Conservative columnist George Will (in photo) predicted Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that in six months, the world will be talking far more about Afghanistan than Iraq. And not in a good way. Will noted that the violence in Afghanistan was much worse in 2005 than in 2004, and that it’s on a pace to be still worse in 2006 than in 2005. “There we have very few forces in an extremely large country with an undefeated Taliban,” Will said.
And if Afghanistan spirals out of control, said Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria on the same show, “that presents Bush with an absolutely unsolvable problem, because then the argument becomes very powerful that he underresourced Afghanistan to go into Iraq, making us vulnerable. Because at the end of the day, the guys in Afghanistan are the ones who did 9/11 and who are trying to kill us.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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18 Comments
“Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war; this war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring.”
Can’t be a War President if there isn’t any war…
Well I do declare Miz Scarlett…
Maybe we’ll get a ‘real’ war before election time.Ever since the movie “Wag the Dog” I’ve been very very sceptical about these war stories.(Do I need to wear my tin foil hat now?)
Read “Charlie Wilson’s War” to see how we helped kick the Ruskies our of Afghanistan. Same thing can be done to us. I don’t know which was the biggest blunder – Iraq or Afghanistan. A toss-up, I’d say. Equally stupid.
Julie,
My 4-year-old granddaughter’s name is Scarlett. Guess what her mom’s favorite book and movie is?
I’m heading off to the store to get some pretty rose-colored tin foil. I’ll pick some up for you, too. What’s your color du jour?
My fear is that the “real” war could be another revolution. I’m just not sure yet who’s going to be revolting.
Frankly, my dear (oops, did it again), I’m pretty sick of both parties right now. No, make that all parties.
I want brown in honor of all the poopyheads out there.
We’ll form our own party and eat cake. That’s the best party – any that has ice cream or cake (preferably both).
Terrific! The CIP (Cake and Ice Cream Party)
I can’t resist. My best friend sent me this, and it’s definitely appropriate.
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What is Politics?”
Dad says, “Well son, let me try to explain it this way:I am the head of the family, so call me The President.Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government.We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People.The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class.And your baby brother, we will call him the Future.Now think about that and see if it makes sense.”
So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.
Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him.He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper.
So the little boy goes to his parent’s room and finds his mother asleep.
Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny.
He gives up and goes back to bed
The next morning, the little boy say’s to his father, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now. ”
The father says, “Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.”
The little boy replies, “The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit.”
Afghanistan was the right place to be, for the right reasons. But rather than focusing on chasing down Al Qaida and their facilitators in Afghanistan, the administration pursued a foolish war in Iraq.
Dumb.
Now, because we lost our focus, Afghanistan’s a mess again, or at least headed that way. Another reason to get our forces out of Iraq, as quickly as reasonably possible, so we can respond to other threats as they arise (like a renewed Taliban in Afganistan).
Afghanistan was a just cause. Even if bush was just using bin Laden as an excuse to go there the Taliban was a vile government.
Consider the order of magnitude of problem that bush has created here.
A destablilized failing government in both Iraq and Afghanistan, removal of sanctions against nuclear capable Pakistan for the pupose of getting bin Laden (who is probably hiding IN Pakistan) Furthering the nuclear capability of India, Pakistans mortal enemy.
Stir it all up and you got a pretty good shot at a general mideast/sub asia thermonuclear war. Oh but that won’t be bush’s problem. He will by then be hiding out at his tumledown ranch.
Sounds like the Shrub and his little entourage of morons have them BOTH screwed up.
“I’m just not sure yet who’s going to be revolting.”
That would be Bush, wouldn’t it?
The shrubster totally blew it. Afghan had its promise, but Bush, the ever ready war bird, couldn’t stay long enough to finish the job. Talk about not looking at history, but maybe he can’t read to well.
So now we got ridiculous situations in two countries, and too few troops to finish the job . . . hmmm . . . draft, anyone?
Of course the answer to the problem is let Iraq blow itself up as they have been doing for 2000 years, and go into Afghanistan and finish the job there. I don’t plan on holding my breath.
Throughout history, Afghanistan has been a graveyard for invading armies. Will history repeat itself?
Figuring our troop presence in Afghanistan was never that high, I fail to see the proof for taking away resources from Afghanistan for Iraq.
XXX,
We are not invading Afghanistan. I fail to see the comparison.
JM,
When did we leave Afghanistan for you to make the statement Bush didn’t stay long enough?
What exactly is finishing the job in afghanistan?
Walker
I think I may have made your case for an expanding outer universe traveling at a greater speed.
Think of the singularity as the outer part of a balloon expanding faster than the inside, in that first googol of a second in the big-bang.
There’s your faster outer edges moving away from us.
But I’m working on a way to disprove that conjecture.
Though, remember that gravity is relentless and sooner or later, in a different place, all matter should meet again.
You’re right, it is fun.
The situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating for some time. Someone is finally speaking up about it? ::snort::
Nathan,
Do you not agree that our troop forces (# of troops) has not diminished since we invaded Iraq? (And nice of you to use that term. :) ) If you agree, can you tell us WHY? Either way, do you believe that Afghanistan was completely stablized when we invaded Iraq?
I understand that as a member of the Armed Services, you must be careful of what you say. And it’s clear that you are. (Not chiding you on that.) If you don’t feel you can answer your honest feelings because of that, I don’t have a problem. I’d rather you said nothing than to “toe the line.” Is that fair?
Nathan,I may be mistaken, but when a military force enters a sovereign nation without being invited, that’s usually considered an invasion.
What would you call it?
Touche XXX!
Nathan,We cut troops in Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. That is fact. As such, we left Afghanistan without enough troops to finish the job we started: Destroying the Taliban. The Taliban is still going strong and getting stronger. Why is that, Nathan?
Both Afghanistan and Iraq have been politically controlled wars from our side. Such wars always fail. Witness Viet Nam, Korea, the current Afghanistan and Iraq wars. When politics dictate what can and can’t be done in a war, the political side is at a major disadvantage, which, in this case, is the United States.
If we wanted to win the wars, if that is even possible, politicians would stay out of the war and let the military do its job. That is not about to happen. Rumsfeld takes his orders from Bush, and Bush’s war record is basically non-existant. And a commander-in-chief with no war record makes a lousy leader. A look at Bush’s record proves that point.
Of course, getting Osama Bin Laden (sp) was tops on the list for going into Afghanistan in the first place, but we’ve so far failed there also, haven’t we?
But the bottom line, IMHO, is Iraq was wrong, Afghanistan was right. In the long run, we will lose both, and every time I hear of more of our finest dying over there, I get a bit more pissed off.