President Rocky

32 responses so far

• 1 Chekote // Dec 2, 2009 at 12:42 am

  The timetable was unfortunate but at least he is sending troops.

• 2 rbottoms // Dec 2, 2009 at 1:33 am

  Didn’t we defeat the Germans, the Imperial Japanese Empire, and the Italian Fascists all at the same damn time, in the fewer years than we’ve been at it in Afghanistan? We are in this mess because George W. Bush was a big, fat, failure as president who left this war unfinished because he was itching to take out Saddam. What Obama has proposed is a serious try to fix what your former boss screwed wayyyyy the hell up.

  Damn if I hear a single conservative propose that their sons and daughters go right down and sign up tomorrow morning as well as propose a tax increase to pay for this adventure.

• 3 mlindroo // Dec 2, 2009 at 5:26 am

  Chekote wrote:
  > The timetable was unfortunate but at least he is sending troops.

  Apparently, administration officials are saying the exact troop draw-down timetable will be based on military needs in 2011. THE NEW REPUBLIC points out the U.S. could technically withdraw 100 troops in July 2011 and keep the rest in the country until 2020! So this is mostly a nonbinding concession to Democrats in congress and the American public, a majority of which is skeptical about Afghanistan.
  —
  Conservative hawks ought to be very happy about Obama’s decision… Given the state of the economy and the deficit, Karzai’s woes and the unpopularity of the war, it would have been comparatively easy for Obama to renege on his campaign promise. The early talk is that the President will need help from Republicans in Congress. Let’s see if he will get it.

  MARCU$

• 4 mlindroo // Dec 2, 2009 at 6:15 am

  …Regarding conservative support, I just checked what the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Hot Air, National Review, Power Line, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Town Hall have to say about Obama’s troop decision (I also had a quick look at Pajamas Media, but they were only interested in some leaked emails about global warming…)
  Boy, what a disappointing reaction! Winning in Afghanistan is supposed to be important to Republican voters, but it seems fairly clear that most conservative pundits nevertheless would be at least as happy if the U.S. loses as long as Barack Obama gets the blame.

  MARCU$

• 5 MI-GOPer // Dec 2, 2009 at 7:20 am

  David, it isn’t Sly Stallone.

  It’s more like Mikey Dukakis trying on that infamous helmet at the army tank proving grounds and trying to look all “warrior in chief” –and failing at it.

  Obama gave his best speech and it was the one that Pres Bush could have written –and Obama failed. Obama Messiah’s attempt to straddle the political fence and protect his far Left haunch… gnawed on by those lefties unwilling to help him abandon the public option and retreat from a War Tax… made him look more Flip-Floppy than John F Kerry at the pinnacle of his campaign for the democrat nomination. While Flip-Floppy-ness is a core family value for democrat leaders, Americans don’t like it.

  “I supported more troops before I start pulling them out”. Ditherer in Chief.

• 6 ottovbvs // Dec 2, 2009 at 8:31 am

  ……So David you’re willing to stay there forever……spend whatever it costs (this increase is going to push the annual Iraq/Afghanistan price tag to around 150 billion a year!)…..in the hope that we might be able to turn this around?

  …….Actually what he’s proposed is quite smart……..he’s given the military what they asked for and will deliver it more quickly than requested, but he’s put the responsibility on them to produce a result……if they don’t he has cover to pull the plug on a war for which there is little domestic support……..he’s also putting the heat on the Karzai govt to get their **** together or we’re outta there……..as for the Taliban they have two options……. a) lay low which gives the Karzai govt and us a window to build up the Afghan security forces and secure population centers so that when we leave they are in somewhat better shape to deal with the Taliban (whether they make use of that opportunity is an open question)……b) they take the field and are severely weakened in battles of attrition (which are going to involve US casualties).

• 7 Carney // Dec 2, 2009 at 9:07 am

  rbottoms, it’s fascinating you’d bring up past the example of us fighting and beating Germany, Italy, and Japan all at once as evidence of how we could never take on both Iraq and Afghanistan at once. You’re very confused. The reality is, our country can walk and chew gum at the same time. Not only did we fight all 3 members of the Axis, we launched D-Day on the same day as the first large-scare daylight bombing of the Japanese mainland, and just one day after the liberation of Rome. We can and could fight in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and should have and should still.

