Associated Press
In American history, when there's been a presidential campaign held in the midst of a war, there's been an unambiguous expectation: the candidates better be prepared to talk about that war.
In 2012, the standards are apparently different. In the midst of the longest war in American history, and with the election just 11 weeks away, discussion of U.S. policy in Afghanistan is practically non-existent. In Mitt Romney's case, we don't yet have a firm grasp of what his position on the war even is.
In a change of pace, a voter asked the Republican about the war yesterday.
"I can tell you this, when I become commander in chief if I'm so lucky, I will address the American people about these issues," which Obama has not done, Romney said. "With regards to Afghanistan, I will do everything in my power to transition from our military to their military as soon as possible, bring our men and women home and do so in a way consistent with our mission, which is to keep Afghanistan from being overrun by a new entity that would allow Afghanistan to be a launching point for terror again like it was on 9/11."
For one thing, whether one agrees with his policy or not, Obama has spoken at length to the public about the war. For another, Romney lacks the ability to discuss the issue in anything but soundbites -- he'll transition to Afghan control, but he won't say how, and he'll do so soon, but he won't say when. This isn't exactly encouraging.
Romney's running mate, who has about as much experience in foreign policy, national security, and the military as he does (which is to say, none), is on even shakier ground.
Paul Ryan told Fox News over the weekend that he has some experience in this area because, "I voted to send people to war."
That's true, he did. But here's a quick follow-up: did you vote the right way? And does this bolster or undermine your credibility on the subject?
Ryan has literally no background in international affairs at any level, and hasn't even served on relevant congressional committees. He compares his record favorably to Candidate Obama's, but the then-senator at least played constructive roles on the Homeland Security Committee, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and the Committee on Foreign Relations, where he did some excellent work on counter-proliferation.
But for Ryan, he voted to invade Iraq, he supported a disastrous policy, and he then voted to put the cost of the war on the national charge card, leaving future generations to pay for our national security decisions. This is foreign policy experience? Please.
I'm not even sure if this ticket has given the war much thought.
We talked recently about this remarkable anecdote the Wall Street Journal published.
Mr. Romney made that clear at a July fundraiser in Montana as he rehashed the challenges Mr. Reagan faced when he took office. He recounted how Mr. Baker, a former secretary of state, held a national security meeting about Latin America during the first 100 days of Mr. Reagan's presidency.
"And after the meeting, President Reagan called me in and said, 'I want no more national-security meetings over the next 100 days -- all of our time has to be focused on getting our economy going,' " Mr. Romney recalled Mr. Baker saying.
In reality, this exchange between Reagan and Baker never happened. I don't know who told Romney this or whether Romney simply made it up out of whole cloth, but Reagan dealt with plenty of national-security meetings early in his presidency -- as all presidents do.
Putting aside the merit of Romney's vague ideas about government, to reiterate what I wrote at the time, does he fully understand the nature of the position he's seeking?
Does he realize that a president, especially during a time of war, can't simply choose which areas of interest will be important to him, and leave national security behind altogether?
If Romney takes the oath of office in January, he'll have tens of thousands of American troops on the ground in Afghanistan, fighting a war that began so long ago, he was still a liberal Republican at the time. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what he intends to do with those troops and/or how long he intends to keep them there?
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I am still waiting to hear Romney (or Ryan) make one honest, intelligent statement. Forget "inspiring," because it would take a miracle for them to deliver on that. But is just one honest, intelligent statement too much to ask for from a guy who wants to be president?
It wouldn't matter if he said something that meets your criteria or not. You'd never acknowledge said statement's validity.
Shooter, for those with functional brains, an answer needs to be heard, not just "because he wants to be the President"! What gets me is Romney not only has been on both sides of every issue, but he's LIED constantly even about the "little things" and still you low information types still support him. I mean the GOTP doesn't give a dayum about people like you, and if they get into office and start yet another war - their children will NOT be the ones living, fighting and dying in that one either - it will be yours, mine and ours! Exactly how much more disenfranchised must you low information voters become before you are willing to take those blinders off and stop blaming everyone for your self-inflicted victimhood?!?
