While I enjoy Hitchens' rants against religion, I think he still can't accept that some of his theories about Iraq didn't pan out. As a result he is twisting a variety of opposing arguments together to discredit opposition.

AQM did not exist before the invasion of Iraq. This was because there was insufficient local support for Zarqawi's ideas. However, in the chaotic aftermath of the war he was able to gather up enough radicals and foreign fighters to cause major damage. If the U.S. did not invade, Zarqawi could not have done much from his small base in autonomous Kurdish territory (say isn't Hithcens a huge supporter of the Kurds? - I wonder why the base location wasn't mentioned).

However, 'realists' are not saying that we should not fight these people. We just have to fight them in a 'smarter' way. We cannot indiscriminately raid villages and alienate the population. We have to work with the locals (no matter how odious and corrupt they may be) just like they are belatedly doing in Anbar.

The problem in staying in Iraq and Afghanistan is that currently the Western presence in counterproductive. This is because local resistance groups, the Taliban, and Al Qaida are winning the PR war. The Americans are painted as arrogant occupiers that do not benefit the country. Despite huge spending, few benefits of aid are visible. Enemies of the US are able to do this because Americans initially did not understand that when your first concerns are food, shelter, and security, democracy is not high on your list of priorities. The American tactics have failed to win over hearts and minds, and now it is too late to win them back.

Now that US popularity is at an all time low, it is too late to salvage much from the situation. The Americans are stuck in both countries and will take casualties and bad press for many years to come. Hopefully, sometime in the next administration Americans figure out a strategy to appeal to the world. It shouldn't be that hard to look favorable relative to fanatical, backwards, homicidal fanatics!

AS much as it pains me to agree with many of Hitchens observations about the infighting of the faithful, this point is larger still. Al Quida in the deserts of the Mesopotamia--for whatever reason--is the same as Al Quida in the mountains of the Hindi Kush or near Kobar Towers or recruits in Africa. Operationally different? Yes, sometimes. Same animus against the West? More importantly, yes to that question also. To deny this is akin to saying that a Ford truck is vastly different in Montana than in South Florida. Cranking may take longer on a cold Montana morning. That's basically it.

Al Quida might not have had a larger than life presence in Iraq before the ouster of Hussein, no. So what? It is not a valid argument to say that removing one source of evil whose power was so overwhemling and brutal that he "contained" all these disparate organizations so therefore we can't handle the aftermath. It is a gaping non-sequiter, to be polite. Many times in history brutal regimes needed a vacuum filling, and it certainly begs the question about the roots of problems there that apparently "required" men such as Hussein to hold the jigsaw pieces together with horror and threat in the first place. Whether native to the soil or transplanted to spite the West, it matters not. We have as Hitchens says a golden opportunity to find the lords of evil and lull them out of their holes and hovels and have them shot dead by US firepower. More the merrier. And then this phrase:

We cannot indiscriminately raid villages and alienate the population.

Is Barak Obama in the house here? That kind of snide snipe at US forces only undermines the very real progress that even liberal journalists are loathingly admitting by now. That the effort and care to root out the jerks and insurgents is having a real positive effect. Incidental civilian casualties happen in ANY war. Hundreds of thousands perished in WWII alone. But I've yet to hear someone say that the war on Hitler and Tojo was therefore invalid or that we "only" tormented civilians over Kyoto or Berlin. As you know that's never the full story. Indeed, most of the splatter bombing of fruit markets, the beheadings, the killing of Iraqi schoolkids is at the behest and direction of Michael Moore's "minutemen"--the lunatic Allah Knows Best folks the MSM refer to as..."insurgents."

Stop being an idiot. You must live in some sort of disconnected fantasy world that has no actual grounding in true world reality. Either that or you just didn't read the artical. Try again. Pathetic.

apechi

You are a fool of the first order.

Yhomas D. Vann