McCLATCHY reports:

As the U.S. and its allies try to overcome logistical hurdles and rush [?] some 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan in 2010, intelligence officials are warning that the Taliban-led insurgency is expanding and that “time is running out” for the U.S.-led coalition to prove that its strategy can succeed.

‘Succeed’ at what? What will constitute success? Can anyone describe what Afghanistan will look like when ‘the US-led coalition’s strategy’ has succeeded?

The report goes on:

The Taliban have created a shadow “government-in-waiting,” complete with Cabinet ministers, that could assume power if the U.S.-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai fails, a senior International Security Assistance Force intelligence official said in Kabul, speaking only on the condition of anonymity as a matter of ISAF policy.

As the Obama administration and its European allies face dwindling public and political support for the eight-year-old Afghan war, the Taliban now have what the official called “a full-fledged insurgency” and shadow governors in 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, including those in the north, where U.S. and other officials had thought the Islamic extremists posed less of a threat.

The Taliban’s return to the northern provinces, including Baghlan, Kunduz and Taqhar … poses serious security, logistical and political problems for the U.S.-led ISAF and Karzai’s government.

The northern region is under the command of German forces, but they and other European contingents operate under restrictions imposed by their governments that limit offensive operations against the Taliban.

The Taliban now threaten the northern supply route that the ISAF established to supplement the vulnerable routes that run through Pakistan, where the U.S.-backed government is battling its own Islamic extremists and growing sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

The Taliban in northern Afghanistan are sheltering among and recruiting from large communities of Pashtuns — descendants of settlers transplanted from the south in the early 20th century — fueling tensions with the Uzbeks and Tajiks who dominate the region.

At the same time, though, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens and Arabs linked to al Qaida have moved into northern Afghanistan with the Taliban, seeking to carry their jihad to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and alarming Russia, which is grappling with Islamic insurgencies in the republics of Chechnya and Dagestan.

As the Taliban have extended their reach, they’ve also grown more formidable militarily by developing bigger and more effective improvised explosive devices. Insurgents have mounted 7,228 IED attacks so far this year, compared with 81 in 2003, and … the homemade bombs have even destroyed some Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, the most heavily armored U.S. troop transports….

So will success be a state of peaceful, happy co-existence among the Pashtuns, Uzbeks, and Tajiks? How likely is this?

Why are they in conflict with each other? What must change so that the ‘tensions’ between them will suddenly end? How can this be brought about?

What will make the Taliban abandon its intentions? What will have changed for them?

If by some remote chance the Karzai government found itself with an effective native fighting force, what would it do to achieve a pacified Afghanistan? Or will there be perpetual internecine war?

What might the US have gained by the time its army is pulled out? What does it want to gain?

We beg for enlightenment. Would someone who knows the answers please give them to us? We see nothing but a mess into which American troops have been plunged for no discernible reason, to fight and die with one arm tied behind their back, so to speak, for no defined or even definable goal.

A Nigerian engineering student from University College, London, tried to blow up a plane with 278 passengers as it was approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.

Wonder what his religion is? Don’t let such a thought sully your mind.

Fox News reports:

A male passenger on an international flight bound [from Amsterdam] for Detroit Friday tried to blow up the plane with an explosive device in an incident that the White House is labeling an attempted act of terrorism.

An attempted  act of ‘terrorism‘ ?! Not an attempted  ‘man-caused disaster’?

The suspect, who ABC reported suffered second-degree burns, told federal investigators he was connected to Al Qaeda …

No … surely not?

… authorities are questioning the veracity of that statement …

We should hope so! Likely story! At any rate, nobody’s being so racist and Islamophobic as to mention the words ‘Islam’, or ‘Muslim’, or jihad’.

A federal situational awareness bulletin noted that the explosive was acquired in Yemen with instructions as to when it should be used …

Yemen? Hey! What’s going on here?

Eyewitness Peter Smith said one passenger climbed over passengers, went across the aisle and tried to restrain the alleged attacker. The heroic passenger appeared to have been burned.

Afterward, the suspect was taken to a front-row seat with his pants cut off and his legs burned. Multiple law enforcement officials also said the man appeared badly burned on his legs, indicating the explosive was strapped there. The components were apparently mixed in-flight and included a powdery substance, officials said.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) identified the suspect as 23-year-old Abdul Mudallad [full name Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] of Nigeria, and King said Mudallad “definitely has connections” to Al Qaeda. …

Naaa! Couldn’t have! Anyway, things like that will be taken care of in a caring way by Obama.

