Endangering the lives of American troops

Dorothy Rabinowitz is one of my favorite columnists. She wrote this one yesterday criticizing General Petraeus for his pronouncement "rich in evasions of brutal reality." Petraeus held a press conference condemning the Florida pastor who had presided over a mock trial and burning of the Quran on March 20. Petraeus said the pastor had endangered American troops.

But Rabinowitz notes that the words Petraeus chose to use may have done exactly the same thing: endangering American troops by his choice of words. For example, he expressed condolences to those who had been hurt in "demonstrations." The "demonstrations" were actually three days of savage murder in the name of religious devotion, in which 22 innocent people were killed.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Petraeus said the passions expressed by the murderous mobs were "understandable." Rabinowitz disagrees:

They are not understandable, these passions that so invariably find voice in mass murder, the butchery of imagined enemies like the people hunted down in the U.N. office Friday, and of everyone else the mobs encountered who might fit the bill. We will not prevail over terrorism and the related bloodlust of this fundamentalist fanaticism as long as our leading representatives, the military included, are inclined to pronounce its motivations as "understandable."

Here is the rest of what I believe to be Rabinowitz's magnificent truth-telling regarding the words of our military leader:

By making no mention of the perpetrators of the current massacres—while managing to suggest they were understandably driven to their action—Gen. Petraeus doubtless believed he was taking the appropriate politic path. It's a path that's unquestionably familiar—called appeasement—and one whose usual outcome is also familiar.

Displays of cringing deference to the forces loosed on the streets of Afghanistan over the weekend will not strengthen the American mission. They will stiffen the spines of the jihadists. Such displays count as victories, reassuring indicators that the threat of terrorism—mob terrorism, in this case—continues to work its wonders as a weapon of war. The sort that could send the commanding general of U.S forces in Afghanistan and a NATO official into swoons of apology while denouncing the pastor's act. For a moment there during their joint statement it seemed altogether possible that one or another of them might begin rending his garments.

That none of these emotional proclamations included any judgment, moral or otherwise, about the criminality of the zealots who had just taken so many lives, speaks volumes to those at war with us—all of it encouraging to them. Something to consider adding to the list of things that might endanger the lives of American troops.