General Stanley McChrystal, commander of international forces in Afghanistan, has made two policy changes that will be sure to get soldiers killed and lengthen the war by years. He has said the new standard for success will not be how many insurgents are killed, but how many civilians are “shielded from violence.” Besides this, he will be issuing orders that troops are to break off fights with the enemy if the enemy are hiding in civilian homes. To have an order that is so blatantly bad from one I can only assume to be a fine, dedicated warrior can only mean it comes from higher up, perhaps the Commander in Chief.

Many of the bleeding hearts out there will be singing the praises of this new order, but I wonder what they say when it turns out to have the opposite effect. It is actually likely to get more civilians hurt because once the enemy knows that civilian homes are a safe place from which to launch attacks they will use more of these tactics. The US is in effect handing the civilians over to the mercy of the insurgents. When you face an enemy who will drive a bomb into a mass of civilians you do not give him a single place of safety. You must be willing to follow him anywhere and root him out. It is true that we want to win the hearts and minds of the population, but if President Karsai wants safety for his people he needs to find a way to strengthen his own army and mobilize them against the enemy.

Is anyone surprised that the military under our current Commander in Chief would limit our ability to win this war? After all liberal democrats are good at getting us into wars that last a long time. People often forget that is was the democrats who got us into Vietnam. I can only hope that our current Liberal in Chief isn’t setting our boys up for another bloody defeat.