White House officials confirmed Friday that the attack was an attempted act of terrorism. “He appears to have had some kind of incendiary device he tried to ignite,” said one of the U.S. officials. …

One law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the case, said Mudallad’s name had surfaced earlier on at least one U.S. intelligence database, but not to the extent that he was placed on a watch list or a no-fly list.

Of course not. No profiling please. Better to risk a plane full of people than descend to that sort of thing.

President Barack Obama was notified of the incident and discussed it with security officials, the White House said. It said he is monitoring the situation … Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been briefed on the incident and is closely monitoring the situation.

There you are! They’re monitoring. Told you it would be okay.

In a Townhall article which we quote from here, Roger Chapin sounds a warning about the weakening of America. He may be exaggerating when he speaks of a ‘nuclear doomsday’, but we do think that Obama is selling America down the river, wants world government and global redistribution of wealth, and that the transformation of America into a weak, decaying, impoverished, socialist country is a danger all too real.

Never before in our history has an American president, deliberately and by design, risked our very survival to a maniacal enemy power sworn to remove America from the world. Yet from all appearances, this is exactly what Obama is doing by failing to vigorously oppose Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. But in spite of the fact that over 60% of the public favors militarily destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, there’s nary a word of protest from the Republicans in opposition. They’re so paranoid about being labeled warmongers, they have shamefully abdicated their own national security responsibilities, just as John McCain did during his presidential run.

Obama is weakening rather than strengthening our missile defenses. That’s how seriously this Administration takes the Iranian threat.

The reality is that the fanatical, messianically driven radical Iranian zealots will pay any price, including Iran’s virtual obliteration, in order to render the U.S. and its major allies non-players on the world scene. The mullahs expect to emerge from the ruins no longer hindered by the “Great Satan,” free to use their huge oil and gas reserves to fund the imposition of their tyranny throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Not only does Obama’s psyche make him incapable of understanding the radical’s mentality but he chooses to totally dismiss their own pronouncements spelling out their sinister intentions. Obama’s determination to make the United States subservient to an international body of nations is now driving him to systematically reduce our nation to a mere shadow of its former power and influence. …

The practical consequences of Obama’s extreme radical left agenda can only be to put our nation at the mercy of a new world order dominated by ruthless tyrants, thugs and spineless states who sell their souls for commercial gain. His first allegiance is to such an international order – not to the United States.

Obama is not only unfit to serve as commander-in-chief in a time of war, he is a menace to our national security. His obvious intent to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, perhaps under the guise of what would undoubtedly be a totally meaningless agreement not to do so, presents a risk so grave to our survival that it can only be rationally viewed as tantamount to national suicide. Under no circumstances can the mullahs be trusted to honor any agreement, as they’ve proven time and again. …

By almost any standard, Obama is flagrantly guilty of dereliction of duty. It cannot be overemphasized how extraordinarily perilous a situation we are in, especially at a time when virtually the entire Republican Party is AWOL on bombing Iran and strengthening national security. There is no counterweight to Obama’s disastrous policies. Obama himself recently acknowledged that if terrorists get nuclear weapons “we have every reason to believe they will use them.” Despite this admission, he refuses to take the only action that will stop them from acquiring such weapons.

If we citizenry will not take the bull by the horns and demand a total reversal of our nation’s suicidal course, we could very soon experience the apocalyptic end of the America we love and all western civilization. Let us understand that the maniacal, radical Islamic enemies confronting us are irreversibly committed to making such a cataclysmic event happen – no matter how horrific the cost to them. To think that an olive branch of brotherly love could change their goals is sheer madness.

Take heed America, Obama’s policies may be paving the way for a nuclear doomsday.

Are  Muslims to be allowed to erect a victor’s monument at Ground Zero? A permanent symbol of Islamic gloating and mockery? That is what a huge mosque next to the site of  9/11 would be.

Surely it would be intolerable! Will New Yorkers tolerate it?

From Hudson New York (read it all here):

An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the World Trade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques.

At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards away from where Osama Bin Laden’s airborne Islamist bombers killed nearly 3000 people back in 2001.

The Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told the New York Times — which put the story on its front page Wednesday — that he has assembled several million dollars to turn it into ‘’an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.’’

What is going on in the US Defense Department? There are people in it who seem to be positively on the side of the enemy.

From Investor’s Business Daily, by Paul Sperry:

The internal threat from Muslim extremists in the military extends to high-level Defense Department aides who have undermined military policy. In fact, one top Muslim adviser pushed out an intelligence analyst who warned of the sudden jihad syndrome that led to the Fort Hood terrorist attack.

An honored guest of the Ramadan dinner at the Pentagon this September was Hesham Islam, who infiltrated the highest echelons of the Ring despite proven ties to U.S. terror front groups and a shady past in his native Egypt.

As senior adviser for international affairs to former deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Islam … persuaded brass to sack a Pentagon analyst, Stephen Coughlin, after he advised cutting off outreach to ISNA, which he accurately ID’d as part of a covert terror-support network in the U.S. — something the Justice Department recently confirmed in a major terror finance trial.

Islam invited ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] officials to lunch with the avuncular England, known by insiders as Gullible Gordon, who in turn spoke at ISNA confabs. Islam also helped set up a Pentagon job booth at one recent ISNA convention to recruit Muslim chaplains and linguists.

Most disturbing, Islam met regularly with Saudi and other embassy officials lobbying for the release and repatriation of their citizens held at Gitmo. He in turn advised England, who authorized the release of dozens of Gitmo detainees. Some have resumed terrorist activities.

No one really knew who Islam was when he was promoted — in fact, the Pentagon removed his bio from its Web site after reporters noted major inconsistencies in it — yet he was allowed to get inside the office of the Pentagon’s No. 2 official.

“In effect,” a senior U.S. Army intelligence official told me, “we’ve got terrorist supporters calling the shots on our policies toward Muslims from the highest levels.”

Meanwhile, politically incorrect prophets like Coughlin have been frozen out. …

Coughlin … warned that by using ISNA and other radical [Muslim] Brotherhood fronts to endorse Muslim chaplains and recruit Muslim soldiers, they were courting enemies of the U.S. — and courting disaster. But they were too drunk with political correctness to listen. …

The Fort Dix terrorists …  talked about joining the U.S. Army so they could kill U.S soldiers from the “inside.” …  Some of them [like Nidal Malik Hasan, the Muslim terrorist of Fort Hood -JB] were inspired by al-Qaida preacher Anwar Awlaki, who on his Yemen-based Web site calls for jihad against U.S. military targets inside and outside the U.S.

But so do so-called moderate American clerics like Zaid Shakir. … Frequently booked by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a guest speaker at its events, Shakir tells his Muslim audience: “Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad.”

Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft. “Islam doesn’t permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people,” he said, but “if you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that’s something else.”

The 82nd Airborne is based out of Fort Bragg, which is part of North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw’s home district. Shaw is CAIR’s new chairman. He is also a minority contractor who operates Shaw Food Services Co. near Fort Bragg. According to the legislator’s financial disclosure form, Shaw Food customers include the Defense Department. …

CAIR, like ISNA, is an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator. The FBI says CAIR is a terrorist front group and has cut off formal ties to it. So should the military. …

This enemy is hiding behind a religion, making it easier for them to infiltrate our sensitive security agencies. Communist spooks did not have such an advantage. …

Military command must stop currying favor with suspect Muslim groups and start beefing up counterintelligence activities. It must institute a policy of zero tolerance for Jihad Joes in the ranks.

And while we’re trying to digest that, here’s another piece of information we must swallow to make the heartburn worse – an Obama program making it easy for foreign Muslims to join the US armed forces:

Illegal aliens with “special skills,” such as speaking Arabic, Dari, Pushti and other languages are now allowed to enlist in the U.S military. There is NO requirement that these people be in the United States legally. No background check! A Muslim Pushti speaker could sneak across the Rio Grande today and be getting 3 hots and a cot (meals and a place to sleep) in the U.S. Military tomorrow! Even worse, he would be on a path to get citizenship in less time than any other naturalized citizen in history! Special “citizenship expediters” at military bases across the country rush their citizenship papers through in as little as 10 weeks.

Does Obama mean to pack the army with potential traitors?

Islam’s Paradise is a free brothel, with luxurious accommodation, full continuous restaurant and bar service, and outdoor leisure facilities maintained to a high standard.

