Posted on 07/07/2010 9:06:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
"This was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."
Strictly speaking, Republican Party Chair Michael Steele was way off base when he made this remark at a closed-door meeting of party contributors in Connecticut.
For the war began in 2001 under George W. Bush and was backed by almost all Americans, who collectively cheered the downfall of the Taliban and the rout of al-Qaida from its sanctuary in Afghanistan.
Yet, Steele was not entirely wrong.
Today, a majority of Americans do not believe the nine-year war in Afghanistan is any longer worth the rising cost in blood and money. And by declaring it a "war of necessity" and tripling U.S. forces there, this president has made it "Obama's war" every bit as much as LBJ in 1964 and 1965 made Vietnam "Johnson's War."
While Steele has spent every waking hour since his words hit the airwaves explaining, and declaring his commitment to victory, of far more interest is the alacrity with which neoconservatives piled on the chairman, demanding his resignation, while senators castigated him for remarks unacceptable for a Republican Party leader.
William Kristol's demand for Steele's resignation was echoed by Charles Krauthammer and Liz Cheney, daughter of the vice president. From Afghanistan, Steele was attacked by Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who suggested he think again about his capacity to lead the Republican National Committee.
Behind the swiftness and severity of the attacks on one of their own by Republican pundits and politicians are motives more serious and sinister than exasperation at another gaffe by Michael Steele.
The War Party is conducting this pre-emptive strike on Steele to send a message to dissenters. In Krauthammer's phrase, it is now a "capital offense" for a Republican leader not to support the Obama troop surge and the Obama-Petraeus policy.
Yet, a majority of Americans oppose the Afghan war. And the point made by Steele about the futility of fighting in Afghanistan has been made by columnists George Will and Tony Blankley, ex-Rep. Joe Scarborough, Ron Paul, and antiwar conservatives and moderates.
When exactly did supporting Obama's war policy become a litmus test for loyal Republicans?
What the War Party is up to here is a naked attempt to impose its orthodoxy, about the threat of "Islamofascism" and the Long War, on the entire GOP, 28 months before a presidential election.
Republicans of all persuasions should recoil at such arrogance.
For whence does it come, if not the same hawks and neocons who beat the drums for a unnecessary war on Iraq that cost 4,000 U.S. dead, 35,000 wounded and $700 billion, while making widows and orphans of half a million Iraqis?
And what was that all about? Invading and occupying a country that never attacked us -- to strip it of weapons it did not have.
Certainly, as the last nominee of the Republican Party, McCain can claim to be titular leader, as could George W. Bush, or Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell or John Boehner.
But, if memory serves, the Bush-McCain party was repudiated in landslides in 2006 and 2008, giving Democrats the presidency, the House and a veto-proof Senate. And high among the reasons the country turned on the GOP is that, like Harry Truman and LBJ, the Bush-McCain GOP marched us into wars they could not win and could not end.
This campaign to censure and remove Steele is designed to censor debate and stifle dissent on Obama's war policy, as long as Obama's war policy closely tracks the agenda of the War Party.
Should Obama declare that he intends to stand by his deadline and begin pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by July 2011, those Republicans today accusing Steele of not supporting the troops and undercutting the president in wartime would themselves begin undercutting the president.
In November, the Republican Party will make gains. But the party will be deluding itself if it assumes this means America wants a return to the interventionist policies that brought us the Iraq and Afghan wars. The country will simply be saying: We reject Obama's liberalism as emphatically as we rejected Bush neoconservatism.
Most Americans today approve of the agreed-upon end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq by August and removal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011, just as they support an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, starting a year from now.
But to contend that those who want the withdrawals to begin sooner, or those who want them to begin later, are unpatriotic and do not support the troops is itself unpatriotic.
The time for Republicans to decide on what the foreign policy of the party and a new administration should be is in the primaries of 2012. Until then, let every voice be heard, including that of Michael Steele.
