Reading Villainous Company today crystallized the sense that had been growing in me that Team Obama is losing the war in Afghanistan. The ingredients are there. First, the mistakes we made in Viet Nam where governments were viewed as puppets of the American government. Even Eugene Robinson, one of Obama’s most fervent supporters, sneeringly refers to Hamid Karzai .
Karzai, who seems not to have gotten the memo on how a U.S. puppet should behave, alternates between grudging cooperation and petulant defiance.
And then, of course, there is Obama and his deadline. Insurgencies take time to overcome. Sometimes decades. Obama lent his chosen General his troops for a short time. And the media his been cheering the Afghan effort . It’s such a contrast.
Compared to the constant rain of negativity about our chances of success in Iraq, recent reportage on Afghanistan has been almost impossibly positive by comparison. Media voices who blamed the lack of popular support for the GWOT upon George Bush's supposed failure to sufficiently "sell" us on that fight have been strangely silent when faced with a Commander in Chief whose efforts in that regard have been perfunctory (where they can be discerned at all).
We losing record numbers of troops killed yet the anti-war left and the MFM (but I repeat myself) note the casualty numbers and move on. No violent demonstrations. No TV shows with pictures of the dead and wounded. No stake-outs at Dover AF Base. What a difference the change in the Presidential party makes.
The problem is the Afghans. The people we are supporting in Afghanistan today are going to be there after we leave. The Taliban know who they are; they are already targets of assassination. After we leave and the Taliban are not eradicated, our supporters will be massacred.
The wise Afghani is not going to bet his life on the promises of Barack Hussein Obama. They will be making their “arrangements” and hedging their bets. Karzai has already threatened to join the insurgency. People who are viewed as puppets, pawns in Obama’s re-election campaign, won’t be playing their part in Obama’s screen play.
John Foregainst Kerry became famous for asking, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" It is not clear to this Marine wife that our current leadership is committed to winning this fight. And if our commitment is not clear to me, how can it be clear to our allies and enemies?
Who's going to be the last man to die for a war that Obama's lost?
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