When Muslims die, they pass over as-Siraat, the Bridge of Hell, whether they are going to Heaven or Hell itself. Those destined for Heaven, or Paradise, remain on the bridge while they are purified by the setting right of any wrongs that existed between them and others in this world. (The bridge idea is reminiscent of the Zoroastrian belief in the bridge that the dead have to cross to get to their afterlife destination, and on which they are confronted with their earthly record.)

It is not clear (as it is also not clear in Zoroastrianism and Christianity) whether the destination of Heaven or Hell will be attained only after the Day of Judgment or immediately after death. Some authorities say that at least the ash-Shuhadaa (the martyrs) will enter Heaven without having to wait for the Day of Judgment. ‘Their souls are in the bellies of green birds, and they have lights suspended from the Throne.’  Whether as pilots of the green birds or in some sort of bodily existence, they ‘wander about Paradise wherever they wish’, and are granted anything they want.

Some authorities say that Heaven has a hundred levels. Others say there are two Heavens, each having two rivers. In the first, better Heaven the water of the rivers flows. In the second, lesser Heaven, it gushes and bubbles.

One hadith says that the first three to enter Paradise are: The shaheed (the martyr); the chaste and proud; and the slave who worships Allah by carrying out his duties and is faithful to his master.

Heaven, Iannah, is a garden with two rivers flowing through it. The garden is called Adn (Eden). It is very green. The trees have gold trunks. There is one tree so vast that it takes a hundred years to cross its shadow. There are tents and houses of gold, studded with pearls. The highest dwellings [highly placed, or built high?] are reserved for martyrs. If they need coal for anything [?], it will be ‘from aloe-wood’.

Every happy male resident, whatever his stature, appearance, and age were on earth when he died, is here six cubits tall (the ideal height, which was that of Adam, the first man, after whom ‘people shrank’), thirty-three years old, and in perfect shape aesthetically and organically, his eyes surrounded by black as though outlined with kohl, and with no body hair.

He reclines on green cushions, on couches of silk brocade, and is served drinks in gold and silver cups on a gold tray by pretty young boys with long eyelashes. They are as beautiful as pearls. Maidens also attend him. They too are forever young, and as beautiful as rubies, coral, and pearls, with breasts firm and full, and with large slanting eyes, of which the whites are very white, and the pupils very black. They are virgins forever, even though enjoyed on the silk couch and green cushions, for their virginity is renewed every morning. While there is no night and day as such, the light from the Throne is adjusted to create the look and feel of evening and morning by the opening and closing of curtains. ‘The people of Paradise do not sleep.’

Are the eternal virgins the happy men’s wives?  There are different and contradictory teachings on wives in Heaven. While it is said that a woman who goes to Heaven will there be the wife of her last husband, husbands are said to be unencumbered by their earthly wives. Apart from the permanent staff of stripling lads and maidens, Heaven’s population consists mostly of men. Authorities speak of them as having wives but not the women they were married to in their earthly existence, and the smallest number of wives that any man will have in Paradise is seventy-two. The shaheed will have seventy-two young virgins ‘from among the al-Hoor al-Eeyn’ – the houris with the ‘wide, lovely eyes’.  They will be so finely beautiful as to be transparent; ‘the marrow of their leg-bones will be visible through the flesh’.  They will not menstruate, they will have no post-natal bleeding [does this imply that they will or will not give birth?], and have no spittle, mucous, urine or feces. They will be ‘purified mates’, creatures made by Allah especially for Paradise.

The drinks are pure water, milk, honey, and wine, watered wine, and wine with ginger. The wine will not intoxicate or cause a hangover. There are ‘seas’ of water, wine, milk, and honey.

Food is also on continuous offer, fruit and chicken specified, but anything can be ordered according to the heart’s desire. On entering Paradise the new arrival will be given the extra, or ‘caudate’, lobe of a fish liver, and a bull, and any fruit he yearns for.

The happy one will never again excrete, or spit, or need to blow his nose. Substances that necessarily pass out of his transformed body will do so as a gentle sweat that will smell of musk. If he burps, that will smell of musk too.

The fabric for clothes in Paradise comes from a huge tree called ’Tooba’. The happy one’s clothing never wears out and he may deck himself in whatever and as much jewellery as he likes.

