Delusional Reasoning

"We thought, naively, that regime change was the solution to the problem."
"Looking backward [sic], I would have actually left the Taliban government in power and said [to them]: 'Stay out of the way. We're here to find al-Qaeda. And as long as you stay out of the way, the special forces will go in there, they will do what is necessary to get al-Qaeda and we will leave."
"We compounded the problem by getting rid of the Taliban regime. I didn't like the Taliban regime, but why did we go there in the first place? It was because of al-Qaeda. Not because of the Taliban."
"We repeated it in Iraq. In Libya, we didn't put any ground troops in and we created an even bigger mess because there's no government whatsoever in Libya. We went back into Iraq and now for the very first time the international community is beginning to appreciate that regime change is not the solution -- hence why we're not pushing to do a regime change in Syria."
Major-General Dave Fraser, retired

Now those are pretty simple-minded sentiments. Hard to believe that they're coming from someone with this man's experience as the Canadian commander leading NATO in southern Afghanistan ten years ago. He had command of the Canadian task force along with the military alliance's expanded mission to solidify the authority of then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai to capture command of the entire country, not merely Kabul.

It was an inadvertent goal to invade, occupy and leave Iraq without its strongman to ensure that sectarian viciousness would not overwhelm the divided population. This was an errant American-led decision to remove a typical Middle East dictator leaving a vacuum that Islamist terrorism rushed to fill. Saddam was a vicious beast, but his Sunni Baathist rule was nowhere near as destructive to his majority population as has been Bashar al Assad's Shiite Baathist regime, which had it been challenged at an early enough date with aid to the rebel forces would have removed a far worse butcher than Saddam.

The Taliban, a cruelly repressive, human-rights-bashing regime of Islamists, took pride in giving haven and support to al-Qaeda and its then-leader, Osama bin Laden, who had helped drive the Russian occupation into oblivion in Afghanistan. They had much in common, not the least of which was their extreme brand of Islam and hatred of Western influence. So when bin Laden realized his astonishing success in the planning and carrying out of 9/11, and it was demanded of them that they surrender bin Laden to the U.S. they refused.

To expect the Taliban to do otherwise, is to not understand the basic fundamentals of Islam, where it represents a heretical offence against Islam to betray fellow Muslims. Islam requires of its faithful as a primary obligation to the faith that jihad be undertaken, to battle the non-Muslim West for the achievement of primacy as a force of theocracy destined to rule the world. Any attack by a non-Muslim power against Muslims is viewed as an offence against all of Islam, and Muslims are called upon to respond with jihad.

Had the U.S.-led coalition attempted to do as Mr. Fraser now feels would have been the prudent thing to commit to, the result would have been the same as what occurred in any event; the Taliban and the foreign jihadists who flocked to Afghanistan once again, this time to fight the Western non-believers (kuffar) who had set out to 'destroy Islam', were met with  Islam's determination not to be destroyed by the West, or by any source outside Islam.

Imams, mullahs, Ayatollahs, from Egypt to Indonesia, Britain to Canada, Australia to Pakistan, and throughout the ummah, incited to jihad in response to any perception that the West was positioning itself to interfere with Islamic rule.

So -- wrong, retired major-general Fraser, had you indeed "done that", it would have availed nothing.

"[Islam] believes that only Islam and the 'Camp of Kufur' [unbelief] exist, and that there is no way to reach Paradise and to be delivered from Hell except by walking in the path of our Prophet Muhammad and joining Islam. Any other way leads to Hell."
"In light of this, my believing brethren, how can it be claimed that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all paths leading to Allah?!"
Sheikh Adnan Ahmad Siyami, Mecca, May 11, 2001 *

"It is impossible ever to make peace with the Jews. The Jews are defiled creatures and satanic scum. The Jews are the helpers of Satan. The Jews are the cause of the misery of the human race, together with the infidels and the other polytheists. Satan leads them to Hell and to a miserable fate The Jews are our enemies and hatred of them is in our hearts."
"Jihad against them is our worship. Muslims must ... educate their children to Jihad. This is the greatest benefit of the situation: educating the children to Jihad and to hatred of the Jews, the Christians, and the infidels; educating the children to Jihad and to revival of the embers of Jihad in their souls. This is what is needed now."
Sheikh Muhammad Saleh Al-Munajjid, Al-Damam, Saudi Arabia *

"In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force."
Muqaddimah [Islamic historical theory], Ibn Khaldun (1332--1406) *

  * Onward Muslim Soldiers -- Robert Spencer