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The Spectacle Blog
With Sunday’s news that a US soldier massacred 16 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, in their sleep and then burned the bodies, the little that the US can claim to have achieved in Afghanistan, at great cost over a decade, is now likely to be lost.
No American, and probably no westerner, will be safe in Afghanistan for a decade after the soldier’s murderous rampage. Really, if they’re willing to murder people over burned books, imagine the intensity of Afghan hatred for a truly heinous crime against sleeping civilians, with one man losing all 11 members of his family.
Although speculation is pointless, the first thing that comes to mind, especially with reports that this soldier is a sergeant (rather than a lower-ranked soldier) is revenge against Afghanistan for the murder of multiple US soldiers by Afghans following the recent burning of a few Korans by American soldiers.
Although I understand a soldier’s desire for vengeance against a nation which demands apologies for singed books but offers none for murder, this soldier’s actions are obviously beyond sanction and deserving of the death penalty — even if he claims insanity.
As is his wont, President Obama has already apologized to the president of Afghanistan, who has said that the murders “cannot be forgiven.” While I understand Karzai’s feelings, and would likely share them, it is a distinctly unhelpful line of rhetoric from the nation’s leader if he actually cared about maintaining any even superficially friendly relationship with the United States.
The fact that he said what he said means he is more concerned with domestic politics than with his “alliance” with the United States. That focus is all the easier when dealing with a US president who projects weakness and fecklessness at every opportunity, and can’t even make a statement in support of Israel without contradicting himself within hours.
Historians can debate whether the war in Afghanistan was worth it at all, whether we should have left after just a couple of years, or whether we should not have pulled back at all until the Afghan army and police were more prepared to secure the country. But since that goal may not even be desired by the government, and may not be attainable even it it were desired by the government, it’s hard to argue at this point that we should do anything other than take Newt Gingrich’s latest approach, getting our soldiers out while telling Karzai “You know, you’re going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life because I’m not here - you clearly don’t want to hear from me how to be unmiserable.”
My view, which I’ve maintained for several years, is that we should leave Afghanistan to the Afghans, but tell their central government and each of the nation’s powerful warlords that should any harm befall American interests anywhere in the world due to people whom we can trace back, in an operational sense, to areas under their control, we will turn those areas into glass, making sure to target the areas’ rulers and their families, and we will then douse every body we can find with pig blood, so they cannot enter the Muslim version of heaven.
Harsh, you say? I think that nothing less will impact the mindset of tribesman who understand nothing but power. Unfortunately, even if such a threat were made, no Afghan warlord or government figure would believe it as long as Barack “I’m sorry for American power” Obama remains in office. Just as the Iranians were not afraid of Jimmy Carter I, the Afghans (and the Iranians for that matter) have no fear of Jimmy Carter II.
View all comments (57) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Ross Kaminsky
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/03/12/murder-in-afghanistan
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Jon| 3.12.12 @ 8:48AM
Looks like I got to AmSpec in time to comment before the Anti-Ross trolls show up. Agree 100%, especially your last two paragraphs. War is a harsh business. "Winning a war" and "being liked by the enemy" are mutually exclusive - why do we even try?
Jack in Wi.| 3.12.12 @ 8:53AM
We never had any business nation building in Afganistan, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam, Libya, Somalia, Panama or anywhere else. I can't think of any reason not to bring the troops home now. All we do when we intefere in these countries is build up more hate on all sides.
Vox populi| 3.12.12 @ 12:14PM
The war in Vietnam was a legitimate attempt to defend a society from direct communist aggression. That it failed makes it no less noble and right. Afghanistan is entirely different: there is no chance of defending democracy succesfully.
C Bowen | 3.12.12 @ 7:33PM
Vox;
Setting, which is ridiculous to do, the Gulf of Tonkin false flag, the American grassroots Rightwing in the form of the John Birch Society rejected the Vietnam War as nothing more then a internal Communist ploy.
That the Catholic, Diem, was assassinated by US policy, proves it was not some existential defense of the West.
Zombie Reagan| 3.12.12 @ 10:22AM
To be expected. War brings out the worst in mankind. Neocons call it nation building. I call it the suicide of the west.
Mike W| 3.12.12 @ 8:52AM
A US president who projects fecklessness - must be referring to George W. Bush who diverted from Afghanistan to the Iraqi misadventure before the job was done.
