Nocturna download.jpg” rel=”attachment wp-att-16655″>There is a cinematic quality to Ian Nelson’s column about President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan, published Monday in WSN. He compares the Afghanistan war to a “cut that is gushing blood,” and prescribes using “intelligence, drones and bombs” to “wipe out the Taliban” and “eliminate the festering terrorist threat.” He even champions the right of some Jack Bauer-esque hero to “punch a terrorist in the face without going through due process.”

Nelson’s piece reads like a litany of cliché conservative beliefs; Obama is a notorious appeaser, he only increased troops levels to satiate the right, and Pakistan is less a sovereign nation and more a state in the union that America can forcibly “hold accountable.” I’d go into debunking those claims, but I wouldn’t want to demean the issue by falling into the age-old WSN v. NYU Local territory. I want to focus on one particular point: what really screamed fantasy war screenplay in-the-making was the supposed moral of Nelson’s Afghanistan story:

“When you ‘play by the rules’ against people who have no rules, you will lose. This does not mean we have to devolve into barbarism, but the very nature of war is barbaric.”

Nelson criticizes Obama’s failure to use the words “victory” or “win” when talking about Afghanistan, but I’d like to know how Nelson defines “losing” in the quote above. I can only assume that by “breaking the rules” in the context of war, he means violating the Geneva Conventions. The thing about rules is that breaking them tends towards anarchy. You know why? Because if one person or group starts doing it, the rest are tempted to follow suit.

I am reminded of the breakfast scene from V for Vendetta. In an argument with Evey, V resolutely justifies his killings with, “What was done to me was monstrous,” to which she replies, “And they created a monster.”

Surely, America is (now) smarter than to be fooled into following an example set by the very people who threaten its way of life. If the whole point of the Bush Doctrine of preventative war is to safeguard American values, then doesn’t disregarding them for even a reason like terrorism mean you’ve already lost? I don’t think you can protect human rights by violating them.

As for what will define victory in Afghanistan? Well, that is up for debate. US forces lack the support of Afghans in combating the Taliban. Though Nelson condemned as Obama’s plan to send fewer troops than what his general asked for as “making no sense,” the 30,000 American soldiers plus the 7,000 NATO ones mean McChrystal is only 3,000 shy of what he requested. In fact, McChrystal said, “I think we have what we need to win,” but you can bet that won’t resemble much of a Hollywood ending.