Posted by
Daemonocracy on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 12:00:00 AM
It is Tuesday, October 27th of 2009 and 22 soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in the past three days. The past two days we lost them to Helicopter crashes and today we lose them to the all too familiar IED. This has been the deadliest month since the beginning of the War and things do not look to be getting better. Back in March 2009 when President Obama named General McChrystal as his man in Afghanistan it seemed as if he was taking the "good war" seriously and was ready to move decisively. It is now almost November, McChrystal by his own admission has talked to the Commander in Chief only twice and sits in the dark waiting for a response to his request for 40,000 more troops to help execute the plan he and Obama supposedly agreed on back in all those months ago. NATO has even signed on and demands a response from Obama. The Taliban advances, the citizens of Afghanistan grow wary of our commitment and our allies fighting alongside us see no reason to put their troops in harms way if we don't seem to have our heart fully in winning this war. Cheney could not have come up with a better word to describe Obama's actions with "dithering".
One man who I have not heard from recently on this issue is John McCain. I respect McCain and though he has frustrated me on a variety of issues from Amnesty to Campaign Finance, he always had my support for President in the last election because of his unabashed support for the Iraq Surge which saved us from suffering a lost war. He had the foresight and the political guts to go all in for what he believed, correctly, was the right course of action. He made his decision quickly and firmly when others were dithering about suggesting the war was not winnable and too far gone. Obama to this day refuses to acknowledge the success of the surge and John Kerry, who recently gave a speech criticizing General McChrystal, is in the same state of denial. The problem is Obama seems to be listening to fools like Kerry and Joe Biden instead of men with a proven track record like John McCain.
Sean Hannity just interviewed John McCain on his show tonight with the main topic of the conversation being healthcare (Obama would rather have us talk about Healthcare I suppose to take both our and his mind off of Afghanistan but I digress). For the whole interview I grew anxious, ready to scream at Hannity for wasting yet another segment about healthcare which he beats to death every night and not once bringing up what has become a quagmire in Afghanistan. Hannity never did bring the issue up but McCain took it upon himself to do so. At the end of the interview Mccain said:
"
Sean, could I mention one other issue? Fourteen people, young Americans died, 8 more today it's time to make a decision and send those troops there and the longer we delay the more they're in harms way and in danger and the time is up, it's time to act and accept and implement General McChrystal's strategy and it's going to take time to do it."
The voice of reason speaks and this is the only voice, aside from the Generals on the ground who Obama should be listening to. Obama attacked Bush for taking his eye off Afghanistan which he claimed to be the real central front in the War on Terror. General Petraeus, General McChrystal and Senator McCain are being ignored it seems in favor of Joe Biden and John Kerry. These men have no credibility on foreign policy and should never be taken seriously. Joe Biden voted against the first Gulf war, for the Iraq War and against the successful Iraq Surge. He also advocated a partitioning of Iraq believing they could never make strides to becoming a united country. He was hopelessly wrong on all four of these vital issues. Then you have John Kerry who aligned himself with extremist anti-war protesters in Vietnam, voted against the original Gulf War, voted for the Iraq War, voted before the 87 billion before he voted against it and then opposed the Iraq Surge. This guy has even less credibility than Biden, if that is even possible.
Kerry insists we need a political solution in Afghanistan and a working Afghan military who can fight alongside us before we send in the amount of troops McChrystal asked for. Apparently Kerry has learned nothing from the Iraq war. We can't get to a political solution without securing the land first. We can't get Afghan troops to trust us and fight alongside us unless we let them know we are committed to the effort. Secuirty first, political reconciliation second. This has already been proven and while Obama wastes his time with these ideologues who reside in Bizarro world our troops are dying because they are undermanned, lack leadership at the top and are constricted by highly politically correct Rules of Engagement which can not possibly be carried out with unless reinforcements are sent over A.S.A.P. If Obama wants to impose strict ROE on our troops which one arm behind their backs, he needs to send some more arms to help out. These guys are dying over there, either fight to win or get the hell out. We need to hear more from John McCain on this issue, he certainly has the credibility. I would like to see him have his own sit down with McChrystal, force Obama to make a decision one way or the other because as McCain said, the time is up.