RSS Feed MenuOn my one of my last deployments over to Africa, one of the guys hooked a DVD player to a projector and hosted movie nights for our local counterparts – a remarkable achievement considering the conditions we were living in. Because of the language features on modern DVDs, he could present American films in French, which of course is the lingua franca of Africa. It was fascinating to watch the Africans’ reaction to R. Lee Ermey’s incredible performance in the first half of Full Metal Jacket, or George C. Scott’s masterful speech at the beginning of Patton.
The President went to West Point last Tuesday, of course, to announce his long-awaited decision: a 30,000 troop surge. General McChrystal’s original request was 80,000 – that was optimum – forty thousand was his bare minimum, his bottom line; twenty thousand wouldn’t have made a difference. Team Obama obviously split the difference and out of that we get thirty.
The speech was remarkable on many levels; in sending troops off to war there was no inspiring motivation, no Patton speech, not even an explanation of what the objective is. There was no emotion, no inspiration. Instead, he telegraphed to the enemy the entire U.S. national war strategy; an eighteen month timeline to withdrawal.
On top of that, Obama placed a finite cost on national security: “Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly $30 billion for the military this year, and I’ll work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.”
If you want to cut costs, Mr. President, why don’t you shut down the National Endowment for the Arts, or maybe sell NASA? A country is SUPPOSED to spend its treasure during time of war; you cannot put a price to U.S. national security.
True to form, Obama could not pass up an opportunity to badmouth his country: “I have prohibited torture and will close the prison at Guantanamo Bay”; this is the continuing flawed suggestion that what we subjected terrorist detainees to resembled torture in any way, shape or form. In the Bill Ayers lexicon, however, the words ‘torture’ and ‘Guantanamo’ are synonymous with: “America is bad, America commits torture.”
A couple of tours back, in another time and place, a buddy turned to me and said, “I’d sure hate to die in a place like this.”
“I dunno,” I shrugged, looking around at the wretched surroundings; “One Third World hole is much like the next; all I know is I’d hate to die for a place like this.”
Right now our military is in Afghanistan and elsewhere to capture and kill the people who flew airplanes into our buildings on 9/11, and to shut down their operation – people who to this day are trying to find ways to kill each and every one of us. Our blessed soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are fighting and dying for you and for me; for our safety and security. That’s a worthy cause.
But who amongst them is willing to die for an exit strategy?
116 U.S. Troops Died in Afghanistan While Obama Pondered Reinforcements
Sean Linnane blogs at STORMBRINGER.
balconesfault // Dec 7, 2009 at 11:44 am
23 Raider1Balcon…did you REALLY say what you said in post 10? Do you really believe that that is GOP’s claim or are you just desperate for an argument and thus using any parsing of stats and any manipulation of context to make a point?
Raider – no, if you’re referring to the claim that last year the Taliban had their best year since the fall of the Soviet vichy government because they killed more US troops than in previous years … no, I’m simply responding to MI-GOPer here, and not to the GOP writ large. I am not surprised that MI-GOPer has become such a self-characture that you don’t even bother reading him.
If I may take your idocy a step further. On this day in 1941 the Japanese killed 2,400 Americans. At Okinawa in 1945 the Japanes killed over 12,000. So then would you say that anyone in their right mind would argue that Okinanwa was a much greater victory for Japan than Pearl Harbor?
I agree with your logic wholeheartedly. Thank you for confirming that the argument being made by MI-GOPer most certainly is idiocy.
balconesfault // Dec 7, 2009 at 11:48 am
22 Raider1 Obama is not a “war time cosiglieri” which is what we need at this time.
Well, Dick Cheney most certainly fit the profile of “war time consigliere”. Yet, he turned over to Obama an Afghanistan that was in serious decline in January 2009.
Also, there’s another problem here – Obama shouldn’t be the consigliere. Obama should be the Don.
cpanza // Dec 7, 2009 at 1:06 pm
“I am not surprised that MI-GOPer has become such a self-characture that you don’t even bother reading him.”
I always read his comments up until the moment he starts launching invective or insults. Once he does that, I move to the next post.
Which means I almost never read past the first line.
llbroo49 // Dec 7, 2009 at 1:48 pm
As a veteran , I have run in to two types of members in the armed forces, soldiers and warriors. Soldiers fight but need motivation (ie regime X is evil). Warriors are professional and carry out their duties regardless. I can tell you with all honesty I am not willing to die in Afghanistan so that little girls can learn how to read- but I will go to aquit myself and because I am a professional.
jakester // Dec 7, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Raider1
We are not a nation of torturers or Nazis, Obama never said that nor implied that. But even McCain decried torture and wanted to close Gitmo too. Does that make McCain an America hater or a bad mouther? Face it the US has screwed up royally. After all, Bush jumped into Iraq after he let Osama go. He had SEVEN years in Afghanistan, and this is what he and his brilliant military and political minds left us with? Screw the partisan blame shifting, I don’t care I just want something positive to happen there.
As it is I agreed with the substance part of this blog, if you bothered to read past my first paragraph. But will you or the other war heads tell me what victory will look like besides kicking butts in one firefight after another? Without political stability, there will be no victory. And since Obama is doing his best to ignore the 900 lb Islamic gorilla, I doubt we will have a political victory.
handworn // Dec 9, 2009 at 10:26 am
“A country is SUPPOSED to spend its treasure during time of war; you cannot put a price to U.S. national security.”
Of course you can. That’s like saying you can’t put a price on health, something most Americans hope we end up doing and doing well. We should make decisions like this on business terms at least: if a war does not benefit us enough relative to the cost, we should drop it. I don’t agree that Afghanistan is much more beneficial than Iraq was– certainly it benefits us nowhere close to the cost– and wars like that take away our ability to threaten military action with, for example, North Korea.
You also might look up the budget for the NEA. It would take cutting 200 NEAs to make up for one year’s worth of Afghanistan, something you ought to discover before putting your foot in your mouth in print. And eliminating NASA, one of the most popular government programs? Do you seriously love being out of power so much that you decide to argue for new positions even less popular?
cpanza // Dec 9, 2009 at 11:59 am
Karzai said today that it will take at least 15 years (that’s 2024) before his country has the military power to defend itself against insurgents/Taliban/al Qaida.
Get those calculators out and starting re-figuring out the costs of victory again.
MI-GOPer // Dec 10, 2009 at 11:47 am
Balconesfault offers: “Thank you for confirming that the argument being made by MI-GOPer most certainly is idiocy”.
C-pansie enters the TrollTirbe EchoChmaber with: “Which means I almost never read past the first line”.
And we have yet two of the leading Village Idiots explaining once again why they’re on a blog dedicated to rebuilding the conservative movement and returning the GOP its majority party status… they’re here just to distract, disrupt, annoy, irritate, inflame and incite.
And they can’t even do that without fake manufactured troll characters and snide snapping from the cheap seats? No wonder the democrats are losing all they gained illegitimately through vote fraud.
MI-GOPer // Dec 10, 2009 at 11:53 am
We’ve now passed 304 US troop deaths in Afghanistan under Obama Messiah’s first year. This is one of the most successful, most progressive years for the Taliban since they kicked out the Russian forces in late ‘88 and it’s been the most successful year for alQaeda since 2001.
Under the most deadly year for Geo Bush, US troop deaths in Afghanistan were 1/2 Obama’s rate. Our dithering president will continue to kill US troops and all the caskets at Dover or the West Point cadets used as props by this inauthentic, insincere politically opportunitistic Prez won’t ease that crime.
Maybe he could help Karzai most by sending over some ACORN election experts to adjust the voter registration drives in Afghanistan?