Coming Home at Last?
Posted on July 29th, 2010 by Patrick J. Buchanan
Asked if the United States might send still more troops to Afghanistan, if the Obama surge is not succeeding by year’s end, Vice President Joe Biden answered, “I do not believe so.”
So, that is it. Biden is saying the 100,000 U.S. troops in theater or on the way is our limit. If Kabul and the Afghan army fail with this investment of American forces, they will be permitted to fail. All the chips we are going to commit are now on the table.
And a series of critical deadlines is approaching.
By the end of August, all U.S. combat troops are to be out of Iraq. Only 50,000 “training troops” are to remain, but all U.S. forces are scheduled to be withdrawn by the end of 2011.
In December, a review takes place of Afghan war strategy. Next July, U.S. withdrawals are to begin, though, since naming Gen. David Petraeus as his field commander, President Obama and his cabinet have emphasized that the withdrawals will be “conditions-based.”
We will walk, not run, to the exit.
But if we are topping out in Afghanistan, and the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is already less than half of the 170,000 after the surge of 2007, it seems America is on her way out of both wars.
What did they accomplish — and at what cost?
Saddam and his Baathist regime were overthrown, the dictator was hanged, elections were held, and a government that reflects the will of a majority of Iraqis put in its place.
Cost to the United States: More than 4,200 U.S. dead, 35,000 wounded, $700 billion sunk. In the Islamic world, the Iraq War led to pandemic hostility toward America. At home, the war led to the rout of the Republicans and the election of an anti-war liberal Democrat.
If Obama is indeed leading America into socialism, the War Party that led us into Iraq can take a full measure of credit.
And what is the cost to the Iraqi people of a U.S. invasion and occupation and seven-year war, the end of which is nowhere in sight?
Perhaps 100,000 dead, half a million widows and orphans, 4 million refugees, half having fled their country, devastation of a Christian community that dated to the time of Christ and the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis from Baghdad.
Four months after elections, they have no government, and bombs that kill dozens still go off daily. And, when the Americans leave, a civil and sectarian war may return. The breakup of Iraq along ethnic and religious lines remains a possibility. The price of liberation is high.
And what did the Iraqis do to deserve this? Did they attack us?
No. They had nothing to do with 9/11 and had complied with the U.S. demand to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction years before the U.S. Army stormed in to discover and destroy those weapons.
And we wonder why these ungrateful people hate us.
The Afghan War was, at its inception, a just war.
If the Taliban would not turn over bin Laden and those who plotted the mass murder of 3,000 Americans, we had a right to go in after him, as Woodrow Wilson had a right to send Gen. John Pershing into Mexico to find and kill Pancho Villa after he murdered Americans in New Mexico.
But after the defeat of the Taliban by the Northern Alliance, the overthrow of Mullah Omar and our failure to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora, we decided to stay on and convert the most tribalized and xenophobic land on earth into an Islamic democracy and strategic ally.
We will soon enter the 10th year of this war. And though 100,000 U.S. and 50,000 NATO troops are committed, the Taliban are winning — because they are not losing. They are more numerous, more deadly and more resourceful than they have been since their ouster in 2001.
Even Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the war was a draw. And Biden says we have reached the limit of our commitment.
Thus, what we are looking at is endless bleeding, now running at 60 dead U.S. soldiers a month, with no American military or political leader willing to say when the bleeding will stop or the war will end.
And the home front is visibly eroding. A majority of Americans now believe the war is unwinnable or not worth the cost, and a growing minority in Congress wants out. Some NATO allies are departing. Others are setting deadlines for withdrawal.
As for the Afghans we leave behind, who committed themselves to America’s war, they will, when we depart, suffer the fate of the “harkis” in Algeria, the South Vietnamese army and boat people, and the Cambodians we left behind to the tender mercies of the Khmer Rouge.
Have the politicians, journalists and think-tank geniuses who dreamed up these wars suffered ignominy and disgrace?
Not at all. They are debating and devising a new war — with Iran.
Where are all the snappy wardrums to beat my cartoon to death?
