I’ve been writing for weeks now that Gen. McChrystal’s heavy focus on protecting the Afghan people would likely inspire a right-wing backlash. Little did I know that it would come so soon or so comprehensively. Here’s Ralph Peters, the court chronicler for his own imaginary Prussian general staff, calling McChrystal "morally oblivious" for issuing rules of engagement that "murder" — murder! — U.S. troops in the pursuit of protecting Afghans, whom he so charmingly describes as "worm-eaten children."

Peters’ putrid article is best read aloud from a balcony or inside a beer hall. Every note of grievance pulsing through the veins of the veterans of the 82nd Chairborne is on display. McChrystal’s guidance "could have been concocted by Code Pink," a craven capitulation to "the Obama Way of War." And then, following one of Rumsfeld’s famous rules, Peters decides to broaden his attack, going after the generation of theorist-practitioners who emerged from Iraq and Afghanistan determined to ensure that the U.S. would develop a counterinsurgency capability that would allow it to mitigate being thrust into such awful situations. You know. Pussies.

And the Army published its disastrous Counterinsurgency Manual a few years back — doctrine written by military intellectuals who, instead of listening to Infantry squad leaders, made a show of consulting "peace advocates" and "humanitarian workers."

The result was a manual based on a few heavily edited case studies "proving" that the key to success in fighting terrorists is to hand out soccer balls to worm-eaten children. The doctrine ignored the brutal lessons of 3,000 years of history — because history isn’t politically correct (it shows, relentlessly, that the only effective way to fight faith-fueled insurgents is with fire and sword).

The New York Times lavished praise on the manual. What does that tell you?

That’s all you need to know. Whatever the Jew York Times praises can be dismissed. The answer to insurgency is massacre. And the fact that we shrink from committing such atrocities merely reflects on the sybaritic, bourgeois moral turpitude that infects our society. No — not our society. Our elites! The generals who would sacrifice their honor to please some hunched-over Jew editor in a Manhattan skyscraper! The sniveling colonels who cast aside their discipline for the reward of fetching a cocktail for some Harvard academic at a museum-wing dedication! And who pays the price? Who pays the price? And who will tell the truth? 

A few senior officers continue to push me to "lay off" the Counterinsurgency Manual. Sorry, but I’m more concerned about supporting the youngest private on patrol than I am with the reputation of any general.

As a real general put it a century ago, "The purpose of an Army is to fight."

Like all such alleged truth-tellers, he can accuse others of moral failings, but doesn’t have the balls to address David Petraeus by his name. Nor Mattis, nor McMaster, nor McFarland. Nor Alford nor Yingling nor Furness. Nagl sold his heritage for a mess of dark potage. To Peters, these men, as Walter said to the Dude, are cowards. And yet Peters, who fashions himself their moral superior, is too cowardly to specify who exactly it is who "murders" our troops.

There is something wrong with Ralph Peters. It has been chronicled over and over and over. But it’s foolish to do anything but meet his grievance with ridicule, and laugh while his nostrils fume and sweat greases his forelock.