Go back to sleep Pat.....your 15 minutes are up.
Pat is giving advice to the Republican Party after he left it. Must be really worried about the “War Party,” as he calls it. This guy is always for quitting. Wish he’d quit helping our enemies.
Steele is getting blistered for the wrong reasons.
Afghanistan IS Obama’s war in the sense Obama made a big stink about it during his 08’ POTUS campaign - he was completely against Iraq, but argued in favor of Afghanistan.
On the hand, the Military and the war should not be used as a political tool to punt Obama around the block - the Left and Democrats may does this type of thing, but we shouldn’t. Btw, I’m not arguing in favor or against the Afghanistan war.
Once this issue settles down, Steele should also settle down and make way for another RNC leader. Until then, we should not be so quick to piss on our own when it serves the interests of our political adversaries.
Obama decided to "rekindle" the war, but maybe Steele knows a little more about Obama's involvement in the 911 attack than the rest of us.
Is it possible that Obama's commie friends in the former KGB in the former USSR thought it feasible to "go back in" provided Obama had the United States pay for a full pacification.
It's time for someone to talk to Steele to see what he really knows about this very narrow but very important issue.
>> On the hand, ... the Left and Democrats may does ...
On the other hand, ... the Left and Democrats may do ...
Bump to a very sensible post
That sounds fine. But it is well for us to remember that required only 19 terrorists and various support personnel to commit the atrocities of 9/11 and kill nearly 3000 Americans and residents of our country. I do not understand the connection between a roughhewn camp somewhere in Afghanistan and Saudi terrorists boarding American airplanes with box cutters. I do not understand how standing up a government in Afghanistan which is intolerant of terrorists prevents another 19 Saudis and terrorists from other nations attacking America in some similar fashion.
If we think that we can stand up such a government within the year deadline set down by the Obama administration, we are simply deluding ourselves. It is extreme folly to rely at all on the Karzai regime which is thoroughly corrupt and even now cutting deals with the Taliban about how to slice the pie after America departs.
It is inconceivable that America can occupy every square meter of Muslim territory from the Atlantic shores of Morocco to the mountain border between Pakistan and China. We simply cannot win the war on terrorism by occupying every Muslim nation. Afghanistan was not the only nexus of the 9/11 attack. As stated above, some of the terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, others from elsewhere. There is no reason why another attack cannot be mounted from the Sudan or from some barrio in Cairo.
What are we doing in Afghanistan at the cost of, what, $1 billion a day? What are we gaining? What is the endgame? Are we setting ourselves up to crash with our ally? What does standing up a 21st-century government in eighth century Afghanistan have to do with fighting a 21st-century war against terrorism? Can we afford any of this?
Can we afford to fight a war of revenge? We've been at it now for eight years, the longest war in American history and we fought ourselves into a place where we have rules of engagement which would satisfy Emily Post. Are we trying to avenge 9/11 or are we trying to change hearts and minds? How many lives should we sacrifice for revenge? How may lives to make the Afghans amenable to a corrupt Karzai government as opposed to a theocratic and fascist Taliban government? How many lives are being wasted in a war that does not make us safer?
On 911 they got out of here, did their thing on I-95, and were gone ~ or were they.
That part of the operation was just the spearpoint. Several thousand other AlQaida members and supporters were working up and down I95 between Boston and Boca Raton doing a variety of other things for at least 3 years!
Have they caught all those terrorists yet?
Excellent post. What are we gaining, besides a greater federal deficit? At a minimum, it seems to be a terrible allocation of resources.
C'mon! If those who continually "piss on our own" stopped, they'd have nothing to say. And, they could care less if it serves our adversaries' interests.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
N-i-c-e take.
I don't like Steele............ but I like even less those who are attacking him.
People like punkneo William Kristol, Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain.
Steele was a poor choice for RNC chairman and probably should have been replaced long ago, but this is not the issue for which he should be replaced.
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