"Genghis" Cohen And Memories Of "Old Europe"

I don’t think we’ll ever have to worry about anyone getting wistful for the return of Don (“Hiding Out At The Hoover Institution”) Rumsfeld to Bushco, particularly since Roger Cohen of the New York Times seems to be so eager to “channel” Rummy today concerning the Now And Forever You Pete Stark-Supporting Chicken Libtard Global War On Terra Terra Terra!!!

(“Libtard” – I haven’t been called that for awhile now, and it chokes me up a bit actually…sniff :-).

Here is an excerpt from Cohen’s latest offering today, in which he laments the toll on NATO exacted by the Afghan war, particularly in the Taliban-held south and east (I made a passing reference to that conflict in the last post)…

That, however, is a fact Europeans are reluctant to accept, just as the link between slaughter in Madrid, London or Amsterdam and the Afghan-Pakistani terror nexus seems unconvincing to many Europeans floating on an Iraq-comforted wave of moral smugness.

That’s some interesting new freeper code that I hadn’t encountered before. Somehow, though, I don’t believe the Iraq war is a cause for “smugness” on the part of anyone except possibly Iran.

And regarding Cohen’s contention that, though the German Army (the Bundeswehr) is involved in the Afghan effort, it is not fighting in “the hot spots”…

One German retort I’ve heard is that it’s no good having the United States demand that its allies fight and die in southern Afghanistan when Washington refuses debate over the role of its pampered friend, Pakistan, in the violence.

That’s a fair point. Still, it’s time to bring on the Bundesmacht and past time for continental Europe to overcome its pacifist mirage and accept that these are dangerous times demanding serious defense budgets and sacrifice.

I know this is Cohen having an oh-so-genteel hissy fit over the fact that our forces are shouldering the overwhelming fighting burden here, but in response, I have two observations.

First, this is the consequence of Dubya’s absurd linkage of Iraq with Afghanistan and other terrorist uprisings around the world. Does anyone seriously think, for example, that a Palestinian fighting an Israeli feels any kind of common cause with a Taliban goat herder?

Well then, if a nation doesn’t want to send its troops to Iraq, why would it send them to Afghanistan when our preznit keeps spouting the name nonsense over and over that the conflicts are all part of the same battle?

Second, I continually fail to understand why Cohen and his ideological fellow travelers continue to give our new good buddy Nick Sarkozy in France a pass because he refuses to get involved. Is it because he’s done such a good job of sucking up to President Brainless that such a reprisal is considered unnecessary?

Yes, Afghanistan and Pakistan is (are) the front (s) where the legitimate terror fight needs to be carried out by the forces we have left that survive the decimation of Iraq (and maybe we’ll even get that bin Laden guy, though not with this president). And we’ll need all the help we can get.

That’s why continually demonizing the few friends we have left by accusing them of “moral smugness” and constructing a “pacifist mirage” is particularly stupid, Roger old boy.