Know Your Enemy

To stand in silence when they should
be protesting makes cowards out of men
--Abraham Lincoln

To dismiss it as a bunch of "cowards"
perpetuating "senseless acts of violence
is complacent nonsense
--Charles Krauthammer

They blow themselves up in order to get at us,
and we launch $3 million missiles
off of giant floating iron islands 2,000 miles away
. . . who are the real cowards?
--Bill Hicks''

But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
Has laid poor Jesse in his grave
--Jesse James
___________________

Were the recent bombings of the U.S. Embassy and NATO Headquarters in Kabul cowardly acts, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called them?

The structures were attacked by six members of the Haqqani network, associated with the Taliban and probably, al-Qaeda. How can a direct assault by five simple riflemen on such strategic targets protected by host nation and NATO assets be construed as cowardly?

Cowardly might describe the actions of the Afghan National Army (ANA), which 12 hours later still had not cleared or secured the building. The ANA used helo gunships to run hot on the target in the middle of Kabul.

So much for ROE or civilian safety, Afghanistan President Karzai's favorite buzzwords. Cowardly is the ANA not assaulting the building. Additionally, firing Predator missiles from drones is not exactly heroic action.

While Ranger does not exalt their cause, five men pulling off a raid like this might be called rightly heroic. Taking a non-partisan position, what did Medal of Honor Winner Michael Patrick Murphy and his team achieve that this assault force did not? But Murphy was ours, and so was awarded the MOH.

Revisiting Murphy's 2005 failed counter-insurgent mission in Kunar Provence reminds us that the U.S. Army will never voluntarily occupy a defensive position that has no fall-back options or alternate positions which could be used as a fall-back. Murphy's position was dictated rather than chosen.

Even though the current six Afghan attackers transitioned to the defense, it is reasonable to say they held the initiative because they anticipated every phase of this fight, to include being killed.

This was not a cowardly attack.