When the company are not reclining on couches, they loll on thrones, rank on rank facing each other. It’s not known what they talk about, if they talk. Perhaps they reminisce about their lives on earth. If so, there would inevitably be much repetition through the unending ages. But new arrivals would bring fresh stories, and new ears.  The ranks will multiply forever, but Heaven can never become overcrowded.

Jillian Becker  December 17, 2009

Robert Spencer writes about a forthcoming trial – a trial, in effect, of the willingness of the West to uphold its values and defend freedom:

Free speech goes on trial in the Netherlands on January 20, when Dutch politician Geert Wilders appears before the Amsterdam District Court on charges of having “intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion,” as well as having incited to hatred and discrimination.

What did Wilders do to warrant such charges? He told the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, and their roots in Islamic texts and teachings, in his film Fitna and elsewhere. But nowadays truth-telling is at such a premium that those who still dare to engage in it are threatened, harassed and prosecuted.

But Wilders is defiant: “On the 20th of January 2010, a political trial will start. I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted.”

The very idea of trying someone for offending someone else is absurd – especially when the offended group is known to traffic in the PC multiculturalist coin of wounded feelings, so as to gain the political power that comes from victim status. That the Amsterdam District Court would aid and abet this absurdity and obvious manipulation unmasks the Wilders trial – even before it starts – as what it really is: an attempt by the nation’s political elites to silence one of their most formidable critics. The one who has the power to decide what is an actionable offensive statement or prosecutable incitement has the power to control the discourse – and that’s what the prosecution of Wilders is all about. If offending someone is a crime, can those who find hate speech laws offensive bring suit against their framers?

The action against Wilders is taking place, moreover, against the backdrop of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference’s ongoing efforts at the United Nations to silence speech that they deem critical of Islam — including “defamation of Islam” that goes under the “pretext” of “freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security.”

If they succeed in doing this, Europeans and Americans will be rendered mute, and thus defenseless, in the face of the advancing jihad and attempt to impose Sharia on the West …

The stakes are so high in the Wilders case also because the OIC has a new, powerful ally as it moves against the freedom of speech. In October the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” …

But Geert Wilders, and all those who stand with him, have a responsibility … to bear witness to the world that the freedom of speech is a cornerstone of any free society, and that once it is gone, there is no defense against tyranny, no safeguard against the encroaching power of a protected class against whom there is no appeal, and from whose rulings there is no dissent. If Geert Wilders is found guilty, tyranny and authoritarianism will have won a huge victory in Europe, and in the world in general.

The stakes are as high as they can possibly be. Geert Wilders must prevail. If he does not, Europe, and America, and the world, are in for a long, dark night.

Apparently the war we are fighting against them is not the same war they are fighting against us.

This story from Investor’s Business Daily may contain a clue to help answer the question we ask in the post immediately below concerning the kid-glove treatment of a Muslim terrorist in Britain:

The Pentagon has launched a 45-day probe into the Fort Hood massacre, promising to find answers to why it happened and how it can be prevented from happening again. But the investigation may prove an exercise in futility, judging from PC remarks by military brass.

“My message to all those in uniform — including Muslims in uniform — is how much we appreciate their service. The diversity of our force is one of its greatest strengths,” said the Joint Chiefs chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, who appeared alongside the defense secretary to announce the inquiry, which reports say will focus on mental health services for troubled troops. …

Military brass appear to be doubling down on the political correctness that blinded them to warning signs telegraphed by the Quran-waving Muslim officer accused of the worst mass killing on a domestic military base in U.S. history and the bloodiest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.

The breakdown in security stems from “fears over offending a member of a religious minority,” finds a report by the Westminster Institute, a security think tank. So worried about conveying any notion that it’s at war with Islam, the Defense Department has deluded itself into believing that the enemy is bereft of religious motivation.

Though the enemy clearly states that it’s waging “jihad,” or holy war, against us, it’s now taboo to use the term because it risks reinforcing the idea that the U.S. is at war with Islam itself. “We are not at war with jihad,” a high-ranking Pentagon official said at a recent conference. “Jihad is a legitimate component of Islam” — no worse than fasting or bowing to Mecca.