Regarding Karzai - I can just guess that he is tired of having his citizens butchered by an occupying force.
Zombie Reagan| 3.12.12 @ 10:25AM
Give Bandow a break. The Spectator won't allow him to blame a republican for the sorry ass state of this endless war, so he has no choice but to heave a few names/charges at Obama -- who had nothing to do with these two wars.
Zombie Reagan| 3.12.12 @ 10:26AM
Sorry, I mean Kaminsky. Almost confused a real conservative (Doug Bandow) with a NeoConman Kaminsky.
Vern Crisler| 3.12.12 @ 11:10AM
Bandow is a libertarian, not a conservative.
Clint| 3.12.12 @ 12:19PM
Ronald Reagan,
" If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path."
The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To A Brokered Convention.
Vern Crisler| 3.12.12 @ 2:06PM
"Reagan is basically a cretin who, as a long-time actor, is skilled in reading his assigned lines and performing his assigned tasks." -- libertarian Murray Rothbard
Clint| 3.12.12 @ 3:42PM
Ronald Reagan,
"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country."
Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Economist,
"I strongly support Ron Paul. We very badly need to have more Representatives who understand in a principled way the importance of property rights and religious freedom."
Vern Crisler| 3.12.12 @ 4:30PM
“Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party have given us skyrocketing deficits, and astoundingly doubled national debt.” -- Ron Paul, libertarian.
"It is almost as if any passing joker who mumbles a few words about "freedom" is automatically clasped to our bosom as a member of the one, big, libertarian family. As our movement grows in influence, we can no longer afford the luxury of this intellectual sloth. It is high time to identify Milton Friedman for what he really is. It is high time to call a spade a spade, and a statist a statist." -- Murray Rothbard, libertarian.
aware| 3.12.12 @ 5:32PM
Nothing factually incorrect about either of those quotes.
Vern Crisler| 3.12.12 @ 6:29PM
Friedman was not a statist, and neither Reagan nor the Republicans had control of Congress during the Reagan years.
C Bowen | 3.12.12 @ 7:39PM
Reagan betrayed most of the Right on policy issue after policy issue, from balanced budgets (where Republican conservatives in the Congress actually cried) to raising taxes which Reagan did many times, to restarting the grain shipments to Russia that Carter had banned and negotiating arms control agreements.
Reagan, to his credit, negotiated Cold War political realities better then most appreciate though he did it by cutting off the tech transfers to the Soviet(American industry's commitment to Cold War embargoes was limited, but at least a more noble record then American finance.)
Vern Crisler| 3.12.12 @ 8:59PM
As I said, libertarians are not conservatives. Their hatred for Reagan is exhibit #1.
Clint| 3.13.12 @ 6:23AM
Do Your Homework.
There Are At Least 10 Types Of Libertarians And Shades In Between.
Apparently, You Wouldn't Know Real Conservative Foreign Policy, If Ya Tripped Over It.
Read George Washington's Farewell Address, Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, The Old Right And Get Back To Us.
" George Will, "Today, we have a very different kind of foreign policy. It’s called Wilsonian. And the premise of the Bush Doctrine is that America must spread democracy, because our national security depends upon it. And America can spread democracy. It knows how. It can engage in national building. This is conservative or not?"
William F. Buckley, " It’s not at all conservative. It’s anything but conservative. It’s not conservative at all, inasmuch as conservatism doesn’t invite unnecessary challenges. It insists on coming to terms with the world as it is …”
The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To A Brokered Convention.
Clint| 3.13.12 @ 6:16AM
Do Your Homework.
Dr.Ron Paul,
" I strongly supported Ronald Reagan. I was one of four in Texas -- one of four members of Congress that supported Reagan in '76. And I supported him all along, and I supported his -- his -- all his issues and all his programs.
But in the 1980s, we spent too much, we taxed too much, we built up our deficits, and it was a bad scene. Therefore, I support the message of Ronald Reagan. The message was great. But the consequence, we have to be honest with ourselves. It was not all that great. Huge deficits during the 1980s, and that is what my criticism was for, not for Ronald Reagan's message. His message is a great message."
The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To A Brokered Convention.
aware| 3.13.12 @ 6:24AM
Friedman certainly was a statist as his support for the Federal Reserve clearly shows. All supplysiders are monetarists which makes them statists. There can be no free market with the central bank controlling money.
