Friday, January 17, 2014

Charles Krauthammer, "How in good conscience?": Bad War, Good War

Charles Krauthammer's latest Washington Post opinion piece entitled "How in good conscience?" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-how-in-good-conscience/2014/01/16/138901d4-7ee3-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html?hpid=z2) is a must read. Reflecting on the revelations of Robert Gates in his recently published book "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," Krauthammer observes:

"One question remains, however. If he wasn’t committed to the mission, if he didn’t care about winning, why did Obama throw these soldiers into battle in the first place?

Because for years the Democrats had used Afghanistan as a talking point to rail against the Iraq War — while avoiding the politically suicidal appearance of McGovernite pacifism. As consultant Bob Shrum later admitted, “I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as ‘the right war’ to conventional Democratic wisdom. This was accurate as criticism of the Bush Administration, but it was also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy.”

Translation: They were never really serious about Afghanistan. (Nor apparently about Iraq either. Gates recounts with some shock that Hillary Clinton admitted she opposed the Iraq surge for political reasons, and Obama conceded that much of the opposition had indeed been political.) The Democratic mantra — Iraq War, bad; Afghan War, good — was simply a partisan device to ride anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War feeling without appearing squishy."

In fact, Iraq and Afghanistan were both bad wars, yet the mainstream media fails to hold Obama's feet to the fire for escalating American involvement in Afghanistan, when he never believed in the ultimate success of the surge there.

The blood of American service women and men is indeed on the hands of America's Narcissist-in-Chief.

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