• 8 sinz54 // Dec 2, 2009 at 9:08 am

  rbottoms:
  

  Didn’t we defeat the Germans, the Imperial Japanese Empire, and the Italian Fascists all at the same damn time, in the fewer years than we’ve been at it in Afghanistan?

  Yes, and here is how we did it:

  1. Spent 40% of our GDP on national defense.
  2. Drafted 16 million men and women into the military.
  3. Built a war machine that included 100,000 planes and 100 aircraft carriers.
  4. Paid for it by rationing of all civilian goods, wage-and-price controls, and war bonds.
  5. Firebombed enemy cities into raging firestorms, killing up to 100,000 civilians in a single night.
  6. Developed nuclear weapons.
  7. Dropped nuclear bombs on two enemy cities.

  Now if you want to argue that we should have made a bigger effort to win the War on Terror quickly with more sacrifice on the home front, I might agree with you. The biggest mistake Bush made at the start of the War on Terror was to, as U.S. News & World Report put it, was to “reassure baby-boomers that we could win the War on Terror and still enjoy their lattes at Starbucks.”

• 9 sinz54 // Dec 2, 2009 at 9:15 am

  Obama is way too smart to believe his own timetable.

  After all, he came into office promising to remove all troops from Iraq right away, close Gitmo within a year. And once inaugurated, he demanded a health care bill by August.

  None of those timetables was met.

  Obama has been told, I’m sure, that no timetable survives first contact with the enemy. But he also knew it was POLITICALLY necessary to quell a possible revolt by left-wing Dems. I would have put a timetable into the speech myself, if I were asked.

  The timetable will slip. Guaranteed.
  Meanwhile, the commitment of U.S. troops is immediate. In fact, Obama gave the marching orders the day before he gave the speech.

  I had other problems with Obama’s speech.
  But I congratulate him on making this tough decision–and in his speech, specifically DENYING that Afghanistan is another Vietnam.

  Good job, Mr. President.

  I wish our troops well.
  And I wish their Commander-in-Chief well.

• 10 ottovbvs // Dec 2, 2009 at 9:16 am

  Carney // Dec 2, 2009 at 9:07 am

  “rbottoms, it’s fascinating you’d bring up past the example of us fighting and beating Germany,”

  ……actually it would be fairer to say we assisted the Russians in defeating Germany……80% of Wehrmacht/Luftwaffe casualties were sustained on the Eastern front……..in truth comparisons between WW 2 and what we’re dealing with now are bit silly since Japan/Germany presented an existential threat which is not the case today…….while Sinz is correct in saying we haven’t mobilized the same level of resources it would have been crazy to do so……we’ve already used the sledgehammer to crack a nut and the result is a mess so it’s hard to see even greater committment being justified

• 11 MI-GOPer // Dec 2, 2009 at 9:44 am

  David, what Obama and the Troll Tribe here is doing is projecting their only policy innovation on Afghanistan –to dither away time and hope that events will intervene to save you from a decision their spine and stomachs can’t make– to dither and delay.

  Soliders are fighters; they aren’t carefully calculating political animals seeking to gain partisan advantage wherever leverage can be applied, weasled and adjusted. They fight. They enforce. They keep order. They kill the bad guys. They don’t do BigHugsHeal strategy.

  That’s the disconnect between Obama and them. The West Point men and women who snoozed during Obama’s speech had the right recipe for the Ditherer in Chief… ignore what he says, he’s talking mostly to the far Left out in San Fran and the Pacific NW… the main message Obama gave those future military leaders sitting in Eisenhower Hall –democrats will always be the Party of Cut & Run.

  Obama also, as you note, sent a bigger message to the Taliban: we’ll be out in 18 months if you can survive in Pakistan til then. I guess the only thing remaining on Obama’s Wish List for his muslim brothers is to pick wallpaper for bin Laden’s cave redecorating scheme in Tora Bora.

  All that time, talent, treasure and blood bravely sacraficed on the fields of Afghanistan to be wasted away by a president who can’t decide… is he for the surge before he turns against it?