That "Republicans not in control of Congress" excuse worked up until they did. Then spending, borrowing, and growing the State showed they were just farm team Democrats.
You don't mind the train ride to bankruptcy and oblivion as long as your Republican masters are doing the driving.
Skippy| 3.13.12 @ 3:53PM
Thank you Bob Schieffer.
Nobody bought your book in the 80's, but who knows?
Ross Kaminsky | 3.12.12 @ 2:32PM
I am not a NeoCon, and Bandow is not a "real conservative." He's a libertarian, long associated with the Cato Institute.
Jack in Wi.| 3.12.12 @ 3:03PM
Ross: I think your general approach on foreign policy is neocon. I have been reading you awhile and that is my personal opinion. Now when we see this kind of crime. Don't some of the people who call for mass murder of Muslims on this site have some shame. This kind of action comes out of wars where we are taught to hate the enemy. Don't think it is just the other side that does them. War should only be fought for reasons far more serious then nation building among unwilling people.
Ross Kaminsky | 3.12.12 @ 4:58PM
Jack,
First of all, a NeoCon is someone who was originally not a conservative, and then became one. I was perhaps somewhat more conservative earlier in my life but am a libertarian now. My many detractors on these pages will gladly admit that I do not call myself a conservative, and am not one, and therefore am not a NeoCon.
Next, as far back as 2006, I agreed (in writing) with a British general who said we should be getting out of Iraq, although I did think that going in initially was the right move -- something I might reconsider knowing what I know now.
And I wrote this in 2010: But I think Afghanistan is a mountainous Vietnam for us and I’d like us to be looking for an exit. As I’ve said, I would tell the warlords who run each area of the nation that if an attack is made against the US or US property abroad and we learn that it was launched from or trained for in Afghanistan, we will turn that part of Afghanistan into glass after burying the warlord with pig blood.
This was after interviewing two Republican candidates for US Senate and reporting that I preferred the Afghanistan position of the less "hawkish" candidate. (The more hawkish was, perhaps not surprisingly, a personal friend of John McCain.)
I don't think any fair comparison to a real NeoCon would allow me to be called one. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead...
C Bowen | 3.12.12 @ 7:31PM
"a NeoCon is someone who was originally not a conservative"
That is absurd. Irving Kristol said it was a term for a certain non-left liberal grouping. The Weekly Standard and the New Republic are both neocon, for example. Idiotic calls for genocide and barbaric calls for killing families are certainly not Order (order being Rightwing, chaos Left.)
Vern Crisler| 3.12.12 @ 8:59PM
"Neocon" is just a term of abuse directed at conservatives by libertarian extremists.
C Bowen | 3.13.12 @ 6:33AM
That makes no sense--Irving Kristol wrote a book calling this particular not-right, not left strain, neoconservatism.
Skippy| 3.13.12 @ 4:03PM
Neocon is code for Jew.
Hating them is habit for the left.
Zombie Reagan| 3.12.12 @ 4:57PM
You can tell the end of the line is near for the Neoconmen when even they are ashamed to be NeoCons. Heh.
Clint| 3.13.12 @ 6:27AM
NeoCons Are The Democrat Boat People.
The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To A Brokered Convention.
Bob Grant| 3.12.12 @ 11:52AM
"...Obama -- who had nothing to do with these two wars."
A signed document ordering the deployment of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan would say otherwise.
BcdErick| 3.12.12 @ 9:16AM
"Although speculation is pointless..."
But you then write an entire essay doing just that. This soldier should be taken to the US, medically evaluated and immediately released. The American's behavior in Afghanistan makes the Soviets look like geniuses.
Vern Crisler| 3.12.12 @ 10:07AM
Shouldn't Karzai apologize to us? After all, when their terrorists kill ours, Obama apologizes. So, in keeping with the logic of the situation, when one of our bad apples kills some of theirs, shouldn't they apologize to us?
Vox populi| 3.12.12 @ 10:10AM
"imagine the intensity of Afghan hatred for a truly heinous crime against sleeping civilians" - the thoughts of most Afghans would be "A man after myown heart! So some Americams are sensible after all!
logan| 3.12.12 @ 10:31AM
I agree Ross, especially your last two paragraphs. We should have left many years ago, we should leave now and give them a grave warning.
