Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Prez Blows It


When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.


-- Kipling
The Young British Soldier (1897)
And nothing much has changed since then.

The British tried it in the 19th Century, and the Russkies in the 20th.   Both with substantially greater investment of men and money than the President proposes now.

If we could win this thing and eradicate Al-Qaeda with 30,000 troops in 18 months in Afghanistan, then OK.

But it seems unlikely we can fully defeat the Taliban under the proposed circumstances.   Even if we did, Al-Qaeda still exists in numerous other countries, not all of them ending in "-istan."

So every U.S. soldier who dies over there in the next 18 months will die for nothing.   For an abstract ideal, yes.   But for an attainable result supporting the national security interests of the United States, no.

It's time to get out, but the President blew it.

3 comments:

Rottenchester said...

Yeah, he sure did. But he wasn't the first President who did so.

Philbrick said...

Who said he was? It's just that he's the one stuck with having to make this decision now, and he got it wrong.

Anonymous said...

Where are the cries of Obama being a warmonger from the left? I guess when it's their guy, war is acceptable. Every single person who openly protested war should be screaming just as loud now... but they're not. Why? Because they're liberal hypocrites.