The Patriot Post® · PC Kills American Troops

As I said in a previous column, one could be forgiven for believing that political correctness is only one step removed from insanity. Unfortunately, as the latest report from Afghanistan reveals, it can also be deadly.

Last week, in a move the Obama administration would undoubtedly like their useful idiot buddies in the media to ignore as much as possible, a long-standing order was reversed: U.S. troops are now required to carry loaded weapons at all times while on base.

In other words, prior to this new directive, troops were required to remove the magazines from their weapons while quartered at bases with Afghans they were training to become policemen and soldiers. Policemen and soldiers who will allegedly pick up the slack and defend their country after U.S. forces withdraw in 2014 – as they are currently scheduled to do.

Why the change? Apparently it took more than 100 deaths for a military brass neck-deep in the PC swamp to figure out that the presence of armed Afghan trainees in the presence of unarmed American trainers gave our so-called “trusted Afghan partners” a decided tactical advantage. One they deployed with Islamist gusto on several occasions. In 2012 alone, 32 attacks resulting in 40 deaths have occurred – topping the 21 attacks that took place last year.

That means the 21 attacks a year ago was apparently deemed insufficient to abandon this particular plank of our so-called counter-insurgency strategy, more familiarly known as the attempt to “win the hearts and minds” of the Afghan people. “If the people are against us, we cannot be successful. If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can’t be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS’s “60 Minutes” back in 2009.

That would be the same Gen. McChrystal fired by Obama in 2010 for insubordination. McChrystal was replaced by Gen. David Petraeus, who came in and ordered all NATO troops under his command to pursue the enemy relentlessly – even as he stressed the need to “reduce civilian casualties to an absolute minimum.” Petraeus further contended that the alliance “cannot kill or capture our way to victory.”

Dying at the hands of so-called allies isn’t likely to do the trick either, General.

Yet up until last week, U.S. commanders insisted that what are referred to as green-on-blue attacks were nothing more than “isolated” events. This gave them enough cover to continue allowing our troops to be gunned down by members of Afghan military units located right alongside our soldiers on coalition bases.

Yet it gets even worse. Since the Pentagon is drawing down another 30,000 troops this summer, many of the soldiers remaining behind will go from fighting to training and advising their Afghan “friends.” Friends who, unbelievable as it sounds, will also be tasked with the fox-guarding-the-henhouse opportunity of providing security at coalition bases, so president Obama can further reduce the size of America’s military presence in the nation.

Apparently it hasn’t occurred to the perpetrators of this nonsense that such an arrangement makes our troops even more vulnerable to insider attacks.

To paraphrase from my previous column, on the subject of political correctness, let me tell you what the war in Afghanistan isn’t about. In short, it isn’t about letting the American men and women we put in harm’s way achieve the only thing that makes risking one’s life worthwhile: victory. Victory so decisive and so thorough that not only is the enemy’s capacity to wage war destroyed, but their will to go on is also broken. Victory so unambiguous that the bad actors all over the planet will think twice about engaging the most lethal fighting force ever devised.

Now let me tell what this war is about. It’s about pretending we’re going to bring Jeffersonian democracy to a bunch of Third World hillbillies who make the Beverley Hillbillies look like Rhodes scholars by comparison. It’s about handing the Taliban a due date for their reemergence in 2014, all the talk about “events on the ground” notwithstanding. And up until last week, it was all about making American sons and daughters sitting ducks in one of the most contemptible capitulations to the PC mindset ever devised.

In a better world, every hack lawyer in the Defense Department, along with the military and civilian officials responsible for formulating this strategy would be handed a helmet, a backpack, and a gun, whereupon they would be sent to the front lines and forced to implement their handiwork firsthand. Let them work alongside their Afghan “partners” and set about “winning hearts and minds” – under the same unarmed conditions to which they were more than willing to subject our troops.

Those who believe in politically correct warfare deserve nothing less.