Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Almost everything we have been told about Libya over the last two years is untrue. A free Libya was supposed to be proof of President Obamaās
enlightened āresetā Middle East policy. When insurgency broke out there,
the United States joined France and Great Britain in bombing Moammar
Qaddafi out of power ā and supposedly empowering a democratic Arab
Spring regime. Not a single American life was lost.
Libyans, like most in the Arab world, were supposed to appreciate the
new, enlightened American foreign policy. Obamaās June 2009 Cairo speech
had praised Islam and apologized for the West. A new ālead from behindā
multilateralism was said to have superseded George W. Bushās
neo-imperialist interventions of the past.Obamaās mixed racial identity and his fatherās Muslim heritage would
also win over the hearts and minds of Libyans after the Qaddafi
nightmare. During this summerās Democratic convention, Obama supporters
trumpeted the successes of his Middle East policy: Osama bin Laden dead,
al-Qaeda defanged, and Arab Spring reformers in place of dictators.
To keep that shining message viable until the November election, the
Obama administration and the media had been willing to overlook or
mischaracterize all sorts of disturbing events. We had asked for a
United Nations resolution for humanitarian aid and a no-fly zone to
intervene in Libya, but then deliberately exceeded it by bombing
Qaddafiās forces ā after bypassing the U.S. Congress in favor of a
go-ahead from the Arab League. Libya was not so much liberated as descending into the chaos of
tribal payback. Former Qaddafi supporters and African mercenaries were
executed by those we helped. Islamists began consolidating power,
desecrating a British military cemetery and driving out Westerners.
On the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, a radical Islamist hit team with
heavy weapons stormed the American consulate in Benghazi, killing
Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In response, White House press secretary Jay Carney, National
Intelligence Director James Clapper, and U.N. ambassador Susan Rice
desperately insisted that the murders were a one-time, ad hoc
demonstration gone awry, without much larger significance. Supposedly, a
few Muslim outliers ā inflamed over one Americanās anti-Islamic
Internet video ā had overreacted and stormed the consulate. Such anger
was ānatural,ā assured the president.
But why would furor over an obscure, months-old Internet video just
happen to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary attack? Do demonstrators
customarily bring along rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and heavy
machine guns? Why did the Libyan government attribute the killings to an
al-Qaeda affiliate when the Obama administration would not?
Forget those questions: For most of September, desperate
administration officials still clung to the myth that the Libyan
catastrophe was a result of a single obnoxious video. At the United
Nations, the president castigated the uncouth film. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton lamented the senseless spontaneous violence that grew
out of one Americanās excesses, as she spoke beside the returning
coffins of the slain Americans.Nonetheless, more disturbing facts kept emerging: Ambassador Stevens
repeatedly had warned his State Department superiors in vain of
impending Islamist violence. Security personnel ā to no avail ā had also
urged beefing up the protection of the consulate, prompting former
regional security officer Eric Nordstrom to say in exasperation that
āthe Taliban is on the inside of the building.ā Video of the attack
revealed that there had been no demonstration at all, but rather a
full-fledged terrorist assault.
Even as the fantasy of a spur-of-the-moment demonstration dissipated,
administration officials tried to salvage it ā and with it their
idealistic policy in the Middle East. Vice President Joe Biden told a
flat-out whopper in last weekās debate, saying the administration hadnāt
been informed that Americans in Libya had ever requested more security.
He scapegoated the intelligence agencies for supposedly failing to warn
the administration of the threat.
The new administration narrative faulted not one video, but the
intelligence community for misleading them about the threat of an
al-Qaeda hit on an American consulate ā and the Romney campaign for
demanding answers about a slain ambassador and his associates.
Meanwhile, the State Department, the Obama reelection team, and the
intelligence community were all pointing fingers at each other. What the Obama administration could not concede was the truth: The
lead-from-behind intervention in Libya had proved a blueprint for
nothing. Libya had descended into chaos. Radical Islam had either
subverted or hijacked the Arab Spring. Al-Qaeda was not dismantled by
the death of bin Laden or by the stepped-up drone assassination missions
in Pakistan. Egypt was becoming Islamist. Syria was a bloody mess. Iran
was on the way to becoming nuclear. Obama had won America no more good
will in the Middle East than had prior presidents.
