Weaponized Hate

As I said in my last post the Green on Blue attacks will continue and they have with the wounding of four make that seven (the count keeps increasing)  more soldiers. This time the attack was in Mazar-e Sharif, the capitol of the once peaceful province of Balk. There are several factors driving these Green on Blue attacks but the most important one to understand is that Afghans hate us. Couple their traditional antipathy of foreign armies operating in their country with 16 years of broken promises and what you are left with is hate.

Hatred of ‘the other’ is a natural motivating tool that America has used in previous wars. We are genetically programmed to love our own families, tribes and clans while hating those who are not part of them.  Satoshi Kanazawa, an American-British evolutionary psychologist, currently with the London School of Economics, explains why in this article:

….ethnocentrism (or “racism”) is an innate human tendency. We are designed by evolution to love members of our group and hate members of other groups, in order to motivate and facilitate intergroup conflict. Yes, hate is natural. But remember the danger of the naturalistic fallacy — deriving moral implications from scientific facts. “Natural” means neither “good” nor “desirable.” Nor does it mean “inevitable.” Most of us learn to overcome our innate evolutionary tendencies.

The concept of “hate” has been removed from our lexicon but it is alive and well among the Islamic radicals we are fighting around the globe. Understanding hate helps to explain our floundering efforts in Afghanistan and the most disturbing question from the San Bernardino attack of 2015. I remember survivors of that attack saying they had recently thrown a baby shower for Tashfeen Malik, the pregnant half of the terrorist couple, and they could not understand why she had come back to kill them after they had showed her so much kindness. I’ll tell you why; she hated them, not for anything they did but because of who they are.

Hate is a dangerous weapon that is now being used by our elite political, media, entertainment, academic and corporate masters against the silent majority in the United States. Look what is has wrought so far…and here’s another prediction; there will be more political violence directed at President Trump and his supporters. Why? Because the legacy media and the democrats have doubled down on their lunatic hatred of the President and those who support him.

After sixteen years of broken promises the Afghans have no reason to trust the United States or the international community but they do have plenty of reasons to hate them. Gestures of support, like sending a permanent advisory teams to the Afghan army and national police in Helmand province (which is what the Marines are doing now) are meaningless. They will not turn the tide of battle, will not increase combat proficiency or decrease the unsustainable loses currently being inflicted on the Afghan security forces. Everybody knows this to be true yet the kabuki theater continues because the pentagon, at this point in time, has no idea what else to do.

The introduction of more troops will increase the number of potential targets for Green on Blue attack. Continuing to conduct night raids and air strikes will also increase the chances of more Green on Blue. Why? I’ve told you why in dozens of previous posts but now there is a high speed Modern War Institute study out of West Point to cite so I don’t have to repeat myself. Check this out:

….research suggests that most of the attacks are triggered by cultural frictions and personal disagreements. The triggers include, among others, anger from night raids and airstrikes conducted by international forces that result in civilian casualties, violations of privacy during searches, disrespect to religious beliefs, cultural misunderstanding and violations of local norms and values, combat stress, and personal differences between Afghan troops and their NATO counterparts.

How long have I been railing against night raids and the force protection mentality that allows NATO to shoot up car loads of civilians and pretend that it was their (the civilians) fault? Nine years if you’re counting and when I started saying this I received tons of push back but little support. In fact the only support I remember came from Herschel Smith at The Captain Journal . Having Herschel watching my back has been one of the true joys of my blogging adventure….I really need to go meet him in person one of these days.

How did the men (and women) of Ghost Team not only survive but thrive in the contested areas during the worst of the fighting? I’ll tell you our secret (which is in the linked article). We did what we promised we would do, on time, on budget and with exceptional quality control while respecting the local people, their religion and their mores. We were not only protected by the Afghans we worked with and for; we were liked and respected by them too.

Not all Afghans hate us Kharejee; there is an educated elite who are not taking part in the plundering and pillaging of the Afghan economy. They are grimly hanging on hoping that one day their talents will help unite a fractured country. Identifying who they are and supporting them would require our embassy people or the UN bureaucrats to get out from behind their walls to find them. That, they can no longer do, which is why they need to go.

For now hatred rules Afghanistan and that vile contagion is spreading rapidly across America too. Victor Davis Hanson sums the case up well:

Most Americans agree that the present levels of borrowing and spending cannot continue. But many believe that the tough medicine to cure the disease of chronic annual deficits and mounting debt is unacceptable. America’s infrastructure and military are vastly underfunded, even though some voters want more subsidies for themselves and apparently want others to pay for them.

America’s once-preeminent colleges and universities are fatally compromised. Universities charge far too much, resist reform, expect exemption from accountability, and assume their students must take on huge amounts of debt. Yet campuses can’t guarantee that their graduates are competently educated or that they will find jobs. Illiberal attempts to end free speech, to sanction racial and gender segregation, and to attack rather than argue with opponents are disguised by euphemisms such as “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and various -isms and -ologies.

Behind the guise of campus activism and non-negotiable demands is the reality that too many students simply are unprepared to do their assigned work and seek exemption through protests in lieu of hard studying.

As I wrote in my D-Day post war is a horrible thing but let me caveat that with this; civil wars are worse. In  a civil war the contagion of hate runs rampant. I don’t hate Afghans but as a professional I would not hesitate to smoke check one if I was certain he was a villain who posed a threat to me or those around me. I can watch documentaries on the Taliban and respect their ability to suck up bad weather, bad food, bad karma and massive amounts of firepower without feeling a bit of hate towards them.

What I can’t do is watch footage of anti-fa protesters screaming hysterically at normal people and attacking them with bike locks, boots,  pepper spray and urine without feelings of intense hatred raising in my consciousness. And I am not an angry person by nature, a fact I consider a true blessing.

The Taliban are not going to back down because they don’t have to; they’re winning and will only come to the negotiating table when they, not us, can dictate the terms.

Progressives in America are not backing down either, not because they are winning but because they face no consequences for their unhinged lunacy. Globalist big money backs the left as does Hollywood, the legacy media, professional athletes, every comedian who doesn’t want to be blacklisted, academia and our coastal elites. The progressives have plenty of money and an unlimited number of poorly educated young people for astro turf protests that make life miserable for average, hard working Americans.

I can see a way out of Afghanistan that would benefit the people of that tragic land and I’ll write about that next. What I can’t see is a way out of the culture of hate in America currently being directed at the productive classes. The progressives will continue to push right until they start facing the consequences of their actions. At that point it will be too late. Civil wars are horribly bloody affairs because identifying friend from foe is easy as is the natural impulse to hate.

There is much more darkness to venture through before we start seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.