Always nice to see Pooper back, marking fire hydrants.
BTW, Pooper, do you know where Saddam hid his WMDs?
Never fear George Bush had no foreign policy experience either, But he did have great advisers and Romney will rehire them so what could go wrong?
"I voted to send people off to war". How much thought went into whose family members were sent off to fight. Ryan does not even have the decency to say he voted to send Americans off to war.
At least he didn't say "you people"
Considering that Romney is using neocons for advisers, I seriously doubt that he will pull out of Afghanistan. The private contractors with defense contracts are not going to allow a withdrawal that would kill their business. If we follow the money, these private contractors are buying up people in Congress. Both parties are taking money from these contractors and it will take a major shift in the military and Congress to move away from the private defense contractors. Also, Republicans have used our military and flag waving as a way to keep Dems on the defense of this issue. The Republicans are not going to give up that issue any time soon. I would not be surprised if we hear more saber rattling on Iran as we get close to the elections. Fear is how Republicans get vets and votes to line up with their agenda.
'I want no more national-security meetings over the next 100 days'
Sounds more like GWB, and we saw how that turned out.
War, the economy, energy, the environment, are all secondary to THE burning issue of this election:
Should we allow a Black Man to be President?
the draft dodger and the non-server (through three g.o.p. wars no less), holding forth on how they would do this and do that with a military they know nothing about. what's next? a speech on a battleship?
As someone who has had friends and family in the military, and who's considering joining the Navy myself, that stunt of appearing on a decommissioned battleship is one of the things that has pissed me off the most about Romney. What an utter lack of respect for those who have given their lives, their liberties, their health, their limbs, and put off their own happiness for the security of our nation.
Bush may have done some bad things in dodging the draft, but with all of his flaws (and there were many, I'm no supporter of Bush now, nor was I ever) he at least seemed to do his best to respect the people who were in the military.
Romney ran off in his little magic underwear to live in a mansion in France and proselytize to people who he was never going to convince. He got to have a little vacation and an escape from the reality of war. Now, he's going to appear on a battleship? I'd like to tell Romney to go and f**k himself, or get Paul Ryan to do it while punching the back of his head and reading him Atlas Shrugged.
I find Mitt Romney utterly detestable. There's just not a single shred of decency or respect about the man, at all. If join the service and he's the C-in-C, I'll obviously respect his position, just as I respected the office of the presidency of George W Bush, even though I deeply disagreed with his policies. But, as a politician? I'm thoroughly disgusted with the man.
We need real change in Washington, but change in the exact opposite direction that Romney/Ryan, and even Obama, want to take us (though, if you couldn't guess, I'll be voting for Obama. I may not agree entirely with president Obama, but his policies are at least decent, and a known quantity.)
Allow me to tell you Patrick, as a Navy veteran myself, that you're going to find yourself in a very very very very small minority in that organization, looking at the world and believing as you do. I say that sadly, because we need more like you and less like the others there, but do be forewarned.
"Bush may have done some bad things in dodging the draft, but with all of his flaws (and there were many, I'm no supporter of Bush now, nor was I ever) he at least seemed to do his best to respect the people who were in the military."
Really, Patrick? I'm not challenging you, I'm just surprised if you feel so strongly that you weren't equally offended by his "Mission Accomplished" stunt- using an aircraft carrier and dressing up like a pilot in front of real enlisted men just so he'd have a good photo-op.
Sure, it's a bullet point on his resume. Right? Then he becomes the White Horse of Joe Smith's addled brain and ascends to his own planet as god.
Not sure about the rest of us. Do we genuflect or merely curtsy?
Seriously, I think he thinks it's like running a company. You hire people and if they don't perform you fire people. Every quarter you hold a board meeting where your direct reports explain their success or lack thereof and you berate/praise them and make a mental note to add/deduct a $mil$ from/to their bonus.
In the meantime, you and the
QueenFirst Lady get to give some fab parties for your loyalsubjects contributorserrr fellow RePUGnicants and some real kings and queens.What a joke. I'm embarrassed at the prospect
How soon will that white ass be ascending?
