Afghanistan: Whose Failure?
From Today's New York Times, another brilliant article from Frank Rich. It's still hard for me to believe that such sense makes it into the paper of Judith Miller:
"Perhaps the most surreal aspect of our great Afghanistan debate is the Beltway credence given to the ravings of the unrepentant blunderers who dug us into this hole in the first place.
Let’s be clear: Those who demanded that America divert its troops and treasure from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — when there was no Qaeda presence in Iraq — bear responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan that ensued. Now they have the nerve to imperiously and tardily demand that America increase its 68,000-strong presence in Afghanistan to clean up their mess..."
This article is definitely worth a read, and I hope you will click on the link and see the rest, which includes (for me, always a plus) some well deserved lashing of The Man Who Won't Go Away, Senator John McCain.
These people, with their mindless belligerence, and their lunatic obsession with wasting a couple of trillion dollars in Iraq, saw to it long ago that we could never accomplish anything in Afghanistan that could remotely be confused with "winning," whatever that might mean.
The only game they are playing now is to prolong our departure long enough that they can blame their colossal failure on Obama, and in the process obscure what a miserable disaster they created by resorting to bullying and violence as their only foreign policy option, so that we can make the same mistake again, as soon as possible.
"Perhaps the most surreal aspect of our great Afghanistan debate is the Beltway credence given to the ravings of the unrepentant blunderers who dug us into this hole in the first place.
Let’s be clear: Those who demanded that America divert its troops and treasure from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — when there was no Qaeda presence in Iraq — bear responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan that ensued. Now they have the nerve to imperiously and tardily demand that America increase its 68,000-strong presence in Afghanistan to clean up their mess..."
This article is definitely worth a read, and I hope you will click on the link and see the rest, which includes (for me, always a plus) some well deserved lashing of The Man Who Won't Go Away, Senator John McCain.
These people, with their mindless belligerence, and their lunatic obsession with wasting a couple of trillion dollars in Iraq, saw to it long ago that we could never accomplish anything in Afghanistan that could remotely be confused with "winning," whatever that might mean.
The only game they are playing now is to prolong our departure long enough that they can blame their colossal failure on Obama, and in the process obscure what a miserable disaster they created by resorting to bullying and violence as their only foreign policy option, so that we can make the same mistake again, as soon as possible.
Comments
Absolutely right. Sad to say, Bush and Cheney just spent seven years doing the exact opposite. I can't believe I am more cynical than the master, but I believe this opportunity was thrown in the trash before Obama ever got close to the White House. As I said above, all they are trying to do now is keep this farce going long enough to blame it on Obama when we do have to turn tail and run home.
Don't trust the Times.
So you would have supported a huge troop surge in Afghanistan? I highly doubt that. There was a constant increase in the number of troops in Afghanistan, but you say you wanted more?
And I will ask this question again, how did Bush hurt the economy? What did he do?