Even defining the enemy as “jihadist” is no longer acceptable, leaving GIs to fight an enemy their own commanders refuse to name. The 2009 U.S. National Intelligence Strategy, which takes into account Pentagon priorities, uses the term Islam zero times, Muslim 0, jihad 0 and jihadist 0. In sharp contrast, the 9/11 Commission Report, released in 2004, used the word Islam 322 times, Muslim 145, jihad 126 and jihadist 32. It took five short years to completely whitewash the Islamist threat. Any wonder [Nidal Malik] Hasan was treated with kid gloves?

Could anyone explain why a jailed al-Qaeda terrorist deserves to have his every wish gratified, every demand for his greater comfort and convenience supplied?

From The Sun:

Hate preacher Abu Hamza has got huge new wardrobes in his prison cell – after he whinged about his robes getting creased.

Taxpayers paid hundreds of pounds for the Ikea-style furniture after he moaned a lack of storage was crumpling his Islamic prayer garments.

Belmarsh prison staff ordered and built the flat pack just days after the request by hook-handed Hamza, who is wanted in the US over al-Qaeda-linked terror charges.

A source at the South East London nick said: “Once again, Hamza demands special treatment and the authorities cave in. Everyone’s joking about what they’ll do next for him – perhaps a butler.”

Hamza, 51, jailed in 2006 for inciting hatred, had £650 lever taps put in his cell this year.

Again it is Diana West who says what needs to be said about the war in Afghanistan.

From the Washington Examiner:

Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s long-awaited testimony before Congress on the Afghanistan “surge” was, according to one account, “uneventful.” The general himself, another story noted, was “a study in circumspection.” And questioning from lawmakers was, said a third, “gentle.”

“Ineffectual” is more like it. Throw in “callous,” too, given House members’ obligations to constituents in the war zone, operating under what are surely the most restrictive rules of engagement in U.S. history.

But not a single lawmaker appears to have ventured one question about these dangerously disarming ROEs, which, in McChrystal’s controversial view, are key to the success of his “counterinsurgency” strategy. What kind of a commander puts his forces’ lives at increased risk for a historically unsuccessful theory that depends not on winning battles against enemies, but on winning the “trust,” or, as we used to say (and as Gen. David Petraeus put it in Iraq), the “hearts and minds” of a primitive people immersed in the anti-Western traditions of Islam?

That would have made a nice icebreaker of a question for any lawmaker troubled by the Petraeus-McChrystal policy of elevating Afghan “population protection” over U.S. “force protection” to win “the support” of this 99 percent Islamic country, and the rules that American forces must follow to do so. If, that is, there were any lawmakers so troubled.

Things really tightened up back in July, when McChrystal essentially grounded air support for troops except in dire circumstances. … The McChrystal counterinsurgency rules now include: No night searches. Villagers must be warned before searches. Afghan National Army or Afghan police must accompany U.S. units on searches. Searches must account, according to International Security Assistance Force headquarters, “for the unique cultural sensitivities toward local women.” (“Islamic repressiveness” is more accurate, but that’s another story.) U.S. soldiers may not fire on the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire first. U.S. forces may not engage the enemy if civilians are present. U.S. forces may fire at an enemy caught in the act of placing an improvised explosive device, but not walking away from IED area. And on it goes.

Here’s another ROE that McChrystal should have been asked to justify to all Americans who hope to see their loved ones return home in one piece. The London Times recently reported that Marines, about to embark on a dangerous supply mission, were shown a PowerPoint presentation that first illustrated locations of IEDs along the way and then warned the Marines “not to fire indiscriminately even if they were fired on.”

The Times story went on to note: “The briefing ended with a projected screen of McChrystal’s quote: “It’s not how many you kill, it’s how many you convince.”

Another question: How many you convince of what, general? Of the depravity of child marriage? Of the injustice of Shariah laws that subjugate women and non-Muslims? Of the inhumanity of jihad?

Of course not. In an oblique reference that likely took in Islam, McChrystal told Congress: “I think it’s very important that from an overall point of view, we understand how Afghan culture must define itself, and we be limited in our desire to change the fundamentals of it.”

Fine. I don’t want to change Afghan culture, either. But acknowledging its roots in an ideology that is anti-Western is crucial to devising strategy for the region. That’s obvious. But not to any of our leaders.

Final question: Are such leaders, civilian and military, doing their duty when they send the nation to war with a strategy that totally ignores jihad, the war doctrine of the enemy?