Posted on 08/31/2009 2:17:28 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
George F. Will, the elite conservative commentator, will call in his next column for U.S. ground troops to leave Afghanistan, according to publishing sources.
“[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters,” Will writes in the column, scheduled for publication later this week.
Obama ordered a total of 21,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan in February and March, and casualties have mounted as the forces began confronting the Taliban more aggressively. August saw the highest monthly death toll for the U.S. since the invasion in 2001, the second record month in a row.
Will’s prescription – in which he urges Obama to remember Bismarck’s decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870 - seems certain to split Republicans. He is a favorite of fiscal conservatives. The more hawkish right can be expected to attack his conclusion as foolhardy, short-sighted and naïve, allowing, potentially making the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attack.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Both parties are divided on Afghanistan. Just read comments from the Ron Paul idiots and you’ll find that to be true.
As for myself I will simply say there is no historical evidence that a war can be effectively fought without occupying ground troops. If we abandon Afghanistan the eventual fall of Pakistan to an Iranian or Taliban style regime is guaranteed.
Sorry, but a draft-dodger, amnesty lover who has written the same column with different words for 20 years now, has no say about defense issues.
Maybe his followung column will tell the families of all those who suffered and died in defense of freedom that it was all a waste.
Will long ago became part of the Washington establishment where being accepted into the colony is more important than expressing the truth.
Along with the Paki nukes. You want that, Will??
I want our troops to succeed in Afghanistan, regardless of whether that helps Obama politically. What do Freepers (especially with a military background) think is a reasonable goal in Afghanistan, and how we can we achieve it? Is the ugly reality is that we should cut our losses and leave? I don’t know.
STFU General Bowtie. Sheesh.
If you insist on looking at it in purely political terms, this is Obama’s war. It’s good to make him try to defend it to his party peace-nicks. It’ll be fun.
Will has some substantive things to add with respect to domestic policy. But, he's never missed an opportunity to make an idiot of himself on foreign relation. How many times did he oppose Reagan - including the now historically prescient "Tear down this wall" speech - only to be proven categorically wrong as events unfolded? Perhaps he's hoping the law of averages will catch up to him, eventually.
I’m also conflicted by Afghanistan. This isn’t Iraq where we had a somewhat modern population to deal with. We’re dealing with cavemen with ak-47’s.
since when is Will ‘a favorite of conservatives”??
he has no guts. he loves the DC social circuit and to be on Stephie’s show!
our objective in afghanistan needs to be to make sure any terrorists that may plot against us, get killed. I don’t think our objective should be to make a functioning democracy in afghanistan, as the country is so backwards it is an impossible dream and will cost too many lives..
we should keep to our bases and bomb the hell out of any potential terrorists..
Obama seems to be expanding the objective to much more than that.
But something strange happened and the Rats actually won. Thus they had to govern under the rhetoric upon which they campaigned. That rhetoric as we all know (except the MSM) was disingenuous to cover up for the fact the left wing has taken control of the party and is weak on defense.
If the Rats pull out of the "right war, right time" that they created, they will forever loose the National Defense debate.
I will give you that we shouldn't play politics with defense like the Rats, but Will's offshore strategy may actually work.
I, too am conflicted...short of taking over the whole country, leaving our military there for at least a generation in very strong numbers, redoing their whole agricultural/economic system and starting from ground up to build a ‘democratic “ nation....I don’t see how we come out of this.
Bin Laden was a Saudi..who cleverly in a masterful stroke...struck from within Afghanistan and the Afghan/Paki border region...and like a flame drew us “the moth” to him in the worst trap ever...the other image that comes to mind is the Venus Flytrap!
only solution - convert Afghans, Paks, Persians
to Christianity...
Interesting view!
‘general’ george will....a real military genius /s
Here's the problem - Where did the peace-nicks go? There are no longer any Code Pink demonstrations - not on the wars anyways. There's no massive displays of mock graveyards with white crosses, as were all the rage during Bush's tenure. There's no concerted or vigorous effort by any leftist group to oppose either war. And, when's the last time you heard an Afghanistan or Iraq question at a televised presidential news conference? I don't believe that there's been any "war on terror" questions in any of the prime-time news conferences.
I'm afraid that this controversy - to the extent that their is one - is aimed squarely at splintering the Republicans, again.
It’s a good thing Will hasn’t been elected to anything.
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