Example one today:
There is a strong argument that says that there was a time when Afghanistan was the right war for America to fight, but in 2009, with the United States having wrestled with opponents there halfheartedly for seven years and in Iraq wholeheartedly for six years -- if for hoked-up reasons -- it is now time to walk away from both wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, not just Iraq.
Mr. Obama has pledged to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration, by May 2010. There is every reason for him to keep that election promise, which is precisely why many people voted for him.
The country needs the $10 billion a month the United States continues to spend in Iraq to cover the financial demands of efforts to save the economy.
Ah yes, the "darn it all, but it's too late to fight in Afghanistan" line of argument. Why President Obama should accept the risk of defeat in Iraq to satisfy the sick yearning of some of his supporters for inflicting a million Mogadishus on America is beyond me. And it would take 90 months of Iraq War spending at the rate given to pay for the price (so far) of the so-called stimulus bill. And we're not counting the cost of the financial sector bail-out in that number. The idea that Iraq War spending stops us from spending on domestic issues should have been laid to rest the last few months as money as magically flowed.
But the retreat isn't really a proper retrograde movement until you hear the cry of "Vietnam!" So here's example two:
Obama may be planning to shut Guantanamo, but the broader concept of a "war on terror" is still alive and well in Washington. Most of the people he has appointed to run his defense and foreign policies believe in it, and there is no sign that he himself questions it. Yet even 15 years ago the notion would have been treated with contempt in every military staff college in the country.
That generation of American officers learned two things from their miserable experience in Vietnam. One was that going halfway around the world to fight a conventional military campaign against an ideology (communism then, Islamism now) was a truly stupid idea. The other was that no matter how strenuously the other side insists that it is motivated by a world-spanning ideology, its real motives are mostly political and quite local (Vietnamese nationalism then, Iraqi and Afghan nationalism now).
Decades ago, Dyer did a nice series on war. So I don't understand this level of idiocy. We didn't prepare for waging a war against Islamists fifteen years ago, and this indicates we don't need to today? Huh?
And Dyer forgets that we actually beat the ideology of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, and that it took a conventional North Vietnamese invasion to conquer South Vietnam while our Congress refused to let us help our friends there.
The man thinks that there is any type of Afghan "nationalism"--as in a feeling of nationhood--in tribal and Islamic Afghanistan? And Iraqi nationalism was a factor in the terror campaigns our enemies in Iraq waged? Is he stoned? The Sunni Arab-based resistance, whether jihadi, tribal, or Baathist, was from 15% of the population. How is that a nationalism-based resistance when the majority of Iraqis fought them? And even the Arab Shia thugs who sided with Iran could hardly be called "nationalistic" by siding with Persian Iranians.
Look, we could still blow this campaign. I'm worried about many factors, including appropriate objectives and force levels, supply, and the ability of President Obama's supporters to hang tough when the going gets tough in Afghanistan. But invoking Vietnam over Afghanistan is as idiotic as invoking Vietnam over Iraq.
The Left has put on their running shoes. I guarantee our enemies will follow us no matter how far they run away--or walk away. And just as our jihadi enemies had no problem killing us before we fought in Iraq, our jihadi enemies will dredge up Britney Spears videos if they have to in order to justify their campaign of terror against us.
We need to fight the jihadis in Afghanistan since that's where the jihadis want to fight. And let's pay attention to the Pakistan sanctuaries for the jihadis, while we're at it.
But it doesn't mean we need to make an Iraq-level commitment of troops to fight this campaign. I just don't see evidence that we're losing that campaign.
