West cannot defeat al-Qaeda, says UK forces chief

From the BBC:

The West can only contain, not defeat, militant groups such as al-Qaeda, the head of the UK's armed forces has said.

General Sir David Richards, a former Nato commander in Afghanistan, said Islamist militancy would pose a threat to the UK for at least 30 years.

But he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show a clear-cut victory over militants was not achievable.

The BBC's Frank Gardner said the comments reflect a "new realism" in UK and US counter-terrorism circles. 

A new realism, huh? It is not realistic to say we can not defeat Al Qaeda. It is patently absurd to say we can not defeat them.

Here's realism. Al Qaeda's base is no longer in Afghanistan, it is in Pakistan and Yemen.

We can certainly beat Al Qaeda. All we have to do is nuke Pakistan and Yemen.

One day these "militants" will take it too far, and they will nuke us. At that point we will, finally, take the gloves off, and we pound them into dust.

This British General would have done better to say, "Given the methods we are allowed to use, we will never defeat Al Qaeda.


That would have been realism.

Defeatist talk from top Military brass if a sign of terrible decadence. We have to get over this sickness. Men like this need to be expelled from the Military, not promoted.

UPDATE -

For the record, I didn't say we should nuke them, or that we have to nuke them.

I said, we can win by nuking them.

The point is, we have a General who is defeatist in his attitude. And, in his defeatism, he is not acknowledging reality.

When he says we can not win, he is saying something that is simply not true.

We can win.

By nuking them, at the worst.

There would be other ways to win.

However, if one starts with the idea that we don't want to hurt the civilians in the country against whom we are fighting, then we are not going to be able to imagine any scenarios by which we can win.

That is not the way to fight a war.