Sometime around the rapture and hell freezing over!
"I voted to send people to war."
Isn't that akin to saying "some of my best friends are African American/LGBT/Latino"? Hey Pauly, it's not working now either.
Being honest, had Obama told us that he would continue the war in Afghanistan for another 6 years in 2008, he never would have been elected president.
Strategy of “clear-hold-build” takes time, bannedagain.
But you're correct, the instant gratification crowd will be more enamoured with Romney's proposed "Dump and Run" strategy. Who cares about the wreckage left behind.
Try this article, it contains enough points of holding Obama's feet to the fire that you might stay interested, and more than enough points of what he is doing right to change your opinion on his alleged inactivity in troop withdrawal, should you choose not to skip those parts.
"Some have called this strategy “clear-hold-build”—clear an area of insurgents, hold it (i.e., stay there) so the insurgents don’t come back, and meanwhile build legitimacy for the government. One thing about this strategy is that it takes a long time, costs a lot of money, and results in a lot of casualties (at least in the short term, though it’s unpredictable how long the “short term” lasts)."
In Vietnam, they called it the "Strategic Hamlets Program"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Hamlet_Program
so you know how this movie ends.
Obama recognizes that Afghanistan is a lost cause which is why he set a withdrawal date. The government is corrupt and the society is feudal. We are not going to change either no matter how much money we pour into the country. It is harder to get out of a war than to get in, but Obama is cutting our losses by a gradual withdrawal. If the country fails again, we always have the missiles option but at least we are not wasting anymore lives and money.
How would you like to be one of the people who are "cut losses" over the next two years?
This assumes that you can just get up and leave right away. There actually are a myriad of logistical issues that prevent militaries from leaving war zones immediately, especially when they've had ground troops there. There is also the matter of international agreements and other diplomatic agreements that we've made with Afghanistan. There's also the problem of governmental stability: like it or not Taliban control of Afghanistan is what lead us to the Al'Qaeda problem in the first place. The US Navy, US Marine Corps, and US Coast Guard will likely continue missions in Afghanistan long after we've officially withdrawn like they are doing today in Iraq. These are non-military actions that include portway security, landmine and other explosive ordnance removal, diplomatic security missions, and other missions dealing with national safety at the direction of the local government. I completely understand the frustration with this war- believe me- but you're being presumptive in assuming that Obama had other options and that other options still currently exist. Perhaps they do, perhaps they don't. The point is there is lack of evidence to suggest either.
We were out of Iraq in two. For beter or worse this is Obama's war now.
If the Afghan government asked us to leave, I think Obama would oblige them.
mike:
There is no government of Aghanistan but the tribes. Karzai is leading a kleptocracy that will steal everything not nailed down and leave shortly after the last US troops.
BTW
How crazy is it that we have been at war in Afghanistan for 11 years when the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, lived in the US for over a year and TRAINED for their mission here, not in AF, and the financing came from the UAE. At best they lived in AF for a time in training camps but also in Pakistan and Serbia as well. .
No one implied that this was or was not "Obama's War." I am not even sure why you said this or what this has to do with anything- it certainly wasn't in response to my posts or, as far as I can tell, anything that was written in anyone else's posts. Whether or not you consider a war to belong to a person who inherited it is a matter of subjective taste. It's not a statement of fact and it's specious that you'd present it as such.
It is fallacious reasoning for you to presume that the circumstances of Iraq are therefore applicable to the circumstances of Afghanistan. The two are entirely different countries with two entirely different situations. You cannot presume that because these countries are located somewhat near by geographically and that because these countries have similarities like a primarily Muslim population that this therefore means the countries are identical and are facing the same issues. This is especially confusing when considering that you acknowledged that there are complexities facing Afghanistan in one post and then immediately took a 180 as though such complexities do not affect withdrawal. Very odd.
I discussed some of the many complications facing Afghanistan and our leaving Afghanistan. It is reasonable to assume that there are even more issues facing withdrawal that neither you or I are currently aware of. The point I made was that you are making an assumption about our ability to leave faster without empirical evidence to support this accusation.
