Captain Ed, Ed Morrissey in his old days, has this little post on the debate last night. It seems Attorney General Martha Coakley claimed that there were no more terrorists in Afghanistan and that we should leave. Maybe she didn't say it. Watching her say it would be too painful for me to endure, so I leave it up to the readers to check it out.
If we go with Attorney General Coakley's suggestion, and pull out of Afghanistan, what do we do about Pakistan?&bnsp; What about Yemen? What about Greg Page, whose whole next year is devoted to getting ready to go to Afghanistan?
I could make an argument for pulling out—we need to save the billions of dollars it is costing us. We need to put that money to better use. We need to reconstitute our US Army. We need to reequip our Marine Corps and Air Force (and Navy). We need to secure our borders. However, that is not the case she was laying out.
The question is, do we want to replace the TSW with someone who will follow Harry Reid off the edge of the cliff or someone who might help chart a new path for recovering our economy and fixing a broken health care system.
Regards — Cliff
The Ford comparison seems apt. I just went to the link and read the quote -- seems like it also misses the "big idea" that the big problem is what we'll reap if we just let Afghanistan become a failed state.
ReplyDeleteAs we've both mentioned before, there are plenty of policy options that allow for assistance with governance and "nation-building" that don't just mean leaving a massive occupying army with an open-ended, undefined commitment. There is Colombia. There is the Philippines.
Either way, now is the time for bold thinking and for nuance -- not for abandoning allies and letting history repeat itself.