Obama looks to GOP to help him in Afghanistan

NY Times:

As President Obama prepares to decide whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan, the political climate appears increasingly challenging for him, leaving him in the awkward position of relying on the Republican Party, and not his own, for support.

The simple political narrative of the Afghanistan war — that this was the good war, in which the United States would hunt down the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks — has faded over time, with popular support ebbing, American casualties rising and confidence in the Afghan government declining. In addition, Afghanistan’s disputed election, and the attendant fraud charges that have been lodged against President Hamid Karzai, are contributing further to the erosion of public support.

A CBS News poll released on Tuesday reports that 41 percent of those polled wanted troop levels in Afghanistan decreased, compared with 33 percent in April. Far fewer people — 25 percent — wanted troop levels increased, compared with 39 percent in April. And Mr. Obama’s approval rating for his handling of Afghanistan has dropped eight points since April, to 48 percent.

Congressional Democrats, particularly those on the left, report increasing disenchantment among constituents with the idea of a long and possibly escalating conflict in Afghanistan, especially as the American strategy comes to resemble a long-term nation-building approach rather than a counterterrorism operation.

“I and the American people cannot tolerate more troops without some commitment about when this perceived occupation will end,” Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said Wednesday in an interview. He said he had been to 60 town hall meetings in his state so far this year. During the first half of the year, he said, there were no comments about Afghanistan or Iraq. But in the past two months, that has changed, with more people focused on troop losses in Afghanistan.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, said, “There was a time, back in 2003 and 2004, when it was possible to drum up popular support for the war by attaching to the argument claims that the United States of America was eliminating evil and advancing democracy and women’s rights.

“But this is many years later, with the economy in shambles, 5,000 American soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those notions are no longer as compelling as they might have been. War exhaustion sets in,” said Professor Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.”

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But it was the Republican National Committee, and not the Democrats, that was sounding more solidly behind the president on Afghanistan. After Mr. Will’s abdication on Tuesday, the Republican National Committee quickly sent out an e-mail message and posted a statement, “Stand Strong, Mr. President,” on its Web site to take issue with the conservative columnist.

“We agree with President Obama that ‘we have to win’ in Afghanistan and make sure that our commanders on the ground have the troops and resources they need,” the committee chairman, Michael Steele, said in the statement. He urged Mr. Obama to “stand strong and speak out for why we are fighting there,” adding that Mr. Obama has said too little so far “about why the voices of defeat are wrong.”

Similarly, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, said he would continue to back Mr. Obama “as long as we’re making progress.”

Senator Graham, for his part, was in Afghanistan last week, putting in a stint as Colonel Graham as he served out his Air Force Reserves duty rotation. He met with military officials and soldiers, and talked to Obama administration officials in Kabul, the capital, as well, and is supporting Mr. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy.

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There seems to be a deep and abiding ignorance of counterinsurgency warfare in the Democrat party that, unfortunately, George Will has also exhibited. On average, counterinsurgency wars take 11 years and the insurgents lose 90 percent of the time. I doubt that 10 percent of Democrats are aware of these facts. Many of them keep making inappropriate analogies to World War II or other wars, at least on the time lines. Of course they don't make those references on casualty counts.

In fact, even with Professor Bacevich's suggestion that 5,000 is an unacceptable number, in World War I casualties of that number were many times an afternoon's work. In World War II our forces could sustain significant casualties in battles at Tarawa and Iwo Jima in the Pacific as well as D-Day in Europe. The limited number of casualties in the war against the Islamic religious bigots is a revolution in and of itself, and Bacevich is turning that on its head.

Sri Lanka just defeated an insurgent army after over 20 years of war. The battle against FARC has been continuing for over 40 years. It is funny how liberals never suggest that FARC should quit. Many of them seem to be on the side of the narco terrorist. Their support seems to be timeless there. You would think they could muster support for a war against those who provided sanctuary and help to a group that engaged in mass murder against non combatants in the US and still pursues that objective.