The artist did misspell "yachts".
Try changing the subject to Iran. Reality seems to (have) bled through all the happy talk and wishful thinking on this one.
Last edited by Winehole23; 07-31-2010 at 06:18 AM. Reason: incomplete verb form
damn i hope so...
WH...
Cogent, articulate, well-reasoned arguments.
Just about says it all, as far as I'm concerned.
Well done, sir!
And authored by Buchanan. Who knew?
PJB's historical narrative is often cogent and persuasive but his nativist bias almost always shows through.
(Perhaps it's meant to.)
The fruit of Kissingerian realpolitik. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.and the Cambodians we left behind to the tender mercies of the Khmer Rouge.
2001-2006 forums.
Yes, I believe that his nativist bias is, in fact, intentional. My problem with him generally is that nativism is not his ONLY bias.
His fantastical and overreaching polemic on the The Unnecessary War, by which he appeared to intend to rewrite the history of the causes of World War II was unconscionable, IMHO.
Therein lies the problem with Buchanan. Just when you start to agree and wonder why his popularity is limited he does something like claim that WWII was an unnecessary war and make Churchill out to be a warmongering villain, with the implicit exoneration of Hitler and the minimalization of the Holocaust.
Yeah, that pretty much says it.
It has to do with his intended audience, I think.
PJB at first blush is not an unreconstructed bigot, but his rump of support is largely unreconstructed white bigots, whom he seldom disappoints, even if the message must be somewhat "implicit" at times.
Last edited by Winehole23; 08-01-2010 at 03:31 AM.
PJB's coded (formerly more straightforward, I seem to recall) distaste for Jews is a particular sore point with me.
Sure.
I'm not sure I ever bought this, but then again I only read the reviews. How does pointing out that the way WWII started might have been a strategic blunder minimize Hitler's crimes?
Agreed, as mentioned above. Or were you referring to something else?
Unconscionable perhaps, but doesn't intellectual freedom still include the freedom to be wrong?
In Europe, it doesn't. Leastwise not about the Holocaust. That's one of the big remaining differences between us and them.
We're still free to be jackassedly wrong. They aren't, anymore.
Of course it does. It includes the freedom to be unconscionably wrong.
He exercizes that freedom with such regularity that a clear and well-reasoned argument like the one in the article which you posted is a surprise.
Doesn't mean that the article is bad, the arguments are not reasonable, or anything else, WH. I have said all that in my earlier posts. I was trying to explain why I was surprised to hear sanity and reason from a guy who would also take the position he does on WWII, Churchill, Hitler, etc. etc. etc.
I have heard several Irish patriots take the same position that Buchanan takes regarding Hitler and WWII, mostly because of their acceptance of the proposition that "my enemy's enemy is my friend", and since England was Ireland's enemy, they contort reason to find something to support in Hitler and the causes of WWII.
Fair enough.
What are those positions, in your view?
That's a brand new angle on me but sure, why not?
While I will not engage in a "prove something in a certain way or I reject your conclusion" argument, I will tell you what positions he takes that are unsupported by the facts that he chooses to interpret in ways that are
not reasonable according to academic research on the period.
Fact: Churchill answered a question from Rooosevelt about 'what should this war be called' with the answer:"It should be called 'The Unnecessary War'.
Churchill's response reflected his belief that, had Britain and France dealt more firmly with Hitler when he was repeatedly making and then breaking treaties regarding non-aggression toward his European neighbors that perhaps Hitler would have actually believed them when they told him that they would honor their treaty with Poland. Churchill believed that Hitler understood power, and that had England and/or France re-armed when Hitler did, or even moved against Hitler militarily before Poland, the war would not have gotten to the point it did. For more info. see Churchill's The Gathering Storm.
In no way does the above mean that Buchanan and Churchill thought the war was unnecessay for the same reasons, or that, had England and France allowed Hitler to subjugate Poland without declaring war, that Hitler would have stopped there, as Buchanan strongly implies.
Last edited by EVAY; 08-01-2010 at 07:48 PM.
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