I know most people in the United States simply can not grasp that simple fact. The ideology describing opposition to “foreign Wars” is Libertarianism and Liberalism. Conservatism puts the survival of the nation first recognizing if we lose the war after being attacked nothing else matters.
The Libertarians may be able to take over the GOP and call themselves conservatives but they will be Republicans not conservatives like much of the GOP today. I could care less as I'm not a Republican, I'm a Conservative.
But if this nation is to survive and eventually win this war it will be on the backs of clear eyed Conservatives who see the world as it is and not how they wish it to be...
OK, so can you explain to me why we’re still in Afghanistan?
I'm pretty sure the Founders would look at our decade long wars overseas as the ill-conceived adventures they are.
There was a time when your reasoning made sense. People rallied year after year behind this fight-em-there-not-here banner. Those days are over. It's time to admit that we've been sold out. Bush seemed to mean well, but he failed. Obama never cared in the first place. 10 years and trillions of dollars and all we have to show for it is a soon to be nuclear Iran, Islamist governments spreading across the region and America withdrawing. Politically speaking, once we pull out of Afghanistan in 2014, within a year no sign will remain that we were ever there.
The average American has zero interest in anything more than kinder, gentler wars with ironclad ROEs. Glorified terrorist-hunting safaris, not wars. Our current model of warfare absolutely cannot stop Islamic militancy or Islamist political ascendancy. We can't change that fact, because the American people don't want real war. All we can do in this political climate is throw money and lives away in the name of 'doing something'.
Even that will soon prove to be politically unpalatable. Republican support for these pretend wars helped destroy the party and hand Obama both terms. So long as the GOP appears eager for more Iraqs and Afghanistans, it will remain out of power.
That's the hard truth. It's time to get clear eyed about it.