Subject: Post election and back to policies:-)  my comment to George Will column on 12-11-08
Nice to see the minds functioning again instead of flamethrowers (not that it wasn't fun to be ascerbic about liberals sometimes...) I agree that Pakistan and Afganistan are unwinnable by outside forces  (without, as earlier noted, a Genghis mentality), and interior schisms between tribes and religions make any national government with real authority extremely unlikely. So, why are we involved? Simply because to not be involved carries far worse possibilities to our national security. We may not have much leverage, but we do at least have some, as well as intelligence assets on the ground and in the respective governments. The islamic nations worry us because of oil, and terrorism, but strategically they are backwards, insular nations. They have many smart, highly talented people, but the ruling regimes are so removed economically from the masses they might as well be different nations, which is why Osama and Wahabbism represent a more fundamental threat to the Gulf Arabic nations than to our own. The terrorists may blow some of our landmarks up, but they cannot destroy our culture and throw us back, as a nation, to the middle ages, as they can Saudi Arabia, Quatar, et al, because we do not have a majority of citizens in grinding poverty being radicalized by religious imams while our rulers live  life large.
The real intractable problem on the world's stage is Pakistan/India, because of profound religious differences going back 60 years to the partition of the nation into a Muslim and Hindu homeland. They have been fighting over Kashmir for literally decades, both have nuclear weapons( which is the reason I say they are  worse than Israel/Arabs, because only Israel currently has the bomb, whereas both these countries do, and sophisticated delivery systems), and large populations of very poor cannon fodder the elites would not hesitate to expend in the name of national interest. Plus, we really do not possess the mental toughness and pragmatism to negotiate with any of these nations, so we should not even pretend we can unless we are willing to be effective in our negotiations(which requires more than throwing money around). Pakistan came around into our camp not because of our words, but because of what we did to the Taliban in Afganistan. Piecemeal, and nuanced, approaches do not work in that region of the world, so we need to go in to win decisively, or stay out. Since staying out is not an option at this stage, winning is the only way left. Unless, of course, we want to go the way of France and Britain, appease our way into obscurity and Sharia law eradicating our national identity. Perhaps that is really where I feel Gates and the rest of these oh so experienced people (BTW if they are so experienced and have been around for 40 years, why are we stilling having these problems?) miss the boat, they are focused primarily on the physical insurgency of the islamic radicals, and not realizing that national security must in  large part be based on defeating the ideology. We are a Christian nation and have no business adopting Sharia compliant financing, foot baths, clean foods, or any other politically correct genuflucting to Islam, let alone refusing to criticize radical Islamic terrorists because it might hurt their feelings! Wipe the terrorists  from the face of the earth so they can go enjoy their 70 promised virgins, and let us move on with the task of getting along with the "moderate" muslims of the world.  What our political classes tell us in the name of diversity we must do, is  in fact aiding and abetting our enemy in their efforts to destroy our culture and way of life. Multiculturalism is, indeed, the murdering of our culture, as noted by a previous post to Will‘s TH column.