More to the point, Herbert is a perfect example of a leftist who once supported the war but now opposes it. His transition is laughable. He actually once argued that he sure wished he could support victory, but it was too late to win--so run away now.
The transition was, of course, made possible by the victory in Iraq that has made a visible show of support for Afghanistan victory obsolete since it was always about losing Iraq than focusing on Afghanistan.
I worry that the idiots will come out in force, using their vast stores of
Mr. Herbert, in his latest op-driv (like an "op-ed" except the editorializing part is just drivel), does not disappoint. His first paragraph is a gem of ignorance:
President Obama can be applauded for his decisiveness in dispatching the chronically insubordinate Stanley McChrystal, but we are still left with a disaster of a war in Afghanistan that cannot be won and that the country as a whole will not support.
One, how is McChrystal "chronically insubordinate?" McChrystal loyally carried out the president's war policy. And so-called insubordination--really, some mocking--was directed at administration officials other than President Obama who were undermining the president's chosen objective.
Two, a disaster we can't win? The enemy isn't about to drive on Kabul and take over. We are the ones pushing against the enemy strongholds, and our problem is only that we are taking longer than we hoped to fight the battles in the enemy lairs.
And three, the country won't support the "good" "war of necessity (as opposed to the "war of choice" in Iraq )" that is the "real war" against those who struck us on 9/11? Hmm, didn't we win in Iraq even when the American public wasn't showing overwhelming support to win the war? The president supposedly has great oratorical abilities. Let him deploy them to persuade the likes of Herbert that we must win. Let Obama lead us and we will win.
One sentence. At least three pieces of drivel.
The rest is an embarrassment of ignorance, with Herbert notably unable to distinguish between conventional high intensity warfare and counter-insurgency. Like the rest of his journalistic colleagues, after nearly 9 years of war, Herbert has failed to learn even the basics of the issues he comments on from his privileged position on the New York Times opinion page.
In an amazing justification for his advocacy of retreat, the man has actually embraces the "kill them all, let God sort them out" school of massive firepower use as an excuse for urging us to run!
Those who are so fascinated with counterinsurgency, from its chief advocate, Gen. David Petraeus, all the way down to the cocktail-hour kibitzers inside the Beltway, seem to have lost sight of a fundamental aspect of warfare: You don’t go to war half-stepping. You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible. If you don’t want to do it, if you have qualms about it, or don’t know how to do it, don’t go to war.
The men who stormed the beaches at Normandy weren’t trying to win the hearts and minds of anyone. ...
What is true is that we aren’t even fighting as hard as we can right now. The counterinsurgency crowd doesn’t want to whack the enemy too hard because of an understandable fear that too many civilian casualties will undermine the “hearts and minds” and nation-building components of the strategy. Among the downsides of this battlefield caution is a disturbing unwillingness to give our own combat troops the supportive airstrikes and artillery cover that they feel is needed.
It's almost like "protecting the troops" is the last refuge of a scoundrel, eh?
What an idiot. He's entitled to whatever opinion he wants to hold, of course. But let's not pretend that his opinion is formed by vast stores of history and military knowledge. It is simply a knee jerk reaction to America at war--the conviction that we are in the wrong and don't deserve to win. It is just the retreat instinct that motivates too many people in this country.
If Herbert can't string together words that even pretend to understand the difference between fighting insurgents and conventional formed combat units, what business does he have trying to shape opinion?
Let me quote myself from that January 2009 post:
Ah, President Obama is just going to love his Leftist supporters in the next four years as they seethe in anger over "Barack Obama's war." Doesn't he know that supporting the "good war" in Afghanistan was never more than political cover for liberals to oppose the "bad war" in Iraq?
Well, if he didn't know that, he'll become painfully aware of that fact fairly soon. I'm sure the anti-war types are working on something childish to rhyme with BHO the same way they rhymed with LBJ back in the 1960s, that cradle of hope and change now viewed as a Golden Age by our Left.
Strap yourself in, this is going to get rough. Oh, and this time that advice is directed at President Obama.
