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One step forward, two steps back

In an AP story detailing how Britain’s next prime minister Gordon Brown promises to “learn lessons that need to be learned” regarding Iraq — namely, that Britain’s foreign policy under Labour’s new leader will “‘reflect the truth that to isolate and defeat terrorist extremism now involves more than military force” (unless, presumably, that involves surveillance, coercive interrogation, private businesses cooperating with government, the monitoring of finances, correctly identifying terrorists as enemy combatants, etc) — as if this is a novel approach, and a rebuke to (what Brown intimates) has been the solely military approach to the problem thus far.

None of which is surprising, really, because we’ve been hearing the same kind of dishonest calls for “expanding” the scope of our fight against terrorism from anti-war crusaders for some time now — an “expansion” that is, in essence, the exact opposite: a strategy that would remove the military component and go back to concentrating on the “law enforcement” paradigm, coupled with the desire to “understand the root causes.”

And those causes as professed by the terrorists themselves don’t count.

No, not much of suprise. But I did find this bit particularly noteworthy, and deserving of being highlighted:

“It is also a struggle of ideas and ideals that in the coming years will be waged and won for hearts and minds here at home and round the world.”

The unpopularity of the Iraq war, and Britain’s role in it, have dogged Blair through the last years of his leadership. The woman elected Sunday as Brown’s deputy, Harriet Harman, has called for the government to apologize for mistakes over the Iraq war.

One way to “win hearts and minds,” according to British Labour, is to apologize for freeing 25 million people from the yoke of Ba’athist tyranny — or at least, apologize for not doing it perfectly, and in a fashion that is “popular” with the people.

Which, while it might not win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis struggling toward a fledgling democracy, will certainly win the hearts and minds to the perpetually risk-averse, and those who count on such an unwillingness, on the part of spoiled, complacent westerners, to act on behalf of the liberal principles they pretend to espouse.

Is it any wonder that change in the Middle East is so difficult? After all, why on earth would those with the most to lose should they give up their authoritarian rule heed the advice from representatives of countries who don’t seem to believe much in what they’re peddling, anyway — or at least, who are willing to sell out their beliefs or rationalize them away for the sake of expediency and a false sense of security?

Go ahead, Ms. Harman. Apologize for taking the fight to terrorists in iraq — even as the surge is now underway to pummel al Qaeda, and even as the Sunnis seem to be rejecting the foreign militants in their midst.

The good folks at the Finsbury Mosque will likely praise you to the heavens for your capitulation — up until the time they deem it necessary to teach you a lesson about getting all uppity with them, expecting to follow your rules in their parts of the country.

At which point they’ll blow some shit up.

No worries, though. You can always apologize for offending their cultural sensibilities and hope they’ll leave you alone for a bit longer.

58 Replies to “One step forward, two steps back”

  1. Dan Collins says:

    All your base are belong to Qaeda.

  2. cranky-d says:

    So the Brits will be pulling back on this one.  Big surprise.  After all, it’s all about doing what’s popular, not what’s right.

  3. happyfeet says:

    she changed her mind about that whole thing

  4. nikkolai says:

    This new bitch in charge has gotta have the Islamo-nazis quaking in their boots.
    With laughter.

  5. Pablo says:

    No worries, though. You can always apologize for offending their cultural sensibilities and hope they’ll leave you alone for a bit longer.

    They could be a bit more proactive and blow a few trainloads of Brits up as pennance.

  6. slackjawedyokel says:

    Overheard in Finsbury Mosque
    1st Militant: Wow!  The way things are going, it surely won’t be long before the Caliphate is truly established here!
     
    2nd Militant:  [sigh] Yeah, I guess.
     
    1st Militant:  What’s wrong, Brother?  You don’t sound happy about it.
     
    2nd Militant: 

    1st Militant:  C’mon, What?
     
    2nd Militant:  I just don’t want to be stuck with circumcising all those converts.  The English are so whiny about their foreskins!

  7. McGehee says:

    The English are so whiny about their foreskins!

    Maybe the fact theirs get taken off with cuticle scissors has something to do with it.

  8. nobody important says:

    "Maybe the fact theirs get taken off with cuticle scissors has something to do with it."
    Well, a little rum, a stick to bite on; who cares if it takes an hour to circumnavigate the pole?
     

  9. eLarson says:

    coupled with the desire to “understand the root causes.” But decoupled with actually doing anything about the root causes.  Because that could be difficult, and possibly even unpopular. 

  10. narciso says:

    The Brits pulled out of Mesopotamia, too soon once, around 1927. The past is prologue; They placed a Sunni naquib (head of the religious guild) of Baghdad as Prime Minister AbdulRahman Al Quailani, and ‘redeployed’ leaving a small skeleton force, heade by Maj, John Glubb Pasha; they were nearly overwhelmed by the Ilkwan (pre Al Queda  Wahhabi tribesman in the South)which proceeded to try to recreate the sacking of Najaf and Karbala from a century back. The Sunnis despite having marginalized the growing Shia and Kurdish multitudes, including stealing the newly found oil in Kirkuk, developed a fascist fetish under the Golden Square movement; which would lead two coup d’ etats against the Iraqi republic of Hashemites and local tribesman like Nuri Al Said; which would succeed in 1941, ushering a Vichy state under Qualylani jr. Which the Brits ended having to drive out by re-invading the country; 15 years later. Another byproduct of the political vaccuum was Baathism; which Dr. De La Vega; (where’s he popped off to know) is wholesome

  11. shine says:

    private businesses cooperating with government

  12. cynn says:

    So who’s left, in this coalition of the killing?

  13. Hey, at least the Prime Minister implies that force is at least a component of the solution. Watch what happens when the Labour rank and file figure that out.

  14. Rob Crawford says:

    So who’s left, in this coalition of the killing?

    The Iraqis.

    Not that you care. Clearly everything bad that happens is our fault. The jihadis just aren’t responsible for their own actions.

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