Next Up On The Liberal Agenda After Surrendering In Iraq: Surrendering In Afghanistan

by John Hawkins | February 13, 2008 7:45 am

If Obama or Hillary is elected and does exactly what he/she promises to do, deliberately lose the war in Iraq because they believe it will be politically popular, don’t be surprised when he/she starts planning to lose the war in Afghanistan, too. But wait, you’re probably thinking: isn’t that the “good” war? Aren’t we fighting Al-Qaeda there (Aren’t we fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq?)? Aren’t our NATO allies helping us out?

It just doesn’t matter to the Left. If they get their way in Iraq, look for arguments like this one from Eric Margolis[1] to become the conventional wisdom with liberals,

At this week’s NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, an angry U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates accused some Europeans of not being prepared to “fight and die” in Afghanistan in the battle against the Taliban.

The undiplomatic Gates is quite right. Most Europeans regard the Afghan conflict as a. wrong and immoral; b. America’s war; c. all about oil; or d. probably lost.

To many Europeans, the NATO alliance was created to deter the real threat of Soviet aggression, not to supply foot soldiers for George Bush’s wars in the Muslim world.

While Gates and the Harper government were pleading for more troops, the commander of the 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, landed a bombshell. If proper U.S. military counter-insurgency doctrine were followed, McNeill admitted, the U.S. and NATO would need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan.

When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, they deployed 160,000 troops and about 200,000 Afghan Communist troops — yet failed to crush the mostly Pashtun resistance. Now, the U.S. and NATO are trying the same mission with only 66,000 troops, backed by local mercenaries grandly styled the Afghan National Army.

Canada’s calls for 1,000 more NATO troops, and the U.S. decision to send 3,200 marines, will not alter the course of this war, which is turning increasingly against the western occupiers. In fact, the war is spreading into neighbouring Pakistan, a nation of 165 million, stretching U.S. and NATO forces ever thinner.

…By pushing NATO towards a bridge too far, the Bush administration may end up fatally undermining the alliance and encouraging anti-American forces in Europe.

In fact, it’s becoming evident that the cash-strapped U.S. needs the EU more than the EU needs the U.S.

…Final point. If impassioned claims by U.S. and Canadian politicians that the little Afghanistan war must by won at all costs, then why don’t they stop orating, impose conscription, and send 400,000 soldiers, including their own sons, to fight in Afghanistan?

Of course they won’t. They prefer to waste their own soldiers, and grind up Afghanistan, rather than admit this war against 40 million Pashtun tribesmen was a terrible mistake that will only get worse.

See? It’s an unwinnable quagmire and besides, why would Europe even want to ally with the US to occupy Afghanistan in an “immoral and wrong” war for oil? Why, the US better wake up to the fact that we need the military help of Europe more than they need our military help, even though we have the best military that has ever existed and all of Europe combined with the exception of Britain probably couldn’t fend off a few hundred angry Girl Scouts. Yep, either we have to draft hundreds of thousands of Americans or declare defeat and call the whole thing off.

Today, some liberal doofus on the Smirking Chimp[2] website is making these arguments, but in a couple of years, it’ll be people like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Murtha, or Russ Feingold saying many of these same things if the Democrats get in the White House. Blaming America first, undercutting our national security, and making things easier on our enemies is just what they do…

Endnotes:
  1. Eric Margolis: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12744
  2. Smirking Chimp: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/

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