Shame on Obama. Shame on Huntsman. Shame on Bachmann. Shame on 85% of us- and double shame on congressional Democrats!
On September 11, 2011, 2,977 Americans died as a result of a plot hatched by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, a sanctuary provided him by his Taliban allies. The United States demanded his extradition. The Taliban refused. We went to war- and ousted the Taliban, installing a democratically elected government led by Hamid Karzaii.
By all accounts that government is fragile, corrupt, and in all ways less than ideal. It "governs" a country with little history of democracy- or, for that matter, meaningful national government of any kind. But the Karsai government is the only alternative to the Taliban taking over again, and once more providing a nation-state to protect and enable al Quaeda and its ilk.
But the Taliban didn't give up. It fought back, and for a while seemed poised to take over again. But President Obama wisely signed off on the surge Gen. David Petraeus- the officer who was also responsible for the surge which seems (reluctant though leftists in and out of the media are to admit it) to have won the supposedly unwinnable war in Iraq- reversed the Taliban's gains and seems to have put the Karzai govenment on a path toward securing the country.
Foolishly and naively, however, President Obama telegraphed his plans to the Taliban at that time, publicly committing himself to a timetable for withdrawal beginning next month.
Our military leaders are clear on the point that the approximately 30.000 additional soldiers President Obama sent there in the surge need to stay there, possibly thorugh 2012, in order to be certain of securing our gains and not seeing everything we've accomplished go for nothing. Yet President Obama has decided to ignore their advice, to follow that foolish public timetable he previously established, and to begin phasing the surge troops out next month, returning to the level they were at when the Taliban was winning by election day.
Let me say that again, for the sake of clarity. Withdrawing that 33,000 troops would result in negligible savings either in money or in casualties. It would substantially increase the probability of our failing in Afghanistan, and our sacrifices there being wasted. It has only one "upside" for anyone but the Taliban: it will give President Obama a partisan boost on the eve of the 2012 election.
American and British military leaders are said to have reacted to the president's decision with "dismay." The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, says that the president's plans are "more aggressive and incur more risk" than he or our other leading military leaders think wise. Adm. Mullen has chosen to be a good soldier, so to speak, and publicly endorse the president's plan anyway, on the ground that only the president knows what the "best" course is. But in doing so, the admiral made it plain that the experts certainly do not believe it to be the safest one.
Let this much be clearly said: nobody claims that American forces need to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely, or even that they can. It must be the Karzai govenment which ultimately defeats the Taliban. But 1,584 Americans have died in the war in Afghanistan. On one hand, this is an incredibly low number of casualties as American wars- especially long American wars- go. In the only war we've ever fought that has lasted longer-Vietnam- we lost 58,000.
Of course, if one's husband or brother or father is one of those 1,584, that is little comfort. The casualties are then appallingly high by any standard that matters. But objectively, in view of these relatively low casualties, it is hard to justify not keeping the surge troops in Afghanistan for the relatively short additional time our military leaders believe would minimize the chances that those 1,584 Americans will have died in vain.
And contrary to what an incredible number seem to think, the death of Osama bin Laden does not change that one iota.
But the American people- apparently proving Gen. Giap of North Vietnam right once again when he said that citizens of democracies lack the will to fight long, protracted wars- have apparently decided that this war has gone on long enough, and that it is not in our national interest to give the Karsai government the best shot we can at surviving if it means staying there. The polls show somewhere around 85% of Americans favor pulling out precipitously- and running the very heavy risk that the fifteen hundred Americans who have died in Afghanistan will, as a result, have died for nothing.
I'll say it again: nobody says that our troops can, or should, stay there forever. But the Pentagon believes that
maintaining our hard-fought gains and giving the Karsai government a fighting chance would require keeping troop levels near their present number through 2013. That's a measurable and not very long period. It hardly represents a permanent or even long-term commitment. And the best assessment of our best military minds is that it is what will have to be done in order to give the Karsai government a fighting chance, deny the Taliban (and its al Quaeda allies) the chance to go right back to where they were on 9/11, and save the sacrifices of the coalition forces who have died in Afghanistan from being wasted.
President Obama has made his decision despite agreeing that- contrary to those polls and the absurd opinion of Michele Bachmann that the war is somehow "not serving our national interest-' we have a very large stake in a stable Afghanistan and its denial to al Quaeda and its ilk as a base of operations against us and the rest of the West. And with the possible exception of Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, the Republican candidates- led notably by Jon Huntsman- have not only endorsed this shameful decision, but want us to cave in to the Taliban even faster. And congressional Democrats seem with great unanimity to share the urge of Bachmann and Huntsman and, it would seem, the overwhelming majority of the American people to risk everything we've accomplished in Afghanistan in order to get out a few months earlier.
American and British military commanders are said to be "filled with dismay." If the Taliban recaptures control of Afghanistan, we will all have reason to be filled with remorse and regret. And a great many politicians of both parties should be filled with shame.
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