I like Andy McCarthy a lot, he is one of the few consistent adult voices at NRO’s The Corner, here’s his take on Obama’s Afghanistan speech and the “conservative” reaction…
If you accept, as I do, the premise that President Obama is an Alinskyite, last night’s speech was totally predictable. From 2003 forward, he and his party cynically raised the Afghanistan mission into a noble calling–not because they thought it really was one, but because it made their political attack on the war in Iraq more effective. Now, Obama is cratering in the polls and his party is in even worse shape. Politically, they can’t afford to abandon the noble calling at this point: Even the legacy media couldn’t protect them from the fallout, which would intensify when the Taliban overran Karzai right as we headed into our midterm elections next year.
So we can’t leave, but we can’t wage war either. The Obama Left can tolerate, barely, the appearance of waging war if that’s what it takes to prevent rank-and-file Democrats from revolting. But they have no interest in defeating anti-American Muslims (who, after all, have a point, right?) or in pursuing American interests for their own sake.
What to do? Well, the Right has given Obama his escape hatch. Conservatives keep talking about “victory” but they never define it. We keep saying, “Give General McChrystal the troops he needs to win,” but because we’re as vague as Obama when it comes to what “winning” means, no one will really care what the additional troops actually do in Afghanistan. Thus, as long as Obama agreed to send a contingent–low-balled, but reasonably close to the 40,000 in McChrystal’s last request–he knew he’d be fine. Now, Obama can continue purporting to define the mission “narrowly … as disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al-Qaeda and its extremist allies,” and conservatives will dutifully tell themselves that we are over there to demolish bin Laden’s network and the Taliban–so let’s rally behind our president! In reality, however, we’ll be nation-building: the thankless, impossible dream of turning Kabul into Kansas. Our unwavering resolve for this task will last 18 months–during which we will continue solidifying the new narrative that the war is not ours but Afghanistan’s, and that the hapless Karzai isn’t producing results fast enough. That will get Democrats through the midterms.
By that point, it will be the middle of 2011–and that’s when the “taking into account conditions on the ground” kicks in. If the Left has succeeded in souring the country on the whole enterprise such that Obama’s reelection chances won’t be impaired by a withdrawal, we’ll pull-out. On the other hand, if the noble calling is still perceived as noble, Obama will satisfy the Right by bravely staying the course and giving General McChrystal the time he needs “to complete the mission successfully,” and satisfy the Left by re-promising a phased withdrawal in about 18 months, so that those resources can be invested here at home in rebuilding our economy and putting Americans back to work (since unemployment should be hovering around 12 percent by then).
In this whole mess, Iraq, Afghanistan the one thing I never knew, could never understand is what “victory” was supposed to look like. As far as I could tell victory included changing both Iraq and Afghanistan into non-Muslim countries, and one wonders exactly how were supposed to do that?
So what does “victory” mean to you?
Victory means getting the fuck out and not spilling another drop of American blood in a muslim wasteland. If Bin Laden wanted to cripple the United States by making us waste trillions of dollars and thousands of lives and giving the government an excuse to take over our nation — well, then Mission Accomplished!
Amen to that!
I think preventing Iran from getting nukes and working to get Pakistan to give its up should take priority over the US military being service providers for Afghan villages that they can’t walk safely in at night by themselves.
On 9/11, Pakistan was under sanctions from Clinton for its nuclear test. We would be further ahead now if we had left the sanctions in place on Pakistan and stopped at least Muslim immigration and done nothing else. Search Pakistan sanctions unjust.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2001/09/07/edmansoor_ed3_.php
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Pakistan:Leaving U.S. Sanctions in Place Would Be Grave
By Mansoor Ijaz, R. James Woolsey and James A. Abrahamson
Published: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2001
NEW YORK: The Bush administration is preparing to lift punitive sanctions imposed on India for its nuclear program. But clearing this hurdle to bolster political, economic and military ties with India while maintaining even sterner sanctions on Pakistan would be seen throughout the Middle East as discrimination of the first order. Islamabad would be pushed in dangerous directions, particularly toward increased reliance on its nuclear and missile programs.
Further crippling a weak Pakistan, perhaps to the point of state failure, would invite its myriad problems to spill over into other countries. Islamic militancy, arms and drug trafficking and religiously motivated sectarian violence could have devastating consequences for India’s economic prospects and cause trouble in important Islamic oil-producing countries. Risks to U.S. forces and interests in the Middle East would be a virtual certainty.
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Note the date.
Absolutely OA, there is no doubt in my mind that the powers that be want Iran and the Muslim world to have nukes in some sick and twisted idea of fairness.