We should also move to limit Islamic immigration (and generally reduce all immigration) into our country. We don't need mosques going up on every street corner. Islam is both a religion and a political ideology.
Frankly, it doesn't belong in the USA.
Bob K.| 3.12.12 @ 10:32AM
"Historians can debate whether the war in Afghanistan was worth it all, whether we should have left after a couple of years, or whether we should not have pulled back at all until the Afghan Army and Police were more prepared to secure the country."
No. The Historian's debates will be about the United States' incoherent, incompetent foreign policy starting at the end of the 20th century and only incidentally about why we were in Afghanistan; in that bleak, blighted Hindu Kush mountainous, desolate desert at all!
ptny| 3.12.12 @ 12:06PM
Ah, maybe we went there because we were attacked by people from Afghanistan. Duh.
sgib| 3.12.12 @ 1:28PM
You mean the 9/11 attackers? Most of them were from Saudi Arabia and fortunately they all died in the attacks.
Richard| 3.12.12 @ 11:44AM
Afghanistan—where empires go to die.
Evan| 3.12.12 @ 11:59AM
We didn't start having big bodybag counts over there until this pos closetcase became the wh occupier.
I can understand the reasons why a man would do what was done too. Not excusing it,but I do understand.
PattyMor| 3.12.12 @ 12:25PM
we've accomplished nothing there except kill our people and waste our money. Its tribalism, Islam, and violence that rules the day. Oh, they'll take our money, but they still hate us. So what is the point of all this? Get the hell out now. As Newt says, let them stay in the 7th century.
C Bowen| 3.12.12 @ 12:39PM
"...we will turn those areas into glass, making sure to target the areas' rulers and their families, and we will then douse every body we can find with pig blood, so they cannot enter the Muslim version of heaven."
Target their families? Genocide?
Seriously, this is considered responsible talk on AmSpec?
Paging the editors...
Drek| 3.12.12 @ 5:25PM
What did you think "the greatest generation" did, repeat DID, and not just talked about doing, to Japan and Germany?
We laid their cities waste?
Then we seized those of their leaders still alive, tried them, sentenced and executed them by hanging them by their neck with a rope.
And that was less than 75 years ago, for there are many still alive who participated in those bombing missions.
So your delicacy is both ahistorical and in bad taste.
C Bowen | 3.12.12 @ 6:02PM
Maybe you didn't read the article, but the author said that the policy should be to threaten families and propose genocide.
Now if he want to lead with those programs (extra-judicial execution and genocide) which you are correct were the programs that dealt with those Stalinist rivals, Germany and Japan--I certainly would not have supported as much because I am not a Communist--please get my point, Bolshevik.
Drek| 3.13.12 @ 1:49PM
What do you think mere possession of our strategic arsenal does, but implicitly, albeit usnpokenly, threaten people's lives, communities and cities?
Wake up.
Every hour of every day during the long Cold War, we threatened our enemies with untold horrors if they should break the peace. Don't you remember that?
Why do you think America has "boomers" on continual patrol under the waters, always ready?
C Bowen | 3.13.12 @ 4:14PM
LOL--that is kids history from comic books.
The US of A was sending tech, food, and financing to the Soviet through-out the Cold War as they fought a Cold War to colonize the remainder of the world.
Anthony Sutton writing for the Hoover Institute/Stanford pretty much demolishes Cold War Myths with his Wall Street Trilogy.
Bob K.| 3.12.12 @ 8:41PM
Germany and Japan first attacked and laid waste to almost all of their neighboring countries. Afghanistan has yet to do that to any of it's neighboring countries.
Can you make THAT distinction?
Drek| 3.13.12 @ 1:50PM
Where did Lord Nelson say that the defense of England began?
In the ports of France!
Today, America's defense must also take a much more forward, proactive position, particularly in regard to lunatic followers of the false prophet, mohammad.
C Bowen | 3.13.12 @ 4:11PM
Then why were the idiots who toppled secular Iraq and made it a Muslim state aligned with Iran not laughed out of the party, but rather continue to post as does Comrade Kaminsky.
