Brent Baker: Couric Relies on Albright to Blame Obama's Afghanistan Conundrum on Bush
[Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center]
On Monday's CBS Evening News, Katie Couric delivered a “How We Got Here” review of Afghanistan after eight years of U.S. troops on the ground, culminating with Couric conveying as fact -- based on the view of Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- the relatively simplistic liberal critique of how Iraq distracted the U.S. from the more important battle in Afghanistan.
“With Hamid Karzai in place as the interim leader of Afghanistan, the drum beat of war moved west to Iraq,” Couric recalled in using the loaded “drum beat of war” language, leading into Albright's scolding of former President Bush: “The problem was that he took his eye off the ball and linked two things that didn't go together, which is al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and so things got much worse.” Couric pounded home the point: “By October of 2006, there were 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and just 21,000 in Afghanistan.”
Viewers then heard corroboration from John Nagle, President of the liberal-leaning Center for a New American Security where Albright sits on the Board of Directors. Nagle asserted: “We gave the Taliban time to re-group, chased them out of Afghanistan, they re-grouped in Pakistan and now the years of neglect are coming back to haunt us.” Couric concluded with how President Obama is following through on his pledge to fix the misjudgment: “Making good on a campaign promise, President Obama called for a troop increase in Afghanistan, bringing the number of U.S. forces there to a record 68,000.”
CBS devoted its entire Monday newscast (with more coming over the next two nights) to “Afghanistan: The Road Ahead.”
Not considered in the Couric/Albright/Nagle history lesson: The paltry troop commitments to Afghanistan from NATO countries with no or virtually no troops in Iraq and whether fewer U.S. troops in Iraq would have led to more in Afghanistan, or more stateside given public perception (and reality for a long while) that the Taliban had been defeated in Afghanistan.
And if Obama rejects General Stanley McChrystal's recommendation for more troops, doesn't that undermine -- if you assume Obama is wiser than Bush -- the premise a massive, Iraq-like troop presence is the key to fixing Afghanistan?...
Read entire article at Media Research Center (conservative media watchdog)
On Monday's CBS Evening News, Katie Couric delivered a “How We Got Here” review of Afghanistan after eight years of U.S. troops on the ground, culminating with Couric conveying as fact -- based on the view of Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- the relatively simplistic liberal critique of how Iraq distracted the U.S. from the more important battle in Afghanistan.
“With Hamid Karzai in place as the interim leader of Afghanistan, the drum beat of war moved west to Iraq,” Couric recalled in using the loaded “drum beat of war” language, leading into Albright's scolding of former President Bush: “The problem was that he took his eye off the ball and linked two things that didn't go together, which is al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and so things got much worse.” Couric pounded home the point: “By October of 2006, there were 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and just 21,000 in Afghanistan.”
Viewers then heard corroboration from John Nagle, President of the liberal-leaning Center for a New American Security where Albright sits on the Board of Directors. Nagle asserted: “We gave the Taliban time to re-group, chased them out of Afghanistan, they re-grouped in Pakistan and now the years of neglect are coming back to haunt us.” Couric concluded with how President Obama is following through on his pledge to fix the misjudgment: “Making good on a campaign promise, President Obama called for a troop increase in Afghanistan, bringing the number of U.S. forces there to a record 68,000.”
CBS devoted its entire Monday newscast (with more coming over the next two nights) to “Afghanistan: The Road Ahead.”
Not considered in the Couric/Albright/Nagle history lesson: The paltry troop commitments to Afghanistan from NATO countries with no or virtually no troops in Iraq and whether fewer U.S. troops in Iraq would have led to more in Afghanistan, or more stateside given public perception (and reality for a long while) that the Taliban had been defeated in Afghanistan.
And if Obama rejects General Stanley McChrystal's recommendation for more troops, doesn't that undermine -- if you assume Obama is wiser than Bush -- the premise a massive, Iraq-like troop presence is the key to fixing Afghanistan?...