George Will's Afghanistan Moment

[laststeamtrain]

George Will's Afghanistan Moment

The conservative columnist calls for a pull-out from Afghanistan, arousing a swift and concerted denunciation from the Right.


America's slipping fortunes in Afghanistan have caused conservatives to ally with Obama on staying the course, while liberal and moderate support for the President's war efforts have been foundering, as the Wire has covered here and here. Today, George Will, the premier tory conservative columnist in the Washington Post, breaks ranks with Republicans in a bombshell column that joins war skeptics by calling for a withdrawal of American troops:

"Forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters. Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop."

Will notes that the war has already dragged on longer than the U.S. stint in World War I and II combined. Comparing the country in passing to Vietnam, Will enumerates Afghanistan's failures as a state--its tiny GDP, non-existent central government, and "culture of poverty"--to dismiss arguments that the war can be won by nation-building.

Will's peers on the right--where he has always commanded more of an elite than a grassroots following--are the quickest to respond, with many acknowledging that the columnist's defection will be used to galvanize more calls for a pull-out. Will's throwing of the gauntlet is already being drowned in denunciations.

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[BOSSHOG]

1. "Will's peers on the right"

More must die tomorrow so that those who died yesterday did not die in vain. More conservative values. And the cowards on right wing radio continue to hide behind their microphones, never having done anything for America urge never ending war

[gratuitous]

7. No, no, no! Heroes all!

Cause is moral. And just. Freedom. Uh, democracy. You know, terrorists. Hezbollllaaaaaaahhhhh!

Dang, I'm running out of magic words and it still seems like a waste of time, money, and lives. Let's see. Oh, I know! National Security! Ooga booga booga!

[bluestateguy]

2. "more of an elite than a grassroots following"

That is exactly it. George Will, David Brooks, Charles Kruathammer, Michael Barone; all elite, cocktail party conservatives.

[JVS]

3. That's because the people you just named are published, not broadcast.

They have their fans, and their fans are idiots, but their fans are literate idiots. Limbaugh, Hannity, Glenn Beck, and a horde of others have the true grassroots dumbfucks.

[laststeamtrain]

4. Your point? People who write for a living aren't Joe The Plumber? I'm shocked.

Actually I'm glad.

I'm expecting Joe The Writer any day now or did we already have that with Sarah Palin's Op/Ed piece?

[izquierdista]

5. Thousands of days late, and billions of dollars short!

Just think what it would be like, George, if the U.S. never got sucked in in the first place!

[pberq]

8. Absolutely right!

It never should have happened to begin with.

[louis-t]

6. How long before he retracts?

Someone in the repug party is going through the phone book as we speak.

[redqueen]

9. I love it when I can agree with people with whom I usually do not agree.

K&R

[elocs]

10. No matter how it started, Republicans want to brand Afghanistan as "Obama's War".

If all of the time, money, and effort that went to Iraq instead of Afghanistan, then the situation there might well be far different from what it is today.