In today’s Daily News, we have the charming warmonger, Charles Krauthammer, explaining to us why he loves war.
“From the beginning, the call to arms was highly uncertain. On Dec. 1, 2009, commander in chief Barack Obama orders 30,000 more Americans into battle in Afghanistan. But in the very next sentence, he announces that an American withdrawal will begin after 18 months.
Astonishing.”
Yes, it is astonishing that after 9 years of death, destruction and no possibility of victory you and the rest of those people who have never and will never fight are so angered by a war coming to an end.
“A surge of troops - overall, President Obama has tripled our Afghan force - with a declaration not of war but of ambivalence."
I’m not entirely sure that Krathammer, Evil Genius, knows what “ambivalence” means. According the dictionary, ambivalence means: uncertainty or fluctuation, esp. when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things.
The President made a choice: Raise troop levels then, after a year and a half, start the removal process. After 18 months the war will be well into it's 10th year. Chuck loves war so much he just wants it to keep going… forever!
“What kind of commander in chief sends tens of thousands of troops to war announcing in advance a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal?"
What kind of commander in chief sends thousands of troops to war without a clear plan? What kind of commander in chief sends thousands of troops to war based on fabricated evidence?
"One who doesn't have his heart in it.”
Oh, right, forget thinking, what does your heart say. (It says I miss you and I want to bomb you to kingdom come.) I’m going to go ahead and disagree with you on that. The kind of commander that sends troops to war in advance of a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal is the kind of commander who cares about his troops. He is giving relief to the troops already in country and is living up to his campaign promise of ending the war.
But, for someone who has made a living on being some kind of war-loving, neocon-intellectual, Krauthammer sure cares about where Obama’s heart is. That’s one thing you have to tip your hat to these neocons for: the use of intellect while simultaneously decrying it.
“Until now, the above was just inference from the President's public rhetoric. No longer. Now we have the private quotes. Bob Woodward's book, drawing on classified memos and interviews with scores of national security officials, has Obama telling his advisers: ‘I want an exit strategy.’”
Wow, can you believe it? Obama, just like most of this country as well as the world, wants to end a war. What a Nazi.
“Now, after acceding to power and being given charge of that very war, Obama confides that he must retreat lest that very same party abandon him.”
Hate to break it to you, Chuck, but Obama didn’t “accede into power”, he was elected. And Obama isn’t retreating to save face with the Democratic Party, he’s living up to the mandate that the he promised if he was elected. It’s called a democracy.
“What happened in the interim? Did it suddenly develop a faint heart? Or was the party disingenuous about the Afghan War all along, using it as a convenient club with which to attack George W. Bush over Iraq, while protecting Democrats from the charge of being reflexively anti-war?”
Nothing happened in the interim, Charles. Have you been paying attention? He said he would end the war so he is going to end the war. You know, what that means right? GASP! Obama is keeping a promise to the American people! Muslim!
I also have to give him props for the flippant use of George W. Bush and Iraq; as if lying us into war is, like, no big deal and now it just,like, soooo passé.
“Whatever the reason, is it not Obama's job as President and party leader to bring the party with him? This is the man who made Berlin coo, America swoon and the Nobel committee lose its mind. Yet he cannot get his own party to follow him on what he insists is a matter of vital national interest?”
See, this is why the Daily News sucks. They actually printed this which is more or less 700 words bashing Obama for keeping his promise of ending the war to the American people. No, instead it’s: Obama has no heart to indefinitely send troops to Afghanistan so I can feel like I America still means something!
“’He was looking for choices that would limit U.S. involvement and provide a way out,’ writes Woodward. One can only conclude that Obama now thinks Afghanistan is a mistake. Maybe he thought so from the very beginning.”
Nine years, countless Americans and Afghans dead and no possibility of victory; besides loving this war simply because it’s war, what is it if it wasn’t a mistake?
“More charitably and more likely, he is simply a foreign policy novice who didn't understand what this war was about until being given the authority and duty to conduct it - and then decided it was all a mistake.”
Ohhh! Conjecture! My favorite!
“Sen. Kerry, now chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, once asked many years ago: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Perhaps Kerry should ask that of Obama.”
Right, because it was Obama who put those troops there in the first place with no clear plan.
"’He is out of Afghanistan psychologically,’ says Woodward of Obama. Well, he may be out, but the soldiers he ordered to Afghanistan are in.
Some will not come home.”
So now we’ve come to the end and we’ve had a bit of Krauthammer’s conjecture so why don’t we put a dollop of Woodward’s conjecture on top. But, as Krauthammer once said: “Post-Watergate morality, by which anything left private is taken as presumptive evidence of wrongdoing”
Sadly, this entire piece is about how, if it were up to Krauthammer, none would come home .
