Showing, once again, that the best man doesn’t always win – from Breitbart:
US Senator John McCain Sunday slammed the July 2011 target for beginning to pull US troops out of Afghanistan, saying setting a firm date for withdrawal would raise questions about US commitment there.
“I’m concerned about the perception of our friends and our enemies as well as the people in Afghanistan, as to the depth of our commitment,” McCain told ABC news in an interview from Kabul.
The Republican lawmaker and former prisoner of war said the policy of announcing a planned draw down date was a “bad idea,” and that the United States should only leave Afghanistan when the country is stable enough to maintain a strong government.
Which is the only sensible thing to do – but good sense is in short supply in DC these days. I recall watching a short bit of the Petraeus confirmation hearings where I believe it was Sen. Leahy (D-VT) who said that time tables proved their worth in Iraq. A statement more at variance with the facts would be harder to find – it was because President Bush stubbornly resisted Democrat attempts at setting a time table that we were able to win, at all. Obama’s July, 2011 time table just sets the date for our defeat.
The enemy is just waiting until we leave and our friends – actual and prospective – in the area are trimming their sails to the withdrawal date. This is what bin Laden was on about when he talked of strong and weak horses – the strong horse isn’t necessarily the fastest or more muscular horse, but the horse with the greatest endurance. Right now, we’ve set a limit to our endurance, and our enemies are determined to last just one day longer.
General Petraeus has signaled that he doesn’t mean to hold to the July, 2011 time table, and that is good. But the ultimate decision isn’t his, it belongs to President Obama. The President must, in public, set aside July, 2011 and commit to victory…which may, by the way, come sooner than July of 2011 if we show that we’re not going to quit. People would much prefer a peace based upon our ideals than upon the Taliban’s – but they’ll swallow the Taliban if there is no other choice.
Right now, for them, there is no other choice – we must change that.
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