Obama Is Going To War With Fox News, The Chamber Of Commerce, Insurance Cos., etc., But He Won’t Go To War With The Taliban!!
Obama Is Going To War With Fox News, The Chamber Of Commerce, Insurance Cos., etc., But He Won’t Go To War With The Taliban!!
By
Ken Eliasberg
It seems that our “Commander-in-Chief (COC)” is having some difficulties with the manner in which he wishes to conduct the war that he has described as “the necessary war” — you know, the one that we are sort of waging in Afghanistan; the one that relates to our national security. Perhaps that’s because he has been so busy fighting the “unnecessary” wars — the ones of his making. You know, the ones that relate to the Chamber of Commerce, the Insurance Companies, particularly the one that relates to Fox News, and various others with people or institutions that have the audacity to disagree with one of his policies. Both situations raise interesting questions pertaining to his leadership ability, not to mention his temperament, and call for scrutiny by the American public. So let’s take a brief time off from health care (to which I assure you I shall return with vigor (and facts) in the very immediate future).
First, the war that Obama describes as “the war of necessity.” After telling us on March 27th of this year that he had a strategy for the waging of that war, and, after replacing the field commander in charge with one of his own choice, 4-star general Stanley A. McChrystal, he seems to have wavered in his pursuit of that strategy — some might say he is “dithering,” only because that is exactly what he is doing, “dithering.” And, in the course of doing so, he reveals his essential leadership deficiencies. But I get ahead of myself. After telling us in March that he had a strategy, and after appointing a new field commander, McChrystal, to implement that strategy, Obama did nothing more in pursuance of that alleged strategy. Then matters got progressively worse in Afghanistan; the Taliban seemed to be gathering strength — and posing a growing threat to our troops in that region. To shore matters up, and to pursue the war in a manner calculated to assure victory, McChrystal requested more troops. He requested 60,000 more personnel, but indicated that he could make do with 40,000. That was some months ago — our fearless leader is still deliberating — not just over McChrystal’s request, but over a reassessment of of our strategy with respect to the entire effort in Afghanistan. I thought he had a strategy — at least that’s what he told us in March; what happened in the interim to cause him to “dither” — oops, I mean deliberate?
The cause of this delay, we are told, is the recent Afghani election, which, apparently, was rife with fraud - surprise, surprise. And Obama’s enforcer, Rahm Emmanuel, informed the American public that we cannot go forward in Afghanistan without a reliable partner in the form of a trustworthy Afghani government. Why not? McChrystal’s request was not so much an effort to provide long range stability, as it was in the nature of providing some measure of current security, i.e. it is to reduce the risk of our men and women now in harms way. In short, he needs them now; the safety of those in his charge is the main concern behind his request. Stabilizing Afghanistan as a long range proposition is problematic at best. You are talking about a country that has probably never been stable, if stability means a centralized government with some ability to preside over a country. Afghanistan, an incredibly impoverished country, whose main source of revenue seems to come from converting poppies into the production of opium and heroin, has never been more than a collection of tribes that preside over various regions within the country at large. And, which, for the most part, like most of the Arab world, has never emerged from the 7th century. McChrystal’s immediate concern is to secure the area, and he cannot do so if he has insufficient troops to do the job - or, more to the point, if the ones he has are themselves at risk of being overwhelmed. And that seems to be the case: American casualties are mounting, and the Taliban seems to be regaining much of its strength.
Bush’s policy in Iraq was to communicate regularly with his commanders on the ground and to give great weight to their assessment of the situation and their needs to cope with the situation. Before his meeting with McChrystal at the airport in Copenhagen, where Obama went to receive his Nobel Peace Prize, he had communicated just once with McChrystal in the seventy days following McChrystal’s appointment. Is this the way a COC wages a necessary war? In this regard, we have substantial evidence of the consequences of not listening to your field commander. In Somalia, some of you may recall, the field commander requested additional support (in the form of more equipment); Clinton, in the person of Les Aspin, his Secretary of Defense, denied the request. As a consequence, 17 of our Rangers were slaughtered, their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. Clinton’s response? We withdrew from Somalia, thereby emboldening Osama bin laden, who drew from that action the conclusion that America was a paper tiger who would not bleed for its principles. And that is probably why we are where we are today in the world; not because we refused to kiss enough backsides, as Obama’s stream of apologies might suggest, but because we refused to kick a few when it was clearly what was called for. Just another demonstration of why the Democrats have the earned reputation of not being trusted with America’s national security.
We are in Afghanistan only because Afghanistan, through its then governing body, the Taliban (a medieval bunch of thugs and religious fanatics), was providing a base of operations for Al Qaeda. We gave the Taliban an opportunity to turn over Osama bin laden. They refused. We invaded and drove out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, both of whom found refuge in Pakistan. We made significant progress, which is now slipping away, thanks to our indecision. Unfortunately, Obama pays much more careful attention to his radical left-wing base than he does to America’s national security. And if he continues to dither, it is only a matter of time before these wing-nuts (and you see them on display in this paper) start screaming “quagmire” — you know, the old Vietnam rallying cry. The one that resulted in our defeat, with the consequent death of over 2,000,000 Southeast Asians. When you are in a war, your best option is to win it. It is not what the Democrats always want us to do; they would prefer that we declare defeat and leave. And, again, that is why they cannot be trusted with our national security. Obama is just the latest demonstration, and certainly the clearest case, of that proposition. If we lose in Afghanistan, the consequences will be far more serious than those that we experienced in Vietnam. On the other hand, if we are not prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect our troops on the ground then we should withdraw them and prepare for the next 9/11 (to be continued).