You can’t just say “no it isn’t”
Yes I can
Look, an argument isn’t an automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
Yes it is.
No it isn’t.
I love that episode. I should put it on my hard drive so I can sit in my office and laugh when the day starts sucking.
No, you shouldn’t.
The old I-have-a-plan-but-can’t/won’t-tell-you-what-it-is gambit. Has that ever worked? I mean, it has worked as far as getting someone elected, but has the secret plan ever turned out not to be complete pig swill?
The problem with “we intend to leave but we’re not going to tell you when” is multi-fold.
1> The Afghan Government might have some interest in knowing when we intend to leave and in wanting us out in a certain time frame.
2> Withdrawing our troops requires a huge amount of effort on multiple fronts. It’s not like we wake up Tuesday morning and say “Ok, everyone start going home”. It is going to very obvious to everyone for a long time that we are preparing to withdraw. It then becomes ludicrous to assume this is the way to go since the enemy won’t know how long you’re going to be there.
3> Announcing a withdrawal date signals the end of your involvement and signals that you’re leaving on your own terms. The downside claim is that it tells the Enemy they can just wait you out. Announcing Tuesday Morning that you’re suddenly pulling out allows the Enemy to claim that they’ve caused you to give up and leave.
Never mind, Ninja’d
Do you think his policy is to not tell the Afghani government about it - or to tell them, secretly, and hope the Taliban doesn’t find out?
It’s kind of like having your kid in your basement playing video games all day. Telling him he has to move out when he gets a job isn’t going to work very well, giving him a firm deadline concentrates the mind wonderfully.
You’re right – it’s a problem. If you don’t set a date, they may never step up. If you do, that emboldens the guerrilla forces to wait you out.
But did Obama base his policy on input from commanders on the ground? Or did he fire the one who wasn’t telling him what he wanted to hear?
Well, he might be doing it in his spare time…
Hey, I’m happy to discredit attacks on political opponents when those attacks are unfair. I clearly recall defending Republicans against Alan Grayson’s stupid attack on GOP health care policies, which he said amounted to “die quickly” or something like that. That clearly isn’t the Republican stance on health care.
Here is Romney’s statement on Afghanistan. Let me parse it for you: it is a lot of words that say almost nothing. It draws a vague distinction with Obama’s policies, which pretty much amounts to 2014 and we won’t let the door hit us on the ass.
Romney’s position boils down to “I’m going to talk to military commanders, I don’t have a timeline, and I’m going to be tough on Pakistan and Karzai.” Other than being notable for not setting a timeline, which is indeed a position, these statements are as meaningless as campaign promises to “do right for the American people” and “create more jobs” and “restore dignity to the White House” and all that other politician double-speak that we’re so used to.
I would agree that aside from “no deadlines,” Romney has not said anything of consequence that I’m aware of on what his views are on Afghanistan. Thus, I think it is an exaggeration of only the smallest order to say that Romney has no Afghanistan policy.
Last fall, Mitt Romney stood before The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina and laid out the foreign policy of a Romney administration. He did not mention al-Qaeda, but he did promise to reverse “Massive defense cuts”, that in fact never happened.
Mitt Romney is a dangerous clown.
ht Mark Kleiman
I’d thought that Mitt promised in that statement that we’d stay until the Afghan army “can protect the sovereignty of Afghanistan from the tyranny of the Taliban,” but on closer reading, he only promises to work with his commanders to determine the level of U.S. assistance it would take to enable them to do so.
So yeah, anti-timeline is the extent of Romney’s position on Afghanistan.
I didn’t start this thread to slag his position on anything, but at this late date, any position on Afghanistan worthy of the name needs to take into account the fact that we’ve already been there nearly eleven years, and we’ve already tried a bunch of stuff.
So the plan should, at an absolute minimum, either explain why more persistence will succeed where eleven years of persistence has failed, or explain why some new and brilliant idea it brings to the table has a decent chance to succeed where previous new and brilliant ideas have come up short.
Anything that doesn’t grapple with this is only technically a plan.
From Obama’s press conference in July of 2011:
Emphasis added. Maybe Obama was lying or spinning, but if he’s going to claim huge defense spending cuts, it seems fair for Romney to call him on it.
But thanks for the link to that speech. I don’t agree with much of it, but it’s a good speech. One of the best I’ve seen from Romney.
I agree. We lost focus after 9/11. We went into Afghanistan because the government, the Taliban, allowed terrorists to train with no recourse. We went in to stop that.
Then we started pissing around with opium growing, and rights for women, and a host of other nation building activities. (Though rights for women are laudable, I’m not willing to commit military resources for them in shithole countries).
The mission should have been limited to handing over power to a government who could answer the following question in the affirmative:
- Will you crush terrorist training camps with an iron fist?
If the answer (backed up by reliable data) is in the affirmative, then we are cool. Peace out. You want to grow opium and subjugate women? Shame on you, but carry on.
ETA: Oh, and give us Bin Laden. Do that and we will leave you alone. So…two questions. No negotiations. Just do it and we are gone.