The GOP Candidates Are Confused on Afghanistan

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/164577/gop-candidates-are-confused-afghanistan

Robert Dreyfuss on November 14, 2011 - 9:52am ET

You probably didn’t have the patience to sit through the Republican candidates’ debate on Saturday on foreign policy and national security, but if you are a glutton for punishment you can read the transcript. It’s full of the usual, know-nothing comments by the odd collection of GOPers seeking the nomination, including bluster on Iran (covert operations! regime change! bomb ‘em!) and support for torture, including waterboarding, by various candidates, including floundering Rick Perry, who said, “I will be for it until I die.”

But on Afghanistan, the Republican tone continues to be less and less bellicose.

Except for Perry, who has apparently decided that the only way he can rescue his campaign is with huge quantities of red meat for the hungry faithful, and who was one of the few on stage at the CBS-sponsored debate to demand victory. “The mission must be completed there,” he said. “The idea that we will have wasted our treasure and the lives of young Americans to not secure Afghanistan is not appropriate. {And} the idea that we would give a timetable to our enemy is irresponsible from a military standpoint, it’s irresponsible from the lives of our young men and women. And it is irresponsible leadership of this president to give a timetable to pull out of any country that we’re in conflict with. I think we’re makin’ progress there.… I think that our military is doin’ the best job that they can—considering—the lack of support that they’re getting from this administration—telegraphing to the enemy when we’re gonna pull out.”

Perry had few co-thinkers, if you can call what he said thinking. Or thinkin’.

Like Perry, Mitt Romney tried to slam Obama for his decision to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces, but in the end Romney simply quibbled over a few months.

[Philosopher King]

1. Of course they are. Unfortunately, so is everyone else.

However, one guy shouldn't be--he figured it out in 1987.

And while observing the Soviet difficulties in Afghanistan with a certain sense of vindication, the US military are at the same time reminded of the difficulties of defeating a determined guerrilla opponent who enjoys sanctuaries and is fighting in rugged terrain. After all, if a country with relatively few public opinion concerns or moral compunctions about its tactics cannot beat a bunch of ill-equipped Afghan tribesmen, what does that say about the ability of the United States--with its domestic constraints, statutory limitations, moral inhibition, and zealous investigative reporters to carry out a successful action against a guerrilla force?

From David Petraeus? Princeton Ph.D. dissertation.

[yellowcanine]

2. Just on Afghanistan?