• 12 BarryS // Dec 2, 2009 at 10:02 am

  “I wish our troops well.
  And I wish their Commander-in-Chief well.”

  Well done Sinz. I appreciate your support of our troops and President. Oh how I wish all Right leaning people were so Patriotic.

• 13 garlic // Dec 2, 2009 at 10:05 am

  Boxing didn’t initially have rounds, it was an all out fight until one person knocked the other person out. After being in Afghanistan for 8 years, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get the knockout hit, we’ll only win via score.

• 14 rbottoms // Dec 2, 2009 at 12:04 pm

  in truth comparisons between WW 2 and what we’re dealing with now are bit silly since Japan/Germany presented an existential threat which is not the case today

  My point exactly. Conservatives maintain this is the equivalent of the world on the brink back in WWII with Islamic Fascism as the threat we must mobilize to oppose and destroy.

  Except a.) We must never raise taxes by a single nickle to pay for any of it, and b.) While it is Armageddon at our door actually having the well off join the Marines to go fight instead of blogging about their manhood is completely unnecessary.

• 15 LFC // Dec 2, 2009 at 12:20 pm

  Rbottoms, that’s because cutting taxes has a higher priority on their list than fighting terrorism. Just as freedom is lower on the list than allowing the government to do whatever they wish.

  Anti-terrorism on the cheap only works in a dictatorship.

• 16 balconesfault // Dec 2, 2009 at 12:25 pm

  Sinz:
  Yes, and here is how we did it:

  2. Drafted 16 million men and women into the military.
  …
  4. Paid for it by rationing of all civilian goods, wage-and-price controls, and war bonds.

  Yep. This is how we react to a truly existential threat.

• 17 BoolaBoola // Dec 2, 2009 at 12:29 pm

  So, according to DF, anything short of a pledge to keep infinitely many troops in Afganistan, forever, is a “show of weakness” or a “promise to back down”.

  Sorry David, but we don’t HAVE infinitely many troops, and we can’t AFFORD to keep them at war forever.

  And even now, NO ONE CAN SAY WHAT VICTORY WOULD LOOK LIKE! How will we know when we win? When Afganistan becomes a secular pluralist democracy? Gooood luck.

  Some reality, please.

• 18 groverge // Dec 2, 2009 at 2:27 pm

  Back to the deadline issue…David wrote that Obama said to the Taliban: “If you can last 18 months against the United States – you win.” I

  The meme that a deadline “emboldens our enemies” and just tells them how long they have to sit tight is only one side (and the more tarnished side at that) of a coin. The other side is that a deadline focuses the attention and resources of the Afghanistan government. I suspect Karzai and his clique agree with Sen. McCain’s statement to CBS last night that without either U.S. military support or a viable security force of its own, they’ll likely be overthrown or killed. Death can be quite the mind-focuser.

  Imposing a deadline has risks, true, but it can also reap benefits. Perhaps one reason w e’re in Year 9of the Afghan war and Year 7 of the Iraq war is because the previous administration hewed to the “no deadlines” catechism too long.

• 19 ottovbvs // Dec 2, 2009 at 3:14 pm

  balconesfault // Dec 2, 2009 at 12:25 pm

  ……There’s a difference which Sinz fails to appreciate between total war and police actions that are not unlike the colonialist wars of Britain in the 19th century……Iraq and Afghanistan are police actions

• 20 rbottoms // Dec 2, 2009 at 3:42 pm

  The meme that a deadline “emboldens our enemies” and just tells them how long they have to sit tight is only one side (and the more tarnished side at that) of a coin.

  If telegraphing your intentions to leave at some point is bad, then we had better be prepared to tell the Taliban we’ll wait them out not three years but 30 or 50 because they have that much time and patience. Whether it’s 50 years or 100, we’ll be pulling out sometime and the tribes will still be there.

  So perhaps there’s something to taking an approach that sets up containment rather that attempting the impossible, defeating a 14th century based “army” in one of the most in-hospitable region on Earth. One that they’ve called home for 1,000 years.

  Containment is our only card and Obama knows that.

• 21 ottovbvs // Dec 2, 2009 at 4:01 pm

  rbottoms // Dec 2, 2009 at 3:42 pm

  ” Containment is our only card and Obama knows that.”

