Polishing up those National Security credentials (update) Posted by: McQ
on Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Hot Air points out that the inevitable is beginning to happen.
The "real war" on terror, you know, the one in Afghanistan, the one war that all the Democrats supported and think is the right thing to do?
Well not so much anymore:
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a senior defense authorizer, wants the U.S. out of Afghanistan immediately, calling operations there “futile” in trying to effect political change in a country with a tangled history…
“There is no useful purpose for our troops there,” Abercrombie stated in a recent interview. “The military should withdraw now,” he said, though he stressed that the U.S. could keep “isolated pockets” of special operators.
Instead of using the military to effect political change, the U.S. should have a complete diplomatic re-engagement in the region, “with an understanding that our role there should change,” Abercrombie added…
Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, said that it is time for the U.S. military to start leaving Afghanistan and the Middle East altogether.
“We are not securing America by being there,” she pressed. “The longer we are there, the more plots start growing in our country.”…
Meanwhile, several anti-war members, including Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), stress that any troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the military’s first leaving Iraq.
“I’d like to get out of Iraq first and look at Afghanistan and if it does not work … we should be impatient,” Woolsey said, adding that she is not prepared to give a timeline for withdrawal. “There was a reason [for being] there, but now we really need to reassess what we are accomplishing. It depends on what our mission is in Afghanistan; if our mission is to find Osama bin Laden, that is one thing.”
I swear.
The Democrats are the Barbie Dolls of National Security: "War is hard".
Security forces killed over 1,500 insurgents across Afghanistan since March and hundreds more were captured including two-dozen would-be suicide bombers, the government said on Saturday.
The interior ministry said in a statement the figures were a ”good achievement”.
It said Afghan soldiers and their foreign counterparts had killed 1,554 insurgents in about 80 anti-Taleban operations across Afghanistan since March.
About 530 militants, including 23 would-be suicide bombers, were captured.
Remember, we went after the Taliban, not because they had attacked us, but rather because they were providing haven to Bin Laden. (I’ve long wondered how things might have been different had the Taliban done something along the lines of what Musharraf did: promise to help and do nothing. Would we have attacked Afghanistan? Or would the Kerrys and Kennedys have been screaming to give the Taliban a chance to take care of things themselves?)
I don’t care so much if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan, just so long as they don’t provide a haven to the Bin Ladens. If the Taliban wants to wreak their wrath on the poor people of Afghanistan, I’ll feel bad for them, but not so much that I’d want American soldiers dying over there. And yes, Afghanistan is a lot like Iraq in that we don’t have the troops to protect the country and the Afghans themselves don’t seem to have the ability (although they seem a lot more interested in trying to than are the Iraqis) to protect themselves. Thus, I have no illusions that we’ll be able to tame Afghanistan any more than we’ll be able to bring peace to Iraq.
So let’s say the Taliban makes a pledge to seal their borders against Bin Laden. Why shouldn’t we then get out and let the Afghans fight over control?
Scott: true, but the last time they were betting that bush wouldn’t do anything. you think they’d be willing to give up Bin Laden in order to get us out, knowing that if they cross us, we’d come back and kill a bunch of them? keep in mind that going in every now and then costs a lot less in men and money than going in and sticking around for all of eternity (which is what it is going to take to tame that place for the long term).
