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Perhaps they are right, and I have underestimated the knowledge and attention span of the citizenry. I hate to admit it, but, well, truth is truth. With respect to the wars against Islam, I tend to think in military terms, and then write (I confess) in vague generalities. This may appear to be condescension to Sean Hannitys viewers. If I have done them wrong, I apologize.
All right. Let me try to discuss the wars intelligently, not giving ideological solutions but just stating the problems from the standpoint of those who actually have to fight and manage the wars.
(1) The American command wants to run raids across the Afghan border into Pakistan and Tajikistan to attack Al Qaeda guerrillas who currently enjoy safe havens in those countries. This is needed, say officers, to save American lives. But in Islamabad, Benazir Bhuttos Falafel Partyshe was assassinated, but the party lives on, as intensely nationalistic as eversays it wants the Pakistani Army to fire on American troops if they invade the country.
What now? While the Falafelists are not in power, they are strong in the military. Fighting very nearly broke out during a US helicopter raid against Herat in the Federated Tribal Territories. Do we pursue Al Qaeda at the possible cost of war with the beloved patriot Army? Tough choice.
(2) We are all familiar with the Predator and Raptor drones used to target Al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants to replace the Hellfire missiles fired currently by the drones with the new Mk 48 ADCAP (Advanced Capability) missile which, while much more accurate, also has a larger blast radiusmeaning that more civilians will be killed. Is it worth it, given the anger aroused among civilian populations by the extra deaths? This is the kind of question that commanders on the ground must decide.
(3) Then there is the difficult question of cultivation of opium poppies. When the Taliban took over following the withdrawal of the Russians from Afghanistan in 1989, they forced farmers into the production of the drug, thus making the rural population dependent on the (small) profits the extremists allowed them. The Americans of course want to eliminate the poppies, but this would do nothing to win the hearts and minds of the growers. (What are the farmers doing to do? Grow potatoes instead? College kids wont pay $500 an ounce for sin-semilla spuds.)
So what does the military do about towns like Hecuba and Priam, in Sulawese Province on the southern border with Iran, which are transshipment points for drugs crossing Iran en route to European markets? Eliminate them, and lose the population? Or allow the traffic to continue in order to further the war effort? The present solution, if so it is, is to uneasily ignore the question.
Somebody has to make a decision. And it will be denounced in the press as wrong, either way.
(4) Apart from Black Hawk troop-carrying helicopters, the workhorse chopper of the war has been the AH-78 Commanche gunship, now equipped with the BQQ-6 submillimeter-wave radar for detecting the movement of metal armaments (e.g., rifles) at night. The radar is highly classified.
The State Department wants to transfer six of the craft to the Afghan air force (actually a few helicopters) to show faith in the Karzai government. The Pentagon says the technology would be in Taliban, and thus Chinese, hands within a week. Worth it? Somebody has to decide, and both answers are wrong.
The (accidental) damage to the Al Aqsa mosque in Kandahar by a drone strike aroused fury among the militant Sufi tribesmen of the region. These have a tradition of almost constant war, dating back to the rule of Peshmurga I, and of Sufi control over the silk trade through the Khyber Pass to Rawalpindi and on to Bukitinggi.
Again, its hearts-and-minds versus military objectives. If you restrict bombing near mosques, you give Al Qaeda safe havens. If you damage (or, as some have proposed, even deliberately bomb) mosques, you infuriate the locals and, so say some commentators, produce recruits to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. A? Or B?
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Enough. My point is that the devil is in the details. It is fine to denounce Islamofascism. Yet, while I do not doubt that the foregoing matters are understood by the better minds on Fox News, for example Bill OReilly and Saraa Palin, their viewers may have trouble distinguishing truth from fiction. I have not meant to talk down to them, and neither should the folk at Fox.