  ……this was always our best card with Afghanistan and Iraq…….the Taliban will just take a leaf out of George Washington’s or Mao’s book and do their equivalent of the long march……hide away their guns…..find converts…..breed children…….grow poppies……and wait for better days……it’s downside is it gives the Afghan govt the time to regroup but without us there does anyone think Karzai and co are going to do that?

• 22 sinz54 // Dec 2, 2009 at 5:07 pm

  ottovbs:
  

  There’s a difference which Sinz fails to appreciate between total war and police actions that are not unlike the colonialist wars of Britain in the 19th century……Iraq and Afghanistan are police actions

  They’re not exactly police actions.

  Because the Thuggees of India were never planning to board sailing ships, sail to London and kill as many British civilians as they could.

  That’s the difference. The difference is that the radical Islamists aren’t just content to take over Third World countries. They have attacked us here, on our home soil, repeatedly, and will do so again if they can.

  The Brits gave up trying to subdue the American colonists because they never feared retaliation. If John Adams had been screaming for revenge against Britain for the Boston Massacre; if Benjamin Franklin had negotiated deals with pirates to give them sanctuary in American ports to go out and terrorize British shipping, the British people would have demanded that Adams and Franklin be hanged, no matter what the cost.

  Modern state-sponsored terrorism is most analogous to the state-sponsored pirates of the early 19th century, such as the Muslim pirates who were supported and sheltered by the Pasha of Tripoli. And then, as now, the answer was war. Note that the Barbary Wars were America’s first undeclared wars.

• 23 BoolaBoola // Dec 2, 2009 at 5:29 pm

  Here’s a suggestion: President Obama should withdraw the timetable, but if the war continues more than 18 months, he should draft David Frum’s children into the army and send them to Afganistan. Sure, they’re a bit young, but so are many of the Afgan fighters!

• 24 ottovbvs // Dec 2, 2009 at 5:45 pm

  sinz54 // Dec 2, 2009 at 5:07 pm

  “Because the Thuggees of India were never planning to board sailing ships, sail to London and kill as many British civilians as they could.”

  ……..Sinz….the Taliban have no plans to launch attacks on America any more than Hussein did….and it’s the Taliban we’re fighting….get this clear in your mind because you betray a continuing confusion

  “The Brits gave up trying to subdue the American colonists because they never feared retaliation. ”

  ………no Sinz they gave up because they realized that the constraints of time and space made it was an unwinnable war and because they were always vulnerable to interdiction of their supply lines if a third party with a almost equal naval power intervened as France did when it entered the war…..a similar thing would have happened in the Boer War had Germany had a naval strength in 1900 similar to that it had in 1914 and had chosen to intervene rather than send telegrams of support

• 25 balconesfault // Dec 2, 2009 at 6:09 pm

  sinz: Modern state-sponsored terrorism is most analogous to the state-sponsored pirates of the early 19th century, such as the Muslim pirates who were supported and sheltered by the Pasha of Tripoli. And then, as now, the answer was war. Note that the Barbary Wars were America’s first undeclared wars.

  And given our current model, Jefferson should have occupied Libya, had the Pasha killed, set up a provisional authority to manage the country, and stayed there as long as it would take to establish a democracy and ensure that no pirate ever found safe haven in that country again.

• 26 ottovbvs // Dec 2, 2009 at 6:21 pm

  balconesfault // Dec 2, 2009 at 6:09 pm

  “And given our current model, Jefferson should have occupied Libya, had the Pasha killed, set up a provisional authority to manage the country, and stayed there as long as it would take to establish a democracy and ensure that no pirate ever found safe haven in that country again.”

  …..Sinz doesn’t like to push the similes too far!

• 27 MI-GOPer // Dec 2, 2009 at 9:46 pm

  Leave it to the troll tribe to highjack yet another thread and land it in the quagmire of Jeffersonian war strategy…. anything but discuss the errors of Obama’s trying on an ill-fitting but new Warrior in Chief head-dress.

  And people wonder why this site attracts so few conservatives or real GOPers interested in rebuilding the Party and the movement but features thread after thread of circle jerking far Left, democrat activist trolls? Wow.

