The money quote in the New York Times’ story on Joe Biden’s view on Afghanistan:
Beyond Mr. Biden’s strategic concerns, some who participated in administration deliberations earlier this year said he was keenly aware that the country, and particularly his party’s liberal base, was growing tired of the war and might not accept many more years of extensive American commitment.
“I think a big part of it is, the vice president’s reading of the Democratic Party is this is not sustainable,” said Bruce O. Riedel, who led the administration’s review [of Afghanistan] early this year. “That’s a part of the process that’s a legitimate question for a president — if I do this, can I sustain it with political support at home? That was the argument the vice president was making back in the winter.”
For any Democrat who ever wants to claim that Bush or Cheney “politicized the war,” remember this and shut the hell up.
Biden is saying, “If we send more troops to augment our force, we won’t get the votes we want. And our votes are a lot more important than our troops, aren’t they?”
Biden, apparently Obama’s new new “expert” on Afghanistan, is described in the New York Times as being “deeply pessimistic” about the war. I’m reminded of when Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proclaimed defeat in Iraq. Cut and run cowards will ever be cut and run cowards.
I’m also reminded of Democrat House Majority Whip Representative James Clyburn saying that good news in Iraq amounted to a problem for Democrats. It was a “problem” only because the Democrats were more interested in their demagoguery and political games than they were in our soldiers’ lives or the victory they were trying to win for the country.
Joe Biden is an “expert” in foreign policy the way I am an “expert” in neurosurgery: no one in their right mind would ever want me doing it. The Times story continues:
But Mr. Riedel said the public could be persuaded to stick by the war with a well-articulated argument by the president. And others, more harshly, argue that Mr. Biden’s judgment on foreign policy has often been off base.
They point out that he voted against the successful Persian Gulf war of 1991, voted for the Iraq invasion of 2003, proposed dividing Iraq into three sections in 2006 and opposed the additional troops credited by many with turning Iraq around in 2007.
“When was the last time Biden was right about anything?” Thomas E. Ricks, a military writer, wrote in a blog on Sept. 24. Mr. Ricks is affiliated with the Center for a New American Security, a research organization founded by Democrats.
Stacked up against Biden are people who actually have some kind of basic clue about military reality — men like General David Petraeus, General Stan McChrystal (the nation’s foremost special operations expert who would know better than anyone if the counter-terrorism strategy favored by Biden would work), and General Dan McNeil (who has served as commander in Afghanistan in multiple capacities).
Charles Krauthammer a) slams Biden’s incompetence to make such decisions in juxtaposition to the incredible competence of the generals who profoundly disagree with Biden; and b) slams the incredibly cynical Obama strategy to create a new “expert” to justify his undermining of his generals and his troops:
KRAUTHAMMER: I think it’s hard to believe this sudden media inflation of the wisdom of Joe Biden is accidental. It’s clear that there is a debate inside the White House.
You got McChrystal, a man of incredible authority and stature, who says you got to go this way with a heavy troop involvement, and you’ve got Petraeus, the man who saved Iraq, saying the same, saying otherwise we’re going to lose.
And the administration obviously is resisting, and it has to have a champion of the other side, and it’s the hapless vice president. So some way you have to inflate his status and to make it at least somebody that will be a credible alternative.
I’m not sure that the Biden plan is a plan. It’s an idea, and the administration obviously in its leaks is tending towards the Biden idea. But it needs to have some stature on that side, and that’s why I’m little bit skeptical about the discovery of the vast storage of military wisdom in a guy, if you remember, opposed the Gulf War and opposed the surge and supported the Iraq war, which he now says was one of the great mistakes of American history — 0 for three.
Obama will lose more than twice as many American soldiers this year than George Bush lost last year. And his strategy seems to be to blame George Bush rather than honor his own repeatedly publicly stated commitment to the security of Afghanistan.
Even liberals are now publicly calling Obama the “whiner-in-chief.” The Washington Post is asking, “Does Obama have the backbone?” and pointing out that:
This is the president we now have: He inspires lots of affection but not a lot of awe.
The sorry fact of the matter is that terrorists don’t have a lot of respect for affection, but only for the awe that Obama is woefully lacking.
They are resurgent, because they believe they have a weakling in the White House that they can intimidate and defeat.
And I fear that they are right.
I am actually updating this before I even publish it, but the loathsome extent of Democrats’ playing with the war like a toy to benefit themselves is further revealed in a Washington Times article entitled, “U.S. troop funds diverted to pet projects“:
Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an analysis.
Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.
While earmarks are hardly new in Washington, “in 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year,” said Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and oversight for both Republicans and Democrats. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, an independent research organization.
What can you even say to such treasonous betrayal of our troops?
Start Thinking Right 