghan Police Officer Turns Gun on American Soldiers, Killing 2

What's depressing is that Afghanistan had a few shining decades when it wasn't like something out of "The Man Who Would Be King".

Update: Karzi, Bible burnings, and other suspicious goings on.

Update:  Avengers assemble!

Update: Mark Steyn:

In Trafalgar Square, there is a statue of General Napier. I would urge any visitors to London to see it before it’s taken down, as it surely will be one day soon. Imagine what our world would look like if it were Lindsey Graham up on that plinth. A society led by such “men” cannot survive, and does not deserve to.