• 28 sdspringy // Dec 2, 2009 at 10:51 pm

  Afghan is a no win. Politically this will kill Obama because 18 months will drag to 24 and then it will be 2012. Obama will have assumed the role of Bush, and the lefties, Code Pink, and Cindy Sheehans will be picketing the White House. To survive he will pull out, again playing into the Dem “Cut and Run” persona. Added to cumbling economy, no jobs, no “Cap & Trade”, and quite possible no “Healthreform”, Obama will seem to be a sidewalk preacher proclaiming salvation to a population that is walking past.

  Those who state that this is a 50 year war are correct. We would have to train an entire generation to accept moderate forms of government, not happening.

  As a result of Obama’s lack of spine, or too much mouth during the campaign he has locked himself into a no win situation. More Independents will leave the Dems, for they have not ended the war, and the Reps will win in 2012.

  Would you have thought just 9 months ago Obama would have fallen so far???

• 29 MR FACE // Dec 2, 2009 at 11:40 pm

  Sdspringy:

  I agree that your scenario above might play out.
  One problem. Who are the Reps going to nominate to run against Obama in 2012? They have no one.

• 30 sinz54 // Dec 4, 2009 at 11:05 am

  rbottoms:
  

  a.) We must never raise taxes by a single nickle to pay for any of it, and b.) While it is Armageddon at our door actually having the well off join the Marines to go fight instead of blogging about their manhood is completely unnecessary.

  Most of the posters on Redstate.com either have served in the military themselves, or have family members who have served.

  As I’ve posted before, America’s officer corps traditionally votes Republican.

  If there’s anybody who wouldn’t be caught dead in today’s military, it’s the affluent liberals of the Northeast and the West Coast.

• 31 sinz54 // Dec 4, 2009 at 11:08 am

  ottovbs:
  

  Sinz….the Taliban have no plans to launch attacks on America any more than Hussein did….and it’s the Taliban we’re fighting….get this clear in your mind because you betray a continuing confusion

  I’m not “confused” about that.

  The Obama Administration correctly regards Afghanistan as a “cork in the bottle” to keep al-Qaeda bottled up inside Pakistan. Allow the Taliban back into power in Afghanistan, and they may uncork the bottle and allow al-Qaeda safe refuge in Afghanistan again.

  The Taliban are religious fanatics, just as much as Osama bin Laden is. I see no way to negotiate any kind of deal with the Taliban against al-Qaeda that will stick. I’m sure Obama looked at that possibility and ended up having to dismiss it.

• 32 sinz54 // Dec 4, 2009 at 11:22 am

  balconesfault:
  

  “And given our current model, Jefferson should have occupied Libya, had the Pasha killed, set up a provisional authority to manage the country, and stayed there as long as it would take to establish a democracy and ensure that no pirate ever found safe haven in that country again.”

  That’s not too different than what Jefferson really did:

  Wikipedia: First Barbary War, 1801-1805:

  Preble attacked Tripoli outright on July 14, 1804 in a series of inconclusive battles, including a courageous but unsuccessful attack by the fire ship USS Intrepid under Captain Richard Somers. Intrepid, packed with explosives, was to enter Tripoli harbor and destroy itself and the enemy fleet; it was destroyed, perhaps by enemy guns, before achieving that goal, killing Somers and his crew.[citation needed]

  The turning point in the war came with the Battle of Derna (April-May 1805). Ex-consul William Eaton, who went by the rank of general, and US Marine First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon led a mixed force of eight United States Marines and 500 Greek, Arab and Berber mercenaries on a remarkable overland march across the desert from Alexandria, Egypt to assault and to capture the Tripolitan city of Derna. This is the first time in history that the United States flag was raised in victory on foreign soil. This action was memorialized in a line from the Marines’ Hymn — “the shores of Tripoli.”

  Wearied of the blockade and raids, and now under threat of a continued advance on Tripoli proper and a scheme to restore his deposed older brother Hamet Karamanli as ruler, Yussif Karamanli signed a treaty ending hostilities on June 10, 1805.

  The major difference was that Karamanli caved in, making regime change unnecessary.

  Would Saddam have ever caved in similarly? That possibility should have been explored further before we invaded Iraq.

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