Heritage Foundation begins criticism of Kerry on Afghanistan

[TayTay]

This promises to be an interesting fall on many fronts. The Heritage Foundation, a Right-wing aligned Republican think tank, published a reply to Sen. Kerry's Wall St. Journal OpEd from the other day. It is just an opening salvo and argued by a junior associate from Heritage, but still worth noting:

Senator Kerry asserts that “we should not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we maintain the consent of the American people.”

While it is necessary to review tactics and strategy, fighting a war requires leadership, not decision-making by polls and consensus. It puts the fate of the Afghan people and our troops into the hands of bureaucrats and pundits, holding it hostage to endless meetings and hearings that may confuse the mission, lengthen decision time, and put our troops in greater danger.

Afghanistan is no Vietnam. We are not fighting a hostile government and an organized military, but Taliban insurgents and al-Qaeda. The only real lesson from the Vietnam War is that we must fight to win, and doing that means we have to commit the resources we need, for as long as it takes.

The arguments against staying in Afghanistan are going to induce some deja vu, really soon. Might want to go back and read certain Kerry speeches from 2006 on Iraq and get the underlying logic, because it is very similar to what the good and true Senator from MA is starting to articulate now.

(Read the OpEd http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=273x101810">here and see what I mean:)

From that article:

It’s time to refocus our military efforts from the failed occupation of Iraq to what we should have been doing all along: destroying al-Qaida. We need to redeploy troops from Iraq — keep up the training and counter-terror operations, establish an over the horizon military capacity — and free up resources to fight the War on Terror.

Every time President Bush tells the Iraqis we will “stay as long as it takes,” he is giving squabbling Iraqi politicians an excuse to take as long as they want to. Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines. So we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet — a clear deadline of July, 2007. As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. “Staying the course” isn’t far-sighted; it’s blind. Leaving our troops in the middle of a civil war isn’t resolute; it’s reckless. Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America’s leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion.

It is not exactly the same, of course. Nothing ever is. But it is similar logic to what the Senator is starting to say about Afghanistan. Check out this NPR radio interview, done 9/29/09:


http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2
or
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=113316238&m=113316225

[karynnj]

1. Reading the Heritage Foundation response makes me more impressed with

what Kerry wrote. They don't even respond to what he actually wrote about - because it is rather hard to argue against carefully thinking about the underlying assumptions. There was NOTHING in what Kerry wrote of polls and consensus. They also ignore that Vietnam was a guerrilla war as well - and not really just a war against a hostile government and its military (North Vietnam).

This is really going to be a tough fall fighting both on climate change and the wars. (But at least on the wars, we have a President who may very well be listening.)

[ObamaKerryDem]

5. Exactly. When you anger the Neo-cons, you know you're on the right course.

:evilgrin:

[beachmom]

2. I think the Heritage Foundation should do a poll of the general public on this phrase:

Should the United States "commit the resources we need, for as long as it takes" in the Afghanistan War?

Let's see if they get over 25% of support for that ridiculous nutty statement. The truth is a ton of Republicans, retreating back to their traditional roots, want the hell out of Afghanistan. Remember this party was against getting into WWII!! Not because they were Nazi sympathizers (okay, maybe a few, but not all), but because they were isolationists at heart. Why get involved?

[karynnj]

3. Very good Boston Globe article on Kerry, Obama and Afghanistan

“I am arguing that the president has the time and we have the time,’’ Kerry said yesterday in an interview, adding that he himself is wrestling with the question of whether more troops are needed.
<snip>
Kerry declined to characterize his relationship with the president, saying only that, as chairman of an influential committee, he “talks frequently’’ with administration officials, including the president and the secretary of state. A former Kerry aide who asked not to be identified out of concern for angering Kerry, said: “I know that talk a lot, in very private conversations.’’
<snip>
“In 2004, in presidential debate preparation, he was very cautious about how big a commitment you make to Afghanistan beyond dealing with the dangers that could project themselves beyond the country,’’ said the former aide.

In 2007, Kerry called for 5,000 elite Special Forces troops to be sent to Afghanistan.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/30/kerry_using_his_clout_to_shape_afghanistan_strategy/

This is a very balanced good article. One nitpic - the paragraph saying that Kerry is in a "unique" position because the P, VP, and SOS were all Senate colleagues is asinine - that is true for everyone else in the Senate. In addition, if it were President Clinton and VP Bayh - even with SoS Biden, Kerry would likely have far less real influence.

Representative McGovern's quote that Kerry is advocating some breathing room puts it in very nice perspective.

[karynnj]

4. Posted it in gd-P

While there will be attacks from the far left, it is important in that it does suggest how hard it will be for Obama to make a shift - that will (from Tay Tay's article) by demonized as going against military advise. I liked McGovern's quote because it does identify the value in Kerry's op-ed.

The article also says that he will be going to Afghanistan within the next 10 days.

Post in GD-P - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8677842&mesg_id=8677842