Rather: "No one should kid themselves. This is not going to make a major difference in Afghanistan"

[highplainsdem]

So, you want to keep in mind that this realignment is part of what requires in the military‘s view, the additional troops. Whether it turns out to be 20,000 additional troops, 35,000, whatever, no one should kid themselves. This is not going to make a major difference in Afghanistan, except perhaps in the very short term to buy a little bit of time.

The quote above is part of what Dan Rather told Rachel Maddow on her show Monday night. Transcipt here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34224471/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show

I don't know if he's said anything substantially different since Obama's speech last night.

As I mentioned in another topic here the other day, I wish Obama were listening to Rather instead of his generals, just as I wish LBJ had listened to Cronkite.

More from what Rather had to say the other night:

Rachel, there‘s nothing more important than understanding in
Afghanistan that however you describe our mission, however you describe the
ultimate goal, the principle obstacles to it are—in no particular order-corruption, cronyism, mismanagement in terms of the government—we‘re talking about the government in Kabul specifically but also down in the tribal warlord area. Plus, the tremendous production of opium....
and the resistance of the majority of mullahs in the country to what they say in the privacy of the mosque—the foreigners, the infidels being there.

Those are tremendous obstacles. I don‘t say they can‘t be overcome, but I do say we have to understand that it‘s going to take a lot and take a long time, and the question for the American people and the question for the president is: do we want to do this? Do we really want to do it? And can we do it?

There is an undercurrent in the military which says, “We‘re going to
do what the president orders. We‘re doing our best.” And one can‘t say enough about their valor, about their effectiveness, about their
dedication. There‘s an undercurrent saying, is it be considered that we may be spending ourselves into oblivion by staying here as long as we‘ve stayed here? This is not to be negative for the sake of being negative, it‘s just to lay out when you‘re on the ground, particularly, the forward positions, these are the things you hear people talking about as kind of an undercurrent. And this is the reality of Afghanistan.

Sorry that the transcript isn't clearer, and I don't have time to review the video to try to correct it.

But what is clear from the transcript, and from what I remember of Rather saying the other night, is that there are people in the military (in the forward positions he mentioned) who think we "may be spending ourselves into oblivion" by staying in Afghanistan.

Can you say "quagmire"?

I'm old enough to remember Vietnam all too well, both the antiwar protests I participated in, and the pain of having friends injured and killed there. My brother and uncle served there. We became mired more deeply in the Vietnam quagmire thanks to a Democratic presidenct I supported otherwise for many of his decisions and policies.

In the 1980s, I knew people involved in directly encouraging Afghan resistance to the Soviets, not so much to help Afghanistan as to mire the Soviets in a war that would contibute to them spending themselves into oblivion.

Based on those experiences, I can't support President Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.

And it does NOT matter that I voted for him and he said, as far back as 2007, that he'd send more troops to Afghanistan.

We had a much stronger economy for supporting foreign adventures (and misadventures) in 2007. And it wasn't as obvious then that we were propping up a corrupt government in Afghanistan.

Yes, we have a "plan for withdrawal" in Afghanistan. But if war plans in Afghanistan tended to work out, we would never have been there at all. Other countries who thought they could win would have settled this long ago.

I'm praying we'll survive this mistake.

But as a Democrat, I don't have to support this mistake in Afghanistan, any more than I supported LBJ's mistakes in Vietnam.

[tularetom]

1. No matter what a CF it is Afghanistan will never be another Vietnam

until and unless a draft is implemented and wealthy and middle class kids get drafted.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. FUBAR added to FUBAR.

[reggie the dog]

3. in the words of Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Justice

"well nooooooo shit!"

[niyad]

4. k and r--like you, I wish obama were listening to sanity instead of generals--especially the

one responsible for the tillman coverup--WHY wasn't that asshole booted out for that? or at least retired.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I voted for him too, despite his stance on Afghanistan and, for that matter,

his already screwed-up seeming health care plan. What we're getting in both cases isn't far from where he entered the water.

But fer Chrissakes, what were we gonna do, vote for McNutso and Bailin'?