Actually, Afghanistan is a war of choice
By Ian Welsh

Michael Steele's comments on Afghanistan remind me of my favorite definition of a gaffe: "saying the truth in the worst way possible." To wit, Steele said that Afghanistan is a war of Obama's choosing, and that everyone who's occupied Afghanistan has come to grief over it. Now one can quibble a bit over the details of who came to grief and who didn't, but basically he's right. Afghanistan went badly for the Russians and the British, most recently. There's a reason Afghanistan is called the "graveyard of Empires" and if the US isn't careful it'll be the graveyard of the US empire.

Likewise, yes, this is a war of choice for Obama. He could have done his review, said, "Hey, there are almost no al-Q'aeda fighters in Afghanistan anymore, so we won, let's go home." He could have said, "Fighting in Afghanistan is seriously destabilizing Pakistan, which is far more important than Afghanistan, so let's go home." He could have said, "Yes, if we leave, some al-Q'aeda camps might spring up but we can always bomb them and anyway there are plenty of failed states where al-Q'aeda can set up camps and we can't occupy all of them."

The point is that continuing in Afghanistan was a choice. Obama could have chosen otherwise. Not being in Afghanistan will not create an existential threat to the US.
So yeah, Steele was right. Of course, being the RNC chairman, Steele isn't allowed to say things that make sense and contradict Republican warmongering. Now here's a truth that Steele didn't tell.



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MY REACTION TO THE ABOVE ARTICLE


I like this. And, I think there is much truth. I've had what I have believed is a solution all along, that fits politics (which cannot be escaped); Steele should have been pushing it: leave 20-30,000 Special Forces troops in Afghanistan, fight for the population centers, use it as a training ground. (We spend millions of dollars a year training all the Armed Forces in desert warfare at the National Training Center in the deserts of California) Allow for a very liberal immigration policy to the US, especially for women. You'd have to do that to satisfy the politics of it. Guys like John McCain have gone "round the bend" I think and sound exactly like Vietnam but not much choice as politics go. And, unfortunately, Steel is no MLK who had the moral ground to publicly condemn the Vietnam war. Fortunately, too, he had all these draft dodgers (and this isn't negative but the draft obviously made it easier to protest--dodging bullets in Vietnam is not the same as protesting in Berzerkly). I hope Steele doesn't resign and he has "color" on his side. The guy has withstood financial scandal and so hang in with this. Make them fire him and he can be a martyr.