JimH| 3.12.12 @ 12:44PM
I’m sure most readers here are familiar with Kipling’s poem about Afghanistan. This is an updated version written by a British soldier in 2009:
Afghanistan (with apologies to Kipling)
When you’re lying alone in your Afghan bivvy,
And your life it depends on some MOD civvie
When the body armour’s shared (one set between three),
And the firefight’s not like it is on TV,
Then you’ll look to your oppo, your gun and your God,
As you follow that path all Tommies have trod.
When the Gimpy has jammed and you’re down to one round,
And the faith that you’d lost is suddenly found.
When the Taliban horde is close up to the fort,
And you pray that the arty don’t drop a round short,
Stick to your sergeant like a good squaddie should,
And fight them like Satan or one of his brood.
Your pay it won’t cover your needs or your wants,
So just stand there and take all the Taliban’s taunts
Nor generals nor civvies can do aught to amend it,
Except make sure you’re kept in a place you can’t spend it.
Three fifty an hour in your Afghani cage,
Not nearly as much as the minimum wage.
Your missus at home in a foul married quarter
With damp on the walls and roof leaking water
Your kids miss their mate, their hero, their dad;
They’re missing the childhood that they should have had
One day it will be different, one day by and by,
As you all stand there and watch, to see the pigs fly.
Just like your forebears in mid, dust and ditch
You’ll march and you’ll fight, and you’ll drink and you’ll bitch
Whether Froggy or Zulu, or Jerry or Boer
The Brits will fight on ‘til the battle is over.
You may treat him like dirt, but nowt will unnerve him
But I wonder, sometimes, if the country deserves him.
Jeff Perren| 3.12.12 @ 2:28PM
" we will turn those areas into glass, making sure to target the areas' rulers and their families, and we will then douse every body we can find with pig blood, so they cannot enter the Muslim version of heaven."
We should have said this to Iran... 30 years ago.
Evan| 3.12.12 @ 2:38PM
Muslims being killed strikes too close to home for Hussein.
megapotamus| 3.12.12 @ 7:43PM
Some memories are, well, not short but felicitously edited. Obama has nothing to do with Afghanistan? I know a Senator from Illinois who would dispute that. There is a serious problem with extrapolating WWII to Afghanistan. Yes we destroyed the Nipponese and German cities. Too bad the Afghans don't have any. Turn the land to glass? It's not much more than glass now and the terrain is not amenable to carpet-nuking. Even the nukes can't get around mountains. And then what? For one thing our precious and unlikely to be replaced inventory of nukes is up in smoke. Then comes the parting threat; if we are harmed again and can trace it back to you... well. Guess what? You won't trace it back to the perpetrators but to their competition. A frame is a simple contraption even for these dusty goatravishers. The only element that is both practical and untried is the intentional and public defilement of recognizable combatants and anyone on the spot. This has the added benefit, if you think it is one, of not killing said people. Maybe when vast numbers of muslims are ineligible for paradise they will rethink Islam. There is still a zoroastrian contingent out there. But if they don't do that then, well, there is ONE way to absolve oneself of all disabilities for the True Believer and that is Jihad. The dead Jihadi is excused all other trespasses as we know from Mohammed Atta's impressive nudie bar tabs. I'm not saying I have any better solutions but if this is war it should be fought, not negotiated. That is what war is, an end to negotiations until somebody has their asses thoroughly kicked. Punitive expeditions of escalating severity may be the only recourse, other than converting (which I do not favor) but if so, A-stan is not the only worthy target. Plenty of Iraq is as well as the emo stonings reveal. If Islam is determined to make all out war on us, and they say they are, then what choice do we have? This is only getting much, much worse and much more quickly than anyone, even the most dire prophets, are saying.
Bob K.| 3.12.12 @ 8:50PM
Where do you propose to get the "boots on the ground" for these "punitive expeditions of escalating severity?"
Perhaps by a return to the draft?
Remember how that worked in Viet Nam when we were trying to keep all the dominos from falling?
megapotamus| 3.13.12 @ 11:05AM
The boots are on the ground to id targets both to make the targeting more effective and to make it less collaterally damaging. There are no such concerns with punitive raids but again, there is blowback from that as well. And no, the draft is the worst of all trespasses on liberty, not merely demanding that the citizen die, but kill.
Gerry| 3.12.12 @ 10:28PM
Oh, puhleeze ... do you really believe that old mullahs' tale about pig blood?
Skippy| 3.13.12 @ 4:09PM
I'd be willing to give it a try.