Again I have no idea what this has to do with the initial premise of the post or the discussion at hand? We were not discussing the premise of invading Afghanistan. President Obama did not order the invasion of Afghanistan; he was not president in 2002. This point is entirely irrelevant to the initial discussion you brought up.
And, on that note, I seem to recall President Obama stating explicitly that he wanted to draw troops out of Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan to stabilize the country and capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. He initially stated we would be withdrawing in 2016 then dropped that number 2014. I do not know why you would suppose that these changes in date would have affected the election unless you are operating under the presumption that people did not pay attention to his foreign policy. That, then, assumes that the audience was ignorant of this information of which you, again, do not have evidence to support.
I would venture that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are telling Obama to pull the troops out. The military knows the situation is hopeless and that Karzai is corrupt. I doubt that the military trusts anything Karzai says or does. The generals in charge of the war do not want to come and go with the war continuing and troops dying for no good reason. Other countries are pulling their troops out for the same reasons. Obama agrees and that is why the withdrawal is going to happen.
Bin Laden wasn't in Afghanistan. As far as we know he was living in our ally Pakistan for many years.
There was never any reason to stay beyond the first year in Afghanistan and certainly no reason to have a surge in Afghanistan in 2009. There is no nation of Afghanistan historically speaking and never has been it's a geographic area, not a nation or people. The central government controls Kabul, and as many other cities as have US troops in them or nearby. That's it.
As far as promises, he never gave a date for withdrawal, because that would have implied staying. He promised to send 7000 troops and he sent 4 times that number which should have been our Uh oh moment. He said that he would withohold aid to Pakistan unless they helped us fight terrorism and then sent the money repeatedly even though Bin Laden was actually living there.
We needn't argue about Bush, because we would all agree that he was the worst foreign policy president of the last 100 years, so continuing his policies is a red flag that something has gone wrong.
Foreign policy toward Pakistan is not easy to sort out. They have a nuclear bomb and so does India. Pakistan is unstable now and the nukes are out biggest concern. Talking tough is not going to help the situation, but we have let them know that we know about their entanglement with the Taliban and how Pakistan is using them to create instability in Afghanistan.
In hindsight we know this, yes. At the time of the 2008 election- which is the argument you made and thus the argument I was addressing- it was believed that Osama Bin Laden was living in the tribal regions of Pakistan along the Afghanistan border or was still in Afghanistan. It was believed that the then massive presence of Taliban leaders and Al'Qaeda were housing or otherwise knew the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. Senator Obama made it quite clear that this was his focus. You are using hindsight reasoning here to justify a policy position that at the time the policy position was made was unknown. This is, again, incredibly specious reasoning.
Again you can NOT attribute the invasion of Afghanistan to President Obama. This is a unique way of framing the conversation and in doing so you are either intentionally or inadvertently making the argument that it is Obama's fault we are in Afghanistan. It is not. President Bush was the Commander in Chief at the time we invaded Afghanistan. That was a joint agreement between the Executive and the Congress and NATO. You can NOT hold this against President Obama and then presume that this is somehow a logical position. President Obama inherited the war in Afghanistan which means he had no choice, but to deal with the war as it was. Again you are presuming that an option for him to choose was immediate withdrawal. You do not have evidence to support this assertion.
Secondly you are presuming, yet again, the reasons for escalating in 2009. Those in charge of military planning stated that we needed to escalate troops and repeat the surge in order to drive out the remaining Al'Qaeda forces (remember when the surge happened Al'Qaeda was far more prevalent than today; again this is because today we've accomplished this goal, but at the time in question it was not so) and push back on Taliban control. In terms of it's stated goal the surge has been immensely successful with the one exception of governmental establishment. That goal I am not sure is at all possible to achieve. However, again, you are presuming that even if the enemy threats are eliminated that this necessitates that the US can simply leave. You do not have evidence to support this insinuation and so it is entirely unreasonable for you to believe it as fact.
