Archive for the ‘Afghanistan war’ Category

…the concept that the replacement of McChrystal with Petraeus brought one line of argument, basically that it shouldn’t be used to try to win, because of course there is no chance that this can be turned around in a year. There seemed a real worry that Petraeus had made a deal giving more time to fight.

The possibility that this could be used to bail out the president couldn’t trump the agreed fret that we shouldn’t try to win.

One interesting note, Barnicle as he is wont to do started giving the names of some of the KIA’s and they faded out quickly. Why? Because now those names reflect on Obama.

from their site. Down the memory hole it goes, via Weasel Zippers. Stacy puts it best:

The American Left: Shamelessly Following Orders Ever Since Stalin Told Us to Endorse Hitler’s Invasion of Poland.

Well not everyone. AMERICAblog expresses surprise:

You’ll remember Petraeus as one of the Iraq war’s biggest defenders. Which is interesting, since the Senate Democrats just a few years ago produced a lengthy analysis of how flawed Petraeus’ Iraq testimony really was.

They get full marks for consistency, but it’s funny I’m sure the first thing on everybody’s mind was his testimony. It prompted the following comment from me:

Perhaps our democratic friends have discovered that “flawed congressional testimony” doesn’t trump actual success in winning a war.

I’ve already said I don’t care who commands as long as we win (and don’t have to do without Lara Logan). Little Miss Attila is still worried:

I actually think it was a clever move, though I wonder whether it’s possible to salvage the situation at this point.

And I offer her these words of encouragement:

Have faith Joy, after all that’s what the World Cup announcers were saying at the 90th minute of today’s match.

However Michal Yon in an e-mail to Glenn is more bullish:

I was there through the entire surge, and more, and saw the remarkable transformation under command of General Petraeus and due to the incredible efforts of our armed forces and civilian counterparts. No book that I have read, including the one that I wrote, has fully conveyed the magnitude of those days. You simply had to be there.

Here we are again. This time on the cusp of losing the war in Afghanistan. The situation is worse than ever before. Again, the United States has asked General David Petraeus to step into a situation that seems hopeless to many people. It is not hopeless, just extremely bad.

We have not yet begun to fight.

Update: Now a Memeorandum thread coming to a computer near you.

There are some things that are just too ridiculous to be believed.

CBS News’ #2 exec made a strange confession to Broadcasting & Cable magazine: the network isn’t covering Afghanistan as much as it used to because war correspondent Lara Logan is out on maternity leave.

“I would think that the biggest factor in how much less we’ve had on the air really has to do with Lara Logan’s pregnancy than it does with anything else,” CBS News Executive VP Paul Friedman said.

Via National Review which posted on the Huff Po story with one word: Unbelievable!

Are you telling me in an era when reporters are dropping like flys there isn’t anyone available to cover the war? Hey maybe we can get the Taliban to agree to a cease fire till Logan is done with her maternity leave?

Hey CBS why don’t you offer a contract to one of the two Michaels? Yon or Totten?

Cripes no wonder the MSM is sinking like a rock.

…with the left as a whole.

They always manage to associate the words “withdrawal” and “retreat” with “courage”.

Thus they push Bob Herbert Op-ed and again advise surrender and retreat and describe it as courage and bravery.

Tell we should we applying the “If we start with the idea…” rules with the media it tends to work too, doesn’t it?

Tell me As a person who never served if this makes me a “chickhawk”, does this make them “chickendoves”?

But seriously, courage was Bush willing to do the surge when all seemed lost, Courage was John McCain willing to back it when even republicans wanted to run away (it is for that reason why although I support J.D. I’ll always believe the country owes him a huge debt) that was courage.