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Showing posts from July 18, 2010

West's failure of nerve is a win for Islamic terrorism

The West has just confirmed the central fear about why it is ill-suited to deal with the Islamic fundamentalists who seek to destroy it. The fear? That extremists will fight for their dream as long as they're alive, but the West will fight only as long as the opinion polls hold up. Even before the coalition forces in Afghanistan have been able to demonstrate a single success from their new counter-insurgency strategy, their governments are about to announce their withdrawal. Even as US forces are still building towards their peak ''surge'' strength in August, the political leadership has decided to abandon the fight. Today, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is expected to announce agreement among the 46-nation coalition that combat forces will withdraw by 2014. A communique disclosed by a British newspaper, The Independent on Sunday , agrees on behalf of the US and its allies that Afghan troops ''should lead and conduct military ope