Yes he did. During the debates President Obama stated that he would escalate forces and focus exclusively on Afghanistan and that his goal was to get us out of Iraq precisely so that we could focus on Afghanistan. He stated that he intended to keep the agreement signed by President Bush which had us exiting Iraq in 2010 and had us exiting Afghanistan sometime around 2016. In late 2009 this date was lowered to 2014, but the White House did not make a big push about publicizing the information until the Iraq pullout in 2010. Rachel Maddow herself appeared on Meet the Press to discuss this very same topic shortly after having finished her visit to Afghanistan and Iraq. I am surprised as a Maddow viewer that you do not remember this conversation since she was expressly asked about it and talked about it in depth for nearly a week on her program.
No. You are meshing situations together. On several instances when Pakistan was found to have housed militants or otherwise to have been cooperating with terrorism the United States threatened to stop giving aid to Pakistan that was going to fight terrorism. This ended in our officials meeting with their officials and coming to a mutual agreement. Jon Stewart has had diplomats on his show discussing the difficulties of these negotiations including the President of Pakistan and the head general of the Pakistani military.
I agree that President Bush was a failure as a US President, however I am not the person who brought him up. You are the person who has continually brought up his foreign policy in ways that do not make sense and are not appropriate to push onto the current administration. I have no idea why you are doing so much, but it's disingenuous for you to play both sides of the field. If you are going to bring up Bush's foreign policy in order to blame Obama for it then you cannot turn around and argue that there is no reason to bring up Bush. That's just confusing and horribly paradoxical.
I am not arguing that I agree with or disagree with President Obama's foreign policies. What I am saying is that most of the accusations you are making against President Obama are accusations you're making without empirical merit. You're arbitrarily stating that X is true without any evidence to support your accusation. You have gone beyond the point of expressing an opinion and are instead asserting your beliefs as though they are fact. They are not facts they are subjective opinion and it's disingenuous for you to represent them as anything but.
Obama announced in July of 2008 that he'd be sending 7,000 troops to Afghanistan. In a compromise with Congress and after meeting with foreign leaders as well as speaking with the Joint Chiefs of Staff this number was raised to 30,000. The argument was that 7,000 would not be enough to complete the mission and that if we intended to make the early withdrawal of 2014 then we had to have more troops than just a single brigade. Again you are welcome to disagree with this decision, but stop obfuscating the facts in regards to it.
Typical wingnut "patriots." They don't have a clue, but the fact they had their little speeches on a battleship should remind us of how they'll work. A battleship is expensive, obsolete, and they never lived up to their potential, but they look impressive as hell. What a "Republican" war machine.
But, but, but war is a money making machine.
Wethose people must have it!What aggravates me most about the war is the abysmal service our veterans get when they return! Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/petitions/congress-veterans-administration-president-obama-eliminate-the-1yr-wait-for-veterans-who-apply-for-disability-benefits
*Pay them all and let God sort them out!*
There are almost 900,000 (yes, nine hundred thousand) veterans waiting to get awarded disability. Veterans are waiting a year or more to hear back on their claims. That is obscene! Imagine how awful that is for a disabled vet, their family and friends. If a veteran - especially any veteran who has served in a combat zone - applies for disability benefits, just pay them! Even if (perhaps especially if) you did not support or approve of the war that veteran served in, please don't allow those who choose to send our military abroad to ignore the cost of that war, or expect veterans and their families to suffer or sacrifice more than they already have.
We give every U.S. citizen the benefit of the doubt regarding their honesty when they file their tax returns, and audit only a percentage of the returns to encourage honesty. Surely we can give the same benefit of the doubt to veterans! We could do that, or we could investigate those still requesting benefits by the time the VA gets around to them, or we could do something else but we must not make veterans and their families wait any longer. It is a shame and a disgrace, and it rests on every citizen of this country.
"For one thing, whether one agrees with his policy or not, Obama has spoken at length to the public about the war."
That statement is not intellectually honest. Most of us don't even know what that policy currently is, apart from a vague promise of bringing the troops home as soon as we "can." We've actually heard very little from the President on his plans for Afghanistan over the last 2 years, which is obviously why this article doesn't quote him once.